Pre-Christmas Update

I'm getting ready to nosedive into studying for finals, so development is likely to slow down a bit in the coming weeks.  Christmas vacation (if studying for finals counts as "vacation") may impair progress even further.  In the spirit of both Christmas and intellectual reflection, I thought now would be a good time to pause and look at where we are, and where we need to be going.


Where we Are
As of today, we have a very detailed story, which Kacey is transcribing into something more pleasing to read than a bunch of notes and IM logs.  The idea is to publish a history of the Project Orbit universe in periodic updates.  Eventually, this will be compiled into a single volume and published on the game's wiki in time for the first public release.

As much as we appreciate ninjas and robots, it's time
to throw our own models in the mix.

It may seem strange to put this much effort into a background story for an RTS game.  After all, strategy games with good stories are about a frequent as adult films with good plots.


But having an intuitive sense of the universe goes a long way towards understanding what the game is about, and what your units can do.  Labels, unit models, avatars, and voices are descriptive and guiding, but only if they stand on firm ground.  Kacey's work on the plot is to gameplay design as concept art is to 3D modelling.


Brian has shifted gears and is working on a model for a human infantryman.  Right now, all of our testing is being done with stock OGRE models.  As satisfying as it is to see game logic unfold, it all feels a bit pointless when the models and terrain are foreign-- it's like we're not really working on our own game.

We'll soon have our own models, at which point we'll post some screen shots and video clips of our progress.


Where we are Going
If I were to sum up our 6-month plan in a single phrase, it would be "steady as she goes."  Our first milestone is still to have our units on our terrain demonstrating basic movement.  Shortly thereafter, we'd like to see some simple combat animations and logic.  I originally made predicted that this milestone would be reached by the new year, but that's looking increasingly unlikely.  But not to worry!  We'll try to have it by Valentine's day so that you can show your girlfriend how awesome we are.


On a more technical level, this is where we are.  I've set up a very basic game engine which implements the Model View Controller design pattern via message passing.  Of course, I took a couple of shortcuts in order to take advantage of some handy features in the OGRE API.  For example, OGRE implements a buffered input system with callback functions being implemented directly in the game loop.  This is handy because it avoids having to publicly broadcast messages to all listeners when we know that only the player controller listener is interested in those messages.  So instead, we call the relevant member function directly from the game loop.



So as of 12/19/2011, progress continues and things generally seem to work again.


For a ragtag group of amateurs, this ain't bad...

Fallout from the Reddit Discussion

A few days ago I posted an overview of a discussion I had on reddit.  The question was simple:  what's wrong with RTS games and what can we do to fix it?
There were many long and well thought-out comments, which boil down to two things.

1. Many people like the design principles of Project Orbit
2. People are finding it difficult to get an exact idea of what our gamplay will be like.

This second point is entirely our fault.  It's hard to build on shifting ground, and we've spent a lot of time criticizing games and considering alternatives rather than explaining exactly what we plan to do.

Let's fix that, Q & A style.

Q:  What is the main design goal of project orbit?

A:  The main goal is to make a real-time strategy game that prioritizes informed, intelligent, cooperative and creative tactical thinking.

Q:  That sounds like much ado about nothing.  What does that mean?

A:  Those words are carefully selected.  Let's review them one by one.

Informed means that we want players to view battlefield intelligence as a requisite resource.  In many RTS games, the ability to see what your enemy is doing before making contact is a perk -- something you don't need, but is still useful.  Players spend most of their time in ignorance and seclusion.  We want our players to almost always be in some sort of precarious contact, constantly scoping each other out, circling in the ring, looking for weakness...

Intelligent means that the consequence of actions should vary with context.  The correct thing to do in case A is not necessarily the correct thing to do in case B.  Players should have analyze a situation and the environment in which it takes place.

Cooperative means that there should be a clear advantage to working with an ally.  This implies more than simply allowing cooperation or even encouraging it informally.  Team that cooperates should have an enormous advantage over the one that does not, and this advantage should be part of the game's fundamental design.  It also means that we will have to give the player tools and an interface to make cooperation fluid and natural.  This interface design will be a major focus of Project Orbit.

Creative means that several solutions should exist for a given problem.  This prevents an opponent from being predictable.  Unpredictable opponents imply intelligence gathering...

Q:  How will these design goals be implemented?

A:  Aha!  Now you want a feature list.  So be it, but bear in mind that these may still change in their details.

