Tuesday 26 March 2013

Lanarts Goals

So I decided to write up a post about my hopes for when I finally release 'Lanarts 1.0'. I hope outlining where the game is going encourages people to contribute.

The design philosophy:
To create a fun, dangerous, procedurally generated, co-op RPG which allows for continual character advancement without repetitive elements. The game will be very light on plot, and feature critical decisions, such as choosing between different challenges. The game will be best played end-to-end with a team of around 4-6 friends. The game will be designed with a loss-condition in mind, but one that can be made more lenient to players' liking.
 
Guiding points:

Any tedious aspects should be as streamlined and automated as possible.

The character advancement should introduce more interesting and nuanced features rather than just stat-gain. Character races and other game bonuses should be versatile enough to provide benefit to a large number of play-styles.

The game should be as data-driven as possible, allowing for easy content creation. The game should lend easily to hosting modified game content. Modified game content will happily be considered for integration into the base game.

The V1.0 goals:
  • Stable Lua API that allows for developing/customizing the game as much as possible. V1.0 will introduce a (loose) API freeze and best-effort backwards compatibility measures.
  • Well-performing game-play with at least 4 players (more is ideal).
  • A lobby server for easy match-making.
  • A flexible stat system based on character traits and abilities. This includes items with interesting effects, and a variety of 'tech-tree' style advancement options.
  • An overworld with towns, thematic dungeons, and a final boss.

What aren't my goals:
  • I'm not sure if V1.0 will have original graphics. While nice, I do not consider this a version-number assignable goal (primarily because I do not have the talent to decide when it happens.
  • I don't intend to make Lanarts a generic RPG engine. I will move towards this as much as possible, but only where it enables smooth growth of the game.

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