Hi guys, I want to wait until I have something playable before posting again, so there's going to be a long break.
I'm having a "dark night of the soul" about a few things, and wanted some feedback.
I think a lot of people are expecting an exact replica of Powermonger's interface, with the stone table, map on the left, captains at the back, etc.
To be honest, one of the things I hated about Powermonger was the usability aspects:
- The table buttons were (for me) hard to click, and find quickly.
- The isometric view made things terrible to select, find at certain angles, the rotation was useless (and screwed up move direction).
- The extra Captains didn't really 'work' properly enough to be worth utilising (unless you sent them to fight a Captain with an archer army where your Captain would get killed very quickly).
If I end up just remaking the existing game, I can't help feeling I will have:
- Made a poor-man's imitation of something the original PowerMonger on DOSBox did better.
- Possibly be asked to take it down by EA. (who have mused recently about resurrecting old IPs)
Q: At what point does a Powermonger clone stop being Powermonger?
For me, at least, Powermonger is the game. No micromanagement-nonsense that ruined Black and White. Not the horrible restricted view and table interface that ruined Powermonger (for me, at least). An immediately accessible game where you start out with a small rabble and impose your will on a very pretty map of nasties, with all the fun of building weapons, eating sheep and watching little people go about their business.
My own dream about Powermonger is the full 3D interface of "Black and White 2", where you were free to roam and spin the map in a very usable (imho) way. But 'in world' everything is like the original Powermonger. I want the user to be able to move around the game map freely, easily and efficiently, setting up the view camera anywhere. However, if you zoom out fully, you see the whole world, it's settlements, flags and troops... and the whole war room and table, with captains standing around.
So... if you have the time to spare:-
What aspects of the game actually made it Powermonger to you? (and without which it's not the same)
I was most into the "watching little people go about their business", listening to the birds and watching the turf turn brown, then slowly white and then green again.
ReplyDeleteIt took me quite a while before i even realised what the game aimed at.
And yes - the buttons for camera position and angel sucked - i prefered the iso-buttons from Populous.
McMurmel: Yes, terrain! I wouldn't remake it without the changing seasons, I loved that aspect of the game, watching the effect it also had on villagers (they hibernate during the winter). Also, the bits of wildlife that brought the game to life.
ReplyDeleteI received a very nice email from "Ted" with some great points as well. (he's given me permission to post the points here) Some great points.
I have to split this into several posts due to comment limit. :)
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INTERFACE:
I agree with your complaints of the original interface. The buttons were weird and the table top view and captains in the background used
up too much of the available screen space. I think the main viewscreen of the map should be given priority in available screen space. I think
the smaller view of the entire map should stay, that was handy for navigation. The buttons don't need to take up so much space and the captains (if you decide to have them) could be smaller graphics somewhere on the screen. I like how you want to have the screen fully rotatable with the camera moveable to any angle. I would like to still have a compass showing your heading but it could be much smaller. Maybe even just an appropriately pointing arrow with the direction
letters next to it (S, W, NE, etc).
CAPTAINS:
Having an extra captain to spy or gather food is handy, I do that a lot. I never was very good about having multiple armies but other
people may feel differently. My vote would be to keep them, I know the programming is easier without but I think they are important (at least
one or two extra). I don't like how the original game treated a lone captain or small groups where they were likely to be attacked. I will talk about this more later. I did like the way the original game made the enemy subordinate captains virtually sit around when the main enemy captain died. It gave you a breather on the more difficult maps. Other people may feel differently about this particular feature.
PICKING UP / EQUIPPING / DROPPING:
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard you or anyone else mention this but using the aggression buttons for picking up, equipping, and dropping is annoying and often hit and miss. The problem is if you pick up too much, you slow your army way down. Also, when you try to drop unneeded items, you end up dropping more or less than you want. Whenever you are going
to pickup, equip, or drop, I would like to have a window popup that has all the items and how many are available (in town, in army, on ground, etc…) and have all the quantities set to zero but adjustable (allow you to adjust with up and down buttons or type in) so you can pick up or equip or drop ONLY what you want. I can remember equipping from a town only to get a bunch of pots or ploughs that I didn't want. Or grabbing two catapults and my army slowing down to a crawl and I run out of food. Or picking up items on the ground after a battle and having to pick up all the boats before I could get any of the weapons. In the case of items lying on the ground, you could just show one graphic on the ground showing an item cache (as opposed to having a graphic for every item that was dropped), similar to when an enemy captain drops his army's food. Please don't think of this as micromanagement but rather being a better way of being able to pickup, drop and equip only what you want. I DON'T want to manage what each army member is equipped with. The original method of equipping the army with the best items available in the army's inventory was fine. . The question that would arise, when the window pops up, does the game keep running or pause?
