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KristoVaher

I am a professional software developer and hobbyist digital media specialist, and have begun developing a new PBBG as means to learn and evolve my skills in web development. The project has been on and off ever since last summer, but its only recently that I switched the gears up a bit more, to hope and finish the project before Internet dies out. Challenges found within PBBG development far outweight web content management systems and intranet projects, so this is an ideal way for me to connect my interest in science fiction together with my work professionally.

I have thought about the design of the game for a long time, but the development itself has been slow. The project was started in concept last summer, but actual code being written has been just a few weeks worth so far. Past week though I retired few things from my personal life in order to give more time for personal projects like this title, and now I am back on the train. So here's a brief overview of the concept of EXISTENCE, as well as some of the actual screenshots from the early stage of development.

This thread is here to both get feedback as well as slowly raise interest in the project. Since it is an early stage, feedback and ideas are very welcome and stand a chance of being included in the end project itself.



The concept of EXISTENCE has You control Your own avatar, exploring unknown space, trading rare resources, researching new technologies, hiring allies and improving your equipment. Differently from most science fiction PBBG games out there - which have you control entire civilizations - EXISTENCE focuses more on character actions and development. Goal of this is to create a much more personal and unique experience.

The universe itself will consist of solar systems within a galaxy and players characters can travel between such systems. Within a solar system, the world is divided into a navigation map where characters can explore, visit planets and colonies as well as space stations. While attention to detail is important, navigation on a planet itself will not be as detailed and mainly serves as a location of strategic value in whole. And while you cannot navigate towns or drive the roads of various colonies, planets and space stations will still be important in the game. For example, you can place your character as a colony leader and let the character deal with basic colony maintenance.

While not a civilization-scale game popularized by Master of Orion and Galactic Civilizations games, EXISTENCE is spiritually still a 4X/5X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate, and Experience - latter added by Master of Orion 3). I plan to let it involve all facets of such games with the difference that the focus will be on characters within such empires. This essentially adds the sixth: Exist, which comes from philosophical movement Existentialism, where the acts of an individual create the essence and meaning of their lives and the lives of others. And thus the name of the title.



The game takes place in fictional universe, while including our own solar system, taking place around five hundred years in the future. History and events have been specifically written for or added to the universe of EXISTENCE by long term science-fiction and fantasy roleplayers, mixing high technology science fiction together with gritty realism and adventuring spirit. The plan is to have the universe evolve and things happen throughout the day, even when players are offline.

For me it is also important to stay away as much as possible from ‘perfect formulas’, aka specific workflow that guarantees or near-guarantees success that plague so many browser based titles. Player does not have to be perfect every step of the way to be successful and have fun, since the game is less about fast paced race from one location to another and more about the experience itself.

As the universe is persistent, one of the key elements of development process is to construct it extensible, where new features can be added without having to reset the universe or recreate characters. Same applies to expanding the content found withing the game world.



Players will be able to compete with each other, battle or work together. In the long run there’s also the idea to be able to hire players as crew members in larger battleships, however the concept of how all that works without it being a hassle is still unclear. Players will also be able to control more than one character - again differently from many browser based games - and it is allowed for the characters to cooperate and trade resources, or live entirely separate lives. This is to add options to players who wish to play the game more actively as well as encourage players to experiment more with their characters.



Now, the basic description of the project may sound like sophisticated, detailed and in-depth, but one of the very key goals I have set for the development is to make sure that the game is simple to play and players don’t need to micromanage everything they do. From the moment player starts playing, I want to make sure that the player won’t ever be asking ‘what now?’ and 'where can I do this?'. Games menu will be very simple, and every action performed will be done so from the most logical place. You wish to research a technology? You select a research lab you control and pick one. You need to trade with others? You visit a trade station. You need to assault another ship? You simply click on your ship and then that of your opponent and click attack. No extra hoops to jump through.

Presently I’m working on the very basics, the easy-to-use user interface, basic art assets and relational databases. User account systems and character creations are already in place and presently I am working on the map navigation system of galaxy, solar systems and basic character commands.



EXISTENCE will be free to play. Time of development however is uncertain, since I work on it during my free time. I intend to keep people updated as things progress. In some parts I will be reinventing the wheel, since I shall write most of the lines of code myself without using any PBBG frameworks, this is because of what I mentioned earlier: to burn various routines and algorithms into my workflow and become a better developer in the process.

I don’t expect much feedback at this early state, though I would appreciate various ideas of what people might find interesting or what they are looking for in such a game that they cannot get from anywhere else. Space and science fiction are popular platforms for a PBBG, my goal is to both revolutionalize browser based gaming as well as create a game system that in its mechanics can function outside the confines of a web browser.

