HTML Engram 17

[docclox]

OK, so I did a silly thing. I downloaded Twine intending to crack open Free Cities and see how it handled training behind the scenes. Next thing you know, I can't resist typing in a few passages, (just to see how it works) and before you know it I've got the start of a game and a whole pile of ideas of where to go with it.

So now I have two projects on the go rather than just the one. Oh well...

Anyway. Engram 17:

Human! I remember being human! Why am I not human?​

You wake up in a crash site in the jungle. Your body does appears to be some sort of robot ...

+++ A Sterling and Fondgratcher Multi-Purpose Chassis: Light Combat Configuration +++

... er, thank you. A Sterling and Fondgratcher ... well, what she said, basically.

Still, there's not much point in crying about it. Assuming you even have tear ducts...

+++ Subsystem Absent +++

... which clearly you do not.

* * * * *​

Annnnyway! I don't want to spoil too much, but that should give you a flavour of what I have in mind. In addition to the decidedly eccentric corporate presence of Sterling and Fondgratcher there is an ancient quasi-legal organisation called Société ONC. The Société host an annual Great Hunt and this year the quarry are thirty defenceless human females, lost in an alien rain forest. Five remorseless cybernetic huntsman compete to see how many of the these women they can "claim". In what is likely the oldest sense of the word.

Oh, and the hunters? You appear to be one of them.

Will you try and find a way to save the Société's victims without brutality? Or will you embrace your role and revel in the licence it brings? Will you attempt to turn the tables on your shadowy, sleazebag of a Sponsor? Or will you go against your better judgement and work with him to try and end the greater evil of Société ONC? Maybe you're happy as a willing tool of evil and corruption? That should work too. And why can't you remember who you were as a human? What are they hiding from you?

So that's the idea. So much for a simple little, limited scope hunting game...

Oh, and as if that wasn't quite bad enough, I've been playing with HTML5's canvas tag to see if I can incorporate a map of where everyone is:

Which is kind of a long winded way of saying that I may be a week or two late with the Ritzy Titz Station feedback build...

 

[docclox]

Here's something to have a play with if anyone's interested. This is the HTML5 map widget I was talking about, somewhat debugged. The pink dots are hunters, the blue ones are the girls (no idea why I did it that way around - seems back to front now I think of it) and the green dot is the player (who doesn't do anything here).

Basically, this is an AI test to make sure the hunters and the girls behave in a believable manner. The hunters will head towards the nearest girl while the girls all scatter away from the hunters. If there's no a hunter in sight, the girls have a random walk that tends to see them vibrate in place. If the hunters can't see anyone, they'll generate a random waypoint and head there, breaking off to pursue any quarry they might encounter on the way.

If a hunter catches a girl he spends a few turns ah, subduing her, and then leaves her bound and immobile for subsequent retrieval. Bound girls are a darker blue and don't move or attract hunters. When all the girls are bound (or possibly before that) the hunters will turn on one another until only one survives.

I should add that I won't have things progressing nearly this fast in the game. This is just to make it look like there's some hunting going on other than the player's efforts.

[edit]

Should add the file is just a HTML file. Everything is Javascript and HTML5 canvas.

 

[muttdoggy]

I can see cats getting mesmerized by it.

 

[docclox]

I shall have to not try it out on mine. They spend way too much time sitting on my keyboard as it it!

 

[docclox]

OK, here's that map widget integrated with Twine. Still a bit buggy, but you can click on the map to move and try and catch prey or fight hunters. Doesn't achieve much yet and the whole thing is still buggy, but this shows I can go from Twine to HTML5 and back to twine again without things exploding.

I also have a ton of actual story text. I'm going to try and get it integrated with this, and then look at some sort of bare minimum playthrough, where the game can be won or lost even though it still lacks a lot of bells and whistles.

Anyway:

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