INVENTING:
When you ask a town to invent, it would be nice if it gave you a window that showed what items are available to invent based upon how much trees are nearby or if the town has a mine. Using the aggression buttons for this was annoying.
AGGRESSION BUTTONS:
If you implemented my suggestions for picking up, equipping, dropping, inventing, that would leave the aggression buttons for deciding your attack/defense stance, which in my opinion is what they should be used for.
GAME BALANCE:
ReplyDeleteI beat the original Power Monger game. I was able to beat adjacent maps until I reached and beat the bottom right map. However, I actually tried to finish all the maps. Some of the maps seemed unbeatable. I don't mean they were difficult, I mean that it seemed impossible to win. An example would be a small island map where all the towns are the same color as the enemy army and they have their own captains. Quickly all the towns empty out into armies. The towns remain empty so you can't barter for any weapons they would otherwise invent. Your army is smaller than usual with only one bow. The enemy armies just sit there waiting for you to make a move. If you attack a town, there are no people or food to take. Since the island is small, the enemy army immediately takes the town back so you have no time to invent, you either fight and die or run away as they claim the town again. Then you run out of food. I don't like how the original game treats lone captains or small groups where they get attacked if they get to close to a larger town. I don't know how other people feel about this feature but I didn't like it.
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Making refinements to the appearance of the maps, doing away with the additional captains, simplifying picking up and dropping objects, a clearer approach to invention, and refining the stone button interface... maybe even a way to hide all together, are all ok with me.
ReplyDeleteThe important things to me were: battling the towns and enemies, resting to gain strength, variety of map appearances, changing of seasons, clear and simple way to find out about your army and it's capabilities.
Hi this is Ted who sent the e-mail above. I now have an account so I can make posts :)
ReplyDeleteAre you planning on including the World War I expansion stuff or just stick with the classic? I never tried the expansion, just curious.
ReplyDeleteCharles: Thanks, that sounds exactly like the sort of thing I'm aiming for. :)
ReplyDeleteTed: Hello! Heh, the expansion was kinda quirky. Basically, it was a graphical overhaul summed up as:
sheep = deer
bows = rifles
catapult = monoplane
cannon = tank
Though the monoplane was quite fun. Can't remember what it did though. Also, it was much easier to tell when you'd won a map.
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Well, I've just replaced all my Math code with Ogre3D's math code, which didn't take long as it seems the Ogre authors have been reading the same 3D Math book as I have.
Their classes had exactly the same names, exactly the same members, exactly the same method names. In fact, all I had to do was add "Ogre::" before all my Vector3's and change "vectorDistanceSq(A,B)" to "A.squaredDistance(B)" in a few places. What a nice library! :)
Speaking of math and graphics: In watching your videos, you do seem to all the math skills for marching all the little people around :)
ReplyDeleteIN graphics, what level of detail will you go for in the little people doing their day by day activities? I too liked the seasons and the weather and it sounds like OGRE will make that easier for you. When it rains and snow though, the original game did that animation in a way that made the view messy and made the game a little choppy. Do you plan to do something more subtle for the rain and snow animation?
I had a couple of ideas:
ReplyDelete1) The query button (question mark). When you click a town or a castle, it would be great if it additionally told you what each of the occupants was armed with. If this seems like too easy of a way to get strategic information, it could be done by your captain spying instead.
2) I like the way your captains voice tone tells you how he feels about your commands. It would be cool if he also had a range of voices during battle. Usually its just the "Ooh, Ahh, Ooh Ahh Ahh! I know there is a sick gasp sound he makes when he is alone and getting beaten but if there was more of a range of voices during battle showing more how the battle was going for your captain.
First of all I'm really happy someone is looking in to remaking this game. It was defiantly my favorite Amiga game of all time. I was always hoping for a PM2 or at least something half like it but it looks like it wont come from the owners even with the older game resurrections of recent years.
ReplyDeleteSome great suggestions by all. I think your definitely on the right track to improving this game a great deal. I agree with a lot of what you and Ted have suggested. I believe that as you'll have lots more processing power up your sleeve you wont need to add a lot of screen filler like the captains and they could be replaced with small icons with health/food bars under them. Re-organising the buttons in a more linear grouping will greatly help the playability and ease of learning the game.
As you mentioned it would also help to be given a message when you have actually won the map. It used to be quite frustrating to have to click retire to find out you had missed something and then having to search around for it.
To answer your question though ... for me the greatness of this game comes from the realism of whats inside the world and the surrounding UI is just an out dated/clunky method of control for that world. Hope this helps!