OpenEVA

Happy New Year! | 2018 - 01 - 06
It’s a new year and I am very exited for it. 2017 was more or less productive for me and despite some setbacks I actually made more progress on OpenEVA than I had anticipated. I had planned for 2017 to be mostly planning and experimentation with the game and new engine, which has worked out well. I have a pretty good idea on the way forward for the project and am confident with the design so far. This year I plan on starting development in earnest, with all core features being completed by the year’s end. This should allow for...
October | 2017 - 11 - 01
During the past couple of weeks I have finally (mostly) finished work on my GDNative SQLite3 wrapper, which should allow for me to work with our game state database from inside Godot easily. It still has some polish that needs to be done, but for the most part I feel like I can at least start thinking about the next piece of the development puzzle. JSON Now that we have our database solution mostly sorted we can start to think about the data we will be putting in it and how that data is generated. I plan to use json...
September Update | 2017 - 09 - 22
Hello again, now that summer is at an end I am finally making some real progress on my R&D. I have been doing a ton of research into the core infrastructure and technology that I plan to use for OpenEVA. I now have a solid plan of how to approach the early stages of the game’s development, and have made some key decisions on technology and design that will form the foundation of the game. SQLite One of the first big decisions that I have come to after much research into the subject is using sqllite as our database framework....
July Update | 2017 - 07 - 31
A busy summer schedule and another bout of the flu has made the past month or so less productive than I would have liked, however I have made some important progress on OpenEVA’s development. I have spent some time researching how I should licence game and concept artwork, content and other meta-material, like my blog posts ant stuff which isn’t source code or the game itself. There is quite a bit to consider there, but i think i can come up with a permissive and simple framework. I have been researching office tools and studio equipment which will help in...
Neural Style | 2017 - 06 - 15
This past weekend I spent some time working on a simple project somewhat unrelated to OpenEVA but I have decided to document it here anyway: I have been interested in using convolutional neural networks for artistic style transfer for some time and have experimented using my own hardware. However, my personal hardware budget is somewhat limited, my 560ti can just barely run a 512px transfer using simplified models if you don’t mind the smell of hot silicone.Since then, I have wanted to set up an Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance capable of producing artistic style transfers which...
Crafting | 2017 - 06 - 11
I have laid out a foundational framework for OpenEVA in the Database, Api and infrastructure articles. We may now begin to look at some of the gameplay elements which will make use of those systems in a more granular way. Now that we have some idea of our environment and constraints we will be working with, we can start to design gameplay and interfaces which will make the game fun and enjoyable to play. One of the main aspects of OpenEVA gameplay will be be crafting, modifying and maintaining equipment. I envision a system where the player can modify existing...
API Layer | 2017 - 05 - 20
Now that we have some idea of how our game state be structured, we can begin to imagine the interactions and gameplay logic that will bring OpenEVA to life. Here we will be exploring the game’s underlying software structure in order to build a mental model of the features and systems we will need to implement. This will help us envision user interface interactions, determine software requirements and let us manifest our design as tangible work. This analysis will allow us to define and constrain project scope; OpenEVA is already an extremely ambitious project for a solo dev, preventing scope...
User Storytime Part II | 2017 - 05 - 10
As developers we are also users of our software or game, only with a vastly different story than an end user. It is important to consider the developer’s story as they have needs which will require support by our product and organisation. We will need to integrate workflows into the software; Explore development environments and technology; Provision build, test and deployment automation; Provide documentation, issue tracking, support and more. An effective developer story is key to any game or software development. OpenEVA will have several sets of developers which will form a sort of venn diagram of production: The core...
Game State | 2017 - 05 - 06
Now that we have a high level model of the game mechanics, we can start designing the underlying systems which will enable them. The core element of OpenEVA’s functionality is the game state: All player Equipment, Resources and game progress will be stored as a simple database of flags and values; All Events and player interaction will involve modifying game state in some way; And in-game interfaces will be reflections of the current state. Game progress, Contract and Event completion or availability, Event choice options, outcomes and more can be tracked by an array of simple flags. Resource pools can...
