Exilian

Game Design and Project Resources: The Workshops Quarter => Computer Game Development - The Indie Alley => Topic started by: Tusky on April 13, 2018, 10:23:10 AM

Title: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 13, 2018, 10:23:10 AM
Build the ultimate medieval tournament - and lead your house to glory

Release Date: 4th November 2021

Tourney is a tycoon style simulator / simulation PC game. It will allow you to take control of a medieval noble house, and then build a tournament or "tourney" ground where you can watch your champions vie for victory, or dive in and get involved in the combat!

Gameplay features for Tourney:

* Build your tourney ground. Event areas for jousting, melee and archery; and buildings such as apothecaries, blacksmiths, stands, ale wagons, hog roasts and more
* Choose your champion. Build their skills. Buy them the best armour and weapons.
* Fight your way to the top and win the tournament
* 13 playable houses with unique heraldry, traits and heroes
* Keep the peasants and nobility happy to keep the gold rolling in
* Hire staff members such as jesters and troubadours
* Lots of parody and hidden references!

(https://i.imgur.com/FoqdkmR.png)

For more info on what is planned in development for the game, see here (https://trello.com/b/awbRyFXI/tourney-milestones)

Title: Re: [New Project] Medieval sim - Dev Log
Post by: Tusky on April 13, 2018, 10:27:32 AM
So I've been moving forward with making some 3d assets for the new project.

Most recently I've been making a series of medieval peasants that will form a dynamically created crowd. Here's a (fairly long) image showing the creation of the latest lady (was thinking of making this into an animated GIF slideshow but not sure it would work in the forum?).
Anyway it begins with initial sketches, then a drawn profile, then that is used in blender to create the 3d model. Once that's created I move on to texturing (or "colouring in" as I call it).

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R9VDiRcjySc/Ws_IzUlFD3I/AAAAAAAABLA/XIMulHbxJTokC-68zmVJ0DjjdZMli8NPgCLcBGAs/s1600/process.PNG)

You might notice that the pallette is only black & white. That works like a mask, so several colour schemes can be made for the same model.

She's not in extreme fine detail like some of the exciting sculpts you might get on poly count. That is intentional since the game will be "top down", meaning you will only see the models from a distance and I'm aiming for a certain style as well. 

Here's a screen shot of how the new lady pezzy looks with the other 3 (having a good time drinking in a field.)

(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-latnUH72bO8/WtBCeuoDCGI/AAAAAAAABLY/cPwS-LkcuYwWQVcL1IYhedQ2B0AUukclwCLcBGAs/s1600/pezzies.png)
Title: Re: [New Project] Medieval sim - Dev Log
Post by: Jubal on April 13, 2018, 05:57:34 PM
Nice! I really like the art style :)
Title: Re: [New Project] Medieval sim - Dev Log
Post by: Rosarioz on April 18, 2018, 11:50:01 AM
For the content I have read these are considered to increase my knowledge to a great deal.
Title: Re: [New Project] Medieval sim - Dev Log
Post by: Jubal on April 28, 2018, 11:00:05 PM
Any news on this? :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 29, 2018, 08:23:51 AM
Quote from: Jubal on April 13, 2018, 05:57:34 PM
Nice! I really like the art style :)

Thanks Jubal! :)

Quote from: Jubal on April 28, 2018, 11:00:05 PM
Any news on this? :)

Yes, I suppose there is. I've been working on textures so long it almost feels like I've done nothing else  ;D.

Setting

I have been giving a lot of thought to the setting for the new project. I didn't know whether to make it part of the real world, complete fantasy, or not address it. There are pros and cons to any of those approaches. Broadly, the main benefit of a fantasy setting is that it allows for using anything you want: monsters, potions etc. You can also make your own lore which is fun. However the project I am working on is concerned specifically with the medieval tournament, and I felt lent itself far more to existing in the real world somewhat.
I thought I would cheat a little bit, and have it set in a fantasy location that is thought to be on Earth, such as Avalon or Atlantis. Then you could have visitors from real nations but at the same time know that to an extent it is not a completely historically accurate recreation.

Knight Model

I had made a knight before, but I wasn't happy with it so redid the entire thing. There will be 3 upgrade-able armour metals, and 3 different armour models. Below is a pic of the steel armour crusader model:

(https://i.imgur.com/jwyWWO7.png)

Houses

I have come up with 13 playable houses, based on suggestions from this thread (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5591.0). In the previous post I mention how I created a range of textures (or "atlas") for one peasant. Well I've done the same thing for the knight, and made 13 variants for each house. I'll do that for any related models too (e.g. horse, shield etc) so you will be able to spot your champions at a distance. I am hoping it will serve the same purpose in the game as it used to on the medieval battlefield, allowing commanders to be easily recognised amongst large armies.

Well I completed that process for the knight. Here is a swatch to show you the results (in bronzed armour this time).

(https://i.imgur.com/lZdFWyk.png)

Horses

With my confirmed houses I also am going back over the other models to create 13 textures for each house. I am almost complete with the work on the long coated horse:

(https://i.imgur.com/GI5jz2f.png)

So once that is done I also need to do 13 accommodation tent textures and then maybe I can get back to actually doing some development on the game mechanics, which seems like a distant memory at the moment.

Name

I decided to call the game "Tourney", which I think sums up what it will be about!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on April 29, 2018, 12:02:50 PM
Ooh this looks neat. I like the use of color pairs rather than just straight colorizations for each of the 13 houses, so they don't look too similar. Do you have 13 flags / logos ready that you can show us?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 29, 2018, 02:22:11 PM
Lovely stuff!

I think Avalon is indeed a really good starting point location, as it has the classic Arthurian vibes. You could have two or three other tourney locations - maybe as unlockables, each one basically giving you a reskin of the tournament field? Atlantis could be a blue/classical themed one, and you could add Prester John's court (mythical medieval Christian monarch in central Asia who the crusaders kept hoping was going to turn up and save them all) as a more Byzantine/Orthodox themed option. If you want to expand even further, you could add Gulansharo, the City of Flowers, which is a far off and mysterious realm in medieval Georgian myth and could be more medieval east/south Asian themed (or anything else themed - it's not made at all clear where Gulansharo is in the poems).
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 29, 2018, 05:50:59 PM
Quote from: SLiV on April 29, 2018, 12:02:50 PM
Ooh this looks neat. I like the use of color pairs rather than just straight colorizations for each of the 13 houses, so they don't look too similar. Do you have 13 flags / logos ready that you can show us?

Thank you! Yes I have a big old list for each of the houses colours, crest logo/s and pattern to keep them consistent. It's a surprisingly involved challenge actually.
I don't have the crests themselves yet. I'll be working on those next - since I just finished the last horse! I'll pop them on here once done so you can see.

Quote from: Jubal on April 29, 2018, 02:22:11 PM
I think Avalon is indeed a really good starting point location, as it has the classic Arthurian vibes. You could have two or three other tourney locations - maybe as unlockables, each one basically giving you a reskin of the tournament field? Atlantis could be a blue/classical themed one, and you could add Prester John's court (mythical medieval Christian monarch in central Asia who the crusaders kept hoping was going to turn up and save them all) as a more Byzantine/Orthodox themed option. If you want to expand even further, you could add Gulansharo, the City of Flowers, which is a far off and mysterious realm in medieval Georgian myth and could be more medieval east/south Asian themed (or anything else themed - it's not made at all clear where Gulansharo is in the poems).

Awesome suggestions! Thanks... Yes I will probably have a few different starting locations for level progression, so may have to remember these :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 01, 2018, 08:13:08 PM
So these are the final crests and house names. I tweaked them a little bit from the other thread

(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CpN2t153lSk/Wui6NTLQuxI/AAAAAAAABL8/xYBdO_JwneAmww95vAsy3hmj8G31kDF0ACLcBGAs/s1600/FULL.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on May 01, 2018, 09:31:00 PM
Aw, but Warless and Haughtyville were such good puns.

I do like the shields though, great work :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on May 01, 2018, 11:16:07 PM
Oooh, neat! I especially like Ronceveaux, except that the squares at the bottom just barely don't line up.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Caradìlis on May 01, 2018, 11:29:35 PM
That looks really cool!!! Great work!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 02, 2018, 01:43:50 PM
Yay thanks all :)

Quote from: SLiV on May 01, 2018, 11:16:07 PM
I especially like Ronceveaux, except that the squares at the bottom just barely don't line up.

Waagh! I'll definitely need to go back and fix that now. It's going to annoy me too

Quote from: Jubal on May 01, 2018, 09:31:00 PM
Aw, but Warless and Haughtyville were such good puns.

Yea I didn't like those two, although I can't put my finger on why! Maybe I'll put those back in then  ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 04, 2018, 10:46:18 AM
So I noticed those cheeky copycats at Taleworlds  pinched my idea (https://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1649884446698938168) for using distinctive heraldry in bannerlord. Looks like Vlandia will share almost the same icon as house Pomproar - Von Lichenstone isn't far off from Empire either  ;D

I'm not really annoyed by the way, I think I got the hype for that game as soon as they announced it! In fact it makes me wonder: They've been working on that game for aaages (was announced in 2012) and I imagine I'll be working on tourney for 1.5 / 2 years so maybe I'll still beat their release?!?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on May 04, 2018, 11:43:52 AM
At some point I should get a new copy of the original M&B, I'd like to play all my old mods for it again...
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on May 04, 2018, 04:49:16 PM
I am honestly very excited for this.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 17, 2018, 09:35:07 AM
So having worked almost exclusively on knights for the last few weeks I am happy to say that I have the minimum items that they'll need to joust. That is: 1 lance type, 1 horse type, 1 type of armour and 1 type of shield. So now tourney not only supports crowds of peasants, but crowds of knights too!

Here's a screeny of a bunch of them from different houses arriving at once -  (cue ride of the valkyries music)

(https://i.imgur.com/gNisO18.png)

Next up: Jousting minigame
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on May 23, 2018, 12:36:49 PM
Ooh, those look very cool indeed :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 24, 2018, 08:35:06 AM
Thanks for the kind words!

Hopefully I'll have the AI jousting each-other done by the end of the weekend so I can share my lance shatter effect and tilt model. I'm quite pleased with them.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 27, 2018, 05:30:22 PM
Made some good progress over the last couple of weeks with the jousting part of the game. I created a tilt barrier buildable, and have the bots to the point where they endlessly joust against eachother. 

Here's two of them at it:

(https://i.imgur.com/aTXV3Ob.gif)

At the moment they don't do any damage and always hit the same spot so the next developments are to have stats & equipment factor in to the force and accuracy of the hit; Then introduce damage and a scoring system so a knight can actually win.

It will also be possible to separately target the head, arm or shield. A head shot is harder to achieve but can yield greatly increased force, which if high enough can dehorse your opponent. An arm shot is also harder but can make your opponent drop their lance which would negate any damage on you. Shields are the easiest things to hit but won't do much damage.

Once the AI can do that then I'll implement a mini game so the player can influence the outcome themselves. This game will probably be to maintain the lances aim targeting the desired spot. As well as that the speed of the horse will factor into the force of the hit, so a part of the mini-game will be to optimise how quickly you start (like when you start a race in mario kart). A well timed start means you hit your opponent with as much force as possible. A fumbled start will make your horse rear, having the opposite effect.

(https://i.imgur.com/Cw1ltFd.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on May 27, 2018, 10:33:21 PM
Neat :) What will be the possible endings of the minigame? Will it always just be one pass, or do you keep going until e.g. a lance breaks/someone gets unhorsed?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 27, 2018, 11:03:03 PM
The scoring is not set in stone, Possibly a round will consist of 5 passes, scoring 3 points for a broken lance, 1 point for a hit, +2 points if you dehorse the opponent.

The minigame is an optional thing, so the possible outcomes will the same if you play or not. You will be able to jump in to control the knights you have chosen from your house when they are participating in an event. The benefit of that is that you will probably be able to do a bit better than the AI, and you get awarded more prestige points, and it'll be a bit of fun :)

Prestige points are awarded on completion of events and are an indication of how much the crowd enjoyed themselves. Earning those is how you unlock new buildings, staff & decorations etc.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 07, 2018, 10:18:38 PM
I've completed the jousting to the point where 2 AI knights will start a joust event, compete in it, and continue until there is a winner! So I had to iron out the rules. Those are:

There are 5 Passes.
1 point for a broken lance
2 points to disarm the opponent
3 points to unhorse the opponent

Here's some logs of it working and everything.

(https://i.imgur.com/J8ap3c6.png)

I must admit I had a little read of the article about probabilities (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5593.0) which helped :) After all I'm using digital dice for the bots.

All of the mechanics are in place now. For example you need to try and get the optimal speed to charge. If you nail it then you get a massive speed & force boost - and your knight rears up and goes right into a gallop which is fun, like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/aOWGuZh.png)

I also did everything to do with the actual clash - so now along with the straightforward lance break (shown in the last post) a knight can be disarmed and dehorsed.

In fact it's possible for both knights to successfully disarm or dehorse eachother. Take a look at these dopes:

(https://i.imgur.com/Ew8a6yb.gif)

So with that mostly complete I'll move on to getting some stands done, so the pezzies can line the edge of the list field to watch the events.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on June 07, 2018, 10:49:19 PM
Looks fun! :) And I'm really glad the probabilities article helped - I need to get on and finish editing up the binomial distribution one that follows it...
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: comrade_general on June 07, 2018, 11:12:00 PM
Lol the first thing I thought of when I saw that knight fall to the ground was the log guy from tekken.

(https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_small/1/12541/1518780-mokujin_main_image.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 08, 2018, 08:34:45 AM
Quote from: Jubal on June 07, 2018, 10:49:19 PM
Looks fun! :) And I'm really glad the probabilities article helped - I need to get on and finish editing up the binomial distribution one that follows it...

