When I started this website I thought there would be no need to write about personal matters. All this site was made for was to write about my game project developments but the recent fatal event in my life made me rethink about this.

About two weeks ago, on Sunday the 30. September 2012 my dear wife Izumi Watanabe whom I have been married for over eight years passed away after a long battle with cancer. She has left her family, her friends and me behind full of grief and deeply saddened for a very long time. There are no words that can possibly describe the sadness I’m feeling now that she is gone, about that she has left so quickly and unexpected and that she still had half of her lifetime before her.

In late 2000 I became very interested in Japan and while looking for friends in Japan we both came across each other, in particular due to the fact that we both were former Commodore Amiga users, something actually quite rare in Japan. I then visited her in 2001, things went well together between us, she visited me back in Germany in 2002 and we finally decided to marry and that I move to Japan in 2004. That’s were I have been most of the time since, with Izumi, who was a professional Graphic Designer, always at my side. I’ve started to work as a freelance Flash developer and many times we’ve worked together on projects for various agencies and clients.

We weren’t rich but we were happy. But in late 2009 she suddenly fell ill with what was diagnosed as tongue cancer. She never smoked and never drunk much alcohol and she lived a relatively normal, healthy life. Her father died about seven years ago from cancer so I don’t know by how far this fate was pre-written but I believe that everyone can influence how the way goes. First she was treated with all the therapies that orthodox medicine has to offer. The tumor was removed and she received chemo therapy. After that all was well for one year after which it was found that the cancer had spread to her neck. She received an operation again which left an ugly scar and there was more chemo therapy and radiation treatment. These treatments were harsh and damaging, as a friend of mine put it right: it’s like shooting with canons on sparrows! The first time cancer is found you are still hopeful that it was harmless and will not return but the second time it comes back you should take it very serious. Most people receive chemo therapy and/or radiation treatment which is a guarantee to make matters much more worse on the long run. The radiation treatment around her neck and mouth damaged the tissue inside the mouth without being able to ever fully recover. As time went by, eating became more and more tiresome, first spicy and sour foods caused harm and the lack of saliva production made eating generally unpleasant and slow.

I’ve tried to convince her to try alternative therapies based on diet but she was reluctant, she wanted to enjoy the foods she liked and I can’t blame her as I’m sure I would have reacted the same way and in fact if there was one person who was eating more healthy than me, it was her. We were looking for other therapies like for example Hyperthermia but Japan hings behind in such matters and they are generally not covered by health insurances so one has to be be very rich to afford them. There is a lot of hit and miss, half-thruths, vague information and fraud on the web regarding alternative treatments and if there is one thing I’ve learned from all this mess then it’s the fact that we are still living in the stone age regarding cancer treatment. I’ve also learned that if you get very aggressive cancer there is almost no chance, no matter how hard you fight. Izumi was fighting very hard!

The cancer at the neck was treated successfully even if leaving her somewhat disfigured. But only half a year later we received the very shocking news that a tumor was found in her lung. It was just about a year ago and was such a great shock for me at the time. I thought it was the end but even though the prospect of a lung tumor sounds so severe  it doesn’t have to be fatal. So after she lost ~20% of her left lung she did actually quite well again afterwards. We were making serious efforts by now to care more about much healthier nutrition than before. Only shortly later she was complaining about pain near the lower end of the backbone which wouldn’t go away. First I didn’t expect this to have a relation to cancer and the first diagnose showed that it wasn’t cancer but after a second check it was eventually diagnosed as bone cancer. Again there was light chemo therapy but it didn’t help. The doctors could not do anything, an operation in the area was too risky and would sacrifice too much. So she had to carry on like this, always taking lots of medicine, pain killers, opium and more medicine against the many side effects of the other medicine. The bone cancer grew and caused more pain by the time.

We’ve lived together for eight years in a much too small apartment where mold came out of every corner but in March this year we could finally move to a nice and large apartment which improved our life quality a lot. We’ve bought some nice new furniture and appliances and it was mostly Izumi who made this apartment a comfortable place to live in and she had many more plans with it.

