Scrounge World Blog Post #1

Progress report #1

Game design overview:

•  For this project we will be using only open-source development tools like Blender & GIMP. 

• We have decided on a Client-Server model for our game because (if it ever makes it to production) it gives us the ability to have all the game logic away from the Client thus reducing a player's ability to "hack" critical game elements and values.

• Our world will be as close to a sim environment as we can code.  We intend to have interactive flora and fauna that will range from hunt-able animals (that will provide food for your units) to hunter mutant-beats (can still be used for food; IF you can kill them) and maybe even deadly plants that spit poison.

• We will not have deformable terrain.  We would like to have deformable buildings though.

• Units will be treated like RPG "characters" not RTS "units".  I know this sounds backwards but as the game unfolds this design choice will begin to make more and more sense.

• There will not be individual "tech trees" for each "race".  There are no "races" as such in Scrounge World.  Instead all NPCs are functionally equivalent before being equipped.  This results in the need for a "tech tree" that has different tech paths but traversal of those paths is not constrained by a pre-chosen "player" race.

The Client:
     Will be coded in Java using the JMonkey 3 engine (Java wrapped OpenGL), Blender and Gimp to
     create and manipulate all of the graphics.  Currently we have downloaded several free 3D assets
     from http://blendswap.com and will be using them as placeholder graphics that will be replaced during production (if we can make that happen)

The Server:
     Contains ALL of the game logic and will be coded in Haskell.  We will be using a custom binary
     format for communicating between the client & server in order to keep message size small.  We are
     hoping this will allow us to host between 10-16 players.  Our goal is to squeeze are format enough
     to move the game's bottleneck to our server's CPU power.

The World:
     Our sim-world's terrain is inspired by Minecraft's procedurally generated system but we are currently
     undecided exactly which generation algorithm(s) to use.
     We started out with "squares and diamonds" but it gave us some sharp edges we aren't truly happy
     with.  "Perlin noise" appears to have great organic looking curves to it and also offers great
     customizability through the use of variable constraints.

The Units:
     Will be treated as though they were NPCs in an RPG.  Which is all fine and dandy to say but what
     does that mean?  It means you will never build a structure that can "create / spawn" units.
     Units start out in Scrounge World as NPCs that auto-spawn in C-T-Es (Cities, Towns,  
     Encampments) and you must then "recruit" them in some way (to be revealed later).
     Once recruited they change color from neutral to your team's color and you can then equip them to
     be whatever class of units you want (minus non-researched items of course i.e. "locked tech nodes")

The Tech Tree:
...coming next post...


Thanks for reading and talk to ya'll next week.

- Clay Francisco