Thanks. Yeah it did help to refresh my knowledge about probability generally, and that combining 2 results then means the odds are different. Look forward to reading the next one. There will definitely be a lot of tweaking the numbers and stats to make sure that some competitors are challenging relative to the player. At the moment they are all arbitrary numbers, usually maxed so I can test a thing happens. e.g. you can see in the log output that at one point minimum roll needed to hit was -25. I definitely need the odds to be more refined than that!

Quote from: comrade_general on June 07, 2018, 11:12:00 PM
Lol the first thing I thought of when I saw that knight fall to the ground was the log guy from tekken.

Haha yeah. Maybe I need to tidy the animations so they aren't... as wooden?!?  :ents:  ;D



Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: comrade_general on June 08, 2018, 12:52:35 PM
The animations look good it was more the shape and color of his armor. ;)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 20, 2018, 10:45:03 PM
Hello fairest reader!

I completed a new model since the last update, which was the spectator stand model:

(https://i.imgur.com/E7DMbwS.png)

These will be where the pesentry will prefer to watch the trials of the knights. Having stands is important to the satisfaction of the pezzies, because how much they enjoy the events is linked to your success in the game. They also just make the jousting tilt look a bit less naked.

However I had noticed that I'd ignored an important thing, and that is that placement needs to be precise. You might notice there that there are gaps between all the items in the above image. That's accidental - and thus - unacceptable!!
The reason is that before when you were moving the initial placement outline, it would snap to an invisible grid in a somewhat random way and you could end up with things overlapping, or with gaps you didn't necessarily want. I've now fixed that, which actually took a lot longer than I thought. Here you see an outlet placed exactly flush with the arena. Hooray!

(https://i.imgur.com/Tu4tG8b.png)

I have not mentioned yet that the melee arenas (one type of event arena for sword fighting) are built using tile based system, so you can create any shapes you want. In the above example you may notice that I laid out the arena like a space invader.

Progress on the project has proved to be quite galcial, so I decided to approach an environment artist to help out part time for a while. You can see some of his other work here (https://www.artstation.com/artist/rot). So that's exciting. Hopefully in the next few months bits of nice scenery will start to appear.

Next step for me is to have peasants actually watch the events, since at the moment they just stand around looking gormless.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Silverspook on June 21, 2018, 07:21:27 PM
This looks fantastic! Great job Tusky. :)  I hope you get a chance to use some of those names from the Neofeud cutting floor. ;)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 22, 2018, 09:51:00 AM
Quote from: Silverspook on June 21, 2018, 07:21:27 PM
This looks fantastic! Great job Tusky. :)  I hope you get a chance to use some of those names from the Neofeud cutting floor. ;)

Thanks man!

I did take inspiration from your ideas around GOT mashups (stanniston, tywister etc) and made one house called Nedark :p
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 05, 2018, 09:56:14 AM
Been a couple of weeks since the last log so figure it's time for an update. Unfortunately there aren't any cool looking new models or mechanics to show off but here's what has been going on:

The UI

That interesting bit of development that everyone* definitely loves to hear about.

I'm making it all myself this time around since it needs to be quite specific to this game. Previously I've not really cared about the UI, so just got third party graphics and chucked those in. This time though I've had to really clarify what the player will want to achieve, and so what information they will need to do that. The 2 biggest objectives are broadly to have your house and knights do the best, and the other is be a tycoon and make lots of money. If the player wants their knights to win then they may be wanting to quickly determine if their knights are in "pole position" out of the attending knights, when they will next be competing etc. On the other hand the player is just interested in getting as much money as they can - they will want to know visitor numbers, gold, and have a way to determine how their outlets are performing. 
So I've sketched out various designs and have been looking at them, imagining that I'm trying to do, or decide on certain things and if / where I can do that. It's strange to me how much about the game as a whole I need to be sure of before I can actually do anything.

Anyway I'll stop waffling on about menus. Here are some graphics I've done so far.

(https://i.imgur.com/wvCqQbE.png)

Tournament logic

Up until now I had created a joust event, which existed by itself in a joust tutorial scene. The 2 knights in the scene went over, competed and then finished.

The next step was to implement a full knockout event. This allows for the to player put down a tilt where they want, click it to start a knockout tournament and then all of the knights play a sequence of events in a number of rounds until the overall winner is determined.
This is nearly done, and that will mean the top level logic is in place for the archery and melee tournaments too once I go on to those.

Music

I'm not sure to what extent anyone else finds the process of music production for a game interesting so apologies if this is dreary waffle. I find this part fascinating though, and the auditory output of a game is of the highest importance to me.

I've been talking a lot to Alexei (the composer I work with) about what music should be for this game. The key things to think about for the tracks, is that they need to sound correct with a few things:

It's a lot to ask of a piece of music. I might need to implement some kind of dynamic mixer which I did in the last game where different music fades in when you are fighting.

On top of that there will probably be 4 chapters set in different areas, and each will have a different flavour. It's been discussed before on this thread about the setting. So the first 2 will be in Avalon. The third will be Atlantis. The fourth will be Gulansharo: city of flowers (thanks Jubal :)). So there will need to be 3 different sounds for the 3 fairly exotic locations. I don't think it will do to have generic medieval tavern music.

Anyway Alexei informs me that he's in the process of composing the first track - a main theme for the game. He's said it "should be really catchy" and "still have (a) melodic flavour". I'm always excited to hear his stuff. If you want an idea, here's a favourite clip of a tune he did for BioStation.


If you like that and have spotify here (https://open.spotify.com/album/6BvOB5BjFnpL7RLVdZan5S) is the full OST.

What's next?


* no-one
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: La Ciguapa on July 06, 2018, 08:25:40 AM
That music is really catchy. Can't wait to hear what he comes up with for this game!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on July 09, 2018, 11:25:01 AM
This looks like a really cool game idea. I'm looking forward to play it when it's ready.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 09, 2018, 02:36:25 PM
Quote from: La Ciguapa on July 06, 2018, 08:25:40 AM
That music is really catchy. Can't wait to hear what he comes up with for this game!

Thanks La Ciguapa I'll post a clip here once he sends me something.

Quote from: bigosaur on July 09, 2018, 11:25:01 AM
This looks like a really cool game idea. I'm looking forward to play it when it's ready.

Thanks bigosaur! It may take a while, though, I feel like I'm just wading through endless bugs recently!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 17, 2018, 09:00:04 AM
Seems I accrue enough for an update every 2 weeks.

All knights have names

I decided to name 13 knights for each of the 13 houses. I know it's not particulary fashionable to do that instead of something procedural but I couldn't see any other way of having a large range of named champions. I had considered a more random approach. That would have allowed for knights to be killed (like they used to do in real touraments) but decided against it. I felt deaths would be annoying to the player, and incongruous with what I want from the nurturing your "gang" aspect. (reminded me of this (https://exilian.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5569.msg118792) interesting discussion that was had)
It was an odd experience naming 169 knights. They vary depending on where the house is meant to be located. For example I had to rummage around on the internet* to find some medieval names from the Spanish region for house El Sid, Saxon / Frankish names for house Von Lichenstone and so on. Obviously some already named themselves due to being references.

Stats

Similar to the above I have now given ratings to each of them which will dictate their stats. There will be a trick to working out who the best of the available knights are when you are choosing attendees from your own house. If you are interested in that, and don't mind a spoiler I wouldn't mind feedback on if the below sounds like it makes sense or is completely non intuitive

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Knights will go yay (and boo)

The only visual thing I've completed, knights celebrate winning a bout. Here's Ricaud of house Ronceveaux after disarming his foe.

(https://i.imgur.com/E122ApC.png)

Tournament logic

So I must have watched about 20 billion jousting knockout tournaments. It started to feel endless, but the light at the end of the tunnel has been reached and now knockout tournaments fundamentally work 100% of the time. One of the big things was I had to do a big refactor when I remembered there wont just be one tilt, there could be various other events a knight might also need to attend. To support that I implemented a queue system which works nicely. There is still a bunch of tweaking to do because I'll need to factor in the aforementioned stats, and iron out issues like sometimes there will be a whole bunch of passes where both knights miss, or both hit scoring the same... not sure what to do about that, maybe force a scoring pass after a certain amount of passes?

What's next?

I want to get back to giving the player some information, such as:
- Who is at the tourney
- What is going on at the event buildings
- How much gold and prestige the player has

I also need to introduce visitors into the mix, and make sure they go and watch tournaments when they are started

* that is the official term for it. Trust me, I'm a web developer
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 17, 2018, 09:06:55 PM
Neat! :) The stats thing I think works OK. Will all knights start at exactly 21 or 50, or will there be a "young range" and an "old range" for age? And when you say you'll know based on the "start good" bit, how will the player see that if at all?

And yeah, I can massively empathise with watching something run 20 billion times - especially with my current diplomacy system for Exile Princes, which has so many possible permutations and combinations it takes a whole game or three to even get a feeling of the balance of one iteration. :/
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 17, 2018, 09:56:17 PM
Not exactly - those 2 ages were either end of the spectrum to demonstrate. There will be all ones imbetween, and amount of a skill gained by training is worked out by a sum that calculates an arbitrary range.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I was thinking stats would be represented by stars, something as shown this highly advanced mockup:

(https://i.imgur.com/SDIbucj.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 17, 2018, 09:59:58 PM
That all works well and make sense, yes, sounds great :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 18, 2018, 07:06:44 PM
Thanks!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 03, 2018, 03:41:15 PM
Time for a bi-weekly update! My progress has been hampered a little bit due to a small pathfinder campaign I'm DM'ing, but in my defence it's a pretty awesome campaign. HOWEVER it does not mean I've stopped development on tourney. Also it's not only me doing things for this project, so if I don't spend 100% of my free time working on this, other stuff still gets done in the background.

Anyway here's what's new:

Level 1

Started actually building the first of four levels: Avalon woodland. I've laid out the tourney ground borders, pathing grid, terrain etc. Now the assets for the environment are being built. The environment artist has completed the first new models. Here's a sneak peek, the water mill:

(https://i.imgur.com/GMdStTn.png)

The work to build up level 1 includes setting all the equipment, armour, buildings and so on that will be available for the player. There will be more work needed to actually create the models for these but having this done means that the prospect of having a fully playable level draws nearer.

Pezzy logic

Pezzies will go to events that are underway and spectate. They'll periodically check if really want to eat or drink something instead, and if so they'll wander off to do that (Unless they are a big fan of one of the competitors)

UI

I've made a simple UI framework that has everything in the correct place, such as your gold, prestige, buttons to build things and menu buttons. Now I can start creating graphics to fill these in. I've done a new graphic for the leaderboard showing all the attending knights. When you click on their name in the leaderboard the camera zooms to them. Here's how it looks now.

(https://i.imgur.com/6hYIWSg.jpg)

There is a white square there that will be replaced with an icon that shows you at a glance what that knight is up to.

What's next?

- Still need a little menu to explain what is going on at the event buildings
- Have pezzies want to spectate on tournaments from a stand, at the moment they can only watch from anywhere but a stand
- Being able to upgrade buildings. Specifically, adding a canopy to the stand
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on August 03, 2018, 04:04:43 PM
The graphic models look pretty cool, but the lightning is somewhat bland.

I assume you are using Unity? If yes, take a look at this:

https://80.lv/articles/7-tips-for-better-lighting-in-unity/

Unity has pretty poor defaults, but with some tweaks to the lights the game looks can go from average to awesome.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on August 03, 2018, 04:10:40 PM
I'm really enjoying watching this shape up and really do love your art style - the modelling is awesome! :-)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 03, 2018, 06:48:05 PM
Quote from: beebug_nic on August 03, 2018, 04:10:40 PM
I'm really enjoying watching this shape up and really do love your art style - the modelling is awesome! :-)

Yay! Thanks for the kind words. Means a lot

Quote from: bigosaur on August 03, 2018, 04:04:43 PM
The graphic models look pretty cool, but the lightning is somewhat bland.

I assume you are using Unity? If yes, take a look at this:

https://80.lv/articles/7-tips-for-better-lighting-in-unity/

Unity has pretty poor defaults, but with some tweaks to the lights the game looks can go from average to awesome.

Yeah I'm aware. It's actually a style choice to make it slightly brighter, sharper and more vintage. Like you're there in the past. Here's a comparison between new (left) and the default (right)

(https://i.imgur.com/EYX50eK.png)

I think a lot of the screenies I'm doing at the moment feature simpler structures which are all supposed to be wood, dirt and grass. Also the only visitors are normal pezzies who again wear muted plain colours (browns, greens, greys). In other words they don't look particularly scintillating for that reason. I added the mid tier knights there to demonstrate a contrast. Later levels will have nobles and kings and lots more colour, hopefully so fingers crossed I'll win you round ;)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on August 04, 2018, 01:41:26 PM
I do think the screenshot on the left looks more vibrant and also more readable.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 09, 2018, 11:47:26 PM
Yeah - at some point for prettification some more ground-level stuff might be good (little plants or a more varied grass texture), but that's far from at the urgent end of things. I certainly like the light/sharp look given the style of game. :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 20, 2018, 10:50:55 PM
Quote from: Jubal on August 09, 2018, 11:47:26 PM
Yeah - at some point for prettification some more ground-level stuff might be good (little plants or a more varied grass texture), but that's far from at the urgent end of things. I certainly like the light/sharp look given the style of game. :)

Thanks! Yes over time more detail should be added in, although that being said I do want to be a little mindful of performance

So I ticked off all the goals from my last post so wanted to post a short update:

Couple of UI bits: I've added a context menu for the jousting tilt so it tells you who is competing this round, and who is fighting now

(https://i.imgur.com/3ThLiZF.png)

I added a small tooltip. There will be numerous small buttons that don't have text, and it might not be obvious what they are for, or might be ambiguous so this should help explain.

(https://i.imgur.com/PiZ5BOl.png)

Worked on the spectators, they now want to spectate from stand, and also can food and drink whilst spectating. Using the context menu you can now upgrade the stand to have a canopy. This will mean that when it rains the spectators wont get wet and sad.

