The Resourceful Man

[00:30] <TG_Weaver> anyway The Resourceful Man
[00:30] <TG_Weaver> here's how I picture it let me see if I can get my notes
[00:31] <TG_Weaver> For a long time I've had an idea for a resource-based collection game like this, but I needed a game to structure the resources and collection around. It was gonna be that dungeon crawler but now that it's lost in the format it's gonna be this instead, and this is already almost as far along
[00:33] <TG_Weaver> So my picture for this game is you start off and it's like "where do you want to settle" and it's sort of a Dwarf Fortress thing but with no worldmap, just choices for locations independent of that. Randomized locales with generated names, like The Murk of Disappearances or what the fuck ever DF does
[00:34] <TG_Weaver> and there's a lot of locations to choose from but maybe the place to settle is defined within a narrow range of fairly "normal" places
[00:35] <TG_Weaver> And you touch down with your caravan which has like one weapon, simple tools, and your Device. I don't have a cool name for it yet but it's some fridge-sized machine that is vital to your survival. It's the start of everything.
[00:36] <Emzee> fuck your intrigue
[00:36] <Emzee> tell us what it does
[00:36] <TG_Weaver> Anyway! So there you are in the world you picked out, randomly generated. And the type of world you're in affects everything. Appearance and color, the types of animals and monsters that inhabit it, the way the terrain is generated.
[00:38] <TG_Weaver> SO. You go out into your little world -- and it is little. It's a miniature world only a few screens in size probably, we'll see. But not gargantuan by any means.
[00:38] <TG_Weaver> And you find an ore deposit, and you kill a small animal, or even take down a monster. You make your way out.
[00:38] <TG_Weaver> And as you do, you gain resources. Everything gives you resources.
[00:39] <TG_Weaver> Now these are resources in an abstract sense, because you are harvesting the core components of these things. You are not getting branches and leaves. You mine a rock, you don't get slate or limestone or whatever, you get rock. As an ideal, isolated, almost alchemical form.
[00:40] <TG_Weaver> Doodle God was actually the inspiration here.
[00:40] <TG_Weaver> Kill an animal, maybe you get Animal. But also Death. And maybe Blood, fuck, why not.
[00:41] <TG_Weaver> And in all these things you get a raw resource just called Ether. It's the most basic type, the very core component of being, of existing.
[00:41] <Ed_Pastry> What's the point of a resource that you can get from everything and is used in everything?
[00:41] <TG_Weaver> It's used in p.much everything, so you need it for everything
[00:42] <TG_Weaver> Think of it as the game's currency, if anything
[00:41] <TG_Weaver> So anyway you come back after chopping some trees, cutting some stones, butchering an animal. It's rough going with your shitty equipment but now you've got some stuff to work with, thanks to your ethereal harvest. You don't take an animal's skin and meat, you take its being
[00:42] <TG_Weaver> Anyway you come back to THE DEVICE
[00:42] <TG_Weaver> And you can start converting resources into things.
[00:43] <TG_Weaver> You build a thing. Maybe a crafting center. It lets you build some basic things.
[00:43] <TG_Weaver> I'm debating whether having built things will add to a master crafting list, or if each center of construction will keep its own list. I'm probably going with the latter.
[00:44] <TG_Weaver> Anyway, you build some neat things. Other devices, not like the primary one, but each with its function. A converter that can take in any resource and turn it into ether.
[00:44] <TG_Weaver> Maybe 1 Life -> 10 ether. 1 Rock -> 2 ether. In game terms you're basically just selling loot.
[00:45] <Deadbeard> so ether is the currency?
[00:45] <TG_Weaver> Essentially yes.
[00:45] <TG_Weaver> It's used in/for just about everything but it's also very common.
[00:46] <TG_Weaver> So you build a base around your Device. Not block by block, like in Minecraft or Terraria, but structure by structure, set piece by set piece.
[00:46] <TG_Weaver> It's all modular so it's not hard.
[00:47] <TG_Weaver> You basically conjure up these rooms using the Device as a medium, spending resources to fuel/'buy' them
[00:48] <TG_Weaver> So you buy a smithy, it comes with a smith
[00:48] <TG_Weaver> Buy an alchemy lab, it comes with an alchemist. You get the idea.
[00:49] <Ed_Pastry> Are they all lightbulb heads?
[00:49] <TG_Weaver> most likely demons/elementals/spirits, abstract characters
[00:49] <TG_Weaver> And you can even build unattached features. You can find a high spot and plop down a windmill maybe. Or tap a tree, or plant a harvester on a verdant field, or what have you. Most facilities you build will fit into one of three main categories
[00:50] <TG_Weaver> 1) Generates resources of a specific type over time. Like a farm. Can be checked every now and again for free resources.
[00:51] <TG_Weaver> 2) Converts one resource to another (usually over time). For those that take ether, this is like 'buying' resources, but due to costs and time, it's not like you can just stock up instantly. For instance you might have a fire elemental who can convert Wood to Fire (or perhaps Ash) over time, if you give him some.
[00:51] <LaptopMoose> Ooh! You've GOTTA come up with a wonderfully satisfying collection noise. That is a must.
[00:51] <TG_Weaver> I totally agree
[00:52] <TG_Weaver> 3) Provides crafting opportunities. As I said, this game uses essences and elements, not specific items. The only actual tangible items in this game are your equipment, weapons, tools, armor, etc. So you have a weaponsmith maybe who can make you nice swords, or a brewer to make potions.
[00:53] <TG_Weaver> And since this is generated/dynamic, like I said, you can play around with the items a lot from a gameplay aspect. You might find randomized loot from a strong monster or something, but you can't buy any weapons, you can only 'make' them, by expending resources.
