Backstory

[nczempin]

While this game technically doesn't need a story, it wouldn't hurt to have some kind of simple background story motivating the mayhem that happens in this game ;-)

We could use it to keep the assets consistent, and we could even have some text to show to the player at appropriate moments.

[nczempin]

For now I think it's sufficient to write a quarter of to to half a page that we can show during the introduction (we need to remember to lengthen the timeout so the text can actually be read).

Once we have proper levels they can each progress the story somehow. Ideally we would have different tilesets, i. e. "invasions" in different places of our home world or whatever.

But for now, given the art assets, I think we can just start out with very limited, tutorial-style levels, in which you have only 1 opponent and can place just 1 tower, and then progress to all the assets, i. e. the sort of complexity we have as our level 1 right now. And then we can only make it bigger for now.

[Mjeno]

Hey, guys! I'm sorry I didn't do this earlier, but here it is, my first idea of what the intro text could look like:

"Commander! Can you hear me? This is Station Alpha Z-031 on Mining Colony Monaco XII. We are under siege. I repeat: We are under siege. The colony is being attacked by a massive fleet of alien ships. Requesting immediate backup. Enter the planet’s orbit and deploy defensive structures from the mother ship. We don’t have much time. Other stations are sending out distress calls as well. Please save us."

I know it isn't exactly a "backstory", but, as mentioned above, this game doesn't really need one. Here's what I tried to accomplish writing this short paragraph:

• NOT overwhelm the player with a lot of technobabble and meaningless names of alien races etc.
• start in medias res
• keep it short and simple
• give meaning to the players' actions (saving lives)
• noticing the blurred vision and lines that make the player's view on the scene look like a computer screen: address the interface explicitly (that is: you're on the mothership looking down on the planet's surface via camera; I thought this should definitely create immersion)

If, of course, you guys have any remarks or propositions or if you wanted me to write something entirely different, just let me know!

Regarding the progressing story between the levels: I first have to know what our possibilities are regarding sprites, backgrounds etc., so I can write something according to the changing settings respectively.

[nczempin]

Sounds good! It is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

The camera thing is definitely something we should expand on; not sure if you've seen issues #37, #65 and #66.

We could even adapt the menu items to let everything be more immersive; so we're not a player playing a game, but a commander saving lives from e. g. a mothership.

We should also include some very_subtle inside jokes on "mining colony Monaco", perhaps using some real Munich towers as names for equipment, or something like that.

[nczempin]

So for now, we can immediately expand on this idea to provide more immersive texts for "game over" and "stage clear", as well as for the "mission selection" screen.

[Mjeno]

Yessir! I'm glad you like my ideas and I hope the rest of the team does, too. I'll post the demanded texts tonight and also comment on the other issues.

[nczempin]

Some more thoughts on "ship in orbit" vs. "ship at a distance, just sending commands":

When our ship is only the command mechanism, it is easy to justify having levels with limited control/towers: Initially the interference is so strong that we may only watch a base getting destroyed, and piece by piece we can bring more systems online / construct different tower types.

[Mjeno]

As has been said in the other thread: The ship is actually far away from the planet and observes the scenario via satellites in the orbit. That way, it saves different bases throughout the game. (I don't think we have to justify "going back in time" to redo a previously completed mission. I don't know any game that does. Plus, we don't justify the possibility to replay failed missions either. 😉 ) I'll wait for more details on the other levels before writing anything about them. I can, however, already start writing texts for the "game over" and "stage clear" screens. I thought that, instead of relying on meta-comments like "You win! All the alien ships have been destroyed", we should again use an in-game voice, e.g. "Thank you so much! I think that was all of them".

[nczempin]

yes, in-game

[nczempin]

or "in-universe" as they like to call what you shouldn't do on Wikipedia.

[nczempin]

My biggest headache is issue #13: What to do when the player completely blocks the path of the alien ships. The simple solution would be to simply disallow it, it would just require some calculation. That is the way Sanctum does it.

I want to generally allow it, but make it a really costly gameplay choice. So if you block the path that may very well mean the aliens can't reach the base for now, but it should come with some penalty, such as a really strong tower-destroyer that enters the map only in those instances, or the towers no longer blocking any aliens after a while.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I would like a good justification for this gameplay element, so I'm giving you a head start on ideas ;-)

[nczempin]

Also, feel free to add "colour text" for the general description of the game, for example on these project pages, as well as on the web page or places like this: http://www.indiedb.com/games/turres-monacorum

[Mjeno]

I had the idea of writing several "game over" texts, one of which we can display randomly each time, in order to make the game world more vivid:

• "Please come in! We cannot… They've broken through the last barrier! Please…!"
• "Oh, no! They're coming – we must evacuate now! Hurry up, open the – aaaargh!"
• "What is happening up there? A ship just made it into the… oh my god… they're everywhere!"
• "Please do something! We retreated as far as possible, but I can hear them coming. They – "
• "We need more help here! I don't think the building can take much more of this. They're… they're coming in! Run! Everybo –"

Please tell me if you think the concept of having different ending texts is cool. If so, I will make more of them. If we do the voice acting thing, we could cut off each transmission by white noise.

