3 Major Problems with Development

Problems.

#1 - The game is too complicated. It seems like anyone and their dog can throw an idea around, and have it "implemented". The idea that you can control any given person in a completely procedurally generated UNIVERSE is blasphemy. There's absolutely no way an indie game with one programmer can complete this, especially with "amazing" 3D graphics. Seriously. I don't care what the wiki says. Accuracy ISN'T possible.

#2 - BASIC. When I mention the fact that I'm only going to render 2D sprites at this point, that's what I'm going to do. We have to start basic, and I mean BASIC. Indie games start from the ground up. Graphics are going to be lacking at first. We should go for simplistic graphics over ridiculously realistic ones.

#3 - Programming is overlooked. Programatically, the game concept is lacking. Pseudo code is important, and converting everybody's ideas into code is a pain --especially when they keep changing.


Solutions.

#1 - Enough with all the stages. Creature stage is the only one I really care about, and I think it's the only one that matters.

#2 - Forget about editors, how governments will interact and how interplanetary wars will be resolved, and focus on one thing at a time. It's just how these things work. We can add in complexity later.

#3 - Understand that when a programmer writes a program, he/she doesn't write sentences that say "I want a creature to fight the other creature." Instead, he/she says move this joint to this angle, and move the position to this location. Animating Belgium is already convoluted enough, and we cant be throwing things in left and right. A computer is a complete idiot travelling at 1,000,000 miles per hour. You have to tell it exactly what to do.


There you have it. My qualms.

#1 - I thought the idea of this whole conceptual stage was suggesting as much as is possible, then getting the bare basics done and then do the rest (95%) of the game. So far, this has always worked for me, though I have obviously never done an evolution game yet..

#2 - Thrive is first an evolution game, or at least is presented as so. The editors, tech stage and everything can be done later - but we absolutely must do the cell and creature stage if we ever want to progress. I think everyone understands the graphics will be VERY simple, this is not a game about graphics, and our strenght really lies in gameplay. As long as the graphics will not hurt eyes and will be at least somewhat easy to orient in, everything will be okay.

#3 - Post your problems so we can try to find solutions for them. Almost everyone can think of a solution, Scio is quite good at maths and a few of us (myself included) can do some (pseudo)code. I think making a thread dedicated to this will be the best solution.

I agree with all except the solution to #1. perhaps its just because im more excited for every stage AFTER creature but this is an evolution game. and if you take out any possibility of intelligence and ect. ect. its just an animal simulator. which honestly after a while would get very boring. I think if any stages need to be taken out it should be playing as a plant. and possibly underwater intelligent species. just my 2 cents.

I thought we wanted to complete Cellstage just to test if we were capable to create anything... We should first finish cell stage because it is the simplest

I never remember reading anything about grafics anywhere.. but complex animations -.-

I would help out coding but Studying computer science is a 12,5 Hour/day job, and now that my right hand is broken for the next 6 weeks... -.-

I know its ***** Roadkillguy but for the moment it will have to do

Cell stage is the simplest, if we're going to do any stage first, this is the one. We haven't got all the biomes for creature stage ready yet, and cell stage is currently the only stage with any models ready (Alaska ).

As for graphics, I think improving them as we progress will be fine. Look at RuneScape Classic. 2D sprites. And now it's graphics are insane. A game doesn't need good graphics from the beginning. However, for creature stage, with just sprites we can't simulate... Well, anything, very accurately. Another reason that should be done a little later on.

100% accuracy is impossible? Nothing is impossible, just highly improbable! Anything will happen if we wait long enough. Okay, maybe that's not so helpful in practice... Our current situation = Mission Improbable.
Once we have something playable working, and maybe a few more programmers, we should be able to get a few more programmers. That's not a grammatical mistake, more programmers will make more programmers feel less daunted coming in. If we have loads of people coding, each one will get less pressure on them... But it's just getting to that point that's tricky... That's where the 'something playable' comes in.

And pseudo code... We need more... This is true... Indeed... Ellipsis...

I've always been on the side of simplicity, and anyone here should know that. However, most of my attempts to try and snip out unimportant things are beat down continuously (we don't need time travel/sure, let's put in stasis fields) (a creature's skeleton is made of balls and sticks/we could make a procedural bone model generator) (we don't really need first person/how about we put up to ten cameras on your organism that you can toggle between) (etc). I realize that we want this game to be perfect, but it won't be on the first shot, so we need to stick to the very basics. All I really want right now is to be able to open up the demo and swim around. We get that done, it will generate attention, and I will be giddy with excitement.

