Post by Leonard on Dec 31, 2015 20:17:22 GMT
Developer's Diary #1 - Character customization
While the progress on the game is coming on nicely, the game itself is not coming anytime soon. I decided it would be nice to keep interested people up with how things are coming up, and offer some insight on how the things came to be, and give an idea for people to make suggestions.
The following developer's diaries will keep coming out at the end of the month, just to give regular updates, but to not take too much time away.
*Customization*
Even before the public demo was released, one of the most requested features has been increased character customization. A very reasonable one at that, too. Much of the ideas behind the game design has been came from traditional western RPGs, and the fundamental idea being that game allows you to be the character you want to be. This ideal has been partially implemented in the demo already, by allowing the player to make their own choices, thus making the character as they see fit. But there is an even more elementary level of identification with the character, and that is the player's avatar. And in that aspect, player got no choice. They were forced to play Snowflake/Snowpaw, a white cat with blue eyes.
That had to change.
*Name*
But now, with the idea of what to do comes the need of a particular implementation. What sort of customization would the player want to choose from? Allowing player to choose a name is an obvious choice, and it's easy to implement. But even with the demand, and ease of implementation, there are concerns that needed to be addressed.
For one, is the customizable name going to be accessible to the players with no prior understanding of Warriors? Much of the game has been made with this goal in mind. The Clans' customs and behaviour are not exactly obvious to someone who hasn't read the books. The game tries to explain everything the best way I could, without trying to overwhelm or bore people. This ties in with the player's character being an outsider and not understanding the ways of the Clans. Ultimately, I think that with the intro and previewing how the names are going to look in the future, this problem is mostly solved.
Second issue is players deliberately choosing an unfitting name, or something stupid or vulgar. After giving it some thought, I decided to not to prevent any of this. If someone wants to do this, why should I care? Let them have fun the way they want to do it.
Third issue is player choosing a name of a character that already appears in the game. Choosing Duskpaw as a name, for example, would be really confusing. And player can't be expected to know the names of characters before they play the game. I've decided that the best way of handling this is to warn player if they pick the prefix of a cat that already is ThunderClan, to give them the option to change. This somewhat limits the possible pool of names, but players are still free to choose an "used" name, if they don't mind the potential confusion.
Some screenshots:
*Avatar*
It's no secret that many players have their favourite cats, fursonas, OCs, or maybe the book character, and it's likely that they would like to play as it. The important part is, how to allow players to make their favourite characters without having to do a hundreds of sprites? I've decided to solve it with the modern-day RPG approach - modular character appearance. Instead of choosing a final sprite, player is allowed to mix and match from a few sets of attributes. Each pelt can go with each eye colour, which can also come with every sort of collar, etc.
With a wide enough range of attributes, this should allow the player to make most of characters, even the ones with more unique designs (the reader, is, of course welcome, to suggest their desired features). Even with only a few options, this should allow for a wide range of characters. Most of the options were chosen in mind with the possibility of creation of important characters from the books.
Aside from letting the player choose their appearance, it also opens interesting design space. While I have no plans for it as of now, it's something that has a lot of potential and I'll be keeping an eye on it.
Some screenshots:
That's it for this month!
I hope the feature is going to satisfy people's needs for customization. Feel free to suggest what You would want to see as a possible option.
While the progress on the game is coming on nicely, the game itself is not coming anytime soon. I decided it would be nice to keep interested people up with how things are coming up, and offer some insight on how the things came to be, and give an idea for people to make suggestions.
The following developer's diaries will keep coming out at the end of the month, just to give regular updates, but to not take too much time away.
*Customization*
Even before the public demo was released, one of the most requested features has been increased character customization. A very reasonable one at that, too. Much of the ideas behind the game design has been came from traditional western RPGs, and the fundamental idea being that game allows you to be the character you want to be. This ideal has been partially implemented in the demo already, by allowing the player to make their own choices, thus making the character as they see fit. But there is an even more elementary level of identification with the character, and that is the player's avatar. And in that aspect, player got no choice. They were forced to play Snowflake/Snowpaw, a white cat with blue eyes.
That had to change.
*Name*
But now, with the idea of what to do comes the need of a particular implementation. What sort of customization would the player want to choose from? Allowing player to choose a name is an obvious choice, and it's easy to implement. But even with the demand, and ease of implementation, there are concerns that needed to be addressed.
For one, is the customizable name going to be accessible to the players with no prior understanding of Warriors? Much of the game has been made with this goal in mind. The Clans' customs and behaviour are not exactly obvious to someone who hasn't read the books. The game tries to explain everything the best way I could, without trying to overwhelm or bore people. This ties in with the player's character being an outsider and not understanding the ways of the Clans. Ultimately, I think that with the intro and previewing how the names are going to look in the future, this problem is mostly solved.
Second issue is players deliberately choosing an unfitting name, or something stupid or vulgar. After giving it some thought, I decided to not to prevent any of this. If someone wants to do this, why should I care? Let them have fun the way they want to do it.
Third issue is player choosing a name of a character that already appears in the game. Choosing Duskpaw as a name, for example, would be really confusing. And player can't be expected to know the names of characters before they play the game. I've decided that the best way of handling this is to warn player if they pick the prefix of a cat that already is ThunderClan, to give them the option to change. This somewhat limits the possible pool of names, but players are still free to choose an "used" name, if they don't mind the potential confusion.
Some screenshots:
*Avatar*
It's no secret that many players have their favourite cats, fursonas, OCs, or maybe the book character, and it's likely that they would like to play as it. The important part is, how to allow players to make their favourite characters without having to do a hundreds of sprites? I've decided to solve it with the modern-day RPG approach - modular character appearance. Instead of choosing a final sprite, player is allowed to mix and match from a few sets of attributes. Each pelt can go with each eye colour, which can also come with every sort of collar, etc.
With a wide enough range of attributes, this should allow the player to make most of characters, even the ones with more unique designs (the reader, is, of course welcome, to suggest their desired features). Even with only a few options, this should allow for a wide range of characters. Most of the options were chosen in mind with the possibility of creation of important characters from the books.
Aside from letting the player choose their appearance, it also opens interesting design space. While I have no plans for it as of now, it's something that has a lot of potential and I'll be keeping an eye on it.
Some screenshots:
That's it for this month!
I hope the feature is going to satisfy people's needs for customization. Feel free to suggest what You would want to see as a possible option.