(https://i.imgur.com/m1nLScV.png)

Next up, I really want to start adding in some more buildables since all the screenshots are getting a little "samey". So I will create an apothecary stand, which will sell tinctures and tonics which will have one shot effects in events. As well as that regular visitors will visit an apothecary which will earn you gold. AI controlled knights will periodically decide to buy / replace their tonics and if they have them they'll use them to try and win.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 20, 2018, 11:40:24 PM
How many people can you get per stand? They look a bit sparsely placed at the moment, which reduces the potential crowd feel.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 21, 2018, 07:27:50 AM
In that image there were 6. I need to be careful over the limit for a couple of reasons:

1) The first is that there needs to be some limit or there could end up being stands that look like that anyway.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

2) It looks better if they have space to walk out when they want to leave to do something else, because the crowd simulation code is not allowed to move static agents - in other words if someone is spectating someone in front of them wont be able to barge past to get out.

You're absolutely right, though. I've upped the limit somewhat to 17, which does look better

(https://i.imgur.com/thCbNEp.png)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on August 21, 2018, 10:33:40 AM
I think you hit a sweet spot with the stands - it looks a lot better with more folks inside - though this gives you an option for a nice bit of detail that 99% of people will probably ignore but would be cool - have the stands get fuller as you get to the end (no one wants to watch a less popular person, or the early stages, they want to see the juicer jousts where teeth are potentially being sprayed everywhere!) :-)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 21, 2018, 11:39:33 AM
Yeah, that looks *vastly* better with the limit upped to 17, has much more the right feel now :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 05, 2018, 10:52:29 AM
Quote from: beebug_nic on August 21, 2018, 10:33:40 AM
I think you hit a sweet spot with the stands - it looks a lot better with more folks inside - though this gives you an option for a nice bit of detail that 99% of people will probably ignore but would be cool - have the stands get fuller as you get to the end (no one wants to watch a less popular person, or the early stages, they want to see the juicer jousts where teeth are potentially being sprayed everywhere!) :-)

Quote from: Jubal on August 21, 2018, 11:39:33 AM
Yeah, that looks *vastly* better with the limit upped to 17, has much more the right feel now :)

I agree. Thanks for the suggestions!

I ticked off the big todo from my last post: I made and implemented an apothecary stand! This will sell tinctures and potions that help knights in events - although I didn't get around to putting the potions themselves in. However visitors do go over to it and buy invisible items.
I also added a ground texture for this and the beer keg outlet. I realised a ground texture was needed because otherwise it isn't clear why placement sometimes becomes invalid when you are trying to place something near them. The reason is that there is a space by the "vend point" that is forced to be clear of other buildings so that your punters can get there. Here's what it looks like:

(https://i.imgur.com/Wb2FmoY.png)

It actually took a fair bit of time to remind myself on how the hell to make an outlet work and snap to the grid nicely, since it was so long since I did the beer keg. I came to the conclusion that I need to actually document how to do various things that I'll be doing multiple times, like setting up new outlets.
I also completed a bunch more UI elements. I included the main buildings group selection bar in the screenshot.

I did a lot of thinking and planning too, confirming a lot more details such as how many visitors will turn up, from where & how. I decided it made most sense to have a vehicle like a wagon and horse bring them (much like the bus would in theme park). Similarly I decided I need to add latrines (or would the best word be privy? or midden? Not sure).
I cleared up a few annoying bugs. The main one was if someones destination was where a building is placed, or if it's just plonked directly on their head then odd things would happen. Now they are teleported out of the way.

Some trees for the level 1 edge scenery have been completed and placed in the scene. I did some load testing and tweaking so it seems to perform ok with all the scenery, crowds and buildings. Despite being very careful I am still pessimistically expecting to notice a big game breaking performance problem I didn't account for right before completion - and have a big old cry.

(https://i.imgur.com/QGFbmWS.png)

Next:

Final level 1 "edge" scenery is going to be rolled out this month: a fence object and some ruins, meaning I can share some close to final looking screenshots.

I might finally have a track by the next update too

I also want to implement the system by which visitors are happy and sad about things. This will then lead on to making them want to leave, and adding a wagon which brings in new visitors.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 05, 2018, 11:20:22 PM
Lovely! Will the stalls/vendors actually have an NPC working at them/standing next to them, or will NPCs just look like they're using them like vending machines?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 06, 2018, 03:40:28 PM
Quote from: Jubal on September 05, 2018, 11:20:22 PM
Lovely! Will the stalls/vendors actually have an NPC working at them/standing next to them, or will NPCs just look like they're using them like vending machines?

Yes. At the moment they are using them like vending machines. I really do want to create a person to stand next to each outlet as the actual seller - but I just need to get round to making them.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 12, 2018, 11:26:25 PM
Ah, OK, great :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 20, 2018, 02:59:54 PM
Edge fence

I finished the fence model for the edge of the first level field! Here is is in action.

(http://www.tuskygames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/tourney.png)

The first level is much more presentable now

Happiness

The visitors all have a happiness value now that goes up or down depending on various things - such as if they want to eat but cant, enjoyed a fight etc.

Whilst doing this I realised an issue: The visitors just wander to and fro & when they need anything they go right to any venue that can provide for that need. So if a new outlet is placed - they'll one by one go to it, and end up looking like a horde of zombies.

So what difference did it make where the player put anything?

I think the answer - like in all other simulation games... is to use paths to direct where people generally go.
It would have been nice to not use them just because it would have set tourney apart a little bit. More like real "crowd in field" situations, where people would just wander about. Still I think it is something people will "get" and provides a neat solutioon

Death

After a chat with Mr Jubal and Glaurung in the pub I have been persuaded against my original decision to not have knights die (I thought it might be too annoying).

Knights will be popping their clogs aplenty now in tourney >:D I think this will be better fun too, and true to history as well which is a nice bonus

What's next?

Paths

A new "basic knight" model

Complete accommodation tent texture. I've done the model - just not got round to doing all the different versions for each house.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on September 20, 2018, 05:53:17 PM
Something I use in Fringe Planet (which might help you here) is the idea of dawdling (which has a chance to occur the more depressed a peon gets, as well an intelligence check). If I add an order (cut this tree down) - there is a chance that a peon will dawdle a little bit before actually doing the task. It's a very simple concept, but it makes things feel slightly more organic (i.e. peons not immediately running straight to whatever has been ordered to do). There are exceptions of course - orders than peons create themselves (get food, get warmth) won't be dawdled. Just a thought :-)

And very much rejoiced at the news of death happening, but I may be a twisted individual :-)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 21, 2018, 10:54:25 AM
Quote from: beebug_nic on September 20, 2018, 05:53:17 PM
Something I use in Fringe Planet (which might help you here) is the idea of dawdling (which has a chance to occur the more depressed a peon gets, as well an intelligence check). If I add an order (cut this tree down) - there is a chance that a peon will dawdle a little bit before actually doing the task. It's a very simple concept, but it makes things feel slightly more organic (i.e. peons not immediately running straight to whatever has been ordered to do). There are exceptions of course - orders than peons create themselves (get food, get warmth) won't be dawdled. Just a thought :-)

Yes it's a nice nice idea. At the moment I have something similar - the pezzies have a "wander" state which they go into from time to time. So whilst it mitigates somewhat - they will eventually decide they want to visit the new shiny shop. And when you have 200 odd people it's very noticeable that where you put something was just completely arbitrary if they all just psychically know where what they want is located.

Quote from: beebug_nic on September 20, 2018, 05:53:17 PM
And very much rejoiced at the news of death happening, but I may be a twisted individual :-)

I must be as well because I think it will be a lot more interesting haha :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on September 21, 2018, 10:59:54 AM
Quote from: Tusky on September 21, 2018, 10:54:25 AM
And when you have 200 odd people it's very noticeable that where you put something was just completely arbitrary if they all just psychically know where what they want is located.

Simpler solution: during the fights, allow equipment (weapons and armour) to be knocked off and impale/crush the crowd! Therefore reducing the number of agents and making things look more realistic :-D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 21, 2018, 11:11:39 AM
Quote from: beebug_nic on September 21, 2018, 10:59:54 AM
Simpler solution: during the fights, allow equipment (weapons and armour) to be knocked off and impale/crush the crowd! Therefore reducing the number of agents and making things look more realistic :-D

LOL! Yep problem solved
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 21, 2018, 12:22:40 PM
Ooh, you could also have them parading around wild animals as crowd entertainment which will occasionally get out and eat/crush someone :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on September 25, 2018, 12:18:23 PM
Quote from: Tusky on September 20, 2018, 02:59:54 PM
Happiness

The visitors all have a happiness value now that goes up or down depending on various things - such as if they want to eat but cant, enjoyed a fight etc.

Whilst doing this I realised an issue: The visitors just wander to and fro & when they need anything they go right to any venue that can provide for that need. So if a new outlet is placed - they'll one by one go to it, and end up looking like a horde of zombies.

So what difference did it make where the player put anything?

I think the answer - like in all other simulation games... is to use paths to direct where people generally go.
It would have been nice to not use them just because it would have set tourney apart a little bit. More like real "crowd in field" situations, where people would just wander about. Still I think it is something people will "get" and provides a neat solutioon

What if there is a limit to the distance where peasants detect new venues? So if everyone is thirsty and you place a new beer vendor, nearby peasants will swarm towards it, but peasants further removed will keep wandering until they stumble across it. Perhaps in combination with paths; if they are more likely to follow paths then you can direct them towards your vendors that way. Don't know how much computing power it would take to track all that, though, since each peasant would have its own memory of what the map looks like.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 02, 2018, 10:01:20 AM
Yes that's not a bad idea. Thanks!

So if they are following a path that the player sets out, then they could have a limit to what they see in that vicinity. That way you can tailor areas to lord / peasant areas, and make sure that things are grouped that way so the visitors daisy chain things they might want to do and make them spend money and get happy. I will have a think and will probably implement something like that.

But yeah essentially - anything that allows the player to have some influence over where the visitors go will be a vast improvement :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 22, 2018, 11:45:31 AM
wow. 1 month since the last full post.

It's been a slow month for me. To be honest I was hoping to have the things in my last to do list completed (simple knight and paths). But they are not. Whilst I was planning out the logic for paths I began to realise that it fundamentally felt wrong and I couldn't make it work in a way I liked. So I went back to the drawing board. I think I have finally come up with something that will work, which is essentially doing what Sliv said  ;D A visitor will now consider everything in a certain range, and then choose where to go - favouring things that are nearer to them. I think it will work quite nicely. For example you can set up a row of vendors which the visitors will go to in turn - thus giving you some control over what people visit.
There is a lot to their decision process which I won't bore you with here - such as what to do with event and stand buildings. Suffice to say I have been coding it for the couple of weeks and still haven't finished.

So what with that and sneaking off for a weeks holiday I have completed 0 things. However I have progressed them well, and shouldn't be too far off completing.

That being said some stuff was completed by someone more productive than me. Here's a little fishing boat and dock rig that will sit on a nearby water feature as "edge scenery":

(https://i.imgur.com/7jIgOaG.jpg)

Todo

Paths (well, more accurately: visitor goal decision logic)
Simple knight.


Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 22, 2018, 01:47:54 PM
Ooh, that is a pretty boat :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on October 26, 2018, 12:02:21 PM
That is an awesome model :-) And don't kick yourself about being slow - any progress is good progress. And it sounds like you are very much sitting down and considering everything, which is incredibly valuable :-D I hope you enjoy your holiday! :-D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 26, 2018, 10:04:09 PM
Thanks  :) Kind words indeed

Very happy to reveal that I've finished the bulk of that logic now! I'll be making a few more tweaks and then return to my own 3d modelling
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 26, 2018, 10:40:21 PM
Yay, well done! :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 26, 2018, 10:45:54 AM
Wow it's been a month since posting anything! Well it's high time I list all the amazing thing I have done....

FIRST THING

A new "simple" knight model. Supposed to look a bit like a squire with a bit more armour on. Here's a screeny:

(https://i.imgur.com/V5ApXYR.jpg)

The actual armour isn't done yet but you can see the house colours there...

As with the "crusader" looking one I've had in previous screenshots, they need 16 unique textures to be created for all the heraldry and whatnot. So take ages essentially. I have done 7 of 13 houses so should be done in a week or so. Once done that will mean I'll only need to a few more models before there is something resembling a game ready to test!

So there you have it!

Stay tuned for more amazing thing I have done next time!

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on November 28, 2018, 12:47:11 PM
Looks great! Can't wait to try it out someday.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 28, 2018, 03:43:23 PM
Thanks SLiV!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 28, 2018, 05:13:30 PM
Very nice :) I came across an old song I used to love called "Errant Knight" which is a parody/humour song about jousting and reminded me of this thread

(It starts:
My lady Ann, your Champion's depressed;
Not in shape to carry on the quest,
I have to keep my speed down to a trot,
Or lose what little armour plate I've got;
My screws are loose, my clamps are hanging off,
My helmet topples every time I cough -
I topple with it every time I charge,
I've got to get this suit to a garage...")
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 29, 2018, 09:31:04 AM
Yay, nice :) I'll use that for inspiration

I have a bit from GOT at the very top of my GDD to guide my hand in terms of spirit:

Beneath it's walls he saw tents of many colors, bright banners cracking in the wind, and knights in mail and plate on barded horses. He smelled roasting meats, and heard the sound of laughter and the blare of heralds' trumpets. A great tourney was about to commence, and champions from all over the land had come to contest it. The king himself was there, with his son the dragon prince. [...] The crannogman had never seen such pageantry, and knew he might never see the like again. Part of him wanted nothing so much as to be part of it.

- Meera Reed on the grand tourney at Harrenhal
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 29, 2018, 11:20:46 AM
Yes - generally I think Martin isn't fantasy's greatest exemplar of prose style, but that's a really nice passage :)

Link to that song and full lyrics:
https://www.peteatkin.com/play/f4.htm
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 10, 2018, 08:45:24 AM
Well since recovering from the lurgy and sorting out some life stuff* my motivation has increased. As such I have been sinking some hours into tourney development!