But no matter what, the cancer wasn’t impressed by all this. Except for the pain it all wasn’t so bad until early August when her condition suddenly got worse quickly. as it was found later in the Hospital a brain tumor had developed, probably since June or July and was growing quickly. Her mind changed during the last months. She became more absentminded, quiet and lost and at first I thought these were side effects of the medicine. Her lower legs swell, she lost more and more muscle mass and got very thin. First she could only walk slowly, then she needed a stick to help her and soon she couldn’t walk alone at all anymore. The pain grew and the opium didn’t help much anymore, sitting down or laying down caused too much pain. She was often just standing while eating or caring about other things. She couldn’t walk upstairs to the sleeping room anymore, I had to carry her up and down. The last two days before she entered the Hospital she could only sleep for three hours. These last months were such a painful and desperate time full of worry and fear for us.

I remember two days before she had to enter the hospital I was helping her to her desk, walking in such a slow speed and I could only start crying while seeing what has become of her and what the illness has done to her. She really didn’t deserve all this. If there is one person that I know of who did not deserve this suffering, it’s her! She has helped and supported me so much all the years and without her I wouldn’t know what would have become of me but it’s save to say that it would have been nothing positive.

She entered the hospital on September the 6. to receive palliative care. The prospect of loosing her was very real already but there is nothing that could prepare one for such a devastating loss. She received treatment against the pain which was quite successful so she could at least sleep well again. But the doctors long gave up about the cancer. She and me however, we did not give up about it. We had still hope that this can be overcome. She told us that she wanted to make it at least until new year. She didn’t expect to go so early.

The week before she died I bought a new iPhone 5 for her which she was very much looking forward to. She still ordered a new MacBook Air 11″ for her which she even couldn’t receive anymore because it came two days too late. She was a techie who loved the Internet, Apple computers and all kinds of gadgets. She was an Amiga user, she liked the Dreamcast and Arcade-style video games, she loved MUJI and Zen Style, my mother’s two boxers Romeo and Mexx, her own, late dog Rai, our two cats Thasa and Shimao, good books, music and movies, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, good Coffee, Unagi, Mexican beer, traveling and going out shopping. She was also a fluent English speaker and a creative tinkerer who loved sewing and handcrafting a lot and she left many self-made clothes and accessories back in this world as relics that remind me every day of her. She was such a smart and thoughtful woman and I only now came to realize what a unique and special wife I’ve lost.

She died in my arms in the afternoon shortly after falling into a coma. At the time she left, a typhoon was approaching Tokyo on that full moon Sunday and the world went dark. I believe she went away without pain.

With her loss a chapter of my life closes – the most precious and important chapter in my life! In front of me is now a vast, empty sea of sadness, grief and regret. Everything in my life now has lost it’s meaning. The work, my hobbies, our plans, the future. There was this special and unique relation that Izumi and me had for 12 years and now it’s gone, without a chance to undo the things that happened. There is nothing that can bring the person that was known as Izumi Watanabe back into life, she is gone forever and never again in time will this special relation, friendship and love between us happen again. We all have to die at some point but she just died much too early! It was never supposed to end as sad as this!

Diagram of the The Local Group – A good inspiration for the Starmap navigation in Trailed Alliance.

In Trailed Alliance I want to portray space differently than how most other games of the theme did it. The space should appear to be of much greater scale so that the player gets an idea about just how big space is. On the other hand space travel in TA shouldn’t be a chore so a decent enough navigation system will be required. The game is supposed to feature a space map navigation system that provides a far more immersive vision toward intergalactic travel and the vast distances that lie between worlds. Traveling between two worlds that are far apart – say, for example two worlds in two different star systems that lie far apart – isn’t a matter of mouse-clicking on the destination and arrive there after five seconds, it’s a matter of making sure that you have enough fuel, your astrogation charts are up-to-date, you have a capable pilot, and you can wait a minute or two because the game will actually force a time delay on your travel to make the distance appear more realistic and traveling in space more challenging and therefore more considerable. Of course during such travel times you don’t want to be forced to stare at your screen, being unable to do anything. The solution to that is that instead you are able to walk and interact around your ship during such a flight, being able to talk with other party members and do various other things aboard your vessel. When arriving at your destination (or in case your flight was interrupted by pirates or other evildoers) you are notified and can continue what you were doing, free to dock or land whenever ready.

Another difference to many other space RPGs is that you can not only travel to strictly set destinations but to just about any coordinate in space. This gives space travel in Trailed Alliance yet another level of challenge because you have to be careful to where you hyper jump or you could end up being stranded somewhere in the vastness of space. And while getting stranded doesn’t mean the end of the game it’s not a pleasant experience either. Here again finding a good pilot (or learn the Pilot class yourself) is key to successful space travel.

