[list]
[*]Picture of an Imperial ship in a night storm, battered and tossed by the waves.
[*]The same image again, but with a smaller insert on the lower right of a man on the ship's deck, holding to the railing.
[*]The next image focuses on the man, his face stony and impassive, his samurai status obvious by his robes, his saya (katana scabbard) and the top-knot of his hair.
[*]The same image, with an upper right insert of a lightning bolt forking the sky above.
[*] A massive lance of lightning impales the struggling ship with a spectacular.
[*] The samurai, glancing behind himself for a moment.
[*] The same image, bottom half covered with his eyes widening in shock.
[*] Profile from the front of the ship, showing a man falling off from the side.
[/list]
I need to figure out more. For now, saving it here.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Imperial campaign..
I've had some extensive ideas for the Imperial campaign which my previous blog only briefly touched - namely on the randomly generated battles. That said, the most useful place for my primary focus should be with prescripted story battles like those of other scenarios already in Wesnoth, not only because they are easier but also because they are an excellent platform for telling a story.
So with that in mind, I set about designing the first scenario for the Imperial campaign. What was important for me was that it would be dissimilar from others in its focus on story and emotion rather than just the battle, with flexible objectives that would help develop a sense of flow and continuity yet avoid frustrating the player. I needed a story to be told with every part of the action, even one without dialogue or message.
Early parts of my concept came to me quickly - a shipwreck of the Oriental Imperials on Wesnoth's coast, lack of communication leading to blows between the sides, the presence of a Wesnothian traitor in the ranks of the Imperials, and an organic time limit rather than an imposed one.
Details of the story then began to flesh itself out for me. Two brothers, one of them samurai, find themselves surviving the shipwreck. The player would be able to establish some rapport with them through their simple struggle to survive and find food, only to be shocked out of the story when one of them suddenly dies to a Wesnothian horseman. Such an introduction serves a dual purpose; first, for the reader to identify with the protagonists, and second, to engage the reader's emotion. Surely, if you liked the samurai brothers: the older one's resourcefulness and the younger one's innocence, then the sudden death of the innocent one casts a certain indelibate dislike of his attacker.
The older one wil then survive the attack through a fortuitous discovery of a lost katana, washed up on the beach, allowing him to kill the horseman. The katana provides a sense of emotional empowerment after the helplessness of the previous moment, and the player's ability to avenge himself against the horseman offers some emotional consolation.
From that point on, I intend the player samurai to discover the rest of his Imperial fleet on the shores nearby. He'll meet Driscott, the Wesnothian traitor turned Imperial strategist who led them here, and begin the first game version proper of the scenario - recruiting and launching Yari Conscripts against enemy peasants and the occasional spearman. Its also here where the player will get to meet his first optional NPC, a teenage witch named Petra who you can rescue and who will join your side to provide some much needed magical support. This game/combat portion will be the second part of the scenario.
The third portion of the scenario will involve the arrival of General Ankara and the main southern fleet. A mighty oni warlord, Ankara will appear from a previously obscured southern region of the map, flanked by his two armored oni retainers. Unlike you, Ankara has no interest in capturing the towns of the 'barbarians' intact - he will be allied with you, but every town taken by him or his retainer will be replaced with a 'burned town' terrain and its population will become conscripted into Peasants. The player must rush to finish the scenario, defeating the end boss before Ankara can do so - or the player will win anyways, but with a different ending.
Essentially, the first scenario is unloseable. But if the player dawdles, his ending will be quite a bit less sweet - with Ankara getting to do what he wants with the population. Nonetheless, both endings should be interesting and it will be designed so that some players may want to 'lose' the race on purpose.
So with that in mind, I set about designing the first scenario for the Imperial campaign. What was important for me was that it would be dissimilar from others in its focus on story and emotion rather than just the battle, with flexible objectives that would help develop a sense of flow and continuity yet avoid frustrating the player. I needed a story to be told with every part of the action, even one without dialogue or message.
Early parts of my concept came to me quickly - a shipwreck of the Oriental Imperials on Wesnoth's coast, lack of communication leading to blows between the sides, the presence of a Wesnothian traitor in the ranks of the Imperials, and an organic time limit rather than an imposed one.
Details of the story then began to flesh itself out for me. Two brothers, one of them samurai, find themselves surviving the shipwreck. The player would be able to establish some rapport with them through their simple struggle to survive and find food, only to be shocked out of the story when one of them suddenly dies to a Wesnothian horseman. Such an introduction serves a dual purpose; first, for the reader to identify with the protagonists, and second, to engage the reader's emotion. Surely, if you liked the samurai brothers: the older one's resourcefulness and the younger one's innocence, then the sudden death of the innocent one casts a certain indelibate dislike of his attacker.