Here's what's new this time.


(https://i.imgur.com/DKveZDU.jpg)


Next

Hog roast model - which will be the first food outlet


* playing games like x4: foundation and frostpunk a lot
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: BeerDrinkingBurke on December 11, 2018, 06:53:22 AM
Looks like you are making a lot of progress. The boats look great!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on December 11, 2018, 09:06:52 AM
Mm, hog roast :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 11, 2018, 10:09:37 AM
Quote from: BeerDrinkingBurke on December 11, 2018, 06:53:22 AM
Looks like you are making a lot of progress. The boats look great!

Thanks :)

Quote from: Jubal on December 11, 2018, 09:06:52 AM
Mm, hog roast :)

Yeah it's coming along well - might even be the best building I've done for this yet. Looking forward to sharing
It's odd though I keep getting hungry when I'm working on it  ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 13, 2019, 11:33:10 AM
Been making some good progress lately.

I ticked off the main todo from last time. A delissquious hog roast model.

(https://i.imgur.com/wC2tfOz.gif)

I also completed these things:


(https://i.imgur.com/hcyfVY5.png)

Next

- People can leave the tourney ground when they've had enough
- Lots of work has been done on the main theme track over the last couple of weeks, so fingers crossed I can share a snipped next time
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on January 13, 2019, 11:59:46 AM
Nice :) The lack of trusses on the pig looks a bit odd to me, but that might be asking too much in terms of mode detail. It's a good model, anyhow!

I'm looking forward to see more of how all this fits together :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 14, 2019, 02:12:37 PM
Quote from: Jubal on January 13, 2019, 11:59:46 AM
It's a good model
Thanks!

Quote from: Jubal on January 13, 2019, 11:59:46 AM
The lack of trusses on the pig looks a bit odd to me, but that might be asking too much in terms of mode detail.
Yeah, you're right. I'll add some trusses in. I half though of it when I was building the model then forgot, so  hoped nobody would notice. Turns out I have to get up earlier than that to get one past old eagle eyed Jubal

Quote from: Jubal on January 13, 2019, 11:59:46 AM
I'm looking forward to see more of how all this fits together :)
Me too  ;D

It's really strange to have to completely build everything conceptually in the design document and using "stories" with no other way of knowing if it will be fun or what it will be like.
It's the opposite to my last game. I built a little robot - got him to shoot and run around, and so essentially had immediate feedback on what the game play was like. With this I'll have to have worked on it for about 18 months before I have any clue
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on January 17, 2019, 12:04:30 AM
I've still not played Escape from Biostation, I should really do that...

Sorry if the truss thing was finicky! I guess I've just seen too many hog roasts for it not to look a bit odd to me :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 17, 2019, 06:44:26 AM
Quote from: Jubal on January 17, 2019, 12:04:30 AM
Sorry if the truss thing was finicky! I guess I've just seen too many hog roasts for it not to look a bit odd to me :)

Nah it's ok you were right. It was just on my todo list, I just moved it up a bit to.... NOW

(https://i.imgur.com/yT4UntF.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on January 17, 2019, 09:07:24 AM
Looks excellent! Much improved :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 13, 2019, 04:30:30 PM
Bit of a general update:

I am soon to be out of the country for a number of months, and had put tourney on hiatus (which is why I haven't posted an update in a while). Part of the reason for the project pause was because I have a lot to do prepping for departure, but also a big problem was that I would have no facility to develop the game whilst away!

However I I'm going to trade in my trusty desktop and old laptop for a new shiny one. Hopefully I can take with me and should allow me to still do development in my down time.

More updates to follow!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on March 14, 2019, 11:33:09 PM
Ooh, computer change. I hope it goes well for you! :) Where will you be for career break stuff?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 15, 2019, 08:46:09 AM
Thanks!

I'll be spending summer out in Cyprus doing a scuba diving internship.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 24, 2019, 07:59:51 AM
I've completed the items from the last todo list!

Least exciting news: People will leave the tourney ground when they have had enough. This will vary depending on how good a time they are having. Here's a bunch of pezzies waiting for the bus...

(http://i.imgur.com/hgh2QIt.png)

More exciting news: Work on (what may be) the main theme has been plodding along for the last few months. Here's a small clip. I think there is a little bit left to do on it, but by and large this is the finished thing & I'd be interested in any feedback!



Next

I am going to start implementing "Rage mode" for the knights. This will trigger when they get peeved when they lose a joust, or can't buy a beer and that sort of thing. It is preventable, but should a knight get into this state they will storm around attacking innocent merry makers. That will be a bad thing.

There are quite a few things to do for it, but I am going to start with:

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on March 31, 2019, 01:09:03 PM
Quote
It is preventable, but should a knight get into this state they will storm around attacking innocent merry makers. That will be a bad thing.

It amused me that you needed the clarifying sentence :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 14, 2019, 07:44:03 PM
Quote from: Jubal on March 31, 2019, 01:09:03 PM
It amused me that you needed the clarifying sentence :)

Haha, indeed.
I think that comment may have been aimed more at myself, having just finished a big focused think on the objectives and gameplay


I have finished off quite a bit in the last few weeks:

UI

The levels are split into an "invite phase" where you select your house knights and third party guest knights arrive. During this you build whatever you want to start the next phase with: the tournament phase. I've created a clock graphic, to tell how far through the tournament phase you are. The phase lasts a day, from 10 till 10.
I've imported it to the game, and got the pause button in the middle working too.

(https://i.imgur.com/zvGg4Hq.png)

The problem was it then made the existing tooltip for selecting your buildings look a little out of place, so I gave that a makeover too

(https://i.imgur.com/Wj1GBrZ.png)

Tents

I have finally completed everything for the accommodation tents (model / tex / engine import etc).
The way those work is that you have 2 types of pitches: An empty plot that causes a guest knight from another house to arrive; or a prebuilt tent in your house colours that will then allow you to invite a knight from your house to occupy it.

That meant I also needed to build a menu where you choose your champion:

(https://i.imgur.com/lNPUbR3.png)

Random fixes and tweaks


Next


(https://i.imgur.com/tvSdLKi.jpg)

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 14, 2019, 08:13:51 PM
Lovely! I really like how the look of it is shaping up :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on April 15, 2019, 05:15:46 PM
Loving the updates, I try and keep up with as much as I can on twitter, but it seems I've missed a lot of very hard work. I'm really loving how this is coming together and the UI improvements look awesome!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 16, 2019, 11:27:09 PM
UI is the great unsung part of gamedev really - it takes so much of the time and is so so vital, but it also feels frustratingly small when you show it to people somehow compared to "here's a new unit!" or "here's a new quest!"
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 17, 2019, 08:52:29 AM
Quote from: Jubal on April 14, 2019, 08:13:51 PM
Lovely! I really like how the look of it is shaping up :)
Quote from: beebug_nic on April 15, 2019, 05:15:46 PM
Loving the updates, I try and keep up with as much as I can on twitter, but it seems I've missed a lot of very hard work.  I'm really loving how this is coming together and the UI improvements look awesome!

Thanks both!

Quote from: Jubal on April 16, 2019, 11:27:09 PM
UI is the great unsung part of gamedev really - it takes so much of the time and is so so vital, but it also feels frustratingly small when you show it to people somehow compared to "here's a new unit!" or "here's a new quest!"

Yeah I know 100% what you guys mean. Each one of those graphics  took something like 12 to 15 hours to make (and that is discounting previous incarnations). You're right, nobody really cares that much about UI  - well except maybe other devs or UI artists!

That's why I'll normally try to put something else in an update as well so there might be at least something of interest to the lay-reader. Because I think that to some extent it's tough to post something that will be of interest to anyone at all, since it concerns something that does not exist yet.
For example the last game I had received very little interest as I was making it. Certainly whatever I made a post somewhere it seemed to broadly fall on deaf ears, UI based or otherwise. I was obviously far more excited about it than anyone else  ;D

As such It's very encouraging to hear your feedback. I really appreciate it!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 09, 2019, 05:29:36 AM
It's been a bit of a slow couple of months for me, since I'm currently doing some training courses in Cyprus till the end of June. Hopefully next month once I've finished with the courses I will be able to spend a bit more time on the game.

I have been chipping away, though, and progress has been made. I completed the items I wanted to from the last post: Add a way to start the tournament phase, and add objectives to complete during the tournament phase. There is a basic objective system in place, so you can now play through level 1 and win or lose!

(https://i.imgur.com/WQBytQV.png)

I made some menus for knights and visitors now so you can click them and see some basic info about them. I need to spend a lot of time creating all the various icons that are needed before the menus are fully finished.

I've made a fun system for scheduling a joust, where you can mess around with the order of who knights are fighting against, before it starts. It means the player can give their house knights a more favourable path to the final if they want to.

The game phase now represents a day, and the lighting will slowly adjust accordingly.

(https://i.imgur.com/lAqpgAE.png)

Next

I am going to create a summary window for a joust event, so that you can see what factored in to the result. There are 4 main contributing factors: potions, mood, skill, and tactics (equipment is also sort of another one - but that mostly concerns damage output / mitigation). Once this is information available to the player then I can add in gameplay for the four methods so the player can influence them.




Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on June 11, 2019, 12:27:08 AM
I really like the day/knight cycles :P

And the tents look really pretty too!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: beebug_nic on June 21, 2019, 05:54:09 PM
That day/night cycle is awesome :-) It might be feature creep, but it would be lovely to see cooking fires and things like that when it goes dark :-)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on June 22, 2019, 06:20:54 PM
Agree with the beeb :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Manic Arts on July 29, 2019, 09:13:42 PM
Just binged your posts and holy armadillo does this pulls at  my nostalgia strings!
It really does feel like roller coaster tyccoon in medieval times!

I think it's the attention to details that does the trick... the way the pig gets roasted in your gif just sold me.

Need more updates!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 30, 2019, 07:21:57 AM
Thank you so much eveyone! Well, without further ado, back by popular demand* here is an update!

I have been working on the "gameplay" part of the jousting. This is what the joust window looks like now

(https://i.imgur.com/6gBLnC2.png)

So you can see all of the pairings in that knockout tournament. You can also see the scoring that lead to the last result. (po = potions, mo = mood, sk = skill, ta = tactics).
Conran Wallace pretty much wiped the floor with Fierabras there. You can also see how certain knights are clearly the "ones to beat" because they tend to have better armour on.

So what's next is to allow player control over those scores. You can elect to use certain tinctures or potions to increase that score. You can make your knight happy, or irritate the enemy to affect the mood score. You can train your knight to increase their skill. Finally you can play the minigame to get a good tactics score.
You could not bother and just leave your knights to it, of course, but then you might not get the ranking you want.

Things continue to be quite slow for dev on the game. I am currently slighly marooned on one of the Yasawa islands in Fiji till October. However I'm managing to get an hour or two a day done. It's slow progress, but it's progress :)

* Manic arts requested one
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Manic Arts on July 30, 2019, 07:45:33 PM
Yeah the important is to keep going. The most difficult thing when creating a game is ALWAYS to finish it!
Most people will jump ship to another project when the honey moon period stops.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 31, 2019, 07:58:01 PM
Quote from: Manic Arts on July 30, 2019, 07:45:33 PM
Yeah the important is to keep going. The most difficult thing when creating a game is ALWAYS to finish it!

This. Also to not end up with impossible levels of feature creep... *looks at own project in minor dismay*
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 22, 2019, 01:56:24 AM
Hey folks!

Very chuffed to have managed to knuckle down and complete some good stuff lately. Here's a digest!

Surgeon Tent

New buildable structure! The surgeon tent is there for knights that have finished their joust and have got injured. They'll make their way here and get fixed up. It's medieval medicine, so obviously it's lacking some of the modern day medical amenities we're used to. Something I hope some of the blood stains capture.

(https://i.imgur.com/rxMYHUc.png)

Knight about

The knight menu has been worked on a fair bit and polished. One of the new things is that every knight has a little bio for them to add some flavour. Some of their bios are little pop culture references; some of them are just little funny factoids. Some of the “about” information will contain clues to things that will particularly ruffle the feathers of that knight, maybe when you will be facing them and need a bit of an edge.

(https://i.imgur.com/3pghzou.png)

All people menus

I've added a status bar for the player to see what the little guys are all doing. It's not surprising & essential for this type of game. You click on the person, you want to know what they are up to, right?

(https://i.imgur.com/cIiPihL.png)

The other element to this menu that is new is the bit I've called "happiness flags". Much like a moodlet you might see in games such as a very popular life sim by EA games. Things that are going on that are affecting the person's mood. It's made me very much have to dust of my pixel art tools to make all the different icons...

AOB

Lots of other fixes and tweaks have been going on. Lots of attention to the jousting to make it lively and fun and somewhat realistic. A knight is now allowed to surrender before jousting. That means instead of having low health - but just charging in anyway to die, they can instead surrender. When they do that both knights will trot to the end without lowering their lances.
I also ensured that all knights can sustain some damage. Before it was only the loser that did. Now a draw can mean both knights are damaged. A defeated knight can also impart a parting shot to the victor. It makes the acquisition of some health remedies to use mid-event important, since they won't be able to duck out to the surgeon...

Next up.

It's been far too long since I made a new person model. There is one very iconic person that will be required in tourney: the jester. They will be a member of staff you can hire, and they can be used to cheer up the crowd, and also maybe to irritate a knight before you face them in an event.

The jester will need lots of animations and coding, but will make a start on that soon with sketches and 3d modelling.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 22, 2019, 10:09:59 PM
How will the surgeon tent work? It would be fun to find some way to slip some actual medieval medicine references in...
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 23, 2019, 01:09:20 AM
Quote from: Jubal on August 22, 2019, 10:09:59 PM
How will the surgeon tent work? It would be fun to find some way to slip some actual medieval medicine references in...