There’s a lot of potential in space-based gameplay but none of the few more recent Sci-Fi RPGs like SWKotoR or Mass Effect make any use of it. For me space travel feels very static in these games, just being able to select the destination and being brought automatically there with a short space jump FMV. No risk of being intercepted by pirates or authorities, no risk of being thrown out of hyperspace because a space region has recently changed due to an asteroid field, no risk that the hyperdrive breaks down, etc., in other words: boring! Trailed Alliance will feature turn-based combat not only on the ground but also in subspace being fought between spaceships. We had something similar in older games of the genre like Starflight and Hard Nova but it was still rather primitive, again, restricted by technical limitations. There is also the chance of traveling around in space without any definitive destination and hitting something unexpected like an undiscovered planet where yet another adventure awaits. Or the PCs are thrown out of hyperspace because they were nearing too close to a back hole (yet another case for having a good pilot or navigator).

There will be a whole lot going on and possible in the vast Trailed Alliance space. At least I want to make sure there’s a lot more than what similar games offered so far.

This way the player can invest skill points into one or more professions  but only novice professions are accessible from the beginning. On top of that are the advanced professions and for these it’s required to complete several tiers of a related novice profession and for some specific advanced professions it will even be necessary to complete all tiers of a novice profession (which means that for some very powerful advanced professions you will need to learn all 16 boxes of a related novice profession, of course incl. its novice and master boxes).

If this system sounds familiar, chances are that you have been a player of the earlier versions of Star Wars Galaxies because this is exactly how the excellent hybrid system worked in Star Wars Galaxies before the NGE overhaul dumbed down the game to a very basic class-based system that was based on WoW.

I might be doing some modifications to the system but generally TA will feature a very similar system like explained.

The idea of this system is that the player can learn as many professions and skills as the skill points limitation allows him. Like this the player can for example learn two full tiers of the Marksman novice profession to be able to start the Commando advanced profession while at the same time he can learn the Pilot novice profession to start any of the advanced professions that are based on Pilot, for example Navigator or Gunner.

The player can always dispose any finished tier boxes later to regain back the skill points invested into it. Like this it’s possible to try out different skills and professions. Experience gained for the tier box will not completely be reset but neither will stay at the reached amount, otherwise one could switch around between professions too easily without any challenge.

Some advanced professions will require to have full tier boxes in two novice professions. This is to balance out some advanced professions that can be quite powerful.

With this hybrid system the player can create his own character template consisting of one or more professions. You could for example create a Marksman/Spy/Assassin, a Pilot/Scout/Survivalist or a Psychic/Telepathist/Rogue.

If this all still sounds too confusing check out this diagram of the Artisan novice profession tier structure. While not yet complete it illustrates the structure quite nicely …

Or how to create a Galaxy that doesn’t fall apart two days later

Trailed Alliance is the title of a Science Fiction / Space Opera-themed Role-playing game I’ve been working on for some time now. The game’s story takes place in a fictional galaxy far away from current time and place where the main character is the leader of a motley crew of mercenaries who are on the run from corrupt, authoritarian forces.

In case this scant premise sounds like a serious and hard-boiled story, it isn’t intended to be such one. The setting and atmosphere of the game will drive the style for an exciting, futuristic realm that is far more fantastic and peculiar than any average Sci-Fi story. The game draws inspirations from some of the more popular works of the genre, like Star Wars, Bladerunner, Alien, even Star Trek and of course from some of my older CRPG favorites like Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic, Hard Nova, Hired Guns, and Star Wars Galaxies. In case of Star Wars there are many Pen & Paper supplements  from the Star Wars D6 and D20 Role-playing games that are a very good source of inspiration since they provide an enormous amount of detail on the Star Wars extended universe. That’s a great treasure trove not only for Star Wars fans but also for game designers like yours.