I totally agree that creature stage is the most important. Even if we never get around to technology, just having a creature stage that is realistic and that I can wander around in would be a dream come true to me, even if my organism is made out of boxes.

Right now roadkill, do what you can. Alaska and I are making headway on the modeling/texturing front, so If you need 2Ds, that should be easy.

I will try to keep writing some Pseudo code whenever I get systems finalized.

Commander Keen wrote:

Post your problems so we can try to find solutions for them. Almost everyone can think of a solution, Scio is quite good at maths and a few of us (myself included) can do some (pseudo)code. I think making a thread dedicated to this will be the best solution.

THIS.

I sincerely apologize for my wandering about, especially given the way I burst and pushed us into overdrive in August. My goal is to contribute what I can, where I can. My expertise lies very far outside the current stage of the game, and while I've been avoiding mentioning this until now, my brain literally drops executive function effeciency 50% the moment numbers are introduced to a situation. This is why I haven't been working heavily on psuedo code like Keen or ~scio. However, if you can give us specific issues you're dealing with I promise you I will do everything in my power to help.

This is an infdev project. I for one am not hoping for gorgeous graphics or polished gameplay. I'm expecting an overly-simplified, ugly, buggy shamble of a game. That is what we can do right now. But that's the beauty of it. That's all we can do right now. If we can get Thrive's bug-ridden embryo out there, I garuntee that we have a shot at making the most emotional, deep, and ambitious game in the universe.

But right now, I'm with scio. I want to download a Main Menu that let's me click on a button and swim around for a minute or so.

Thanks for clarifying.

The problem with beta releases is cross compiling. I run Ubuntu, and will very probably be switching to straight Debian Linux. It would be awesome if at least one person could cross compile to Windoze for us. (Look into cygwin and such)


Also, what I don't understand about the cell stage is why we have programmed in such undynamic cells. Will the player's cell be the only one evolving?

I've also been messing around with neural networks and box2D physics. Basically, organisms can evolve physically with joints, sensors, and actuators. I'm still working on it.

roadkillguy wrote:

Thanks for clarifying.

The problem with beta releases is cross compiling. I run Ubuntu, and will very probably be switching to straight Debian Linux. It would be awesome if at least one person could cross compile to Windoze for us. (Look into cygwin and such)


Also, what I don't understand about the cell stage is why we have programmed in such undynamic cells. Will the player's cell be the only one evolving?

I've also been messing around with neural networks and box2D physics. Basically, organisms can evolve physically with joints, sensors, and actuators. I'm still working on it.

Cool stuff. I agree, cell stage has never felt very dynamic to me, and the uni-multi transition never really got worked out. Perhaps we should just start out with a 2d alpha of a basic biome?

~sciocont wrote:

Cool stuff. I agree, cell stage has never felt very dynamic to me, and the uni-multi transition never really got worked out. Perhaps we should just start out with a 2d alpha of a basic biome?

Oh God. Cellular biomes. I should have known this day would come.

Beyond that, I'm pretty much in the same boat as you ~scio. I just haven't said anything because I really don't know the first thing about cellular biology and didn't want to slow you guys down. :S

Awkward.

I honestly don't think biomes are necessary with resources. An organism eats another organism when it can digest it... It simplifies everything.

roadkillguy wrote:

I honestly don't think biomes are necessary with resources. An organism eats another organism when it can digest it... It simplifies everything.

Biomes are just a reference area so that we don't have to run the whole planet at once, and conditions can be honed for specific environments. Food webs, though are not necessary to be hard-coded.

Ah yes food webs.. that's what I meant.

roadkillguy wrote:

Ah yes food webs.. that's what I meant.

I'll start pseudo-coding biomes soon, but right now I have about 3 hours of homework every night. The good news is that some of the homework is about how ecosystems function.

Your cellular biomes are as follows, along a scale, and this is what you get where I'm concerned.

Acidity - Basicity (Your PH.) Each organism would have a range of PH's that it can tolerate. Death to all who try to live in the wrong one.
Amount of available water - Water is life. Yet there are microbes living on my nose, on the hadlebars of my bike, on scio's elbow, and on Roadkill's knee, so obviously there is a range between swimmy little microbes and skin-crawling ones.
Osmotic pressure - if that inside the cell is significantly higher, it explodes. If it is significantly lower, your bug shrivels.
Temperature - Do I even need to explain this?

There we go. Four basic variables for you.

How will these variables be assigned, though? By some sort of coherent noise?

