31 replies to this topic

[jondifool]

I have the luck of being part of developing a new block building game. And as an old regular in this forum i wanted to share here the first things that is actual showed from the game. From Build a World you you see the shark.



really hope you enjoy it.

22-03 status: see kickstarter http://www.kickstart...5/build-a-world

Edited by jondifool, 22 March 2013 - 11:51 AM.

[Corsair]

Looks good. Water sounds decent and the graphics are pretty. Shark animations are good as well, but seems a little odd to have so many so far out of the water, think you can just make it the fin?

And, out of curiosity, how do you plan on differentiating yourself from all the other block games out there? You're blocks seem to be smaller than the usual, which leads to increased definition and customizability in structures and creations, but hampers accessibility due to increased complexity and work.

[actionjack]

Wonderful effort.  Glade you are sharing the fruit of your labor with us.  Want to hear more about it.

However.....from just this video... just seem Minecraft HD.  The shark it self feel out of character compare to the surrounding (maybe its a testing shark?)  And yes, how do you plan to differentiate this from all other?  Any interesting mechanics?  Can we contribute ideas?  

[jondifool]

Corsair, on 08 February 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

Looks good. Water sounds decent and the graphics are pretty. Shark animations are good as well, but seems a little odd to have so many so far out of the water, think you can just make it the fin?

And, out of curiosity, how do you plan on differentiating yourself from all the other block games out there? You're blocks seem to be smaller than the usual, which leads to increased definition and customizability in structures and creations, but hampers accessibility due to increased complexity and work.

thxs for the apriciation. Blocks are smaller, but giving players new tools to work with, makes up for a lot.

actionjack, on 08 February 2013 - 04:03 AM, said:

Wonderful effort.  Glade you are sharing the fruit of your labor with us.  Want to hear more about it.

However.....from just this video... just seem Minecraft HD.  The shark it self feel out of character compare to the surrounding (maybe its a testing shark?)  And yes, how do you plan to differentiate this from all other?  Any interesting mechanics?  Can we contribute ideas?  

Thanks i am happy that you like it.  It is a testing shark, but so far it really looks for us like a HD block game can support som really good looking mobs and avatars and actual contribute to the immersion in the world.

We do try to do things our way with making a modern game in a modern world. But it is a little to early to discuss our take on the block building genre, but I can say that we have some quite unique mechanics in making, something that I haven't seen used that way in any game before. (Though i am sure that i will not take users here more than 5 minuttes to direct me to games that have done it before, thats how the net works). But it will hopefully not take long before I can share alot more about the game.

[Gecko]

I think the graphic looks great and the sharks look very lively. Good one.

Bear in mind that I haven't played any block games before, so I do not know what to expect. My impression is is what the game looks like for a "new" player like me, thought you should know.

[actionjack]

Hope to see the next progress / diary video soon.

I do have few ideas on the block-genre.. but  will save it for future discussion...

However, one interesting thing I do hope to see (especially with your smaller blocks) is more physic manipulation to the blocks.
example....  you fire a rocket, and will actually blow a large hole on the side of mountain. (with block chunks flying out).  Or where you call down a meteor that create large craters.  Also gravity and black hole guns/spells that suck out nearby blocks... etc.

[Azure Skye]

WOAH!!! Nice, it looks better then minecraft. o.o

[Corsair]

Azure Skye, on 09 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

WOAH!!! Nice, it looks better then minecraft. o.o

Part of Minecraft's success was brought on by it's simplistic graphical style, harkening back to simpler gaming times when gameplay was central rather than cinematic. That had a lot of pull and nostalgia credit. But people have made HD mods for Minecraft. Right now, it looks exactly as good as you want it to. This is a quick example of that.

In order to compete, you need distinct mechanical hook or the capability to do something you can't in Minecraft.The most successful block games after Minecraft have been shooters, as the customize ability of the maps lends itself well to MP since maps are never a problem.

Jondifool's current project seems to be going with a more realistic graphical representation than most and smaller blocks. I'd think the world is going to be a little more about the simulation of it and allowing for interesting interactions between things, just because the more realistic look lends itself well towards that and the smaller block size makes it more believable. But such musings don't mean much in a video which is mostly a tech demo.