Indeed there are quite some parallels between Star Wars and Trailed Alliance. To begin with, everything takes place within the confinements of a single galaxy which is completely fictional (and which of course is huge and therefore offers enough room to keep us busy for approx. the next 25 millennia). There are no references to Earth or anything Earth-related. Humans and any other species happen to exist in this universe since an indefinite time, just like in Star Wars. There is intergalactic space travel that can take hours or days for traveling between worlds via some sort of hyperspace. There are androids, ferocious creatures, state-of-the-art spaceships and technology, alien planets, intriguing factions and fantastic adventures. There will be no Force or magic. Instead, Trailed Alliance will feature psychic skills and abilities, something that I personally find far more graspable than hokey magical stuff or The Force in Star Wars. Magic is actually a bit too Deus Ex Machina for my taste. Uncanny, psychic abilities instead sound like being more restricted yet they can be powerful and believable enough to be awesome.

The game’s story will take off in a small part of the galaxy where three sectors lie closely to each other. Two of them, the Telnor and the Marenis sectors (names are tentative) are in a constant state of inter-sectorial cold war. The third one is an independent sector named Kessebour whose authorities have their own agenda regarding the current events. The player takes on the role of a soldier who is on duty in the Telnor sectorial military forces and whose platoon is dispatched to a nearby world that is disputed between Telnor and Marenis. The unfolding events will lead the PC (player character) on a journey through the three sectors and beyond where he/she has to ultimately uncover a conspiracy of superior magnitude. On the way the PC will meet many foes and ally’s (some of whom are going to join the party), discover many exotic places and uncover intricate plots (so far for the theory *cough*!)

Trailed Alliance will be a game for the fan of Space Opera and the connoisseur of oldschool role-playing games that make use of detailed statistics and where combat is turn-based, with a great deal of focus on tactical fighting that involves the whole party. The hybrid class/skill system offers many skills and classes and allows for creating interesting multi-class characters. A vast galaxy offers a huge amount of possibilities and Trailed Alliance is bound to feature a lot of gameplay freedom: Besides the typical RPG mechanics like fighting, healing, dialogue, traveling, etc. the PCs are able to steal ships, hunt or tame wild creatures, fly through subspace, fight or board other ships, land on planets, walk (or drive) around on their surface, discover unknown worlds, camp in the wilderness, mine resources, craft items, eat and drink, check into a hotel on the Manressa Orbital station while their ship is in the dry dock, and watch the three moons of T’ynar rise on the crimson firmament.

By now you will probably realize what I mean when I wrote that Trailed Alliance is a rather ambitious project. It is quite an undertaking, yes, but it is just as much fun to design this world.

While I’m working as a programmer during the day, this site will by all means reflect my hobbyist side toward game development and covers my very own, sometimes quite ambitious game projects. I’m going to cover especially the development of my mammoth game project titled Trailed Alliance which is a Science Fiction/Space-Opera-themed role-playing game with a big scope.

There are oodles of pages that can be filled by this game project alone but occasionally I’m going to write about two other projects that are on the rooster, one is a Cold War-themed turn-based Strategy Game (TBS) for which I’m still trying to find the right title and the other one is a cozy horror-themed online, multiplayer adventure/first-person game with the tentative title Lieges of the Haunted Manor. These two other projects are rather ambitious as well and I might start working on one or the other depending on my mood. I’m going to use this site mainly as a means of documenting my work (and progress) and these projects but it will undoubtedly also be a great vehicle to communicate with other dedicated game developers.

So have a seat and enjoy the tour! And grab a large cup of coffee, this will get very involved!

In the last part I’ve introduced the character design template I’m using and mentioned to post a character example next time which I’m doing hereby while introducing you to Eliza Retinienne, a Gessjanian security systems expert from the planet Shielle, a small world bordering on the fringe of the Suulun Sector which in turn stretches over a large area of the southern galaxy.

Eliza is one of the key characters in the game’s story and one of the characters whom the player is supposed to encounter and who eventually joins the player’s party. She is also supposed to receive her own side-quest in which the player can engage to help her out of the threatening situation she is currently in.

Note that this sheet is basically just here to give an example of how the character design template can be used to shape out a character so I suggest not to look too critically into the details. Things can (and will) still change and also the sheet is not filled out completely, for one reason because some details are irrelevant for this character and for another that I haven’t found any other suitable details for her yet. Either way I hope this gives a good example of how to utilize the template!