The older one wil then survive the attack through a fortuitous discovery of a lost katana, washed up on the beach, allowing him to kill the horseman. The katana provides a sense of emotional empowerment after the helplessness of the previous moment, and the player's ability to avenge himself against the horseman offers some emotional consolation.
From that point on, I intend the player samurai to discover the rest of his Imperial fleet on the shores nearby. He'll meet Driscott, the Wesnothian traitor turned Imperial strategist who led them here, and begin the first game version proper of the scenario - recruiting and launching Yari Conscripts against enemy peasants and the occasional spearman. Its also here where the player will get to meet his first optional NPC, a teenage witch named Petra who you can rescue and who will join your side to provide some much needed magical support. This game/combat portion will be the second part of the scenario.
The third portion of the scenario will involve the arrival of General Ankara and the main southern fleet. A mighty oni warlord, Ankara will appear from a previously obscured southern region of the map, flanked by his two armored oni retainers. Unlike you, Ankara has no interest in capturing the towns of the 'barbarians' intact - he will be allied with you, but every town taken by him or his retainer will be replaced with a 'burned town' terrain and its population will become conscripted into Peasants. The player must rush to finish the scenario, defeating the end boss before Ankara can do so - or the player will win anyways, but with a different ending.
Essentially, the first scenario is unloseable. But if the player dawdles, his ending will be quite a bit less sweet - with Ankara getting to do what he wants with the population. Nonetheless, both endings should be interesting and it will be designed so that some players may want to 'lose' the race on purpose.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Imperial Dynasty
So, its been over two years since I have last updated this blog and still I haven't changed much in my situation. I have, however, changed my objectives for a faction and begun to develop one which I affectionately call 'Imperial Dynasty.' Its vaguely Asian-focused, with more details in the Wesnoth forum itself here, http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=25783
I can assure you that I don't have any goals now to do the artwork for it - I know what I can and can't do. Art will be one of those things that will remain in the can't zone for a bit longer. I plan to either beg for art, or more likely, given my tastes and attitude, hire an artist.
What I can do, however, is to develop a compelling storyline and compelling dialogue. It does seem that after all my doubts and concerns, I am more of a writer than not of one in spite of my consistent fears of my own ability. Practice does lead to perfection, as they say, but there is another aspect which that quote forgets:
Practice leads to tolerance and patience.
One thing which I wanted to do for the Imperial campaign would be that a number of the scenarios should be procedurally generated from a random list. For example, an invasion into a province would require two random battle types followed by one storyline battle. For example, it would pick from the CONQUEST list:
Conquest Battle Scenarios
Take and Hold - The player must capture and hold X villages on the map from the enemy for over X number of turns. This is complicated by events that may cause villages to rebel randomly if an unit is not stationed nearby.
Decapitate - A standard Wesnoth game. Kill the enemy general, although this is complicated by the fact that the player recruiting is typically limited.
Siege/Raze - The player must destroy X targets by stationing an unit in it for more than one turn. Stationing units in catapults will destroy castle walls - victory is achieved by the destruction of all objectives.
Establish - The player must move certain special units to an apropriate coordinate and protect them from enemy attacks. Each time a special unit(like an engineer) is moved to the coordinate, it is consumed and a piece of a castle is created. Once enough castle pieces are made, the scenario ends in victory. The player loses if too many engineers are killed in transit, or if the turn limit is exceeded.
Additional special scenarios are available if the player's general has enough skill in either POWER, SPEED or SUBTLETY for Conquest. If the player's POWER dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then the scenario isn't even played - it becomes an automatic victory as the enemy troops flee in terror. If the player's SPEED dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then he can opt to play the Blitz scenario, where he can win simply by capturing X villages within a certain timeframe. If the player's SUBTLETY dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then he can play the Divide and Conquer scenario, where the enemy is already engaged with a secondary foe.
I do realize that this could /greatly/ increase my workload and time needed for the campaign, even if it is possible. But ambition is rarely a bad thing and certainly I feel that these are good ideas well worth preserving if nothing else.
I can assure you that I don't have any goals now to do the artwork for it - I know what I can and can't do. Art will be one of those things that will remain in the can't zone for a bit longer. I plan to either beg for art, or more likely, given my tastes and attitude, hire an artist.
