Monday, September 22, 2014

Post-holidays update - Galactic Battlefare and Ancient Relics Inspirational concepts PART I

During holidays, Ancient Relics has been developing in some sort of snail speed, but was time to do a good lot of sketches and idea's gathering for the parts I'm not actually scripting now (Like detailed maps of spaceports and other colonies).

A little (short, more PR-fashioned) but good video about the Space Chart at this alpha stage is coming very shortly (I just need to polish some GUIs and make sure some extravagant event pipelines works top-notch.

But before that, I was thinking I just can throw a match to enlighten the surroundings of Galactic Battlefare Universe; I mean, what are the most inspiring books, tv-shows and games (among other hundreds) that enrich my young life and what flavour you can expect of them in the space opera universe of GBF.

Today I'll start with computer games, 'cause I'm sure that is the reason a lot of you are here today.



GAMES:

Silmarils (1987 - 2001)
French Silmarils. One of a kind.

Amazing french game developer company. Make some of the most niche and hardcore RPG/Simulators/Strategy you can find and with appealing graphics and story. My work in gameplay is very influenced by his games.

Crystals of Arborea/Ishaar trilogy


shar III. Unforgettable.

3d dungeon crawler? yep. Giant free maps, no dungeon passageways exclusive? Yep. Giant metropolis to roam step by step, with real time combats, full of shops, amazing freedom to recruit different people and find hidden quest? YEEEEP.

Never intended in the past 10 years to make a 3d crawler of any Galactic Battlefare game, but now is the time and the baggage is crystal clear; You'll see a lot of Silmaril's crawlers spirit in Ancient Relics, easily seen in city and landscape exploration. (An as intended, number of recruitable companions, well see.) 

 Transartica, 

Oh, god, Transartica.  Story game (better than adventure game) while doing the administration of a Behemoth train in the apocalyptic future of nuclear winter. Buy and sell trade goods, equip your train with wagons to emphasis trade or war (even slave wagons, useful for selling or for doing hard labors). GBF:Ancient Relics is, strangely enough, on the Space-side of the game, a big evolved transartica in the same way a lots of games are; You will upgrade your ship for combat and trade, you will trade and sell, visiting colonies, outposts and big spaceports, and find more than various anomalies to study and adventure on. To this point, lots of games are like Transartica (and Transartica was like others), but when I created the Interface to see your ship, the different parts of it (bridge, cargo, crew quarters, Intelligence service...), It remembers a lot to me to the good old transartica. Things deep in heart are hard to forget, I think. 


Robinson's Requiem/Deus


Insane Health management for a 90's 3d game? YEAH

One of the first sci-fi survival (with insane health management- you could die just constipated or for diving in a lake with a cut in a leg and getting bateriae!)  3d games? Oh ******* yes. to gameplay, I'm not taking much from these splendid Silmarils games, (was more in my temporary on hold game, GBF: Pangaia), but the background of the AWE (Alien World Exploration) and savage worlds as prision for criminals? I bought that concepts, thank you!

Other companys (thanks, jesus, you might say)

D&D Birthright. I bought this game a long time ago without knowing much about the setting, before I go wild dungeon mastering with my friends. Some years later, I begin to port the concept of Birthright to all my custom settings: I mean: 

You can dungeon crawl in Birthright...


Dungeon crawling in special spots along the world, finding personal-size items and treasures for the glory of your adventurers. (GBF: Ancient Relics: Got it. Find places to dungeon crawl and get treasures? Yes, simply explained but yes)

You can go all Crusader Kings in Birthright...

Empire administration and conquest of all a BIG peninsula with lots of micromanagement and exquisite region administration and politics? YES. Galatic Battlefare IRL-RPG is a lot about that, but GBF:Ancient Relics right now, just not. Management of your own colony/planet? Well, I'll want to do that, but we'll ask to our crowfunders ;).

You can go all Heroes of Might and Magic in Birthright...