User Storytime Part I | 2017 - 05 - 02
An important step when designing any game or software project is to identify users and use cases. We want to develop features and interfaces which appeal to end-users and allow them to use our product effectively. We must also provide infrastructure to distribute and support our product. Developers should develop a full set of use cases and user stories before they begin writing their software. A comprehensive user story will allow us to visualize the features and interfaces they will use, while serving as a thought experiment enabling further maturation of our design. When considering use cases and user stories...
Project Roadmap | 2017 - 04 - 30
Now that we have a high level concept for OpenEVA laid out, we can begin to plan a development schedule, choose technologies and identify risks. An intelligent plan and development strategy is crucial to the success of any game, software, or engineering project. Laying out a roadmap of our project’s features and development will allow us to define scope, set milestones and deadlines, and prevent feature creep or wasted effort. Having a concise plan will give us reference for the future, allow others to collaborate and help us develop the pipelines, environments and technology we will use to realize our...
Artistic Concept and Style | 2017 - 04 - 28
In my post on design philosophy I somewhat discourage developers from spending too much time creating concept artwork or narrative elements. A game’s content development, especially on hobby or small team projects, should only begin once a flexible framework of gameplay mechanics, pipeline tools and user interfaces have been developed. However, having some concept art, and exploring theme, style and narrative elements can be vitally important to a game’s early and ongoing development. Attractive art and narrative concepts are key to private, business, crowdsourced and venture capital investment in the traditional and indy games industry. Strong creative concepts are necessary...
Resources and Game State | 2017 - 04 - 27
Along with Equipment and Events, Resources will complete the core gameplay interactions the player has with OpenEVA. Resources are simply some float or integer value that is tracked by the game that has some in-game utility or value. Specific Resources, their utility and value will be defined by content creators using simple JSON. Currency, fuel, Part inventories, electricity, cargo space, hunger and oxygen levels may be represented via Resources. Events may require, consume or reward Resources. Parts will require Resources to fabricate and may be broken down or recycled. Equipment may produce, consume and store Resources. Using clever definitions content...
Events and Contracts | 2017 - 04 - 26
A key element of gameplay, and delivery method for theme and narrative content in OpenEVA will be the Event and Contract system. The system will be very simple conceptually; The player is shown a sequence of text based descriptions, at each step in the sequence the player is given one or more choices on how to proceed, and the outcome of the event may affect the game’s state. There are countless examples of games and interactive experiences which make use of this model, likely dating back to the development of language itself. Many of my all time favorite games are...
The Equipment | 2017 - 04 - 25
The core mechanic and central pillar of OpenEVA gameplay is the concept of Equipment. The main interaction the player has with the game will be using their Resources to acquire and maintain Equipment. The Equipment system will be the main outlet of player choice, creativity and ingenuity. Every tangible in game object will be represented as Equipment. All gameplay will revolve around the players inventory of Equipment and all Events, Contracts and economy will involve Equipment in some way. The Equipment system will be the most complex and important system in OpenEVA, however it will be relatively simple at its...
Philosophy of Design | 2017 - 04 - 24
Most of my professional experience has been as a software developer and programmer and I enjoy electrical engineering and automotive mechanics as hobbies, it is a big part of why I want to develop OpenEVA. My training however is in game art and design, which are two areas that are usually neglected in my projects in favor of putting code to silicon. I am generally bored by high level design and concept art; I can’t count the friends, family and acquaintances, when they learn I develop software and games, who have divulged to me their fourteen billion dollar game ideas;...
The Game | 2017 - 04 - 23
OpenEVA will be a resource management business sim in which you play as a blue collar ExtraVehicular Activity contractor working on humanity’s frontier in the year 2120. The main mechanic will center around building and maintaining your spaceship, EVA suits, robots, computers and other equipment required to fulfill various contracts in hazardous alien environments throughout the star system. The final goal is to save money for retirement, with an array of possible outcomes based on the player’s performance. The gameplay will not be super exiting, all gameplay systems will be something which can be implemented in a spreadsheet, but that...
The Beginning | 2017 - 04 - 22
The repo is set up, the blog is online and I can officially begin work on OpenEVA. This is a project that I have been milling in my mind for some time so I am quite exited to begin. For this project I really want to get the full open gamedev experience, complete with devblog. I am a huge proponent of free software and open source collaboration, which is why I have chosen GPL v3.0 for the OpenEVA licence. I want this to be an open experience with every opportunity for others to share and learn along with me. I...