Well – same thing for the "stage clear" screens:

• "Thank you so much for your help. I can't see or hear any more of them out there."
• "… is this is? Have we made it? I… I think, we made it! Thank you so much, commander!"
• "Can you hear me up there? I believe it's over. Thank you so much. Please – save the others now!"
• "This was intense. We're all in your debt."
• "I really thought this was the end. Thank you so much. Please go and save our comrades now!"

(Attention, programmers: all the hyphens and the dot-dot-dots were made using ALT+- and ALT+. (on a Mac) – they tend to disappear when copy-pasting the text. Also, I don't think you should copy the quotation marks.)

I don't understand where the "mission selection" text is supposed to appear. What do you have in mind?

Concerning the option of blocking creeps out with towers: If you can handle all the extra work, just go ahead. As soon as the mechanic is in place, I'm sure I'll find a fitting explanation. Otherwise: The way the problem was handled in Sanctum didn't bother me personally.

[Mjeno]

Oh, yeah – here's a possible description text for IndieDB (and anywhere else):

"It's the year 50398. Humans and alien races are competing for the last inhabitable galaxies and their resources. As the commander-in-chief of a human military spaceship, you patrol the universe to provide help where ever there is needed. In a usually quiet sector, you receive a desperate distress call from a nearby mining colony…
TURRES MONACORUM is a top-down Tower Defense game that comes with a unique interface, a coherent game world and many audio-visual extras you just don't expect from your average TD game – give it a try!"

… but I wouldn't add the second part before we all agree it's true. ;)

[nczempin]

Yes, I would personally shy away from marketing speak :-P

For now I'll just take the in-universe description and add it before the meta-text that we already have.

[nczempin]

"mission selection" is the map overview that appears when you click "start". You get a button for each selectable mission; when you mouseover one of them you get a description.

We could also put a [changing depending on your progress?] message right here on the screen.

"mission briefing" appears laid over the level map before each game starts; you can see the whole map if it's small, part of it (centered on the base) when it's too big for your screen/resolution. There's an "ok" button, when you click on it, the countdown starts and then the game starts.

[nczempin]

Regarding the "mission debriefing" texts (either "game over" or "well done" depending on your results), it's fine to use random ones initially.

Later on I would "delegate" the random ones to later ones, if/when we have an infinite campaign.
For the tutorial for sure and most likely for parts of the regular campaign I would like to have specific ones that reference the particular scenario. But I'm guessing that we'll run out of specific ones eventually and should use generic ones as a fallback.

They need to be really good, because eventually the player will hear the same ones over and over again ;-)

[nczempin]

I think there is no particular reason for us to be on a military ship; it would add to the urgency IMHO if we were just a civilian ship that happens to be in the area, and that happens to be able to control the various bases tower building facilities; those towers normally being used for mining purposes.

[nczempin]

We also need some justification as to why the mining bases can't defend themselves without us. We could tie this in with the aliens using some kind of interference to paralyse their control systems. Unfortunately for them they weren't expecting that tiny maintenance ship (or whatever we are) to be in the vicinity.

[nczempin]

The classic cliché is that there was peace [which is why the colonies aren't really able to defend themselves] and the aliens did a backstabbing attack.

Or perhaps we hadn't even been aware of any aliens, and their attack on our mining outpost is the first time we ever hear of them. Then we can gradually learn more about them as the game goes on.

Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding, but it's too late now?

[Mjeno]

I'm sorry I haven't posted here for a week, but now I'm back for good.

I agree, it doesn't have to be a military ship. I'll change that. The misunderstanding-thing is something I also had in mind, but maybe we should reveal it at the end of the game. The peace-and-war-cliché was my first approach, but then I chose something less straightforward: a complex conflict, rather a collective run for resources than an openly declared war. The alien attack on the mining planet is definitely meant to be sneaky and unsuspected. Maybe that's already too complicated, but I left the description text a little vague to explore the story in detail as the player progresses. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, could you maybe tell me (as soon as that is possible):

• how many levels there are going to be,
• which themes and styles those levels are going to have and
• which other texts we are going to need, besides the opening, ending and level transition texts.

Once I have this information, I can write everything at once, into one document. This way, it will be much easier to criticize and change particular things. Would that be okay?

