miercuri, 21 noiembrie 2012

Project ended.

Hello all! The Asylum Master is postponed until further notice (aka dead). I can't afford to invest more time in it because I am really tight on funds and to be honest, I might've bitten more than I could chew. First project, lots of design mistakes, lots of wasted time on stuff I didn't use, etc (game devs know what I am talking about). It was an interesting idea to work on but impractical given my current status.
RIP Asylum Master, you died so, so young!:D

Oh, and thanks to Rpgcodex, the only website that published a news about it. See ya till my further crazy idea/project, hopefully smaller this time.

sâmbătă, 20 octombrie 2012

Pre Alpha build DEMO available. Support needed.


SCREENSHOT.
Update:
It seems there's a problem with the installer. Here's the new download link:
http://uploading.com/files/get/ccfbfb9c/Asylum%2BMaster.rar

To install simply unrar the folder Asylum Master somewhere on your computer (somewhere not in program files). To play, open the folder Asylum Master and double click on the asylum_master.exe.

Hello! You can download Asylum Master pre-alpha demo from here:

http://uploading.com/files/get/7cf2d5mm/Asylum%2BMaster%2BInstall.exe

If anyone knows a better alternative (other then CNET or softpedia), let me know.

HOW TO INSTALL/PLAY
-After installing, open the folder Asylum Master and double-click asylum_master.exe


WHAT TO EXPECT:
-you'll get to feel the overall atmosphere of the game and see were am I heading with this.
-very little gameplay options.
-few minor bugs.
-this is a very raw look. There are a lot of things that can be fine tuned.

WHAT AM I EXPECTING:
-your impressions
-I am thinking of starting a project on IndieGoGo.  Can I expect your support?


MY AFTER THOUGHTS:
-I took a huge bite, but I found it hard to chew. I re-discovered a very important lesson: making a game that big and complex featured requires A LOT of TIME.
 And resources. I used only freeware stuff I could scavenge over the internet, but there is some paid stuff (like fonts, sound effects, images,etc) that's more suitable for this project.
-I need some serious support in order to get this done. And I am talking money here, not emotional support (although that would be nice too). Until I get the support I need (on my own or from others) I will PAUSE THE DEVELOPMENT of this game.
 Sure, I lived on scraps for a while, but this kind of living is damaging  my health and my mental stability (however little there is).


PLANNED FEATURES:
-finishing the treatment tab and the medicine drawer. the posibility of administrating medication to pacients (like anesthetics and anti depressants and stuff)
-implementing a pain feature. Lots of screams from not-anesthetized patients. Bad reputation for the asylum master.
-The posibility of modding the game. Stuff like naming your pacients, tweaking the treatments and the diseases.
-5 more tabs. Initially planned tabs:
           -travel tab. You have a map, and you are able to travel to other cities. You can visit other mental instutions, visit other people, take a stroll on Dorset street..for various purposes,gain experience and knowledge
       -administration: build more buildings, improve existing ones, set the maintenance level, buy medical equipment and stuff- also the possibility of building secret buildings, which don't appear on the official building plans and where you can do your ....experiments
         -personal tab. Write books about treatments and medications, write books, initiate conversations with famous people to gain recognition for you and your asylum,
  -public relations tab: ask for funds from the govt. or private institutions, spy and bribe on inspectors,

-plausibility to buy nobility titles and have access to higher circles.
-and MUCH MORE. I have lots of stuff written about how the gameplay should be.


FUNNY FACTS:
-This project (from concept, to research and implementation) took approx. one month to create. I spent a week and a half working on a complex medical/anatomical sistem (I talked about it in this post ) but because it wasn't on my taste (ok, I admit, it was a bit buggy:D ) I dropped it and never implemented it. That's another lesson (the kind of lesson I read often) I learned: don't spend time on stuff you ain't going to use.
-Initially I wanted to implement a lot of mental disorders (like 25 or so) but in the end I thought that most of the people would find it boring to learn about all this different stuff.


vineri, 12 octombrie 2012

Work, work, work...