What kind of references?

At the moment all the outlets are vending machines, but my goal is to put a vendor bod by them. I think the most fun behaviour for the surgeon would probably be to wield a saw at their knight patient in a somewhat random and bloody manner.

I do want to avoid sacrificing realism over what i think will be most fun, though (and what is achievable with my current dev capacity)

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 24, 2019, 11:22:36 PM
Well, you have character traits for the knights, right? I was wondering if it could be fun for the surgeon to start talking about them using humor theory... That is, the idea that the body has four basic fluids, and your temperament depends on the balance of them - too much blood and you become too sanguine, that is too lively/too much of a risk taker, too much yellow bile and you become choleric, that is aggressive and angry, too much black bile and you become melancholic, so emotional and depressive, and too much phlegm and you become phlegmatic, so lethargic and listless. You let particular fluids out to correct imbalances of temperament for this reason. I guess I think of that as the archetypal medieval medicine thing and it has some fun potential, it might not fit here but it just sprang to my mind.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 25, 2019, 10:31:34 PM
Quote from: Jubal on August 24, 2019, 11:22:36 PM
Well, you have character traits for the knights, right?

Sort of, yeah. They are quite simplistic & specific ones at the moment. For example: doesn't like loud noises.

I'd love to incorporate your idea somehow, would add some good depth and realism. Maybe some sort of "mood wheel" that instead of the expected moods, has sanguine / choleric etc on it... then it can get centered by the medical professionals - and they lance the appropriate bodily goo.

Will give it a think :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 15, 2019, 03:47:32 PM
Jester

Since the last update I designed, modelled, rigged and textured the new member of staff: the Jester, then imported them into the game and implemented some mechanics. It took a while since the buildings and members of staff are the key things you can interact with as a player, and that is generally how you affect the knights and visitors.

Knight statue

First of many decorations: a granite knight statue to sternly peer down at everyone

(https://i.imgur.com/MXoXqJz.png)

Visual feedback for thoughts

Until now, when a happiness flag (like being hungry, for example) was applied it was not immediately visible; just hidden away on a menu. Now that has been changed so a flag will appear over the head of a person so it's very obvious. Also in certain circumstances the person will react to something that has happened. For example the new jester abilities will make a visitor applaud or get upset. Here's a GIF showing this in action:

(https://i.imgur.com/Urb7ELJ.gif)

Next

I don't think I'm going to target any main features in the next few weeks, so a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Silver Wolf on September 16, 2019, 10:10:59 AM
Good work! :D

Also, I love your modelling style.
Reminds me of Roller-coaster tycoon mixed with early medieval paintings.

Here are some other possible ideas:
- you could introduce a new "cleanliness" factor with something like outhouses, rat catchers, horse dung and dung farmers
- log-tossing and other peasant games that would serve as another source of income
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 16, 2019, 07:08:17 PM
Quote from: Silver Wolf on September 16, 2019, 10:10:59 AM
Good work! :D

Also, I love your modelling style.
Reminds me of Roller-coaster tycoon mixed with early medieval paintings.
Thank you!

Quote from: Silver Wolf on September 16, 2019, 10:10:59 AM
Here are some other possible ideas:
- you could introduce a new "cleanliness" factor with something like outhouses, rat catchers, horse dung and dung farmers
- log-tossing and other peasant games that would serve as another source of income

Nice ideas! I did already have plans for one of those. I'll be adding in outhouses, and certain knights will be sticklers for cleanliness. They aren't finished just yet thought - currently all of the visitors have an unfulfillable need to toilet.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 29, 2019, 08:12:47 PM
Wow, it's been over a month since the last update!

Quote from: Tusky on September 15, 2019, 03:47:32 PM
I don't think I'm going to target any main features in the next few weeks, so a lot of behind the scenes stuff.

I lied, I did do some stuff:

Blacksmith

A new model for the backsmith has been created! Eventually it'll be where you can buy upgrades for your knights armour and sword.

(https://i.imgur.com/ObRap7r.png)

Filth Collector

He shuffles around gloomily, picking up junk from the floor that your visitors carelessly drop. He also comes with the fun ability to throw mud at people.

(https://i.imgur.com/z70uHq0.gif)

I definitely drew inspiration from pop culture for this one:

(https://i.imgur.com/LuM6lSf.png)

Dull task I completed that I feel like sharing

I also spent absolutely ages (2 weeks) coming up with a robust way to prevent buildings being blocked in. not especially fun, but had to be done.

Next

Implementation of potions & potions purchase system
Blacksmith purchase system


Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 30, 2019, 11:45:27 AM
Can the collector throw mud at the knights? Possibly with a cry of "well I didn't vote for you!" ? :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 30, 2019, 12:27:09 PM
Hahaha, yeah you will be able to throw mud at anyone other than staff (Some knights will especially hate it, too)

The knights are definitely gonna have to respond with that!  ;D

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 10, 2019, 01:41:39 PM
Happy December, one and all!

Here's the December* update!  A few medieval bits and bobs have been rolling off the production line since last time...

NEW STUFF! Equipment menu!

Here's a neat little menu where you can purchase armour and weapons from the carpenter and blacksmith outlets. Along with this was the creation of a few simple items for the player to purchase.

(https://i.imgur.com/8pRaZAn.png)

NEW STUFF! Carpenter outlet! A lantern decoration!

(https://i.imgur.com/7qFf6ry.png)

NEW STUFF! Potions!

I also finished the potions menu, so the player can go in and buy tincures, lotions and potions that have assorted effects for their knights. Visiting party knights also have a chance that they will select and use a potion before a joust run.

Next up:


* I note that my last proper update here was 6 weeks ago, and on my website longer ago than that! Things have been a little slow lately what with festive admin, and writing a D&D one shot. I think I'll nominally maintain at least monthly updates.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on December 31, 2019, 06:10:33 PM
That all looks neat, I like your UI design :) (That's Vinque you're using right for the font right?)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 02, 2020, 11:45:18 AM
Quote from: Jubal on December 31, 2019, 06:10:33 PM
That all looks neat, I like your UI design :) (That's Vinque you're using right for the font right?)

Thanks! I do use Vinque for the "heading" style bits, for normal text I use a font called Cardo regular   

Well, time for the first update of the year, and of the decade! So to kick things off... what new stuff is there?

Toilet

Not especially glamorous, but a toilet has been created so that visitors can satisfy that particular need. Here is it at the end of a rather grand avenue...

(https://i.imgur.com/8byaxbh.jpg)

Vendors in the outlets

All of the outlets now has somone manning them, so they are not like vending machines any longer.
For the surgeon I followed the advice of Jubal a little. A knight getting healed involves some medieval style blood letting. Below is a GIF of what it does, I put it in a spoiler since there is a teeny bit of a simulated blood splat. Not terribly offensive but some might consider it a bit PG13

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A Shrubbery!

(https://i.imgur.com/LpGkP13.png)

Script

I have completed writing a script for the "campaign". It's a good thing to have completed because it means I have confirmed the characters, story and objectives. It lead to a few gameplay adjustments, for example before there were 2 types of accommodation tent: "guest" ones and "house" ones. But instead the house ones are built for you - which hopefully makes things a little less complicated. Anyway I'll work on it a while longer, make sure it's sufficiently humerous and written as well as I can get it!

Next:

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on January 26, 2020, 05:55:28 PM
I forgot to say - I am happy that the shrubbery is there. Will some of the knights by any chance demand that there is a shrubbery before they arrive, or some mechanic similar? :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 27, 2020, 12:40:30 PM
Oo, nice idea. Unfortunately it exists only as a reference at the moment. I'm getting concerned the game might be a bit too complicated as it is!  So would like to wait for some playtesting in "the wild" before I go adding more mechanics.

I will make a list of decent ideas like these that I can add in, though. Thanks.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on January 27, 2020, 01:48:08 PM
I guess it's something you could build quite a nice easter egg around if it'd be too complex to add as a game mechanic proper.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 27, 2020, 02:35:57 PM
That would be a nice easter egg. it's on the list anyway.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on February 04, 2020, 03:46:06 PM
It's February! whew what a year January was! Lots of dev got done on Tourney! Here's a rundown:

Jousting Menu

Up till now the joust was only resolved by the AI. But now, when your knight is heading to compete in a joust you get a little notification which allows you to select tactics and potions etc - allowing control over the scores resolution. It looks a little like this (apologies for the cacophony of menus)

(https://i.imgur.com/j0lUUk5.jpg)

Dropoff Wagon

My third party helper completed a nice wagon model that will drop off the first level visitors:

(https://i.imgur.com/5LUE7qq.jpg)

So what's next?

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Silver Wolf on February 05, 2020, 06:55:19 PM
Loving all the updates. :D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on February 05, 2020, 07:19:21 PM
Quote from: Silver Wolf on February 05, 2020, 06:55:19 PM
Loving all the updates. :D

Thanks sw  :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on February 05, 2020, 08:57:44 PM
The new cart is fun - neat stuff :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 23, 2020, 08:24:39 AM
As tusky towers goes into hermitage mode, dev time is being ramped up. Within a few days I've already ticked off a few things that I'd had down on a timeline needing a few weeks, so there may be a fair few of these over spring.  :)

Visitor Dropoff Wagon

Finally got around to making the vehicle that delivers the pezzies to the tourney. Was quite pleased with the shire horses

(https://i.imgur.com/q20hOsh.png)(https://i.imgur.com/FU0GqOH.png)

Training Menu

When your knight does pretty much anything whilst competing they will earn achievements that you can spend to train them and level them up. This also unlocks titles which grant various small buffs.

(https://i.imgur.com/RvATU9N.png) (https://i.imgur.com/joSMub8.png)

It's still a bit basic graphically speaking, but functionally works really well. I just hope it's not too complicated! :knight:

Outlet Menus

Finished off the beer wagon and hog roast menus so that you can alter the a.b.v. of the beer and grease levels of the meat. That's fun to mess around with and make everyone drunk, or need the loo quicker - but also can be used for exploiting knights.

Next...



Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on March 23, 2020, 10:44:02 PM
Ooh, will you be able to salt the beer? That's the historical classic for messing with people on that front :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Silver Wolf on March 24, 2020, 03:42:21 AM
A bit of nitpicking here, but do you think you could put some tack on those horses pulling the carts?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 24, 2020, 09:19:14 AM
Quote from: Silver Wolf on March 24, 2020, 03:42:21 AM
A bit of nitpicking here, but do you think you could put some tack on those horses pulling the carts?

Yes, that's a neat idea. Don't know why I didn't bother in the first place tbh. Probably too excited to get them finished.

Quote from: Jubal on March 23, 2020, 10:44:02 PM
Ooh, will you be able to salt the beer? That's the historical classic for messing with people on that front :)

Nice! I could do, so that looks like something that was done to beer when it was not especially pleasant - i.e. when it was cheap? So it would be a way to have the keg earn you more money at the cost of how satisfied people are when they drink it
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Glaurung on March 24, 2020, 09:29:36 AM
I'm not sure that salting the beer makes it taste very different (it might not have tasted very good anyway), but as I understand it, the salt makes the drinkers thirstier so they buy more beer than they would have done otherwise.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 25, 2020, 12:52:33 PM
Quote from: Silver Wolf on March 24, 2020, 03:42:21 AM
A bit of nitpicking here, but do you think you could put some tack on those horses pulling the carts?

I acquiesced

(https://i.imgur.com/Rqk6VDg.png)

Quote from: Glaurung on March 24, 2020, 09:29:36 AM
I'm not sure that salting the beer makes it taste very different (it might not have tasted very good anyway), but as I understand it, the salt makes the drinkers thirstier so they buy more beer than they would have done otherwise.

Ah ok, thanks :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on March 25, 2020, 05:15:29 PM
The tack looks nice! Good job.

And yeah, what Glaurung said. Though having them be less satisfied but spending more could still work, if "satisfied" is the thing that means "doesn't want to have more drink for a while" and if "spending more" can be analogous to "buys more drink".  :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 27, 2020, 05:33:11 PM
It's been a funny old month. I've had periods of great productivity, followed by others of no motivation at all. HOWEVER! I realise I've actually accomplished a tremendous amount on the game. Heaps of testing and bug fixing, and today I am happy that I played through the first level and didn't spot anything new that needed fixing. It works serviceably as a game! So in theory it won't be too tough to start "third party" play testing or to get a demo together.

There is still a whole bunch left to do before any kind of proper launch, though. Options, save & load, sounds, music, optimisation and lets not forget that there needs to be another 3 levels of content - I've only finished 1 :/

Anyhoo, before I talk myself down into a sad huddle here are the main things I achieved this month:

Objectives

For some time I have had the story script written but not really implemented. I have also been finding excuses to practice portraits and using my graphics tablet for pretty much as long as I've had it. Now I've finally got good enough so put it all together with some code glue and UI

(https://i.imgur.com/SJeOmrt.png)

Rain

Not much to say about rain, is there? The visitors don't like it so if you want to mitigate the happiness slump you'd best build some covered stands

(https://i.imgur.com/FZnm4S8.png)

Happiness Menu

As you can see in the above, things can get a little hectic. So to help I've added some handy menus to help see what is going on and identify issues. The first of these is the happiness menu where you can quickly gauge what most people like and dislike.

(https://i.imgur.com/JiiyIuP.png)

Random UI stuff

There have been lots of UI tweaks that I won't bore you with, but one I am particularly pleased with is the new money icon. Can anyone guess what coin it is based on?

(https://i.imgur.com/93Nuf3a.png)

Next

- Level 1 end of day menu
- show outlets & show staff toggles
- Finance Menu



Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on April 27, 2020, 11:28:20 PM
Do you know the story of the Eglington Tourney which was rained out in 1838?  Or the Ballad of Pennsic Pour (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD_4ADZBzF4)?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 28, 2020, 11:30:54 AM
Wow! No I had not heard of either of those (until now). Thanks! Really interesting.