[nczempin]

Sure, I'll try to summarize what we know for now:

• There will be a set of "designed" levels, including a tutorial (that I've started working on)
• We're envisioning a sort of "infinite levels" scheme, in which the levels are (pseudo-)randomly generated, see issue infinite game mode #131
• Regarding the themes and styles, we are currently very much limited what we have, perhaps making variations on these themes. I don't think the original artists have the time to provide significantly more assets any time soon. Of course, if we find someone who would be willing to provide more graphics, that would be fine. While I would like to spend some time learning some basics myself, it would be unrealistic for me to provide significantly different settings to those we currently have (but I'm definitely planning to have more variety within the setting we have right now: More enemies, more towers, more landscape/critters/doodads).
  But in principle I would be very open to extending the basic gameplay to new themes. It would be fine for you to come up with ideas for these and let them guide creation of future assets.

It would be best if we could discuss some of these things face-to-face, but unfortunately I will not be able to attend any Munich Indie Stammtisches for the foreseeable future. I will occasionally be in Munich on weekends, but I will spend most of that time with my kids. Maybe we can meet via Skype/Hangouts.

I've provided some story sketches for the tutorial, and I would like to extend this tutorial: At the GameCamp vernissage it turned out that despite the generic setting "sci fi tower defense", people didn't know what to do. So I'm collecting the ideas for a better tutorial in issue #137. This tutorial should be an integral part of the story, basically introduce all the gameplay elements and all the setting. It will probably focus on a single mining camp (mostly stable level layout throughout the tutorial) The "main campaign" can then take the story into more or less arbitrary directions.

[Mjeno]

Alright. I can write a storyline, consisting of
– short texts introducing the respective levels (including new settings) and
– short texts at the end of the respective levels (when the player succeeds).
But one more thing before I begin (and please be honest): Is this project still happening? Are you sure you will finish the code, implement my story and be able to provide the art assets it requires? If you aren't, that's totally fine, but I'm not so excited about writing a story until I'm more or less certain I'm not doing it for nothing. 😉 So please tell me: Who is still actively involved in this project? And is this enough to finish it (any time soon)? I'd love to see a complete version of this game, but it sure is quiet around this github project…

[nczempin]

As you can see from the commits, primarily it's me who is active in this project. I have started a new job in Zürich on Monday last week, so I've been a little busy with other things. There was a flurry of activity before version 0.7, which we showed at the GameCamp Vernissage, and things have quietened down a little.

I am trying to stick to the milestones, which currently envision a version 1.0 for August, but I'll have to see how it all fits into my new situation. Do have a look at them and their issues to get a feel for the current road map, and feel free to add your own items (especially if there are certain prerequisite for any of your contributions)..

I cannot make any judgments about any future art assets, but if necessary I will make my own.

Anyone is welcome to contribute, but I doubt that anyone else is currently planning to match my level of contributions. I don't mind either way.

You shouldn't make your contributions dependent on when/if this project will reach any particular level; if you contribute something I will do my best to assist you to get them into the game, as much as possible (art assets may take a while longer if I have to do them myself). But to stay realistic you should stick close to what is currently there; if you invest a huge effort into things that have requirements that are currently not even scheduled for 1.0 you may be disappointed (unless you want to help out with any of the other contributions, such as code or art).

So the safest route for you would be to wait until it is foreseeable that there are actually e. g. dummy story elements that you could improve on.

You're also welcome to design a level or two as a first step into the more technical side of this project (based on your feedback I can make it more useful; for now I am my only "customer").

[nczempin]

Also, I'm not sure what you're using as the basis for "activity on this project", but make sure that you don't just look at the master branch; here you can see where the actual work is happening: https://github.com/nczempin/Turres-Monacorum/branches. For example, there was some serious activity here: https://github.com/nczempin/Turres-Monacorum/commits/feature/issue/%23120_selectively_disable_functionalities_for_tutorials last week (which is after I'd started my new job), but it hasn't been merged into the develop branch yet (nor have I made a new release yet).

[Mjeno]

Thanks a lot for your replies! I think I'm going to stick to the setting we are currently working with and also try and delve into level design. We can start from there and see if we want to create new settings (and which ones).

I could ask one or two artistic friends of mine if they want to create a few assets. Is there something specific we need at this point?

[nczempin]

Well, for in-game we would need more towers and more enemies. Just check the existing issues.

Some explosion animations would also be great; one we could use right now would be the main base.

Other than that, any improvements to the menus, hud, credits etc. would be greatly appreciated, even some promotional art for e.g. indiedb would be nice.

The most pressing, if your friends have the resources, would be to convert the .max files into .3ds or .obj.

Later on towers should become upgradeable. I'm also toying with the idea of having little guys running around in some capacity (repairing? fighting?) but that can wait.

There is an issue for creating "info database" entries for the enemies and towers, they could show blueprints and data; the 3d models can be used to create some simple animations