Full Name	Eliza Cathrine Retinienne
Nickname or short name	Eliza, sometimes called Cathy
Image
Character Type	Co-Protagonist
Gender	Female
Species	Gessjanian
Class	Security Systems Expert
Age	30
Summary	Eliza used to be a forefront engineer who worked for Seciate Armaments on a highly confidential Security Systems project. Later during the project she came to disagreements with Seciate about the target clients for the system she worked on. She left Seciate in a dispute, not accepting the bribe she has been offered to stay quiet. She had enough presence of mind to suspect that she would soon become the subject of an assassination attempt, in order to prevent her knowledge being of use to anyone else. Seciate however underestimated her smartness and she narrowly escaped while killing the assassin (rather unintentionally though). Since then she is on the run from SECIATE.
Biography

As a programmer you’d ever only write your code and if you are happy with it that’s fine but we one-man-game-developer types are more like Jack of all trades who want to create complete worlds … and stories. And then tell those stories by means of the game. And maybe throw a bit (or a large chunk) of dynamics in there again … as programmers.

One extremely satisfying aspect of game design (for games where narrative is important) is the development of characters that should act throughout the game. Creating characters is just as much fun as the other bases! If you do it right and create deep and sympathetic characters people will love them.

And even villains can be sympathetic. In fact they should be! Who likes an antagonist that is completely unsympathetic? Nobody, right? But why should you even like a villain, after all he’s the guy who needs to be defeated? The answer to this is that the guy who is the villain is so only in the context of our story. Maybe he’s not so bad after all in a different context. Or in short: Antagonists also have a life, feelings … but guess what? Now I totally digress! I actually wanted to show you my new and all fresh character template that I came up with to shape out characters for my game.

The template I’m introducing here is based on a template that is used by the two authors of The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design, a book I’ve recently purchased which I think is just slightly overrated on Amazon but still definitely worth it’s money. The two authors have the character building template fully laid out in their book for the purpose of their example but I’ve made modifications to it so that it suits the holy needs of my RPG design.

This character building template is quite extensive and there might be a few items that you want to throw out for your design or you’d want to add other questions appropriately. Also, as stated in the book by the authors, when designing a new character with this it’s not required to go through this in a linear way. Skip sections and fill them in later … like a puzzle. Likewise it’s not always necessary to fill out all the boxes. Some minor characters don’t need that level of detail.

It’s also worth to note that most of what you fill into this template is for your eyes (or for your teams eyes) only. So write away care-freely! Only some of this information makes it into the game anyway however the whole additional info helps to give the character the amount of depth that is needed to make him/her an exceptionally outstanding character.

The template consists of several tables with rows of questions on the left column and the answers or details to fill in on the right side (in which for the purpose of explanation I’ve entered a description of the kind of text that goes in).

So without much further ado here’s my character building template used to help creating the story for my totally epic role-playing game (which *cough* should be in the shelves somewhere within the next millennium!). In the next post I will show an example of how the template is used with one of my (player party) co-protagonist characters … hopefully without revealing too much information about the game’s story.

Of course feel free to use it, change it, adapt it or come up with your own template! I’d love to hear about them! And always keep in mind: We’re not digging ditches or performing brain surgery here, we’re making games. Lighten up, for chrissakes. (That was an actual quote from the above mentioned book).

Appearance Information

Behavioral Information

Professional Information

Location Information

Background Information

Story-related Information

Dialog-related Information

Additional Information

Extra Information

So with that in mind I thought it would be good opportunity to introduce some of the most-used projections in computer and video role-playing games to get to know them a little better. This is by no means a complete list of all sorts of projection used in games but I believe these the ones most commonly used for role-playing games.

Orthographic Projection (Top-down View)

Orthographic is pretty much a collective term for all projections that lack perspective (i.e. all 3 axes have the same length) but I’d like to use it here to describe the typical top-down view – often called birds-eye view – used in RPGs.

Hard Nova uses a very simple (but nevertheless charming) top-down view for it’s interiors.

The top-down view can either be completely flat which is obviously the most easy way to draw graphics or it can give the impression of depth by using an oblique style. Many of the older J-RPGs like Zelda and Final Fantasy are using this method. You see buildings, characters and other objects that point into one direction (usually to the top of the screen) to give the illusion of depth. Often this style is used in a very simple form so that characters are not being able to ‘step behind a wall’, i.e. the collision detection that checks where the characters are allowed to walk adheres directly to the graphic tiles used in the game. Some other games of this style might involve some trickery to offset the line used for collision detection so that characters can walk behind walls and are half-covered by them to add some more dynamic.

Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games is a good example of an oblique top-down view.