What I can do, however, is to develop a compelling storyline and compelling dialogue. It does seem that after all my doubts and concerns, I am more of a writer than not of one in spite of my consistent fears of my own ability. Practice does lead to perfection, as they say, but there is another aspect which that quote forgets:
Practice leads to tolerance and patience.
One thing which I wanted to do for the Imperial campaign would be that a number of the scenarios should be procedurally generated from a random list. For example, an invasion into a province would require two random battle types followed by one storyline battle. For example, it would pick from the CONQUEST list:
Conquest Battle Scenarios
Take and Hold - The player must capture and hold X villages on the map from the enemy for over X number of turns. This is complicated by events that may cause villages to rebel randomly if an unit is not stationed nearby.
Decapitate - A standard Wesnoth game. Kill the enemy general, although this is complicated by the fact that the player recruiting is typically limited.
Siege/Raze - The player must destroy X targets by stationing an unit in it for more than one turn. Stationing units in catapults will destroy castle walls - victory is achieved by the destruction of all objectives.
Establish - The player must move certain special units to an apropriate coordinate and protect them from enemy attacks. Each time a special unit(like an engineer) is moved to the coordinate, it is consumed and a piece of a castle is created. Once enough castle pieces are made, the scenario ends in victory. The player loses if too many engineers are killed in transit, or if the turn limit is exceeded.
Additional special scenarios are available if the player's general has enough skill in either POWER, SPEED or SUBTLETY for Conquest. If the player's POWER dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then the scenario isn't even played - it becomes an automatic victory as the enemy troops flee in terror. If the player's SPEED dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then he can opt to play the Blitz scenario, where he can win simply by capturing X villages within a certain timeframe. If the player's SUBTLETY dice roll greatly exceeds his opponent's, then he can play the Divide and Conquer scenario, where the enemy is already engaged with a secondary foe.
I do realize that this could /greatly/ increase my workload and time needed for the campaign, even if it is possible. But ambition is rarely a bad thing and certainly I feel that these are good ideas well worth preserving if nothing else.
Saturday, 19 May 2007
Day Three: Horse-struck
The first two days starting on the Darklands faction appears to have started with a bang, but since my projects have a tendancy to ground themselves into a halt if I don't make regular forward progress, I'm starting this blog to record my journey as I build the Darklands faction for Wesnoth.
The first two days have been surprisingly rewarding given my lack of sprite knowledge. I've focused on art for the first time in my life and was able to produce a passable vampire lord and a much more satisfying spearman that I've decided to use as the unit sprite for the Nightguard in the faction. I'm still proud of how well he turned out:
Even the shadow turned out to be cooperative, though that probably is the result of my creative intepretation. It looks like now that he's holding his spear a bit backward, as if defending himself from an attack. It could easily fit in a defense frame.
Today, though, I find that my lack of artistic knowledge is becoming a serious problem. While creative borrowing from other unit artwork(known as frakensteining), lots of color scheme changes and the occasional bit of lineart has allowed my Nightguard and Vampire Prince to stand out as unique, such as not been so with my Heavy Cavalry. No amount of image manipulatory magick is going to excuse my inability to draw anything unique for it.
Here's what I have so far.
More or less unshaded, of course, thus the horrible lack of texturing. The horse itself is borrowed from the committed in-game artwork for the Lancer itself, being an excellent image for a charger.
Some brutal butchery later(both artworkwise and against the poor Lancer himself, har, har), the rider was removed and left me with the hindquarters and front of horse. So about an hour of experimentation on shadowy and equine shapes(and heavily relying on Shadow/Wayfarer's excellent equine examples here), I managed my initial riderless horse with a horrible bit of shading.
Clearly during some point in my editing, the horse became a dark grey. That fits into my Darkland theme, so no major complaints. Now since this is supposed to be heavy cavalry, the horse needs horse-armor, or barding. Medieval equine protection not being my baliff, I turn to my eternal ally in Google and find a few examples immediately.
From History of Horse Bards and Tacks, this is supposed a very famous example of a horse bard. Its not too far from what I am looking for. Its very, very stylized, but it have some very cool aspects if I could pull it off(especially the armor's device over the horse's head) and gives me some basic specifications for the horse's facial armor(the champron, I would learn). It certainly helps that the barding is dark in color, fitting in neatly with my general color scheme.
So, now applying my very limited drawing skills, I manage a basic covering with brushed metal. I grimance and remind myself that it'll look better when I get to shading it.
My horse is now blind, but still not very protected. The entire neck and chest is exposed and incredibly vulnerable. Since I've managed to mock up a chain mail appearance for my Nightguard, I try the same for my horse. So after another hour of pixeling and Australian pop girls blaring into my headset...