Screenshots in this thread are actual in-development images and full size can be resized by clicking on them.

Development blog is at: http://www.waher.net

Thank you for reading

Eriond

Wow. This looks very well done, even if it's only early in development.

I especially like the idea you expanding the 4X concept to characters instead of using the traditional empire simulator.

As for ideas about what to put in your game, I'm afraid I'm at a loss. I don't play any PBBG, but I must say, that if this is released, I'll most certainly give it a shot. From the preliminary screenshots and the sheer detail in your post, as well as the fact that your post is actually technically realistic leads me to believe that this will be something special.

Good luck on development! Keep me posted on updates

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NoodlePowa

This looks very impressive. The visuals are fantastic, this project may hold quite some promise.

Good luck!

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KristoVaher

Thank you

Newest development update has been posted at http://waher.net/

Since I am working on solar systems dynamics at the moment, I have now added the option which moves planets within a solar system on their orbit around the Sun, creating strategic options that can be used to mine resources from a planet more efficiently if they are in close proximity as well as launch assaults.

firesnowball

I really like the 4X idea in a pbbg, make sure to let us all know when we can play. I Love the screenshots.

KristoVaher

It might take a while and I want to make it good, without rushing things with half effort.

And it is not essentially a 4X game by tradition, it is a hybrid of 4X and sci-fi RPG. You only always control character or a set of characters, and these characters can give commands to their allies or those who serve under them who are in the communications range. This basically means that characters cannot send messages to other characters on the other side of the galaxy, in fact, they might not even know there is someone on the other side.

But while the focus is on characters, one of my main goals is to make it feel massive. Extreme technologies and weapons will still be possible, as well as capital cruisers with their dozens of fighters spawning at assault, but the game will focus more on characters and their interactions. It's one of the things Battlestar Galactica taught me, while space battles are epic, it is the characters and their journey that make it dramatic.

It's basically a 4X title zoomed in, while the big things happen by players influence, they don't happen with players controlling entire empires. Commanding numerous starships or planets will still be possible, but it is much more dynamic and slow paced in that regard. Organizing a colonization of a new planet by buying resources, building or purchasing a transport ship, organizing people for the effort and the actual journey and setting up the new colony may take weeks of game time.

I want to take a step away from the excel sheets, formulas and piles and piles of lists and tables based gameplay that is so ever common with PBBG titles and many 4X titles and focus more on things you can actually do. This will be a more personal experience where being best at math won't mean victory or character success.

A game where a 'space pirate' becomes known by name and plays a large role in encounters. A game where taking over a planet which was ruled by a beloved leader character will have people hold an uprising agains the occupant A game where a character may jump their ship into unknown sectors of space in order to escape from destruction, only to find themselves in the middle of nowhere with no bearings.

One of the foundations to the story and character history driven world is, for example, logs kept by every starship. You may purchase a starship from another character or a used starship from a shipyard and read about what the ship has gone through in the past and the locations it has visited. Or find a derelict ship in the asteroid belt of an unknown system and find out what happened to it.

So, a 4X title, but not 'quite'

07.04.2009 POST BELOW (seems like you can't make two posts in a row here?)

This is an early image of the galaxy screen, which is the uppermost navigation level window. Galaxies displayed are only the galaxies you have actually visited, there will never be a ‘complete map’. There are many reasons for this, amont them making it interesting for players to explore (and exploit, should they be lucky) various star systems and sectors found in the galaxy.



The original Milky Way texture is courtesy of NASA, modified and tweaked a bit, then applied to a 3D model, rendered and edited in post.

Existence universe will be populated with hundreds of star systems, this presently only displays a few. Most characters will most likely never get the chance to explore most of the star systems found within the game. Every system however will be hand-crafted and not randomly generated (at least not in the base game).

Similarly to system screens where planets were hilighted, so are the systems hilighted here, to make it clear what system you are presently in and to whom other systems belong to (be it allied, neutral or hostile).

Anyways, next up in development is a bit of player and faction relations functionality and setting foundations to that.

KristoVaher

I have created a subdomain for Existence PBBG as well as added a forum for discussions there. Those interested are welcome to register. The site itself will be filled with more details as time goes by. I will, of course, continue to post updates here.

Existence PBBG will be temporarily hosted at http://existence.waher.net/

And the forum itself is at http://existence.waher.net/forum

Cheers

NoodlePowa

I just have to say that looks absolutely amazing.

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