To: aleona-devel@nongnu.org Subject: Proposal for continuing Aleona's Tales From: Ingo Ruhnke Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 12:57:40 +0200 Message-ID: <87n0fmbqe3.fsf@penpen.localdomain> User-Agent: Gnus/5.090018 (Oort Gnus v0.18) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) X-Draft-From: ("nnml+private:Aleona.Devel" "") --text follows this line-- Aleona's Tales is currently basically non existing, except that we have a webpage and a collection of ideas, but no code, no clear goal or anything. So I would suggest the following to get something done fast: * checkin all the old FcMP graphics into CVS, replace spaces and other funky characters while doing that (unless nobody volunteers I will do it, but I am a bit busy with other stuff, so it might not happen all that quickly) * create a very basic game design that works with Stratagus in its current stage, no engine modifications must be required or only if we can get them coordinated with a new release of Stratagus * implement the game design and do a release, announce project to happypenguin.org and friends, the release will not be the hugest game, but it should be enough to keep a player entertained for an hour or so (entertained as in having fun, not as in 'wasting more time installing this thing than playing it') My suggestion for the game design would be like this: * player controlls a group of farmers, the farm is there 'base' * player can't create new units, but new units will be spread over the map in the form of other farmers and there homes, player has to discover them to get more units * at later levels the soldier units might join the fight, again only as discoverable unit not as a buildable one * enemies of the farmers will be some kind of critter or orc creature or if none of them looks good enough, it will simply be another group of farmers * lots of sheep running around * final boss in the last level will be a dragon * farmers need to build a balista or multiple of them to defend the dragon, balista will be buildable in an inventors house, again not buildable but discoverable * one of the farmers could be a 'hero' be a bit more strength then the rest, etc. Story would be like this: For many years now the clan has been attacking and robing the farmers, steeling them there wealth that they had worked for. So far nobody had the courage to do anything against the clan and the king of Talimus wasn't really interested in this issue. The mighty dragon, which was a allied with the clan simply seemed to mighty to be defeat able by a lonly farmer and all those who tried have failed. But now the day has come that the farmers will unite and stand up against the dragon and the clan and defent there plague. Story will be told in normal mission briefings and cutscenes, maybe we can also get a few messages ingame, but not sure about that. So stuff that needs to be done would basically: * collect all the needed gfx from FcMP, probally paint/change them of them if necessary * collect sounds or record new * write a bunch of ccl's * create a handfull of missions Timeframe: Since most gfx and sounds should be already available, it should be relativly easy to create this thing, UI is also ready. All that would needed would be simply some .ccl and some missions to hold this thing together. A bunch of images for cutscenes and some sentences of story. So if a few people volunteer to help, it shouldn't take any longer than a month to get this thing done. Multiplayer: Maybe we could provide a few multiplayer missions which use only these units, but I don't consider multiplayer that important. The Big Picture: After all I think that starting with indepedent mini-games is the way to go for Aleona's Tales, as the past have shown cloning Warcraft2 will never really work and will not lead to really good looking result, beside that it will lead to legal throuble. So buying a Warcraft2-Cd for a few bucks and using Wargus is much more of a practical way to go for people who want to play Warcraft2 under GNU/Linux (Wine(X) might of course also be an option). Indepedent and finished minigames will provide the huge advantage of providing something worth for the player, while not being all that hard to develop. So in the end a set of minigames will provide more fun for the player then an in-complete half playable full-game. Minigames could also make optimal use of the available resources, while a full game would basically need to throw away lots of the gfx, since they are simply not useable in a single game. -- WWW: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/ Games: http://pingus.seul.org/~grumbel/gamedesigns/ JabberID: grumbel@jabber.org ICQ: 59461927