Potentium Games

Dropped the old shmup idea.  Perhaps I get around to detailing the basic plotline sometime, but it seemed like a nonsensical imitation that I’m not sure people would’ve liked.  On the other hand, I was able to convert another old idea, so as soon as I feel like I’ve generated enough backstory detail, I’ll post about it.  There’s almost no chance of me dropping this one in the near future, as empty as that sounds.  I guess I’ll have to offer proof soon in the form of a post in Project Ideas. 

My attention tends to wander a lot, which explains why I’m moving from project to project so often, but (when combined with my tendency for perfectionism) also factors into why I’ve had so much trouble with spriting and MIDI sequencing.  However, that’s not why I’m getting burned out on the Potentium games.  The main problem is that my brother has much grander, more ambitious plans for the series, so I’ve ended up feeling like I’m leeching off his idea, and since he’s the driving force behind the series in general I have to make sure not to contradict his canon, which is almost impossible because his ideas are always shifting.  That’s why I’ve shifted to a different Game Universe based on another old idea so that I’m not limited by what he wants to do.  I might change the title of this blog, too, but that remains to be seen. 

I’d say more, but right now I’ve got studying to do. 

Well, I did lose interest in the fangame after all, so I guess I’ll stick to my current projects.  I’ve picked up a couple more old ones again: a shmup (yep, the same one from last October; I actually completed a whole outline and script back then) and an Emperor: Battle for Dune-style RTS.  I’ve pretty much completed the stat system for Dawn of Potentium, but I’m waiting for Stencyl to be finished so I can test it better. 

On the college front, nothing but homework and exams coming up in another week and a half.   Argh. 

So I finally got around to ordering Emperor: Battle for Dune from Amazon.com, but received it in the middle of midterms week so I haven’t had much of a chance to play it.  The campaigns seem as short as the previous iterations of the series, and the whole strategic map factor makes it pretty repetitive, and the AI in campaign is awful, but on the plus side, the Ordos are a blast to play as.  The amount of hit-and-run they have to use is comparable only to Novus from Universe at War.  Usually I don’t like using the hit-and-run faction, but the Ordos are just awesome. 

I’ve begun consideration on a new RTS kit/game project that I’m pretty sure will have backing enough to not only acquire sprites, music, and programmers, but to be a pretty popular kit around several forums I visit, but I’ll sit on it for about a week and plan.  If I’m still interested at that point, then I’ll post it in the Team Gathering forum. 

The Shadow of Potentium is fitting less and less in the canon my brother and I are developing, so I’m thinking of calling that one off to focus on Dawn of Potentium, but I would still like to do something with the central characters in SoP.  I guess that all remains to be seen…

Speaking of Dawn of Potentium, I’m working on a new stat system to make it less Fire Emblem-ish, since the Fire Emblem system doesn’t necessarily mesh well with postmodern combat.  There are a couple wacky ideas I’m trying out, like an Advance Wars: Days of Ruin-ish CO power system and increased NPC support, but as usual whether or not I end up using those will come down to what provides the best gameplay. 

Here comes a topic that I’m rather passionate about. 

Back in the old days, Real-time Strategy games generally displayed a good balance of singleplayer and multiplayer.  Games like Total Annihilation, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, and (what else?) Starcraft managed to provide a fun experience both online and offline.  By the time games like Red Alert 2 came out, the single-player campaigns were getting shorter and shorter, but they still managed to be fun and exciting. 

I’m not sure where things changed.  I know that Warcraft III did both online and singleplayer well, but that was Blizzard, and they have a track record of not skimping on anything.  All of a sudden, though, we have RTS games like Command & Conquer: Generals, which sported a measly 21-mission campaign with almost no story, and Rise of Nations, with its Global mode-only campaign. 

At first, it sounds like a novel idea, right?  Instead of being just the lackey who follows the higher-ups’ orders, you get to be the one who calls the shots on the global level.  There were several games before Rise of Nations that used Global campaigns, such as Emperor: Battle for Dune, but Emperor had sporadic “scenario” levels sprinkled in between.  The system was far from perfect — for example, it was easy to just rush to the enemy capital, and fending off enemy attacks on your territory was a simple matter.  Rise of Nations brought in several other factors, such as overrunning, which allowed you to defeat an enemy without combat, and a global resource sysetm. 

Fast forward to today, and you see games like Battle for Middle Earth, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and Star Wars: Empire at War following this basic pattern.  However, I’m concerned that this approach encourages developer laziness.  A good example is the Universe at War Masari campaign.  The previous campaigns were linear, but this part shifts into Global mode.  Because the enemy never fights back, it essentially becomes a series of skirmish battles.  (At least that game and Empire at War have a semi-linear campaign mode.)  Actually, scratch that; that’s what practically ALL Global Campaigns are.  Sure, there are a couple pre-deployed structures here and there, and differences in the number of starting units, but the excitement, the feeling of prevailing despite overwhelming odds, is gone — replaced by tedium. 