Army sized battles! Godamm you can do that as well on Birthright!!! Not a feature that you will see in Ancient Relics, again, but a BASIC on Galactic Battlefare (all about factions and races and empires and space and land combats... The IRL-RPG book has a 2mm miniature warfare apendix with to the date 10 army lists and some simple rules.

In future Galactic Battlefare games? Mandatory: If you will be able to control an entire faction as an strategy game full economic simulator or just a band or pirate ships, is up to see the success of GBF: Ancient Relics. Right now in GBF:Ancient Relics, there is tactical turn combat in land and space, but not army-sized. 

MASTER OF ORION SAGA/MASTER OF MAGIC:

The "first 4x" Master of Orion Saga (Master of magic was more like a Heroes of Might & Magic meets Civilization in a Master of Orion Style) inspired my first sketch about galactic empires in a fringe of the known space in the milky way. In fact, the map I draw ten years ago of that little piece of galaxy (8x5 sectors, divided on 4x4 sub-sectors (the minimum spacemap to show) of 10x8 parsecs (the minimun unit to play, a "hexsquared parsec" per system) is still the same map, just better drawn and the races and empires that populate it are a lot more complexes. 

(So, GBF universe condense right now a known space of 51.200 "hexsquare parsecs" in 640 sub-sectors. In GBF: Ancient Relics, you can see 6 sub-sectors (60% of the terran space) and play at least in 4 of them). 

4x Diplomacy! Always a challenge!

In fact, one of the first things I did with my Known Space map was define relations between empires, and even base some empire in some of the achievements of my games (x race with x number of slave races, x kind of militar sstrategy and x kind of use of techonology). It's like Playing Spore to sketch alien appearance (and his buildings and vehicles, why not), a work template. And I'm very proud of enjoying every hour in Master Orion I, II and III and being it my template to create my Galactic Battlefare Universe.

(I mention the Spin-off Master of Magic because the first ideas for some of the basic races (like the Ss'oraks or the Corridhons) come more from Master of Magic than Master of Orion (Draconians as reptilian race and Dark Elves as my perverted Corridhon race...)

But The primordial thing when a player approach GBF is the three faction conflict between the Atlantic Alliance, the Russian Consortium and the Arabic Union, and that is not absolutely coming from MoOs.I'll be better looking in another classic direction....

DUNE

Some years before me being addicted to the Frank Herbert's books, I played this jewel of a game, a fantastic adventure-strategy strange mixture of first Westwood's Dune.


An adventure game with Dungeoncrawling-like movement? (even discovering secret chambers as fantastic plot-twists) Walking square to square in the desert until die of thirst? Travelling with the old ornithopter flying by clues to find new places to control or commerce? Creating a totally inesperated strategy game with a terraforming background (took from the second and third book) and a simple but clever resource management (type of troops + available equipment + player administration + finite resources...)

Hell, Westwood make a hell of a game with the first Dune. And I think the Trinary conflict system comes to my heart since the young Dune II. (the redies, the bluish, and the greenys).. (though if you study a bit you know that the green Ordos were invented (more than 7 books and dozens of houses and the ordos were invented (and my favorite :P), the blue Atreides with a hawk were really red with a bull and the red Harkonen were really blue with a Hawk (Just like in Dune 1... Why the hell the need to rewesternize the colors for good and bad people in Dune II when you  get it well done the first time in Dune!)

Frank Herbert's Dune Saga is something I'll talk more in Part III of inspirational concepts, Books!


I think is enough for today, a fast travel among some of the games mark more my young-hood and make a mark in the way I develop my own games... 

For the old ones that know these games, you'll know that at least some of them are masterworks that need to be count on when you make something. It's very difficult to make something really original, so when you look up to make inspiration, at least let them by good inspiration. 

For the young ones that don't even know this games, and have a like for the old jewels of computer games.. Run and play them all!! You don't regret!

See you in the next post, let it be a small video featuring the graphics improvements and review of features of Galactic Battlefare Ancient Relics, or let it be the second part of this post!.

See you around!

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