Jondifool, have you seen LOVE? It's a multilayer game with world morphing and a few other interesting mechanics. Something you and your team should take a look at. I personally find it mildly convoluted myself, but some cool ideas are definitely present. Everything from power management to base design. With combat.

[jondifool]

actionjack, on 09 February 2013 - 03:27 AM, said:

Hope to see the next progress / diary video soon.

I do have few ideas on the block-genre.. but  will save it for future discussion...

However, one interesting thing I do hope to see (especially with your smaller blocks) is more physic manipulation to the blocks.
example....  you fire a rocket, and will actually blow a large hole on the side of mountain. (with block chunks flying out).  Or where you call down a meteor that create large craters.  Also gravity and black hole guns/spells that suck out nearby blocks... etc.

A good idea to save some for future discussions. But two thing i can reveal here is the world does have gravity and eksplosions are rather impressive. So yes there is more physics manipulations.

Edited by jondifool, 09 February 2013 - 04:31 PM.

[jondifool]

Corsair, on 09 February 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

Jondifool's current project seems to be going with a more realistic graphical representation than most and smaller blocks. I'd think the world is going to be a little more about the simulation of it and allowing for interesting interactions between things, just because the more realistic look lends itself well towards that and the smaller block size makes it more believable. But such musings don't mean much in a video which is mostly a tech demo.


Jondifool, have you seen LOVE? It's a multilayer game with world morphing and a few other interesting mechanics. Something you and your team should take a look at. I personally find it mildly convoluted myself, but some cool ideas are definitely present. Everything from power management to base design. With combat.

Yes i remember seeing love some years ago. Might been an idea to look at it again.

About realism - IMHO exploration becomes something that gets really interesting when the world is realistic enough, and huge enough, that you can actual get the feeling that the new zone you discover resemble something you know about in the real world.

[jondifool]

well must be time to show the preview of the website
http://www.buildaworld.net/

and on facebook
http://www.facebook....284152794990875

it should give more of the picture of what we are up to.

oh and explosions are coming up. somebody is working on them atm with smoke trails and flash coming next week ....

Edited by jondifool, 09 February 2013 - 07:24 PM.

[Corsair]

I like the debris actually falling back onto the ground. Allows for some interesting things...

[jondifool]

We are sudenly showing previews fast . Here is a vulcano at night! And the forest fire it makes



The debris has been made today.

Edited by jondifool, 10 February 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Robsy128]

Looking good

The debris thing will be a big part of the game if you guys can get it right. It will be a major attraction. That's the one thing that isn't all that great with Minecraft - the damage you can do.

[actionjack]

I like the landscape demo  

However, do feel the style of the game is a bit "odd".  You got the cartoony character/beast, the realism water and light, and blocky landscape.  Not saying it is bad, but just stand out for me.

The block drop physics still could use more effort... since right now the landing is restricted to block, and with out the ability to roll and bounce and land at odd position, it seem rather odd.

I could see it even extend to not just square blocks, but ability to shave/carve/cut blocks (which can make more a smoother slope, etc)
Also feel can have some interesting gaming mechanics with elemental/physical blocks.  (fire blocks, ice blocks...blackhole blocks, etc)

[Volkon]

Hmm... it looks gorgeous, I have to admit. But... it feels like (seeing only these videos) texture packs on MineCraft. I have sharks in MC with Mo'Creatures, volcanoes in TropiCraft, etc. It does look nice. The base MineCraft, without at least Mo'Creatures, feels far too easy. The added dangers help a lot, from more bad guys (and types) at night to dangerous ones in the daytime.

I liked the dark... do you plan on keeping nights that dark? Moonlight should play a factor, but a black new moon night, maybe with unique creatures for the new moon... aw yeah.

Multiplayer of course should be in there. I play with my kids for example.

Keep us posted... I wouldn't mind helping test if you need bodies to throw at it in the future. You'll have to deal with "MineCraft Clone" a lot, I'm sure, but don't let that get you down.