Been working my ass out this days. No sun, no socialization, no nothing. Just code,code, read articles about crazy people, read articles about 19th century, push pixels in photoshop, design the gameplay, scratch head in frustration, code, code.
The 15 is coming fast and I still have to create a playable build. My goal of perfection and perfect vission is shattered by the routine and tiredness of each day. Maybe I am becoming crazy too and will end up in one of those modern asylums. Hope not though.
The good part about working on a commercial/big project is that you get to know your resources and limits and still make wonders with whatever little knowledge you got. No more impossible goals and desire to create a perfect/imaculate/vision-fidel game. After all, I am just one dude and this is basically my second project  (my first was an unfinished rpg engine with a dot moving on the screen and some text describing the actions). Let's leave perfection to huge teams and budgets, because I, the humble developer, just want to get over it once and start on improving my coding or relaxing for a change. So don't expect a grandioso gameplay or fantastic art or whatever you are expecting. I will deliver what I can at this moment.

The release of the demo might be late with a day or two. Can't wait to read/hear impressions about the gameplay, as this will have a major influence upon further development.

Ok my lunnies, see ya all on 15 (or 16, or 17).

LE:
No screens this time, as the demo is coming soon and I don't want to spoil the surprise.

joi, 4 octombrie 2012

10k barrier and the medical beast.

Okay, so my project just got past 10.000 lines of code. This means that it is officially a big project (for me at least).
Currently I am working on the medical/physical aspect of the game. I have been working on this for the last week or so. Each npc has a random weight and height (between limits of course and certain npc's have a lower limit). Each npc has exterior components (arms, legs, torso, head) and interior components (internal organs). Hitting torso with a weapon will probably (just for certain types of wounds) hit an internal organ too.
 Each component has, amoung other stats, a number of blood vessels (minor, medium or major). These components have an area in square inch based on the weight and height of the npc. The area affects the probability of the components beeing hit by weapons.
 These components can sustain (different type of) wounds, which affect their health and cause bleeding (internal and external).Untreated wounds cause infection. Infection causes gangrene (only in certain components). Infection is affected by (among other factors) by hygiene and nutrition. Npc's have a self healing capability which is also affected by various factors.
So as you can see all this medical/physical thing has become quite a beast and as you can imagine is becoming increasingly difficult to keep in mind all the aspects. I don't know if I am overdoing it, but I can just slap a health variable and be done with it. And the good thing is that is the kind of thing that can be reused for other projects.
I will post again when I am done with the medical aspect and will start implementing the mental aspect (mental diseases and their treatments).
As a bonus, here's one of the  debugging screens for monitoring all the components and stuff.

vineri, 28 septembrie 2012

Asylum Master Anouncement Post.

I am currently developing Asylum Master, a game about being the master of a mental instution (asylum) in Victorian Age.
It is a real-time (it's really turn based but the mechanics are implemented in a way to emulate real-time) management strategy. You will have tabs available (somewhat resembling the Master of Orion Tabs), each tab allowing you to manage an aspect of the game:pacients, staff, researching, travelling, administration, policies,personal. The current supported resolution of the game is 1280x1024. I am using SDL and related libraries and the supported OS is curently Windows.

Since my funds are nonexistent limited and I desire to control all the aspects of the game, I am the one doing all the Photoshoping and Music editing and obviously the Programming.
 The game is set in Victorian England 19th century (or a very close resemblance of England). You just got your licence to open a private mental institution. Your funds are somewhat limited, your medical equipment is virtually nonexistent and the few patients you have in your care are some low-class poor bastards that don't bring very much money. And all the available treatments are trepanation and blood-letting. So what will you do? Start a corespondence with some of the renown people of your time, travel to a big city and visit other lunatics houses to learn from their experience, start building some new wards or maybe research some of those whacky -and probably even crazier than your residents- technologies : electricity, chemistry (it's probably just a fancy word invented by those dirty alchemists)?
I did my fair share of researching all the in's and outs of the 19th century lunatics and lunatics houses and let me tell you that it's a sick but somewhat fascinating world.  I am trying to create a world close resembling that of a madhouse but within the limits of my understanding and design powers (so don't expect much historical or medical accuracy).
If all goes well I will probably release a demo on 15 Oct 2012.

That beeing said, I offer you 2 screenshots from early development stages (took them about 2 weeks ago) so you can form an impression about the feel of the game.
Screenshot 1 present a design concept of the pacient tab and screenshot 2 is the main menu window.







 Ooh, and the game will (probably) be called Asylum Master.



Hello!

Hi World. My name is Adrian Scheff and I am a game developer.