The advantages of this projection are clear: it’s the easiest to draw and the easiest to implement. Also the nature of this style makes it easy to use for RPGs that use a character party which needs to be guided around the screen. Selecting party members and using them tactically (positioning, line-of-sight, etc.) is more easily done here.

The disadvantages are that this projection is the most simple looking and most overused one (but then again these are not necessarily disadvantages) and in particular that this projection type can ruin potential immersive atmosphere, i.e. unless you’re using some sort of Fog-of-War the player can see what lies around the next corner. Even if you don’t draw any opponents until they are in the line-of-sight of the player in my opinion this doesn’t convey the same level of immersion as 3D or Flip3D (see below) projection would.

Isometric Projection (Tiled)

Isometric view and (although not technically isometric) it’s cousins trimetric and dimetric are projections that were (and still are) used in a long list of games, mostly strategy-, management- and of course role-playing games. Highly regarded by many as the finest-ever invented graphics style, isometric projection has the advantage over basic top-down view that is adds more depth and at the same time often more dynamic and clarity to the layout of the play field.

Fallout 2 – one of the better known tile-based isometric RPGs.

I must admit not many RPG titles that are using a tile-based isometric projection are coming to my mind but some good examples from this domain are Fallout 1 & 2 which use trimetric projection (all three angles are different) and the Indie RPG series Avernum.

Advantages of the tiled isometric projection include the easiness of implementation and a big favor for tactical gameplay. It’s easy to see tactical elements in relation to each other and so it comes to no surprise that many strategy games used this style.

The disadvantage I see with isometric graphics is the same as with top-down view projection, the lack of immersive atmosphere (see above) and that isometric graphics (tiles, sprites) are more difficult to design (but assets rendered with a 3D package can help a lot here).

Isometric Projection (Full Backgrounds)

The big contender among isometric engines that used pre-rendered backgrounds instead of tiled graphics was without a doubt the Infinity Engine and with it such classics like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment.

Baldur’s Gate II: Excellent use of pre-rendered backgrounds and light-effects all around!

Instead of using tiles, larger backgrounds were modeled, textured and pre-rendered with a 3D graphics application and then used … well, as sort-of large-scale tiles in the game. This technique allowed for a lot more visual detail and variation. Environments that were difficult to draw with a tile-based approach such as for instance a deep, rocky abyss or other intricate landscape were made possible much easier with fully rendered backgrounds. Also many other items like furniture and interior walls could suddenly have a lot more detail. Another advantage that the Infinity Engine introduced was the use of dynamic lighting and acceleration of visual effects by use of DirectX. Full-screen rain or snowstorm? No problem here!

Collision detection and path-finding was solved by using a special bitmap for every background that defined the walk-able areas using different colors.

The big advantage for this technique is of course the gain in graphical detail and that it eliminates some of the problems of a tile-based engine, namely intricacies when dealing with dynamic lighting, path-finding etc.

The disadvantage here is the extra-work of complexity required to implement such a full background rendering engine, the additional task to design pre-rendered background graphics using 3D modeling and that such an engine requires more system resources than a tile-based engine, RAM and CPU-wise.

Flip3D

Now what in the hell is Flip3D? You might hear this term for the first time ever here but Flip3D is what I like to call (for the lack of a better word) the projection style used by many games from the Golden Age of RPGs era that use pseudo 3D images which are drawn with perspective in mind and if you turn in-game to the left or right the whole view is flipped turned by 90° hence the name, uhh, Flip3D (if you know the technically correct term for this type of graphics display technique I’d like to learn it but until then let’s just call it Flip3D).

Countless RPGs utilized this projection, most notably titles like Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, the Ishar series, the Might and Magic series and – although not really a RPG – one of my all-time favorites, Hired Guns. All these games used pre-rendered graphic parts like floors, walls and ceilings that are composed together on the screen to create a room or corridor or even an outside environment.

Wizardry 7: VGA never looked better (and RPGs never were harder).

The advantage is that these graphic parts could be re-used, making it easier to quickly build whole maps. The disadvantage to this was often that in many of the games the maps looked monotonous. In my opinion Hired Guns nailed this problem quite well which is one of the reasons that made it stand out from the others for me. The maps looked detailed and very different from level to level, in the background they’ve used a gradient to represent the dawn on the firmament and there was usually a dark backdrop used for a horizon to give the impression of mountains, landscape or buildings in the far distance. It’s exactly these details that are one of the features that filled the game with atmosphere. What could be there in the far distance? The distance that you were never able to reach because it was not a part of the map but, alas, only a backdrop.