Commander Keen wrote:

How will these variables be assigned, though? By some sort of coherent noise?

Yes! You're catching on!

roadkillguy wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

How will these variables be assigned, though? By some sort of coherent noise?

Yes! You're catching on!

No idea what that is, but sure, why not?

So I'm guessing from the picture, that you mean the screen being lighter or darker/different colours to show how inhabitable the area is for your organism? If so, I agree fully with the idea. If not, I'm lost. o.0
-Waap.

Waap wrote:

So I'm guessing from the picture, that you mean the screen being lighter or darker/different colours to show how inhabitable the area is for your organism? If so, I agree fully with the idea. If not, I'm lost. o.0
-Waap.

Not sure the screen would be lighter and darker, the 'variables' (the hazards) would just be higher and lower in the different zones produced by the noise.

So one of these would be used for temperature, one for acidity, and so on...
Although, maybe colours will be used to show the different threat levels, we haven't got to that part of the conversation yet... Coloured indicators would be helpful, though.

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

How will these variables be assigned, though? By some sort of coherent noise?

Yes! You're catching on!

No idea what that is, but sure, why not?

I think the words 'Perlin Noise' will tell you more. It is essentialy a map, but instead of showing us where are hills and valleys, this reveals us acidic and neutral areas. (in case of accidity map)

Quote :

Although, maybe colours will be used to show the different threat levels, we haven't got to that part of the conversation yet... Coloured indicators would be helpful, though.

We can simply change background color and/or put different colored particles depending on the variables. Acidic environments could be green, neutral (around 0.5) could be blue and basic could be red. Cold could be darker and warm lighter, indicating sunlight. These are just examples, but you can show almost everything in this way.

Commander Keen wrote:

Quote :

Although, maybe colours will be used to show the different threat levels, we haven't got to that part of the conversation yet... Coloured indicators would be helpful, though.

We can simply change background color and/or put different colored particles depending on the variables. Acidic environments could be green, neutral (around 0.5 In PH it's 7...) could be blue and basic alkali? could be red. Cold could be darker and warm lighter, indicating sunlight. What about thermal vents? These are just examples, but you can show almost everything in this way.

I was thinking about showing it in the background, but there weren't enough colours, having something for yellow and red, when both were present would make orange, so orange can't be used. In other words, secondary colours wouldn't work. The background has a limit of three colours, if the colours mix. Maybe white too. So particles will be needed.

Or we could have little circles that light up in different colours. That might be simpler, at least to start with, graphics-wise.

Perlin Noise:

Basically, given an x, y, coordinate, you will get a random floating point number between -1 and 1. The point is, if you choose a point right next to the first point, it's value will be close to the first value. Thus, you have coherent randomness. The key is, it's seeded. In other words, no matter how many times you plug in (0, 1) you will always get the same value.

You can then apply different functions to the noise to get different patterns and shapes. For example, taking the absolute value of a standard perlin function will make big round clouds, and squaring it will make long stringy ridges. You can do a ton with it.

Specifically, I use libnoise for my c++ noise functions.

It's really simple stuff. Look it up.

Commander Keen wrote:

Mysterious_Calligrapher wrote:

roadkillguy wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

How will these variables be assigned, though? By some sort of coherent noise?

Yes! You're catching on!

No idea what that is, but sure, why not?

I think the words 'Perlin Noise' will tell you more. It is essentialy a map, but instead of showing us where are hills and valleys, this reveals us acidic and neutral areas. (in case of accidity map)

Quote :

Although, maybe colours will be used to show the different threat levels, we haven't got to that part of the conversation yet... Coloured indicators would be helpful, though.

We can simply change background color and/or put different colored particles depending on the variables. Acidic environments could be green, neutral (around 0.5) could be blue and basic could be red. Cold could be darker and warm lighter, indicating sunlight. These are just examples, but you can show almost everything in this way.

If we're making it look like litmus paper, then may I suggest that we follow litmus paper? Red is acid, purple (violet) is base, and they gradiate through the rainbow in between. That gives you either seven or fourteen concentrations, whichever you prefer, and should be pretty instinctive for navigating your microbe.

Okay, so right now the artists are concentrating on creating sprites for cellular gameplay, so that it can be added to all the stuff i don't understand by the science and programming teams?

Cool. I can do that. Time for creation of proto-cells.

Oh,and in answer to your static modelling question, Roadkill, the models are for proto-cells. These are the mini-cells that your microbe encounters. They will also encounter microbes that are exactly the same as the player but AI, but we don't need that right away.