I've only created a "bit of a drizzle" to be honest, rather than a deluge like they had. Although I like the idea of adding a hazard that someone's broadsword gets struck by lightning  ;D But then I suppose the player would need to have something they could do about it...

Maybe little medieval umbrellas?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on April 28, 2020, 02:32:56 PM
Or you could introduce signs of worse weather, and make the player decide whether to play safe and call things off, or chance it and risk hilarity ensuing and the visitors fleeing to shelter.  I have been at Ritterfeste where a sudden burst of rain hit and everyone sheltered under roofs and awnings and sails.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on April 28, 2020, 03:06:30 PM
I think I have read a medieval sermon talking about a carefully unnamed deed of arms attended by scandalous women wearing daggers and low-cut dresses.  God sent his rain and brought the proceedings to an end and ruined their finery, or so saith the preacher.  I imagine that the women and their gentlemen friends had a different opinion on whose scaly tail was behind the scenes  >:D

And since some of us are too pure of heart to understand why wearing daggers was an issue:

(https://bookandsword.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Les_Très_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier_knife_carriage.jpg)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 20, 2020, 01:45:57 PM
I didn't ramp up the dev hours quite as much as I'd have liked in May - but still pleased with the progress. Unfortunately it's mostly been cleaning up UI, menus and bug fixes, so not massively exciting to provide updates about.

End of day

I've implemented the general concept of being able to win or lose the day. So now I have a functional level that can be played from start to finish.

Finances menu

Pretty straightforward, to show you the most profitable outlets, and those that are not making much money. So a player can try and identify issues.

(https://i.imgur.com/PZSK5l2.png)

Next

Save And Load. I've already been on this for a couple of weeks, and will probably need a couple of weeks more :/
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on June 08, 2020, 07:51:14 PM
I hope the save and load creation is goingwell! :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on June 11, 2020, 10:54:35 AM
Apparently Steve Muhlberger is working on a cheap English translation of Le Tournoi de Chauvency, a poem about a medieval tournament, when it comes out it might be worth flipping through for tropable ideas. https://smuhlberger.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-surprise-development.html
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 11, 2020, 12:33:51 PM
Amazing, thanks for the tip!

I will keep my eye on that one
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 23, 2020, 06:15:02 PM

Favourite Knights

Arriving visitors will now have a favourite knight. They are happy when they win, and sometimes their favourite might change to a different knight if they see them doing well.
Visitors will also have a little fangasm if they spot their favourite knight wandering about. The knights will do a little showboating to them too...

(https://i.imgur.com/wJ1HCGh.png)

Select House

I've implemented a screen where you can choose a house before starting a game. It's a little simple at the moment, and needs a nice background, but you get the idea. You can see some of the "hilarious" blurb for house Pendragon there...

(https://i.imgur.com/T6maPb6.png)

Save and Load.

This took ages and not much to speak about, but it's done. You can save and load a level (so long as an event is not underway).

Other stuff

I'm attempting to balance the game to be a bit of a challenge. I also did a whole bunch of UI tweaks and bug fixes.

Next:

Actually pretty much everything for the first level / demo is done! This next month will be quite cool:

- Add a few sounds
- More testing, bugfixes and balancing by me
- Then run a test with an actual third party person!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 14, 2020, 02:29:16 PM
Update time! Here is a roundup of what’s happened over the last few weeks!

Souvenirs

Visitors using a shop type outlet will purchase an adorable little souvenir. Here's a screenshot where most of them have picked up a tiny novelty knight helm at the blacksmith (as voted for by the fine folks on Twitter)

(https://i.imgur.com/FoqdkmR.png)

Pretty historically inaccurate, I suppose, but I had to forego those reservations because I think it’s good fun

Cost Management

Before I had it so that you had to purchase certain outlets to unlock certain upgrades for your house knights. For example you had to place a blacksmith before you could buy them any armour, or the apothecary before buying potions.
However having tested it found this to not really add much fun and was just obstructive. So I moved all of those things to the knight menu to buy whenever you wish.

In place of that I added a couple of more standard management sim options. Chiefly cost management for outlets. Along with that I felt you’d need a way to observe what effect messing with the prices would have. So added some fun* finance menu graphs, and positive / negative thoughts relating to price from the visitors

(https://i.imgur.com/Q3T9JGc.png)

Sounds

I added a shiny dynamic sound manager that works nicely. There are rain sounds, ripples of applause and lances snapping. As part of this I also wanted to make a dynamic crowd “babble”. At the moment all of the voices are my own which is a little disconcerting when I’m testing, hearing a crowd of people that all sound like me. I’ll need to get some other voices before the madness sets in.

Unless it already did? *jibber*

Testing

Was going to do more testing and balancing, maybe with a third party, however I realised that I really need all of the finished things that might affect the difficulty completed. This includes things that affect crowd happiness, crowd movement. Happily the above things pretty much cover that.

Next

- Balancing & at least 1 third party test session
- I'M GOING TO START LEVEL 2! SQUEEEE

* If you do not find financial graphs fun, then please replace this word with “dreary”
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 14, 2020, 05:50:29 PM
I mean, it's only so inaccurate - hat badges were one of the most standard souvenirs for medieval pilgrims, and we have tons of those from the archaeological record :)

Also, happy to provide some voice sometime if useful!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 16, 2020, 11:10:53 AM
Oh cool! Good to know :)

I mean when I wrote that I forgot about all of the other inaccuracies, like potions for example.

I am sure I will have a use for an extra voice - thanks for the offer!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 16, 2020, 11:34:36 AM
Potions is a really interesting one, like they've become completely standard in modern gaming but also I don't know how much of that is a modern fixation on e.g. "performance enhancers" so we expect those things to come out of bottles? I feel like if one surveyed medieval literature you'd find fewer "drink this potion" cases and a lot more character interaction drivers and low-level spells ("you will be invincible as long as you carry this wren's egg, but take care never to let it break").
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on July 16, 2020, 11:48:44 AM
Yeah, it's a good point.

I also really wanted to make an apothecary outlet, and when I first implemented the outlets they each were intended to have a purpose. Now they are just shops though. I've kept the potion mechanic in, since it's one of the various things that can contribute to a joust score.

Potions you can get in this will be draught of the stallion, exilir of arrowstorm, potion of ni, and a tincture of health. The most interesting one is probably the Ni potion which overrides equipment and delivers a colossal amount of damage to each participant. You can use it if you are feeling dishonorable to try and force a knight to surrender in subsequent bouts because they are too injured.

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on July 16, 2020, 11:52:28 AM
Yeah - another thought re potions and medieval magic is that the question of what you want magic to do has definitely changed. Medieval stuff very rarely goes for boosts or healing, though I guess that's maybe inevitable outside a game context. But there's tons of divination type stuff, which is interesting. If I ever get to organising this game devs and medievalists workshop one thing I'd love to discuss would be better ways of implementing divinations mechanically in games, they're really tricky to do well but I think an interesting challenge.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on July 16, 2020, 07:02:54 PM
D&D had a wide variety of potions since at least First Edition, but I have never thought where they came from - possibly more Asterix the Gaul than we want to admit!  They do work well in computer games.

Medieval thinking had things like "I put the seal of Solomon on my shield / a scroll with the name of God around my neck, nobody can harm me" and invoking various saints for protection.  I am trying to think of ways that those could work well in games.  And then and now, people had big ideas about the power of eating right and taking the right medicine.

Edit: medieval thinking also tended to class wonderful healing as a miracle: "I drank an ampule of water from the well outside the Tomb of Saint Margaret and my snake bite healed" or "the really holy bishop touched me and now I can see better."

I think D&D / video game magic is more like magic in wonder stories than the kind of magic people before Madame Blavatskey and Aleister Crowley believed someone they knew could do.  Flying or summoning a tower out of the bare earth was the kind of thing they could believe happened long ago and far away, but they wanted to know who to marry or whether it was safe for their ships to leave port right now. 

Edit: It was not that they did not think it would be cool to be able to fly, it was just harder to believe in like they could believe that their weaving partner had forseen that there would be a shortage of fuel next winter.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on August 08, 2020, 05:31:25 PM
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet has things like a beautiful pavilion with singing automata, embroideries, a magic mirror, etc. which can be packed into a single box which a polite lady can carry.

The obvious things have already been incorporated into D&Desque fantasy (because before the 1990s there was just not very much fantastic fiction in print so you had to read the sagas and the Metamorphoses and the Epic of Gilgameš and the Journey to the West, directly or in handy summaries) but I think there are cool ideas in other early myths and romances.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 14, 2020, 02:13:03 PM
Yes - one thing on my "to write" pile is a run-down of fun things in the medieval Georgian romances/epics, which aren't hugely well known outside the country.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 18, 2020, 12:42:38 PM
Thanks for the ideas dubsartur and Jubal. I certainly think you are right and that there were a lot of unique and interesting beliefs that people held. I suppose that the main thing for me was that I only wanted a hint of of "magic", and a potion seller was convenient for that. Perhaps because it is so standard in gaming it would be easily understood by players. Items that are consumed, could be purchased, and provide an effect of some kind.

Again, another big reason for me was that it allowed me to make an apothecary cart and plague doctor which I thought would look cool :)
 
Anyway on with an update for August!

Multiple venues

After some thought on how multiple event areas would work I came up with a plan.
Essentially now you can have 16 knights, and then you set off 2 groups of 8 at the same time. You choose an event venue for each group out of those that you've built. So for example you can have 2 jousting tilts, then set off 2 groups on each one. You could do all 16 bouts on one tilt if want some reason. When both groups are complete, the finalist from each group can square off in a final - but only if each group is doing the same sort of event (not if one is doing archery and the other doing melee - that wouldn't be very fair!). I need to tidy up the menu a little but it looks something like this:

(https://i.imgur.com/bfBGrbG.png)

New area

I've begun the enironment design for the second of four areas that will be in the finished thing. A hilltop castle in Avalon. It will be the location for levels 2 and 3, and I think is going to look drop dead awesome. I'll give a sneak of it in the weeks and months ahead as the models are completed.

Stable

To allow for the 16 knights I came up with a quicker way to invite them, you build a stable! This model took quite a long time but happy with the results.

(https://i.imgur.com/Cylizk8.png)

Testing

level 1 was tested by a human other than me for the first time. There weren't any bugs really, since I've spent so long furiously squashing them over the last few weeks. The testing did raise an issue with the clearness jousting minigame, so I came up with a simpler, even better method of determining tactics.

Next

- I'm going to add the melee arena and mechanic for determining the winner by the next update
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 21, 2020, 09:25:33 PM
It's September! Time for a lil' ol' update.

I have all of the level 2 bits finished except for the environment models which someone else is still working on - hopefully to be done soon. But all of the missions have been implemented now, and you can progress through from one level to the next and all of the training or upgrades that you've bought for your house knights are remembered.

There is a new type of knight in levels two and three. It's the penultimate armour type that the player can get. I've given it the working title "boss armour". I was particularly happy with the belt. Posted below (with the other 2 for comparisen). Not sure if anyone can think of a better name for it?

(https://i.imgur.com/V5Fmcph.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/jwyWWO7.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/V5ApXYR.jpg)

And finally, I made a nice background for the events menu that I felt like sharing.

(https://i.imgur.com/zNOFXV9.png)


Next

I'm pretty much finished with the sword fighting / melee that is introduced in level 2. There are a couple of bit to finish off so I'll save that for the next update
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 21, 2020, 11:21:46 PM
What are the other armours called for comparison?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on September 22, 2020, 05:45:28 AM
"Simple" is the lowest and "Crusader" above that. Not sold on those either if I'm honest!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 22, 2020, 12:02:17 PM
I'll have a think. I guess one could do "Squire's Armour", "Knight's Armour", "Paladin's Armour", "Hero's Armour", or some such like that that? A question to bring to next time I do medieval pub maybe :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 09, 2020, 02:39:30 PM
Quote from: Jubal on September 22, 2020, 12:02:17 PM
I'll have a think. I guess one could do "Squire's Armour", "Knight's Armour", "Paladin's Armour", "Hero's Armour", or some such like that that? A question to bring to next time I do medieval pub maybe :)

I think those names are a vast improvement on my hastily, poorly thought through ones!

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 09, 2020, 02:47:33 PM
Happy October! Home of Halloween, the end of daylight savings in England, and this update:

Melee

As the game progresses various buildings and mechanics become available. One of these is a new event type: The Melee!

(https://i.imgur.com/VHrTSdN.png)

The melee is definitely something I could not omit from the game. Historically speaking, when medieval tournaments first began they focused on the melee. Jousting, whilst a component of the tournament, was not the main feature. Although jousting is pretty much what people most associate with them today.

Testing

I've been running some more early alpha test sessions on the first level, and it's definitely highlighted some things that needed adding, changing and clarifying. I'm always glad to test early for that reason. Doing some of these changes later in development is always a time consuming pain. The most tangible fruits of this labour are a nice help menu, and the ability to move most buildings.

New song

I've been working with the talented composer, who has completed the first track of the Tourney OST. Here is a short clip of the track which will be heard in the first level:



You can check out more of the work of Curtis Falkingham here: https://soundcloud.com/soundforascene (https://soundcloud.com/soundforascene)

Level 3

As I have mentioned before, work on the level 2 environment "Avalon castle" was started a while ago. That has been coming along nicely, and here's how it looks:

(https://i.imgur.com/Ocij6I8.png)

Next

- So far only peasants have been able to attend the tournaments, but nobility are on their way!
- A jeweller stand when nobles can squander their wealth
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on October 09, 2020, 06:58:26 PM
Moar castles is always a good thing!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 09, 2020, 11:23:16 PM
I vote for adding trapdoors to the top of those towers, because inaccessible tower roofs make me twitch :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 10, 2020, 03:37:33 PM
Quote from: Jubal on October 09, 2020, 11:23:16 PM
I vote for adding trapdoors to the top of those towers, because inaccessible tower roofs make me twitch :)

Well we can't be having that.

