Sun, Jun 22nd 2008, 18:19

A New Era  

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Here we sit at what can only be described as a milestone. The server and client have full implementations of all the non-combat systems. This is great news, of course, but brings with it an interesting dilemma.

You see, the as-of-yet undisclosed combat system is in a limbo of sorts. I have my original plan for it clearly mapped out, and am very fond of it. It should be a lot of fun to play and its integration with the rest of the game would be an interesting mix, but that's where its value ends.

So, I've decided to take a stab at creating an alternate combat system. I've got the design for it mostly hammered out already, and I intend to spend the next week putting together a prototype to evaluate it's fun-ness. If this ends in catastrophic failure (which is entirely possible as this is, get ready for it, a puzzle game) I'll probably just scrap it and go back to the old model (which is not a puzzle game). If it succeeds, however, I'll have something more approachable and with a great deal more longevity, which is more fitting with the large scale goals for this game anyway.

So stay tuned for news of the coming tinkerings. I may even publicly release the prototype for feedback. Also, there are no screens this week. Life is hard.

John Weng:  

Cinnamint

Yeah, this is definitely a concern for me. I'm shooting for an "average" combat to take 3-5 minutes. This is about the same time I was aiming for with the original system. It seems like a fairly long time when written out like that, but the actual gameplay will be pretty fast and involved. The large scale game it's rolled up into isn't exactly standard RPG fare either; there aren't any random encounters or anything to waylay you just for the sake of drawing things out. Every battle will be the player's choice and will have purpose and value. With any luck, this is enough to stave off that dastardly boredom. 

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