Informed Gameplay:

• Large maps with relatively small unit caps to force exploration and patrolling
• Terrain-sensitive radar with blind spots and other limitations
• Specialized and limited static defenses to promote specialized and planned attacks
• Need for resupply on many important units to encourage players to seek out and destroy enemy forward outposts.

Intelligent Gameplay:

• Complex unit interactions to promote varied, but planned squad composition
• Squad level tactics
• Specialization bonuses in the form of a tech tree that is unlocked from XP earned in game.  This will encourage use of specialized tactics and unit.
• Modern interface to facilitate micromanagement and maximize understanding of unit interactions.  In other words, a low click-per-second rate.

Cooperative Gameplay:

• Shared tactical map interface with planning overlay to draft plans
• VOIP communication tools
• Specialization bonuses encourage players to select complementary roles
• Economic and XP bonuses for cooperative play
• Complex semi-scriptable interactions between friendly patrols, i.e. killboxes, artillery spotting and combat air patrols.

Creative Gameplay:

• Micromanagement interface will abstract away excessive clicking.  This will free cognitive resources for planning and reaction
• Contextual sensitivity of units will be clear and predictable to allow for valid reasoning
• Communication and planning interface will allow for sharing of wisdom and experience
• Rock-Paper-Scissors organization of unit types will allow for fine-tuned tactics.

"About" Page Updated

We are pleased to announce that the About the Project page has been updated.  It now has a clearer, more concise summary of the project design goals.


Comments about the new update can be left below this post.

Where does Project Orbit Fit In?

Company of Heroes
features a company skill
tree.  Players can choose
between three company types
that offer various in-game skills.

It's hard to be concrete in pre-alpha stages of development, but we believe Project Orbit has a niche. Many games implement one particular aspect of the "ideal" RTS, but none manage to avoid becoming repetitive over time.
We think we have a basic formula that should make this the idea RTS game in terms of immersion and strategic interest:

• Large scale with appropriate zooming tools and powerful UI at all scales
• A relatively low unit cap, which should make micromanagement easier
• In order to encourage detailed interaction, units perform precise roles and multi-role units suffer serious drawbacks
• Diverse economy
• Multiple win conditions
• Dynamic and real-time unit-unit and group interactions

We also have a few ideas we’re toying with:

• Micro-level cover system where units can take cover behind terrain features
• Non-static sight radius of units: units line-of-sight is decreased by certain features (dense trees, ambient fog, day/night, smoke and particulate debris,...)
• A skill tree whereby in-game achievements and combat is converted into points which can be used to purchase specialized skills and bonuses for that match.  This should encourage synergistic cooperative play in large multiplayer games.

What do you think? Any games that deserve honorable mention? Any problems with our analysis? Any suggestions?

Let us know in the comments!

Introducing Project Orbit!

Hello, World ... and welcome to the Project Orbit developer's blog!  If you have no idea who we are or why you came here, that's okay.  Please stick around!

Project Orbit is the code name for our first game, which is quickly ripening in the design and pre-alpha stages.  To be clear, Project Orbit will not be the name under which our game will be released.  We will have a title in time for the first beta release.

"Right," you say, "but what the hell is Project Orbit?”

If you want the most concise possible answer, here it is:  Project Orbit is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game that will be released under Windows/Linux.  Its gameplay design is centered around the idea that a good strategy game goes beyond collecting resources and destroying an enemy base; a good strategy game is about relationships, complex interactions between units and players, and mutual support.

To borrow a phrase from Gestalt psychology, the whole should be greater than the sum of its parts.

Consider Blizzard's Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War.  This game came out in 1998 and is still one of the most popular RTS games in circulation.  It should be noted that this game and its brethren (Starcraft II, the entire Warcraft series...) didn't do much in terms of innovation, but still managed to sell millions of copies with a very basic RTS formula.  As such, these criticisms apply to the vast majority of games in the real-time strategy genre.

There are two problems with Starcraft.  The first is that macromanagement of the game is centered around build orders.  The second is that micromanagement is not fundamentally different from macromanagement, and that it often becomes a frustrating physical exercise rather than a cognitive puzzle.


Details to follow in (hopefully) regular updates. At the very least, I'll be clarifying my criticism of traditional RTS games.


Over the next couple of weeks, we'll introduce the team, talk game design, and start sharing our progress with the whole wide internet!