[jondifool]

actionjack, on 11 February 2013 - 03:49 AM, said:

I like the landscape demo  

The block drop physics still could use more effort... since right now the landing is restricted to block, and with out the ability to roll and bounce and land at odd position, it seem rather odd.

thx - it is actual the first take on using debris we are showing here. And the gravity works on single blocks atm, We hope later in the development to be able to have not only single blocks droping or as debris but whole structures, and having them rolling, tumbling and tilting with be really cool aswell.
Lets see what what we actual are able to do with it later.
We are a small team , and so far only 1 person have been on the game full time, the rest of us is on it in their spare time, And this is what we have been able to come up with so far.  

Volkon, on 11 February 2013 - 07:56 PM, said:

I liked the dark... do you plan on keeping nights that dark? Moonlight should play a factor, but a black new moon night, maybe with unique creatures for the new moon... aw yeah.

Multiplayer of course should be in there. I play with my kids for example.

Keep us posted... I wouldn't mind helping test if you need bodies to throw at it in the future. You'll have to deal with "MineCraft Clone" a lot, I'm sure, but don't let that get you down.

We like the dark too, though it was a nightmare to do anything in the night until we gave the headlamp to the avatar. At least then you could mine in the night. We are aiming for a game world where you meet some of the challanges of the real world, one of them is to deal with darkness. And darkness gives a huge reason to make an electricity network, and improving it , (solarpower does you no good in the night, and windmills can't help you when the wind doesn't blow, but both are still really nice to have)

Another challange in the world is the ability to get lost ! So far the record in game was when 2 of us got lost after a hour game play, and took the challange up to find the way back but after 2½ hours we still haven't found it, and had to quit. We really want to invent some tools to help mapping the world, just a compass to the start,is fast getting a must have.

Multiplayer is really important, and one of the aims of the game was to make a world kids and parents would enjoy spending time in together. we hope it works.. We already have multiplayer and the game makes it really easy to setup a game and let everyone you want to join.

While we are not making a MMO, we do know that it's many years ago that making such a game was not labelled making a wow clone, no matter what you did. I would be surprised if the same didn't happend in the block build genre.

and we hope to come up with a beta before to long.

jondifool

[Yui San]

Azure Skye, on 09 February 2013 - 04:08 AM, said:

WOAH!!! Nice, it looks better then minecraft. o.o

a miracle that no one would have expected.

[Corsair]

I just hope you make electricity easier to set up than red stone circuits. Annoying shit from semi-rare materials.

[Feathermoore]

Corsair, on 15 February 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

I just hope you make electricity easier to set up than red stone circuits. Annoying shit from semi-rare materials.

I always wished redstone just worked like some sci-fi version of a tesla coil. Put down a constructed block, and it has a certain range that electrical components in range of it would activate. You could have inverters, capacitors, resistors, switches, and transformers as extra components that would allow you to do everything redstone can and more with less of the "I will connect where I want" trollstone. Having to lay down lines was always infuriatingly obtuse.

[jondifool]

Feathermoore, on 15 February 2013 - 08:44 PM, said:

I always wished redstone just worked like some sci-fi version of a tesla coil. Put down a constructed block, and it has a certain range that electrical components in range of it would activate. You could have inverters, capacitors, resistors, switches, and transformers as extra components that would allow you to do everything redstone can and more with less of the "I will connect where I want" trollstone. Having to lay down lines was always infuriatingly obtuse.

Our transformator works that way - it gives electricity to everything in range that use el, every thing that produce electricity needs to be connected with wire. Lines are layed by placing power cups/isolators and just drag the wire where you want it, and a keystroke highlight whats connected to that net.

http://www.facebook....&type=3 what you see is a powertransformer, connected with solar panels and also batteries.

lets see how many usable blocks we manage to get in and interact with this system . We do plan to do something along the line of having logic operators as blocks to make advanced stuff with.

Edited by jondifool, 16 February 2013 - 11:51 AM.

[jondifool]

The projekt is trying to get kickstarted. See the kickstarter page.
http://www.kickstart...5/build-a-world

Edited by jondifool, 22 March 2013 - 11:50 AM.

[Eon Lilu]

jondifool, on 22 March 2013 - 11:49 AM, said:

The projekt is trying to get kickstarted. See the kickstarter page.
http://www.kickstart...5/build-a-world

Looks pretty awesome, from the pledges im guessing it's some kind of subscription model? 6 months / 12 months etc.