 And that’s the problem with Global Campaigns: they’re easy to make so they’re popular with developers, but at the same time it reduces singleplayer to a series of skirmishes.  If I wanted that type of battle, there’s multiplayer, which provides the same experience minus moronic AI. 

It goes beyond just Global Campaigns, though.  The original Supreme Commander’s campaign was badly designed, allowing you to just turtle in your base and build an overwhelming force of units.  Dawn of War and Company of Heroes just had one campaign for one side (although I’ve heard good things about CoH’s campaign).  The only game that actually tried for a long campaign was C&C 3: Tiberium Wars, but inherent game design flaws took out much of the strategy (and now they’re selling out with a Global Campaign in the expansion, Kane’s Wrath).

I’ve heard it complained many times that Single-player campaigns are outdated by modern standards.  They say that it’s just a repetitive formula of Turtle -> Build -> Attack.  Well, first off, I’d prefer that repetitive formula over an endless string of skirmishes against the CPU.  Second, if it’s just that formula over and over again, that’s the designers’ fault.  It proves my point about how the lazy option has won. 

If the idea of a single-player campaign is outdated, then it’s not because the idea is inherently flawed; it’s because unlike multiplayer, singleplayer didn’t modernize properly, and thus we have these lazy Global campaigns and these ****ty linear campaigns that only increase the stigma against the traditional campaign (that actually forced you to lift a finger to make).  There appears to be hope with Starcraft II (far) on the horizon, but if I find out that the nonlinear campaign in Starcraft II is actually a bunch of skirmish battles, then I’ll be forced to label Blizzard a sellout (which I don’t want to do, but if they screw up the campaign, that snowballs with WoW to earn my irritation). 

If I ever become a game designer, I’ll make sure to create an RTS that has an actual campaign instead of the junk that’s been **** out in recent days.  If not, well, there’s always Stencyl. 

So… Finals week begins in 2 days for me, starting with my Biology 211 Final, probably the hardest of them all.  I don’t expect to get much else done this week, but the whole thing doesn’t have that feeling of impending doom that I expected from Finals week. 

 Maybe the exams themselves will change my mind.

I’ve never really liked being limited in game story design, so I’ve never qute been into fangames.  However, I recently realized that fanfiction is a good way to develop writing skill without needing to come up with a full new set of characters.  Although I’ve never completed more than one chapter of a fanfic, I have an interesting crossover idea, and I’d like to see where I take that.  You’ll see it if I do finish more than a chapter…

If you haven’t taken a day to yourself, completely (or almost completely) free of worries, you should do that sometime.  I did it today and it helped; it wasn’t even a complete worry-free day because of my Math and CS recitations, but I still feel a lot better right now than I did this morning. 

For two reasons. 

1. Still getting adjusted to college and thus college time management. 

2. I’ve been sidetracked on creating a small shmup in Game Maker (a prequel to the shmup detailed below).  I’m still on the spriting part, and I’m not surprised if I scrap the project, but I’ve been itching to create an actual shmup, so I guess we’ll see what happens to that. 

I never knew that creating terrible-quality art with MS Paint was so darn fun. 

The ideas that eventually became the Potentium series had their humble beginnings in several other stories and games my brother and I considered, but later scrapped.  The whole concept of Potentium didn’t actually come to us until late one night, in a car on the way home from… I forget where.  All I know is that it was a long ride. 

The conversation turned to how horror stories and movies were stagnating, focusing more on the gore than the psychological aspects of horror.  My brother cut in that horror simply didn’t ask enough questions; instead, the genre often pumped out stock films where everything is clear to at least the viewer, and the only speculation is about who’s going to die.  He then floated ideas about a new stone arriving on Earth that posed enormous power, yet responded only to the strongest of all feelings: fear.  It made an interesting premise for a book.

The concepts of what Potentium is and does has changed almost completely since then, and we have at least 5 installments of storyline sketched out already.  I think our greatest challenge will actually be staying focused on making each story or game a quality product on its own.  I’ve already began to consider what we’ll need; an artist, for starters, unless my brother’s art skills improve enough (and he’s certainly been getting better).  By now, I’ve learned enough about patience that I think I’ll be able to see this series through in some form or another, even if my brother doesn’t (which I really don’t think will happen, considering that this series is practically his brainchild). 

One of my brother’s most ambitious projects is a series of RTSs based on the Potentium series.  Both him and I are working on the concepts right now.  Stencyl is shaping up to be a possible platform for these games, so I’ll be posting a couple of updates here, as well as a couple questions about some design decisions I’d llike you to have some input on (if anyone even reads this).  There are many ideas being floated around right now, so nothing’s set in stone, but I’m in the process of writing up a design document right now. 

However, I can’t say much about the story right now, because the game chronologically takes place after Dawn of Potentium (which takes place at the same time as the first book, if my brother ever gets around to writing the series).  So I’m not going to spoil anything.