The lack of clear detail opens a lot of freedom to the player’s own imagination and this is one of the points why I highly regard some older games that use simplified graphics where modern games with tons of detailed real-time 3D choke the last bit of imagination from the players mind (not that I’m saying that this is necessarily bad but for me it is gaming on a different mental level).

Hired Guns! Flip3D at it’s finest!

And with that we have the main advantage of this projection type … used with well-drawn graphics it can add a nice deal of ‘hidden’ atmosphere to the game because you never really see what lies (or lurks) in the distance.

The main disadvantage of this projection from my point of view is that it’s not much in favor for tactical gameplay as long as you want to involve your party into the action. Games with Flip3D projection are necessarily first-person so you don’t see your own character and your other party members are either behind or sideways of you or standing in front, covering a big part of the view field. Guiding and commanding all your party members can become quite a chore here.

3D Projection

3D projection is the current state-of-the-art in computer game graphics and will probably not be replaced so soon (until somebody invents some sort of 4D virtual reality device). This projection allows the highest degree of freedom meaning that any object can be viewed from any angle, at any distance and with arbitrary FOV.

SWKotoR 2: Can we haz it in Flash please?

There is virtually no quality loss when zooming in and you can re-use 3D objects for all kinds of displays, for example you could have your once-designed character 3D objects walk around in the game world and at the same time use them on a special inventory window where you drag and drop equipment onto the same used 3D object of their bodies. This allows for ‘create-once, use everywhere’ unlike with 2D assets where you often have to create variations of the same object for use in different views.

You could also use 3D with a fixed camera to simulate a certain type of 2D view and the advantage of 3D objects would still be obvious.

The disadvantage of choosing this projection is that the creation of assets, i.e. 3D models of characters, items and environments is a lot more involved as with 2D graphics. Unless you are some sort of super-developer-designer-machine with 300 years of time up your sleeve you probably need a small team of professional 3D designers who can do this work for you. Ok, I’d say nobody died of trying but recent 3D game graphics have become so professional that it’s not an easy feat to try catching up with it. And who wants to design a game with 3D graphics that look like anno 1996? I’d probably be better off with nice-looking 2D graphics instead!

Then, as you want to create a large world for a RPG you’d have to design many interior/exterior maps that are used for the game world. If you use 3D I doubt you want to design this all manually. What you need is a map editor to create the environments more comfortably and re-use assets quickly etc. Writing such a map editor is already a whole job unto itself and takes a lot of time.

Wizardry 8: Simple 3D graphics & first-person view.

Another complication with 3D graphics is the platform used for the game. I use Flash (or AIR) with use of ActionScript. While I’m convinced that ActionScript can handle all the other projection types, with 3D we’re hitting the limits very quickly. PaperVision 3D, Away3D and the Alternativa Platform all have been used sucessfully for game development already but I have yet to see a good example of an extensive RPG made with one of these and the fact that a few thousand triangles bring the framerate to a screeching halt doesn’t help the case.

Still, any of these 3D engines could be utilized in Flash for a simpler form of 3D graphics style, for example the use of mainly simple primitives with a good job in texture detail work and a combination of 2D sprites. I’m definitely looking further into this possibility.

Conclusion

I’m still in the dark about which projection style I’ll eventually use. I might be creating a first prototype with a very simple and flat top-down view (a la Ultima) to test other components of the game and then later change to something more advanced.

Any of the introduced techniques have their charming sides, for example (as you might have had no troubles noticing) I’m very fond of Hired Guns and it’s dark and futuristic pseudo 3D view. Then again an isometric view could be more suitable for tactical gameplay (which, as I’m planing the game should have quite a few of).

Realtime 3D would be the ultimate thing but I dislike the idea of creating super-simplified 3D objects and Flash currently lacks the rendering power to use higher-end 3D graphics. I might as well be watching if the Flash platform improves in this area and then see what can be done in terms of 3D later.

Was it that? I’m sure I forgot a ton of facts and details here but I would be very interested in what others have to say about this topic or what view styles you’re about to use and why etc.

Further Reading: Significant Bits – A layman’s guide to projection in videogames