I'm not working as I should on Azaria lately. Maybe because I'm getting too anxious about my moving out to London in the next 15 days or maybe because I'm just too lazy (probably the later) and just keeping procrastinating. The thing is, Azaria now is going quite slow.
Also I may point that I want to change a few things both in mechanics and plot. A change in plot would be overwhelming for me. I can't just rework everything now. What is decided must be done before any change can dream in try to take place. Which also is keeping a few updates in events, probably a total re-write of it, at bay. But let's talk about mechanics:
Since the begging, I merged an old idea of character attributes into Azaria, which also brought a whole lot of classes/professions. The attributes itself where divide into four categories with 2 aspects each as follow:
- Strength
- Power: The raw physical strength, how much damage you inflict
- Resistance: Your defenses against blows and poison
- Dexterity
- Quickness: How fast you move/attack
- Precision: How precise your attacks are
- Intelligence
- Intellect: The by-book source of intelligence, the ability to think (affects a few magic sources)
- Cunning: The street-wise intelligence, the fast-thinking according to situation
- Expression
- Charm: How charming you are, how you affect people and animals (and magic)
- Fear: Your fearsome aspects (affects people and animals)
In math terms, you have 13 free points to place into the four categories and 4 to put into aspects. You can choose only one aspect to upgrade. Once you choose Power, you may never put points in Resistance. But for every two points over the base category you get one in the second.
(For now, we are very far from this. That is just a basic 3 points in each category (a total of only 12) and you have additions based on available class (Soldier, Thug and Druid)
The idea is that, whenever you are getting stronger by dealing blows, you also got stronger into receiving they. Whenever you became quicker you also get slowly more accurate. Whenever in get more intellect you learn a little of how fast-think, whenever you improve your social skills, people will also start to fear you because the effect you have on day.
Of course, the other way around as well. A feared person may inflict a certain kind of charm over people, in a way, inspire they. As you learn in the streets, your overall intelligence will also increase, as you got accurate you may became faster in that and as you become stronger and resistant you also become stronger in hitting people.
Now, I'm not sure if I will keep this anymore. Neither the amount of professions available.
I may keep the attributes at least and have just a few basic, one for each basic category, classes.
Maybe something like:
Soldier/Knight/Warrior equivalent to Strength
Thief for Dexterity
Wizard/Cleric for Intelligence
Sorcerer/Druid for Expression
And I'm not happy with it either.
Well, as of the on-goings of Azaria, I'm still filling the scenery, the outside first. A few that will be triggered by events and so on. But as a major, the around-the-city walk.
Later is time for the builds, that is a lot more work. If I'm at over 80% of street related work, I'm not at 20% of all the text.
It is the damn thing of starting with 3 plot at once. Ok, it is still a way better than starting with the whole 27, but you know, it still a lot of work.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
Tuesday, 25 September 2012
Welcome to AZARIA
"Be welcome to The White Jewel of The Great Mountains of Arake, The Chasm of Luck, The City of New Beginnings, THE MIGHTY AZARIA..."
For some time now, a few weeks actually, just little more than a month, I've been working in a 'sort of kind of text based game'.
Back in the beginning, August 18, I started the very first sketch of what is today something barely playable. I don't actually remember what came first, if it was the name of AZARIA, or the desire in making a sort of game hugely inspired in those old Fighting Fantasy games (the name Ian Livingstone came easily in my mind).
What I know is that after I started I did a small research: mainly a look in the 'first page of google search results' and found nothing interesting. I did found a few online play-by-browser games, but they where just a copy and paste of the old game books.
The thing I have in mind, is a bit different:
You do arrive in city and walk around through scenes. But instead of going to the 'entry number 28 if you grab the necklace or move back to 254 if you forgot it', I want to give you options based on what you have done already. If you have the damn necklace, fine, you have a option to go/do/talk something different, if not, sorry, the only option is the basic one.
Also in this dynamism are the combat system. If you fought the guy blocking the bridge and won, he won't be there if you leave and back again latter, but his fellow could now occupy his place instead.
This is not very easy and not that much difficult. The hard part is just figure out how I want the data to be stored/managed/displayed, and I changed that a few times already.
A second point I have in mind is to have different classes, fighters, thieves, mages, and so on... For now, anything magic is just, well, far in the horizon. But I made the character 'sheet' able to receive that.