[jondifool]

Eon Lilu, on 22 March 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Looks pretty awesome, from the pledges im guessing it's some kind of subscription model? 6 months / 12 months etc.

thx  - yes a subscribtion model for online play- right now we are thinking to have 6 month for around or less that we pay for a month in MMOs.

[Eon Lilu]

jondifool, on 23 March 2013 - 08:59 AM, said:

thx  - yes a subscribtion model for online play- right now we are thinking to have 6 month for around or less that we pay for a month in MMOs.

Thats pretty cheap.

[jondifool]

Eon Lilu, on 23 March 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

Thats pretty cheap.

Well there is 2 thing to that, it is really a long time since that the price of a subscribtion has related to what it it actual cost to offer the service. And second and really important-  No one really wants to pay a subscribtion- so it has to be low enough that you don't chase players away, don't annoy parents in the case of kids playing, and let players feel fine with paying to come back if the have left the game.

[Eon Lilu]

jondifool, on 24 March 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

Well there is 2 thing to that, it is really a long time since that the price of a subscribtion has related to what it it actual cost to offer the service. And second and really important-  No one really wants to pay a subscribtion- so it has to be low enough that you don't chase players away, don't annoy parents in the case of kids playing, and let players feel fine with paying to come back if the have left the game.

Sounds better than most free to play greed gouging microtransaction models. I never really liked subscriptions and now I have over recent times grown to hate microtransactions but your suggested business model seems like a very fair compromise between the two for the players.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 24 March 2013 - 03:07 PM.

[Firetruck]

jondifool, on 24 March 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

Well there is 2 thing to that, it is really a long time since that the price of a subscribtion has related to what it it actual cost to offer the service. And second and really important-  No one really wants to pay a subscribtion- so it has to be low enough that you don't chase players away, don't annoy parents in the case of kids playing, and let players feel fine with paying to come back if the have left the game.

Interesting, but is there any specific reason that you've chosen to use a subscription rather than a simple box fee? What are the costs/services you'll be offering to players?

[jondifool]

Firetruck, on 26 March 2013 - 02:45 AM, said:

Interesting, but is there any specific reason that you've chosen to use a subscription rather than a simple box fee? What are the costs/services you'll be offering to players?

We hope that we can provide an easy accessible and more safe online playing experience , with less cheating and with that more real gameplay for a community by hosting the servers our self.  The main service beside that is the use of the online model library, where you can upload your best buildings and download other players buildings and put them into your world for free (well you will have to mine the blocks if playing survival, but...). Not to mention that we will use the library in the random generation of the worlds cities, wonders etc. With that and other content added to game over the years (like more zones, animals, game mechanics,  blocks and constructions with functions etc.) , we hopefully have a living and growing gaming world that players don't mind much the subscription each half year or so.

You can always play offline/lan without the subscription anyways.

We could have gone with regular expansions instead, but the problem is that we then differentiate the players in those that have, and those that don't have them Those not buying them, will have to do a much bigger investment to catch up (think guild wars 1 here). In the end a cheap subscription is  what we vision as the best solution. But lets see what happends, it was not an easy decision to make!

Edited by jondifool, 27 March 2013 - 09:47 AM.

[Eon Lilu]

jondifool, on 26 March 2013 - 08:28 AM, said:

We hope that we can provide an easy accessible and more safe online playing experience , with less cheating and with that more real gameplay for a community by hosting the servers our self.  The main service beside that is the use of the online model library, where you can upload your best buildings and download other players buildings and put them into your world for free (well you will have to mine the blocks if playing survival, but...). Not to mention that we will use the library in the random generation of the worlds cities, wonders etc. With that and other content added to game over the years (like more zones, animals, game mechanics,  blocks and constructions with functions etc.) , we hopefully have a living and growing gaming world that players don't mind much the subscription each half year or so.

You can always play offline/lan without the subscription anyways.

We could have gone with regular expansions instead, but the problem is that we then differentiate the players in those that have, and those that don't have them Those not buying them, will have to do a much bigger investment to catch up (think guild wars 1 here). In the end a cheap subscription is  what we vision as the bast solution. But lets see what happends, it was not an easy decision to make!

Makes sense, can play lan/offline for no extra cost, very small cost sub for access to massive database of content created by other players and using online services plus helps the ongoing development of the game.

Sounds fair.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 26 March 2013 - 12:38 PM.