Frayed Knights Dev Diary: Emergency Redesign
I sit scowling and fuming at my computer, arms folded, my watch silently ticking the seconds away as I grapple with the the situation.

Two strikes.

Code Woes
First off, in a fit of hopeful optimism, I purchased the ArcaneFX content and code pack. It is built on top of version 1.52 of the Torque Game Engine, which is about .12 versions higher than what I'm working with. Wanting to take advantage of the 1.52 codebase changes ANYWAY, I began attempting to merge this with the latest version of the Torque Game Builder, as Frayed Knights uses a merged codebase of both (currently TGE 1.4 and TGB 1.1.2).

No such luck. Even with the notes I'd taken from the last time I'd done the merge, after about two-and-a-half hours of effort, I realized it wasn't going to happen. At least not with a reasonable amount of effort. The Torque Game Builder has no diverged on its own evolutionary course, no longer tied to TGE in any way, shape, or form except some past heritage.

There are, of course, always options. Merging an older version of TGB into the ArcaneFX code base. Or trying to merge the ArcaneFX changes (only) into my Frankensteinian TGB / TGE codebase. But for now, I've wasted nearly three hours of time. I've still got a game to write.

The Best-Laid Plans...
But I'd not yet wasted nearly enough time yet in Frayed Knights' development this week. The spell system for Frayed Knights, as designed in the ol' design document, was very sophisticated and open-ended enough for a much more generic RPG. It allowed a bunch of specialization for magic-users, with spells requiring different levels of four "branches" of magic ... Shamanism, Sorcery, Mentalism, and Conjuration.

The complexity and depth of the system had four problems:

* It was going to be a pain to balance
* It was going to be a pain to implement
* Maintenance was going to be tricky.
* It was going to be hard for the player to understand.

Minor problems, all, I decided when designing it. The first three would be accomplished because I'm obviously such a freaking genius and programming whiz. And the latter? It didn't matter. I kept lying to myself. "Oh, this will be great!" I told myself. "The player will get USED to it. They'll figure it out eventually. They'll come to love it over time as they appreciate its depth."

After getting much of the system implemented, it finally occured to me.

"This is crap!"

I can't even say it looked really good on paper. I had things sketched out in the design document, but as I was updating things as I fleshed out details, it was clear that even if the magic system I'd devised might be worthy in some kind of RPG, Frayed Knights was not that RPG. Frayed Knights is about making with the funny with a classic RPG system. Proving, in a way, that it's not about the game system, it's about the game. The story, the style, the personality.

The player controls four characters (on the average). Only one of them uses the deep (complicated) magic system. Is that really what I wanted?

"Whadayamean My Baby Is Ugly?"
And it went deeper. As I pondered ways of salvaging the system, I realized that much of the skill system was developed to support the magic system. Chloe (and all the NPC casters) had to somehow juggle at least four magical skills. So everyone else should have at least as many skills that they had to juggle that were important for their class... And then there were the "utility" skills that everyone should share... All stuff to mix it up to make sure there was plenty of customization in the game, so Chloe wouldn't stand out as a really odd case...

And then there was the advice DGM gave me in a forum post... about how the leveling-up system was coming off as sounding a little overly complicated.

I pulled the design document open again, and began poking around there.

It is time to revisit the game system. Yes, the one I've been planning and plotting about for months. The one that I've already got much code written for.

Going Forward
Okay. The wallowing in self-pity took a few more hours. Due to time pressures (I am STILL trying to hit my July 31 deadline of having the "first five minutes" completely playable... that's like 12 days away), I can't afford to stew very long. So I gotta get things back on track fast. Retrench, redesign, and replace.

It's gonna be a long night...


(Vaguely) Related Stuff About... Stuff
* Frayed Knights: Characteristics and Task Resolution
* Frayed Knights: Getting Around In The World
* Ways to Be A Better Game Designer
* The First Playable "Level"

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Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

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