Of course, I learn now from Wikipedia: Barding that a horse's neck armor(also known as "criniere") was actually made of segmented plate. Well, that's just too bad, since I don't feel capable of drawing plate. I imagine that since my chainmail is unshaded, I can always do the segmented plates later on and layer them on top of the chainmail.
I'm still not sure what to do about the horse's hindquarters, so I decide to do a frakenstein from the commited in-game unit, the Grand Knight, and take part of the drapery over the horse. Its apparently called a caparison, proving that everything I ever need to learn in life comes from wikipedia. And kindergarden.
This is what I get.
Well, horrible since its a cut & paste job, but it does have potential if I radically remake the caparison into another color and probably another design. Perhaps bone-white with stylized designs? I'm not sure that I'm good enough to actually draw it, but at least there's something for me to work toward.
Anyway, I'm pretty much stuck for the moment. I either need to develop better artistic skills, or work on the rider instead. Since sudden improvement isn't yet appearing on the horizon, I think I'll bang my head against the rider tomorrow.
The first two days have been surprisingly rewarding given my lack of sprite knowledge. I've focused on art for the first time in my life and was able to produce a passable vampire lord and a much more satisfying spearman that I've decided to use as the unit sprite for the Nightguard in the faction. I'm still proud of how well he turned out:
Even the shadow turned out to be cooperative, though that probably is the result of my creative intepretation. It looks like now that he's holding his spear a bit backward, as if defending himself from an attack. It could easily fit in a defense frame.
Today, though, I find that my lack of artistic knowledge is becoming a serious problem. While creative borrowing from other unit artwork(known as frakensteining), lots of color scheme changes and the occasional bit of lineart has allowed my Nightguard and Vampire Prince to stand out as unique, such as not been so with my Heavy Cavalry. No amount of image manipulatory magick is going to excuse my inability to draw anything unique for it.
Here's what I have so far.
More or less unshaded, of course, thus the horrible lack of texturing. The horse itself is borrowed from the committed in-game artwork for the Lancer itself, being an excellent image for a charger.
Some brutal butchery later(both artworkwise and against the poor Lancer himself, har, har), the rider was removed and left me with the hindquarters and front of horse. So about an hour of experimentation on shadowy and equine shapes(and heavily relying on Shadow/Wayfarer's excellent equine examples here), I managed my initial riderless horse with a horrible bit of shading.
Clearly during some point in my editing, the horse became a dark grey. That fits into my Darkland theme, so no major complaints. Now since this is supposed to be heavy cavalry, the horse needs horse-armor, or barding. Medieval equine protection not being my baliff, I turn to my eternal ally in Google and find a few examples immediately.
From History of Horse Bards and Tacks, this is supposed a very famous example of a horse bard. Its not too far from what I am looking for. Its very, very stylized, but it have some very cool aspects if I could pull it off(especially the armor's device over the horse's head) and gives me some basic specifications for the horse's facial armor(the champron, I would learn). It certainly helps that the barding is dark in color, fitting in neatly with my general color scheme.
So, now applying my very limited drawing skills, I manage a basic covering with brushed metal. I grimance and remind myself that it'll look better when I get to shading it.
My horse is now blind, but still not very protected. The entire neck and chest is exposed and incredibly vulnerable. Since I've managed to mock up a chain mail appearance for my Nightguard, I try the same for my horse. So after another hour of pixeling and Australian pop girls blaring into my headset...
Of course, I learn now from Wikipedia: Barding that a horse's neck armor(also known as "criniere") was actually made of segmented plate. Well, that's just too bad, since I don't feel capable of drawing plate. I imagine that since my chainmail is unshaded, I can always do the segmented plates later on and layer them on top of the chainmail.
I'm still not sure what to do about the horse's hindquarters, so I decide to do a frakenstein from the commited in-game unit, the Grand Knight, and take part of the drapery over the horse. Its apparently called a caparison, proving that everything I ever need to learn in life comes from wikipedia. And kindergarden.
This is what I get.
Well, horrible since its a cut & paste job, but it does have potential if I radically remake the caparison into another color and probably another design. Perhaps bone-white with stylized designs? I'm not sure that I'm good enough to actually draw it, but at least there's something for me to work toward.
Anyway, I'm pretty much stuck for the moment. I either need to develop better artistic skills, or work on the rider instead. Since sudden improvement isn't yet appearing on the horizon, I think I'll bang my head against the rider tomorrow.
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