(https://i.imgur.com/eEgyl2n.png)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 10, 2020, 11:22:28 PM
Wonderful stuff! :) Is that an addition to the model or just a texture? Either way it looks really good.

I'm not quite getting what we're seeing outside the castle, I'll admit, it looks like it's sort of jutting out over something?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 11, 2020, 09:26:26 AM
Yeah I made a small trapdoor model and added it to each of the 6 towers.

Yes the whole thing is perched at the pinnacle of a big square rocky peak. It's a distant cloud / fog covered forest you can see. I suppose it's not especially clear in the still image. Here's a gif if you are curious :) https://imgur.com/XnUAjMt (https://imgur.com/XnUAjMt)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 11, 2020, 02:46:49 PM
Ah, OK. The foggy forest looks lovely, I really like that! Maybe the rocky peak needs to stick out a little more from the base of the castle so it's juuust larger than it? It looks odd having that really thick-set tower base and then it doesn't appear to be really founded on anything.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 11, 2020, 03:45:03 PM
I think it looks alright in the level, it's not clear in the gif or image I posted
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on October 11, 2020, 03:51:01 PM
OK, fair snuffles :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 15, 2020, 04:59:03 PM
Hey guys!

Well I've been busy the last while putting together a kickstarter to crowdfund for some remaining elements on the game! Pretty nervous  :-X

I have a preview link here I'm only sharing in a couple of places to hopefully get a little feedback. Please check it out if you have a a moment. Any comments will be really appreciated!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator?ref=bq4647&token=3ccb1569
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 15, 2020, 09:21:09 PM
Looks good! A couple of thoughts:

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 15, 2020, 09:33:40 PM
Thanks so much for giving it a read! :)

Quote from: Jubal on November 15, 2020, 09:21:09 PM
The term "very unique" makes me cringe

You are right, I think I must have wrote that bit when I was tired. I've also changed the first "unique" in the sentence to "distinctive" so I'm not repeating the same word.

Quote from: Jubal on November 15, 2020, 09:21:09 PM
I'd flip round "However there are some parts of the project that without your help will cause big delays, or could compromise the quality of the finished game." This sounds too negative and I think might give backers pause. Instead maybe a positive framing like "However, there are some parts of the project where your help will hugely speed up development and significantly increase the quality of the finished game." That's saying basically the same thing, but in a much more positive light.

Excellent point. I've changed that
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on November 16, 2020, 07:14:38 PM
Quote from: Tusky on November 15, 2020, 04:59:03 PM
Well I've been busy the last while putting together a kickstarter to crowdfund for some remaining elements on the game! Pretty nervous  :-X

I have a preview link here I'm only sharing in a couple of places to hopefully get a little feedback. Please check it out if you have a a moment.

Hey, I'm not a native English speaker, so I could be mistaken on anything I write below. Anyway...

Quote
Where Tourney differs from more traditional sim games is that you are running a tournament, so you will be able to get involved and try to win!

Shouldn't this be that "you are competing in a tournament" instead? "You are running a tournament" sounds like you're the organizer to me. Maybe something like "Where Tourney differs from more traditional sim games is that you aren't just running a tournament, you are also able to get involved and try to win!"

Quote
Budget

There are two things here, and they are connected. Your target of £3,200 seems a bit low to me. When I look at the budget allocation, it looks like it's structured in such way to cover external costs and you would be working for free. I have talked to some people who back up KS projects on regular basis and they stay away from such projects, because they feel it's too risky. I have also seen many successful campaigns where developers added "cost of living" to the equation. You expect 8-9 months of development and you should eat and drink at least during that time.

If you have some independent source of funding, it should be stated (you don't have to disclose what it is, only that your life doesn't depend on this project succeeding). Escape From BioStation with 4 user reviews on Steam doesn't look like it's bringing food to the table every month, so there must be something else.

I'm just saying this from a funder perspective: if I'm going to fund a project, I want to make sure I know the developer will be there to push it all the way to the end.

I know you only collected £1,000-something for Escape from BioStation, but Tourney is much more promising game. It's got nicer graphics, more appealing genre and I believe there is an actual market for such game on Steam. I wouldn't be surprised if it sold 5000+ copies on Steam, provided that you do proper marketing.

Now, you don't need to increase the target sum, but at least add a couple of sentences that would ensure the backers that you know what you're doing financially, and that your own cost of living is covered.

Good luck with KS!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 17, 2020, 09:33:23 AM
Quote from: bigosaur on November 16, 2020, 07:14:38 PM
Shouldn't this be that "you are competing in a tournament" instead?

It's "running" as in "organising". I didn't think about the ambiguity for non native English speakers. So I will change that!

Quote from: bigosaur on November 16, 2020, 07:14:38 PM
at least add a couple of sentences that would ensure the backers that you know what you're doing financially

Such a good point. I will add something about that

Thanks to you both! :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on November 17, 2020, 09:46:34 AM
Quote from: Tusky on November 17, 2020, 09:33:23 AM
Quote from: bigosaur on November 16, 2020, 07:14:38 PM
Shouldn't this be that "you are competing in a tournament" instead?

It's "running" as in "organising".

Well, I think I was right then. But maybe I didn't explain it properly. If you are organizing a tournament, you aren't competing in it. The usual sim game has you only organizing, not competing. As I understand, Tourney allows you to both organize and compete, but the sentence on KS page doesn't really say that. It seem to imply that "running" is an extra, unusual feature.

Or did I misunderstand the game completely?
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 17, 2020, 09:48:14 AM
Ah I see what you mean! yea you are right - you are doing both.

I will make that more clear then   ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 17, 2020, 10:07:14 AM
I added

"Essentially the budget allocation is structured in such way to cover external costs. As with the last few years that the game has been in development I have in the most part worked solo as I have an independent source of funding for my own living costs."

And redid the bullet points to make it clearer and flow better
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 18, 2020, 10:17:40 AM
Thanks again for your input guys!

The campaign is now live!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tusky/tourney-the-medieval-tournament-simulator)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 18, 2020, 10:37:06 AM
Is there a version of the Kickstarter pitch video on YouTube? Thinking what to use for the Exilian frontpage announcement :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 18, 2020, 10:58:47 AM
wow that would be amazing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io0kokqshnE
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: SLiV on November 20, 2020, 01:49:16 PM
The kickstarter looks great! I justed backed it, hope it gets there. ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 20, 2020, 02:11:44 PM
Quote from: SLiV on November 20, 2020, 01:49:16 PM
The kickstarter looks great! I justed backed it, hope it gets there. ;D

Thank you very much! Very nice of you  :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 22, 2020, 01:47:59 PM
Just got round to getting some Exilian plugging of it set up :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 22, 2020, 02:29:03 PM
That's awesome! Thank you very much! :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 04, 2020, 09:06:25 AM
Other than how incredibly bored the crowd look here, I am quite happy with how the musician came out.

I wanted it to look lively and troubadour-like, and easy to spot in a crowd or when zoomed out. However she might be a bit anachronistic as a result. i.e. I'm not sure if female musicians of the day would have had a massive floppy hat like that. Or strummed the lute like that. I have not clue what song she might be trying to play there!

I will definitely have to do some dancing animations for the spectators.

(https://i.imgur.com/im1G7IX.gif)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on December 04, 2020, 01:51:57 PM
Yeah, a clapping along anim or something for the crowd might help.

I don't know enough about medieval hat design to comment, but in any case it's not as if we're going for the highest level of realism here and it looks cool - and if anyone would get to wear a hat that silly, entertainer feels like be a good bet. Certainly I think one could link it to e.g. jesters wearing bright colours and motley. Lutes generally aren't strummed AFAIK, but the style I've usually seen them played in is finger-picking which would be invisible on this scale, so I agree with the choice to make it a strumming anim.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Phoenixguard09 on December 05, 2020, 12:37:23 AM
Hope the Kickstarter is successful mate. I've backed it, unfortunately not as high a tier as I wanted to, but work has been a bitch lately.

Good luck! :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 05, 2020, 08:43:01 AM
Quote from: Phoenixguard09 on December 05, 2020, 12:37:23 AM
Hope the Kickstarter is successful mate. I've backed it, unfortunately not as high a tier as I wanted to, but work has been a bitch lately.

Good luck! :)

Thanks very much! No worries, it all really helps!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 18, 2021, 05:49:14 PM
2021 is well underway, and the dust from the quite frantic end to December has well and truly settled.

kickstarter

I suppose that the main culprit for the dust I mentioned being kicked up was the kickstarter - which was successfully funded! So first off I wanted to say a big thanks to those of you that supported the campaign. It turned out to be a very close thing in the end - so that Tourney can go ahead as planned this year is fantastic, and really makes me want to make the game as fun as possible for everyone.

I will be doing some more in depth updates for kickstarter backers - but I will of course post progress updates here as well :)

So the wheels have been put in motion from a third party perspective, and those folks will slowly start churning out content. I, on the other hand, was already up and running - so here’s what I’ve been up to:

Top tier gear

The level I am moving on to work on next will be the first level in which some of the visiting knights will have all of the best gear on. So I have had my modelling hat on for the last few weeks. Here you can see the highest tier of armour. I decided to go with the names: simple, crusader, paladin (thanks Jubal!) and the top one I decided on was “gothic”, since it felt more like a type of thing you could buy from someone. It’s also the one name which is a real armour style, although this is a heavy reimagining.

(https://i.imgur.com/4kZnzEI.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/4BJDwJn.png)

To go along with it I needed to create a sword, bow, shield and lance that you can see in the top image.

I realise that some of those things are nothing like the equipment that would have been available in medieval times. That sword, for example, is more like something from a JRPG! I just couldn’t help myself.


Nobles

Something I have pretty much completed a while back but not really mentioned here is the implementation of nobility. Essentially visitors in the game are divided into 2 classes: peasants and nobles. Each class has a version of anything that you can build that they prefer. For example nobility stands, a jewellery wagon and pastry stand, all of which are favoured by the higher class. Here is my favourite, the jewellery wagon (with a few of the toffs wandering around in the background):

(https://i.imgur.com/rZeE7Rj.png)

The amount of buildings & staff you put down for each class determines how many visitors of that type you attract. Ostensibly this just means that as a player you will want to build a range of things to ensure each dropoff vehicle is delivering a good amount of visitors.

Next:

Guards and robbers


Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on March 21, 2021, 01:19:29 PM
I didn’t post an update here last month D=

Sorry! To make up for it.. Here is a run down in what’s been finished since my last post...

Guard & Robbers

I’ve completed work on a new member of staff & mechanic. It’s a guard with some stocks.
The reason for the guard is to watch out for robbers. These more usavoury visitors will wander around your tournament outlets and steal a cut of your profits! You can send the guard off to catch them.
Then the visitors can have a lovely bit of target practice...

(https://i.imgur.com/SJJbICs.gif)

Wine Merchant

This is a vendor I implemented into the game a while back. The wine merchant provides slightly posher drinks to visitors than the humble ale wagon. This is one of several that nobles prefer to use - along with the jeweller and luxury pie seller.

(https://i.imgur.com/V6Lo4ic.jpg)

Archery

A third event type to compliment the joust and the melee: archery. Pretty self explanatory, not much I need to explain about this, really. The mini game that goes along with this will be what I’m working on next - so the player can play the event insead of the AI. I was in two minds about how to implement the minigame. Whether to have is actually a skill based aiming mini game, or something to do with selecting tactics & so on like you do for the joust. I think that I’m going to go for something skill based, though.

(https://i.imgur.com/BnXdkEj.png)

Delivery Ship

Atlantis is sinking! So instead of a horse and cart, the visitors will come aboard this:

(https://i.imgur.com/u5BkNLP.png)

Will try not to leave it so long next time!

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 11, 2021, 01:29:48 PM
I like the use of the stocks :) They're one of those "underused in games" things I think, given they appear pretty often in medieval illustrations.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 13, 2021, 08:22:07 AM
Quote from: Jubal on April 11, 2021, 01:29:48 PM
I like the use of the stocks :) They're one of those "underused in games" things I think, given they appear pretty often in medieval illustrations.

Glad you approve! They are underused, now you mention it. There are some in the town square of rattay in KCD - but I can't think of any others.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 26, 2021, 02:42:52 PM
Which is weird when you think about how many e.g. gibbets every fantasy game seems to have. It gives a very weird view of medieval punishment really, you have these odd worlds where the only crime ever committed is murder and the only punishment is death (and in which there will always be precisely one thief, who will be a companion character to the player and will never actually steal anything during the game).
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 28, 2021, 12:19:00 PM

Quote from: Jubal on April 26, 2021, 02:42:52 PM
Which is weird when you think about how many e.g. gibbets every fantasy game seems to have. It gives a very weird view of medieval punishment really, you have these odd worlds where the only crime ever committed is murder and the only punishment is death (and in which there will always be precisely one thief, who will be a companion character to the player and will never actually steal anything during the game).

That's true. I suppose not so many are attempting to accurately represent life at the time (well except for some notable exceptions like Kingdom Come). More are concerned with the fantasy or RPG side

--

Update Time!

Atlantis

I've got all of the building models done that I wanted to do for Atlantis. The one that took the longest - and that I am most pleased with is this (aquatically appropriate) big statue of Amphitrite - who was wife to Posiedon. This is to go with my take on the Atlantean mythos - that it may have been an ancient Greek island lost to the sea.

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/April+Update+Images/amphitrite.png) (https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/April+Update+Images/amphitrite2.png)

I also implemented some missions to complete in the level.  This means I've completed 3 of 4 environments, and 4 of 6 levels. Just the city of flowers left to make before I'm done with level building!

Thoughts

A lot of comments and questions I was getting concerned would I be referencing x or y thing in the game. I had indicated that there would be "pop culture references", although beyond the cast of knights being recognisable I had not yet implemented anything else.
Well this month I implemented "thoughts", or rather: things the knights and visitors say to eachother from time to time. These include:
I want to make them quite infrequent but well timed and varied enough that they are amusing - but not annoying and repetitive.