The whole character sheet is part of another 'project'. Something totally unrelated to Azaria. I will speak about mechanics in another post.
Well, as I told up here, I don't know if it was the wish or the name who came first. And I really don't care. The name, Azaria, came just out of nowhere. One might think that is related to the Portuguese word 'azar', which means bad-luck.
A river named Azar and a castle of same name will drive one thought to this. But no, first I came with Azaria. Then I began to code and write the very first scenes: the roads, the market and a river. I came with the idea that Azaria should have a river, complete with merchant ships, even being a city locate in the 'Great Mountains of Arake'. The name of the river was the city name shortened, so 'Azaria' - 'ia' = 'Azar'. The castle later just get the river's name.
To give another example of the randomness of the name, the Mountain Range suffer from the same illness: As I was writing the very first entry I just wrote: 'Após atravessar as trilhas das Grandes Montanhas de Araque...'
Now, I changed Araque (a Portuguese word meaning 'Bogus') to Arake and stick with that.
But don't be fooled by what I'm saying here, even if 'azar' (bad luck) didn't being the origin, I do used it a lot, really, a lot. To the point that you have a chance of just fall to death while crossing a unprotected bridge.
Well, the 'game' (a very ALPHA type of game, you've been warned) can be download here: http://cavanholi.github.com/azaria
It is made with python, the very basic of it, so you will need it installed before trying.
You may check the github repository and readme file to updates: http://github.com/cavanholi/azaria#readme
For some time now, a few weeks actually, just little more than a month, I've been working in a 'sort of kind of text based game'.
Back in the beginning, August 18, I started the very first sketch of what is today something barely playable. I don't actually remember what came first, if it was the name of AZARIA, or the desire in making a sort of game hugely inspired in those old Fighting Fantasy games (the name Ian Livingstone came easily in my mind).
What I know is that after I started I did a small research: mainly a look in the 'first page of google search results' and found nothing interesting. I did found a few online play-by-browser games, but they where just a copy and paste of the old game books.
The thing I have in mind, is a bit different:
You do arrive in city and walk around through scenes. But instead of going to the 'entry number 28 if you grab the necklace or move back to 254 if you forgot it', I want to give you options based on what you have done already. If you have the damn necklace, fine, you have a option to go/do/talk something different, if not, sorry, the only option is the basic one.
Also in this dynamism are the combat system. If you fought the guy blocking the bridge and won, he won't be there if you leave and back again latter, but his fellow could now occupy his place instead.
This is not very easy and not that much difficult. The hard part is just figure out how I want the data to be stored/managed/displayed, and I changed that a few times already.
A second point I have in mind is to have different classes, fighters, thieves, mages, and so on... For now, anything magic is just, well, far in the horizon. But I made the character 'sheet' able to receive that.
The whole character sheet is part of another 'project'. Something totally unrelated to Azaria. I will speak about mechanics in another post.
Well, as I told up here, I don't know if it was the wish or the name who came first. And I really don't care. The name, Azaria, came just out of nowhere. One might think that is related to the Portuguese word 'azar', which means bad-luck.
A river named Azar and a castle of same name will drive one thought to this. But no, first I came with Azaria. Then I began to code and write the very first scenes: the roads, the market and a river. I came with the idea that Azaria should have a river, complete with merchant ships, even being a city locate in the 'Great Mountains of Arake'. The name of the river was the city name shortened, so 'Azaria' - 'ia' = 'Azar'. The castle later just get the river's name.
To give another example of the randomness of the name, the Mountain Range suffer from the same illness: As I was writing the very first entry I just wrote: 'Após atravessar as trilhas das Grandes Montanhas de Araque...'
Now, I changed Araque (a Portuguese word meaning 'Bogus') to Arake and stick with that.
But don't be fooled by what I'm saying here, even if 'azar' (bad luck) didn't being the origin, I do used it a lot, really, a lot. To the point that you have a chance of just fall to death while crossing a unprotected bridge.
Well, the 'game' (a very ALPHA type of game, you've been warned) can be download here: http://cavanholi.github.com/azaria
It is made with python, the very basic of it, so you will need it installed before trying.
You may check the github repository and readme file to updates: http://github.com/cavanholi/azaria#readme
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