Then, as most ideas do, it sat on my hard-drive for over 6 months gathering dust.
2 of the many things that happened during our trip to Tivoli in December were Leander being given the job of getting more members of the team to post on this blog, and myself being filled with a sudden and irresistible urge to make this game a reality. So here we are.
Tactinomicon (a name given to the game about 2 hours after I started work on it, at the request of Chris who needed something to call it in our source control system) is, as I said, a Tactical RPG. If you are familiar with Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. It uses a turn-based combat system set on a hexagonal grid (because hexagons are far cooler than squares), and tasks you with wiping out a team of enemy characters before they do the same to you.
Of course, while at the time I considered the concept fully formed, in the 2 weeks or so I’ve been working on it I’ve expanded some ideas, refined others and dropped some altogether. Here’s a screenshot.
Behold the glory of my temporary prototype graphics! Since it might not be immediately obvious what’s going on: the circles represent characters on opposing teams. The red dot at the top is casting a Fireball spell (clichés are awesome) at the blue dot; yellow tiles represent the range of the spell and the red tiles mark the area that the Fireball will hit.
Thanks to the established library of tools we have at Introversion, I was able to get this up and running very quickly without having to worry about details like creating application windows and setting up renderers and all those other things that would normally need to be done before you can actually do any of the fun stuff. It has been quite a good learning experience for me too; this is the first time I’ve started any serious project basically from scratch before, and it has been an interesting challenge deciding which part of the game I should work on next. Unfortunately, I’ve already realised that at least 2 of the systems I’ve implemented are going to stop working when I switch the game from the flat 2d view you see in the screenshot to an isometric one, and will have to be re-coded, but that’s all part of the learning experience too – now I know to plan ahead for things like that.
As far as prototypes go, it’s pretty close to being playable. Those characters are able to fight and kill each other (and thanks to it’s turn-based nature, you could even do hot-seat multiplayer), and new abilities and equipment can easily be added via a few lines in a text file, allowing me to quickly increase the range of tactical choices from a melee attack or a ranged spell to something more akin to the selection you would expect from such a game. Once I get some kind of AI in place, the game will basically be at the end of its prototype stage (and it might even be fun to play, too).
The biggest hurdle is going to be getting far enough into the project that I’ve invested enough time and effort to make me want to continue before staring at a grey grid, and the complete lack of artistic assets to make it look more interesting, drive me insane.
I guess only time will tell.