[00:54] <TG_Weaver> you can spend over the limit to get a better weapon or throw in other elements to change its nature a bit, but to exactly what degree and in what way I haven't decided yet.
[00:54] <TG_Weaver> this is vital for improving tools too, because some materials can't be harvested at all with your shitty tools!
[00:55] <Seven_remote> How will structures be handled?
[00:55] <TG_Weaver> pre-made "rooms" or structures that can be pieced together
[00:55] <TG_Weaver> so an alchemy lab is always the same thing, but you could place it anywhere or stack it on top of your smithy
[00:55] <TG_Weaver> or w/e
[00:56] <TG_Weaver> Incidentally most resources will be renewable like Monster Hunter. You hack at a tree and get some Wood essence, but the tree's not destroyed. It just can't be harvested again for a while.
[00:56] <TG_Weaver> However if you're badly in need of resources I'll probably add some way to get a bunch at once from any resource node, even if it's too high to harvest with your normal tools -- but it would destroy the resource node permanently
[00:58] <TG_Weaver> ANYWAY. So flash forward a bit. You've got some automated harvesters to check up on every now and then, a settlement that's practically a town with a dozen people living in it, and you're regularly hewing out resources from the various nooks and crannies of this world, which you've come to know pretty well.
[00:58] <TG_Weaver> You're killing some monsters along the way, maybe even picking birds out of the sky with your fancy shmancy new bow
[00:59] <TG_Weaver> you know the small world pretty well at this point, and you've got a sizeable store of some basic resources.
[00:59] <TG_Weaver> So you head back to your Device and using it and maybe some other facilities you've built, you make something new
[01:00] <TG_Weaver> A Portal. And you talk to the portal operator, and you have five or so slots, one filled.
[00:59] <Peeved> so kind of like... terraria meets harvest moon meets simcity?
[01:00] <TG_Weaver> kind of terraria in terms of combat/interface, but not very much harvest moon or sim city
[01:00] <TG_Weaver> more like monster hunter's collection with heavier focus, like maybe the CAT GAME giri giri airu mura
[01:01] <TG_Weaver> This part here actually I got from what little time I played Spiral Knights
[01:01] <TG_Weaver> Well what really struck me as awesome was all these different Totems that open up new worlds.
[01:02] <TG_Weaver> The idea that you'd pump in resources, and it would make a new world based on that and its contents would be affected accordingly
[01:02] <TG_Weaver> So you talk to the Portal guy and he lets you generate a new world -- using the resources you've collected. You can choose what resources and how many, and it will affect the type of world. You get a sort of preview of that.
[01:03] <TG_Weaver> If you pay more than the basic Ether cost, you can make the world larger (they start quite small, like a fragment of a world), and you can crank up the 'difficulty' which will yield more exotic resources and higher yields and so on
[01:04] <TG_Weaver> And again, every world defines its contents. So you throw in a bunch of Ether, some Fire, maybe some Death. BAM. Welcome to The Burning Thicket, your new miniworld.
[01:05] <TG_Weaver> It gives you a little rundown at first, so you can get an idea of your randomly generated world's size, its difficulty and so on. And more details will be filled in as you explore it, so once you find out, you can check from the Portal Operator's station what kind of resources, enemies, landscape you'll find there.
[01:06] <TG_Weaver> You hop into the portal and you're standing by a portal in the Burning Thicket. Very different. No trees maybe. Or very different trees. Very different enemies. Resources you've never even touched before.
[01:07] <TG_Weaver> You run through, and everything's much harder. But the resources are flowing in and suddenly you realize that everything in your Homeworld was small time. You need to buy upgrades to increase your storage capacity for resources because there's so much.
[01:07] <TG_Weaver> And at the same time, costs go up to match, as you find all these new things to make you never even knew you wanted.
[01:08] <TG_Weaver> You unlock new slots, create new worlds. Your homeworld acts as the central hub, with your base, but you can use the portal system to jump out to half a dozen different generated miniworlds around it -- a desert, a haunted forest, subterranean ruins, whatever.
[01:09] <TG_Weaver> I know it sounds really complex (especially to make) but basically it's just different levels stitching together pre-made rooms, just drawing from different groups to make them, then choosing a different graphic for the blocks and maybe coloring them differently.
[01:09] <TG_Weaver> Resources will be chosen mostly at random but with an influence from the world type
[01:10] <TG_Weaver> And enemies is perhaps the cleverest part, taking a tip from Stick Ranger RPG
[01:10] <TG_Weaver> I just create a bunch of heads and bodies, then mix and match, color on the fly, and the abilities and AI package is based on that
[01:11] <TG_Weaver> throw in a few names for each part and you can have some random names for each enemy too.
[01:11] <TG_Weaver> and then resources can easily be derived from the parts used
[01:11] <TG_Weaver> By making everything modular and dependent, the game becomes a haven for randomized content.
[01:12] <TG_Weaver> And you don't just wait around for your NPCs at the base to finish their work, you're out cutting through undead in some graveyard world in the meantime, or checking on your faucet tap on some lava tree.
[01:13] <TG_Weaver> hauling all that back to base in your homeworld to make better stuff, new facilities, summoning in new people.
[01:14] <TG_Weaver> hell, it just occurred to me that by giving each resource a Tier level, I could structure gameplay even through random worlds. Restrict level gen or harvesting based on tiered prereqs.
[01:14] <TG_Weaver> Anyway, I don't have an endgame planned, but you get the idea at this point I'm sure
[01:16] <TG_Weaver> Most people I describe this to liken it to Minecraft or Terraria and I guess now Harvest Moon, but more than anything it's derived from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5o0waX-HKM
[01:16] <Phrix> Bosses, Weaver
[01:16] <Phrix> glorious glorious modular bosses
[01:17] <TG_Weaver> Yes, they could be handled similarly to the head/body swap enemies, but maybe moreso.