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/April+Update+Images/thought1.PNG)

Archery minigame

I needed a minigame for the archery - like there is for the other events. This one is a fairly simple aiming minigame.

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/April+Update+Images/archery-minigame.png)

Main Theme

The composer working on the project recently completed work on the main theme for the game which I think is really great. He's done a video for it which is not on youtube so can't share easily but here it is on instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/CNfQK96BUgc/) and twitter (https://twitter.com/JeremieFriez/status/1380885948947439621)

Next

3 stand alone scenarios / stories (one that is a bit more involved, and has 2 different conclusions) based in the 3 environments I've completed
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on April 28, 2021, 12:31:25 PM
Sure... I'm not so much interested in the "realism/accuracy" thing as the fact that it's weird that this is our fantasy. Especially because humiliation-as-punishment has a ton of both storytelling and comedy potential.

Liking the Amphitrite statue and the theme music, all good stuff :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: dubsartur on April 29, 2021, 12:57:24 AM
I like the idea of a mostly-flooded Atlantis.

Quote from: Jubal on April 28, 2021, 12:31:25 PM
Sure... I'm not so much interested in the "realism/accuracy" thing as the fact that it's weird that this is our fantasy. Especially because humiliation-as-punishment has a ton of both storytelling and comedy potential.

Liking the Amphitrite statue and the theme music, all good stuff :)
Stocks and pillories often show up in an eroticized form in US pop culture, but usually different kinds of pop culture than computer games :)

Burning people at the stake is also a trope in fantasy.

I guess a jousting sim is an alternative to the good old ultraviolence in many of our fantasies about the middle ages.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Phodex Games on May 08, 2021, 11:42:29 AM
I saw your game every here and there and I have to say I really like the idea and the art style. Reminds me a bit of Stronghold 2, but more stylized. Also, the plot of participating in a medieval tournament sounds really interesting. Looking forward to seeing more!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 09, 2021, 02:35:15 PM
Quote from: Phodex Games on May 08, 2021, 11:42:29 AM
I saw your game every here and there and I have to say I really like the idea and the art style. Reminds me a bit of Stronghold 2, but more stylized. Also, the plot of participating in a medieval tournament sounds really interesting. Looking forward to seeing more!

Thanks! :)

In other news the steam store page got approved today! (or more likely, last thing on Saturday) (unless there is no human involvement in the approval process)
Anyway: I'm very pleased.

Check out the new vid, and add to your wishlist if you are so inclined!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631600/Tourney/ (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631600/Tourney/)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Clockwork on May 11, 2021, 12:12:30 PM
Congrats mate, already wishlisted! :D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 11, 2021, 01:27:39 PM
Quote from: Clockwork on May 11, 2021, 12:12:30 PM
Congrats mate, already wishlisted! :D

Yay! Thank you :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on June 26, 2021, 12:51:50 PM
I've been mostly working on the last level - so only a few bits to report on for this month...

Gulansharo buildings

The scenery models for Gulansharo are nearly done. The main text I could find for research mentioning the city of flowers was in "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" which describes a very enviable place with "many-hued flowers" and general loveliness. Here is my stab at the garden heavy docks area that the hero would have arrived at:

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/May2020/gulan+edge+2.PNG)
(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/May2020/gulan+edge.PNG)

The other sides are a little more city-like with some byzantine inspired buildings, although I haven't yet finished those.

New track for Atlantis

The remaining music for the game has been completed. Jeremie, the composer, made a video of one track for Atlantis!

He shared it on social media - so not easy for me to embed here... But here is the link so you can check it out: https://twitter.com/JeremieFriez/status/1401268074846769152 (https://twitter.com/JeremieFriez/status/1401268074846769152)

Final decorations

I have finished all of the main buildable structures now. The final ones were some decorations which are now added to the game! Here they all are together:

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/May2020/decos.png)

Testing

Jubal and I had a productive evening doing some testing. There are definitely issues and glitches remaining! So I've also been busy getting rid of as many of those as I can.

Next

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Silver Wolf on July 01, 2021, 04:15:21 PM
Glad to see an update. Things are shaping up nicely.

Now regarding the decorations, I have a small suggestion, which is purely a matter of stylistic preference.
IMO right now the decorations look a bit too clean near the base which makes them appear a bit floaty.
A very narrow semi-transparent grime decal surrounding the bases could make them appear a bit more natural perhaps?
Not that there's anything wrong with them right now, just wondering if this could make things stand out a bit more.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 01, 2021, 08:42:07 PM
Quote from: Silver Wolf on July 01, 2021, 04:15:21 PM
Glad to see an update. Things are shaping up nicely.

Now regarding the decorations, I have a small suggestion, which is purely a matter of stylistic preference.
IMO right now the decorations look a bit too clean near the base which makes them appear a bit floaty.
A very narrow semi-transparent grime decal surrounding the bases could make them appear a bit more natural perhaps?
Not that there's anything wrong with them right now, just wondering if this could make things stand out a bit more.

oops! This update seems to have completely passed me by!

You are completely right about the bases. In actual fact I have added decals like that on a number of the buildings... but not these ones! Thanks for reminding me I'll have to get those added in  ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 07, 2021, 11:41:49 AM
I do really like the Gulansharene buildings :) Looking forward to having another version of the game to test sometime!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 09, 2021, 07:57:10 PM
Quote from: Jubal on August 07, 2021, 11:41:49 AM
I do really like the Gulansharene buildings :) Looking forward to having another version of the game to test sometime!

Thanks!

The last level is due for completion in about a month... It would be good to have a testing session some time then :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on August 18, 2021, 08:33:00 PM
That'd be great :) Hopefully sometime soon my life will stop being an ongoing avalanche of catastrophes enough to actually sort out some work on my own game...
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 24, 2021, 09:15:56 AM
Quote from: Jubal on August 18, 2021, 08:33:00 PM
That'd be great :) Hopefully sometime soon my life will stop being an ongoing avalanche of catastrophes enough to actually sort out some work on my own game...

Yeah, I hope things start to improve! Sounds like a lot to deal with
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on August 24, 2021, 09:24:08 AM
August update time!

Alpha

The main news is that the game is in alpha! I have completed development on all of the missions for the final level, and added in the concluding story and end credits screens. That means at last the whole main campaign can be played from beginning to end.

King

Part of the above work to complete the last level is a new character model for the king. The king previously only spoke to the player in story cutscenes. His arrival in the game meant I had to create this 3d model based entirely on the artwork from the illustrator. I think it came out pretty well!

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/Aug2020/king_art_to_model.png)

UI & Settings

The other fairly large bit of work I did last month is to completely re-do the UI. A lot of the menus were sort of placeholders - and I had not really confirmed in my mind what I was doing with them. So I finally spent some time improving all of the menus, and and getting the UI consistent. Here's a knight levelling up menu:

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/Aug2020/levelupmenu.png)

Levelling Up

That brings me on to the other big development. An xp overhaul. This is the third, and final, (and best!) iteration of the player knight advancement systems I've tried. The first one involved attempting to earn esoteric achievements which could be converted to titles. Then I tried making it linked with the construction of training dummies - but neither felt very good.

With this last incarnation - I have gone with a more straightforward & well understood xp and level up system, where your knights earn xp (mostly from participating in events), when they get enough they go up a level. I've done away with calling it “training” altogether. It only seemed to cause confusion.
As you can see from the menu above levelling up allows the player to choose skills, rewards and unlocks, and so there is some control over progression. I think it’s much more engaging and I’m a lot happier with it!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on September 09, 2021, 12:40:49 PM
I do like the king model :) His arms are quite tiny, but I think the head is really very nicely done and is the real focal point for the model in any case.

Looking forward to having another crack at this sometime!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on October 24, 2021, 01:17:50 PM
Quote from: Jubal on September 09, 2021, 12:40:49 PM
Looking forward to having another crack at this sometime!

That was a fun testing session! Think I've sorted all of the points that came out of it...


Forgot to mention here, the release is in less than 2 weeks!! (4th of Nov!). As such - not much to report on the dev front - I've mostly just been trying to make things as clear as possible and squashing any bugs.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 04, 2021, 05:01:21 PM
I am happy to announce that after 4 years in development - Tourney has at last been released on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1631600/Tourney/)!

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/ship700.jpg)

That’s right… it’s shipped! (badum tish)

It’s been quite a journey. I wanted to say thanks to everyone here for the various support over the years, with advice, ideas etc. It’s really shaped how the game came out and I’m very grateful! I put a special thanks in the credits!

If anyone plays I hope you enjoy it!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on November 08, 2021, 09:44:52 PM
Congratulations on the release!

I hope it's going as well as you expected?

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 08, 2021, 09:54:23 PM
Thanks very much!  ;D

Yeah the release has gone (/is going?) as well as I'd hoped. People seem to enjoy it which is the main thing I was hoing for!

The few days after release were absolute bedlam with the amount I needed to do! But it's starting to calm down a bit now though. hopefully at some point I can stop fire fighting and do a new feature or 2 :)

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Clockwork on November 09, 2021, 09:18:58 AM
I've been having a blast with it over the past couple days! Massive congrats mate :D


Bedivere is a knightmare of a guy, skilled in lances but is scared of his horse lmao


I've played as Pendragon, El Sid and Wallace.

I would heartily recommend Wallace to any beginners! For anyone unaware, their buff makes management a lot easier by negating weather conditions as a factor for negatively impacting peoples mood.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 10, 2021, 09:55:20 AM
Quote from: Clockwork on November 09, 2021, 09:18:58 AM
I've been having a blast with it over the past couple days! Massive congrats mate :D

Thank you very much!!

Quote from: Clockwork on November 09, 2021, 09:18:58 AM
Bedivere is a knightmare of a guy, skilled in lances but is scared of his horse lmao

Yea, the beefier opponents will often have a weakness like that, which you might be able to exploit!  ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Clockwork on November 11, 2021, 08:02:41 AM

(https://i.ibb.co/cg177Qv/Tourney-Achievs.png)

Oh I know :D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on November 11, 2021, 04:54:29 PM
oo nice. I didn't need to tell you that, then!

Some quite uncommon ones in there like steady aim & look on the bright side. Congrats!  ;D
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on November 11, 2021, 08:14:57 PM
I need to go achievement hunting sometime. Steady aim may be a heck of a struggle given my wrist issues at the moment though :(
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Gmd on December 05, 2021, 11:48:26 PM
Bit late to the party, but congrats on the release i plan to play it in the coming weeks!
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on December 07, 2021, 06:48:41 PM
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Phodex Games on December 14, 2021, 03:17:15 PM
Also congrats from me. Looks like people like the game :). Honestly don't have time to play it at the moment, got addicted to Skyrim once again  ;D. But I will put it to my wishlist and check it out later.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on April 04, 2022, 06:31:11 PM
Today is the launch of a major new update to Tourney, v.1.3. This update is where the story of plip is made live to everybody! For those of you that have not already had early access to this scenario, I shall summarise what it contains!

At first you play through a short RPG section - you actively control Plip (unlike the normal scenarios where you can only move staff members around). Plip is a squire that decides to attend his first tournament, and you need to help him prepare by getting things from various vendors. After the RPG part you get to play one of two alternate scenarios - where your main hero is Plip as he embarks on a quest for knighthood.

(https://tourney-blogimages-123.s3.amazonaws.com/April-2022/RPG_Screen.png)

Here’s a full list of the features in this update!


Very happy to finally be making more content for the game available to everyone.

After this it’s on to begin slowly working towards the next big update which will be v1.4. This update will have more control over quality settings for the player, and also will allow for the guest tents and stables to be moved around. Although I am not sure how quickly it’ll get released since I have a fair few other commitments now. Also I am starting to vaguely think about what the next game project might be! BUT that being said I will be continuing to support Tourney and work on 1.4.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: bigosaur on April 06, 2022, 11:15:45 AM
Quote from: Tusky on April 04, 2022, 06:31:11 PM
I will be continuing to support Tourney and work on 1.4.

It's nice to see that you are still updating it. Hopefully it will turn the tide on Steam review score and go from mixed into positive.
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Jubal on May 04, 2022, 12:35:06 PM
I need to have another run of Tourney, I really enjoyed my main playthrough and I'm not sure I ever did the archery-focused mission. I like the Plip scenario too, it's good fun :)
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on May 04, 2022, 07:17:40 PM
Quote from: bigosaur on April 06, 2022, 11:15:45 AM
It's nice to see that you are still updating it. Hopefully it will turn the tide on Steam review score and go from mixed into positive.

That would be good. Not sure it'll happen from the looks of it. Still a good few thumbs up though, which do outweigh the thumbs down - so I'm pleased about that. It's not been completely slated!  ;D

Quote from: Jubal on May 04, 2022, 12:35:06 PM
I need to have another run of Tourney, I really enjoyed my main playthrough and I'm not sure I ever did the archery-focused mission. I like the Plip scenario too, it's good fun :)

Thanks! I personally like the archery one, it's pretty easy so a bit like a sandbox towards the end. Let me know how you get on
Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: BeerDrinkingBurke on July 23, 2022, 09:48:22 AM
Thumbs up for the ale serving tavern master character. ;-)
Still working on future updates?

Title: Re: [Dev Log] Tourney: The medieval tournament sim
Post by: Tusky on January 02, 2024, 02:20:21 PM
Quote from: BeerDrinkingBurke on July 23, 2022, 09:48:22 AM
Thumbs up for the ale serving tavern master character. ;-)
Still working on future updates?


Sorry, I didn't reply to you! How rude :o
I am doing a minor update to this for early in the year - but nothing functionally significant :)

I did write a post mortem blog post, about how I think things went with the game. What went right & wrong etc
https://www.tuskygames.com/blog/tourney-post-mortem (https://www.tuskygames.com/blog/tourney-post-mortem)