Frayed Knights: Ben Speaks, and Combat Tweaks
So here's my little weekly update of stuff from the development of Frayed Knights, the comedic indie computer RPG...

Continuing the weekly Frayed Knights interviews, here's an interview with Benjamin, the "Holy Man" of the Frayed Knights. This one was a little tricky, because I was still trying to "find" his voice. I still am. I imagine him kind of as a grad student in Berkeley circa 1969. Not that this narrows it down much.

Q: So do you go by "Benjamin" or "Ben?"
A: Either one is fine. I mean, I figure names are just labels, you know? We label each other, but what does the label really mean? Are we limiting each other by our names or stuff? If you call me, "Allen," does that change our relationship or your expectations?

Q: So, "Ben" works?
A: Uh, yeah, sure.

Q: So how did you come to join the Frayed Knights?
A: Oh, hey, don't call us that! Arianna gets really mad. We're supposed to be called... oh, uh... something else. I forget.

Q: So how did you come to join Arianna, Chloe, and Dirk?
A: They rescued me from a group of hobgoblins that had slaughtered the rest of my experimental arboriculture study group one night, but kept me around for my healing skills and my knowledge of recreational herbology. My soon-to-be companions would have killed me, too, but I explained to them that my loyalty to the hobgoblins was ... you know... strictly out of self-preservation. I think it was Chloe who convinced the rest of the group that I was alphabetically compatible, so they let me join them.

Q: And how long have you been with them?
A: Just a few weeks now. But man --- it's been a totally wild few weeks!

Q: So as the newcomer, what can you tell me about them?
A: Oh, they are really pretty cool to hang with, you know? Not at all like I expected. Except for the violence. Things do get pretty violent around them, which kinda freaks me out. But you grow up hearing all these stories about "adventurers" - and now here I am, one of them! And they aren't so bad once you get to know them. I mean, okay, there's the violence. And the mercenary attitude. And the danger. And it's not fun getting stabbed. Or poisoned. Or shot. Or cursed. But ... there's travel!

Q: What can you tell us about Chloe?
A: Chloe! Man, that girl is really out there. She's like... you know... always working on another plane of existence or something. Though that can be a problem, too, you know?

Q: What do you mean?
A: Okay, so there was this one time, like just a couple of days after I'd joined up. And we got in this fight with a hemp golem. Chloe's got this thing for really destructive spells. "Big booms," she calls them. And so we're in a fight with this thing, and Chloe just goes for a fire spell. Which I guess sounded like a good idea at the time... I mean, it worked. Turns out those things are really flammable. But then... oh, wait. I forgot - we all promised never to talk about that. Can you just pretend I didn't mention that?

Q: I have no problem with you pretending you didn't mention that. What can you tell us about Dirk?
A: Dirk... what can I say? He's... very skilled at what he does. Were it not for his ... uh... apparently diminished self-preservation instinct on an alarming level...

Q: What do you mean by 'diminished self-preservation instinct?'
A: He's crazy! Death-wish crazy. I mean, some people crack under pressure. Others seem to thrive it. Some might even crave it. Dirk... well, he seems to have developed an advanced addiction to it, you know?

Q: So you think he's attracted to risk?
A: Attracted? More like in a hot and sweaty love affair with. I just can't explain it, man. And he's supposed to be the cautious one! But if there is something dangerous to be done, he'll volunteer. He's very courageous. Which is fine and all... but I'm really not. But since he and the rest saved me from the hobgoblins, I guess I kinda owe him.

Q: Wow. Okay, how about Arianna? What can you tell us about her?
A: Do not get her mad.
Q: She's dangerous?
A: My first encounter with her, I witnessed her disembowel two hobgoblins.

Q: I see your point. Thank you, Ben, for your time.
A: Oh, hey, time is just time!

Frayed Knights Developments
The big event this last week was the demo at the Utah Indie Night. But with Halloween, a funeral, and the demo, I've not had as much time to work on the game as I'd like.

A couple of things I did get into the game was a "turn counter" and random encounters.

Taking Turns
Frayed Knights is a turn-based game. This was a deliberate decision by me to make a game that could be played without time pressure. There's no need to hit a pause key or anything if you are like me and have to deal with short, highly-interrupted game-playing times.

Except there was a little bit of a problem. Movement was kinda happening in real-time. It's smooth 3D. So I had to come up with a way to rectify that with the more turn-based nature of the rest of the game.

My solution was simply to accumulate movement and convert that to time passage. So if you stand around doing nothing, no time passes. Time only counts while you are in motion.

A Limited Supply of Unlimited Monsters
Once I had that in place, I added the dreaded "random encounter" checks. Every turn, there is a chance of a random encounter based upon your "subzone." A subzone is simply a section of the map. For example, the temple of Pokmor Xang is currently divided into three subzones - and may be divided into more by the time I'm done.

Now, I think there are perfectly valid reasons for random encounters. In fact, they are kind of critical to balancing out things like lockpicking attempts. But I have done something a little different. The chance of a random encounter is not static (or won't be, once I finish the code). As you slaughter creatures in an area / subzone, the chance of an encounter happening there decreases. You'll never entirely "clear out" the area, but you can drop the chance of it happening very low. As time (counted in turns) passes, the chance will slowly start to rise again back to its original value. So if you leave a dungeon alone long enough, the randomly-occurring bad guys will return.

But not the static, one-shot encounters. When those are done, they are done.

So now, as I wander through the dungeon, I get attacked by Brittlebone Skeletons and Pus Golems every once in a while.

Combat Tweaks
Running into wandering monsters would be all well and good *if* combat wasn't quite as tedious as it currently is. I spent a bunch of time working on a mathematical model for combat this week. I calculated a typical 4-on-4 encounter, the amount of time the player was expected to spend on each turn, the amount of time the AI would spend on their turns running their animations, the average amount of damage done per attack attempt (including miss percentage), the number of party members expected to attack each turn (defined as ten 'action segments' ... and one party member each turn is likely to be healing, buffing, de-buffing, or making some kind of special combat maneuver), and all that.

Armed with that knowledge and my extensive calculations, I decided to wing it.

Combat is still not quite there, but with some modifications last night, I think its getting better. One problem that I'm facing is that I "front-load" a lot of a characters' abilities and survivability into their starting attributes, and then increase these abilities marginally after that. This means a 3rd level character isn't automatically three times superior to a level 1 character. The Frayed Knights (who begin the game at level 3) going up against four level 1 Pus Golems are very likely to win with no losses, but it's not a trivial encounter.

So there's more tweaking necessary. And the combat UI is still garbage.

Cool Main Screen
This week, I also received the finished version of the title screen I commissioned. What do you think?


Anyway, that's it for this week! As always, have fun, and please let me know what you think. Your feedback has been VERY valuable and has helped me a ton.


(Vaguely) related dungeon deconstructionism:
* Frayed Knights: Interview With Chloe
* Wandering Monsters and Random Encounters
* Designing a Computer RPG Rule System
* Playing Frankenstein - 4 Tips For Designing Better Computer RPG Monsters

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Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

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