Game Engine: Rags vs Twine vs ???

I've been looking more into recent games and it seems like Rags fell out of favor.  Twine/HTML seems to be the new king.  From what I could tell from a cursory glance, Twine has a lot of new features/macros that people made.  Combine that with some of the experimentation I did with Javascript in Rags, Twine is starting to look a bit better for what I could do computationally.

That said, how do people feel about Rags nowadays?  Do you just prefer Twine?  Or is there another engine I should be looking at?

Javascript in Rags

I spent a considerable amount of time messing around with javascript in Rags.  I got a good understanding on how it works within Rags and some of the advanced tech you could do.  There are still some hard limitations I'm trying to figure out.  Which is a bit frustrating since they feel like very simple to solve, but I can't seem to get around them and it's stopping me from doing some pretty cool things.

New Project?

I've been thinking about a new project.  Still fleshing out the details but I think I'm making steady progress on it.  Over the past couple weeks, I've come across some hurdles in design and so far, I managed to overcome them after some time and thought.

Interestingly, one of the problems involved some "heavy" computation.  It was a simple thing for a computer but I was having difficulties doing it in RAGS.  I looked into using the javascript part in RAGS and it seemed to open a new can of worms on how RAGS does javascript.  Some javascript commands don't work?  Anyone know of a good source on this?

I thought about using Twine as the gameplay style kinda suits it but I think it will create too many technical hurdles for me.

Right now, the biggest time sink for the project will be to find suitable pictures.  I'm considering making it text only to give myself and easier time, but I'll wait and see.

Wish me luck.

Update 12/22

Update: 12/22

In between work is about 90% done for a play through.  Need to finish up a few paths and make sure there's no dead ends.  Also I want to make some more images.

As for production, I think I need a mix of design and coding.  My plan is this:

• First is Brainstorming.  I need a clear vision of the section.  How it should play out and what the player should expect from it.
• Second is Design.  Design lasts until I figure out the basic architecture of the section.  That is what the player needs to do, what are the obstacles, what are the player's choices/options (roughly).
• Finally, Coding.  Dialog is done here too.  Ideally, it should be done from beginning to end since coding and dialog doesn't always mesh well with the design.  If coding starts deviating from design, keep coding until a stop point and then I return to Design or Brainstorming.

It's not time based but more objective based.  The nice thing about this is I can break it out to larger or smaller parts of whatever I'm working on.  For example: Finish coding in-between work for complete playthrough, brainstorm picture ideas for in-between work, design semi-success on in-between work, etc.

Anyways, Happy Holidays, everybody!  Eat, drink, be merry with your friends and family!

Update 11/25

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Last week's goals" turned out harder than expected.  I should have known given how much trouble I had with it before.  I ran into a few problems.  First, picture hunting still proves to be time consuming.  Second, picture editing takes even longer.  Third, I couldn't get the right look and had to do a few different approaches.  This section has some visual elements that needs to convey the information clearly (and subtly for some parts).  It took me a while to make sure the player has a fighting chance.

Lastly, I had a clear idea on what to do, but I didn't have a clear design.  I literally sat down to do some work, but couldn't get anything except some high level stuff.  I ended up going back to design work before I could continue.  The "weekly" goal seems to work out well, but now I think I only found half of the solution.  I think I need to find a way to balance some design goals while focusing and making sure I do some coding as well.

Tentatively, I thought it would be balanced by hours, like 1 hour working on design and 3 hours on code.  But it's really just design needs to reach a certain point where it's more productive to code than doing more design.  I plan to give this more thought.

Goal 1: Production planning- find a method to balance design work and code work.
Goal 2: Finish up in between work.

Update: 11/5

Starting with Goal 1: I finally managed to get 4 hours worked on it.  When I was setting up the goals, I completely forgot about halloween and world series.  I got to the 2 hour mark a couple days, but then stalled for a while after that.

Goal 2: Alternate route is about 90% done.  I had to make some changes since it felt a bit too straight forward and repetitive as I was coding it.  I was having a tough time with the last 10% until I realized it depended heavily on what pictures I can find.  So that will remain at 90% done until I get to that part.  I think I'll need another hour to finish up the last 10%.


Lastly, I thought I was going to fail Goal 3 too.  But I came up with an idea that I like right now.  Hopefully, I'll still like it when I start coding it.  It will require some photoshopping and some picture hunting.  This is something I really want done and over so for my next set of goals...

Goal 1: Work 3 hours.
Goal 2: Complete the in-between work, including picture hunting, photoshopping, everything.  Should be completely ready for play testing.

Update 10/25

A bit late, but done... sort of.

Action-complete turned out to be less useful than I originally thought.  Dialog plays a lot bigger part in what happens and subsequent actions than I realized.  I found it easier to just work on the dialog than write down what the dialog would be about in notes and guess at appropriate responses for branching.  So I decided to change Goal 2 from action complete to saying first part is playable.  Pictures and descriptions still need to be done

Linking the chapters should be done.  I do need to complete the rework for the in-between mission work (e.g. using the computer to find out who's Smirnov).  This part went through a couple reworks already and as I was coding in the latest re-design, it wasn't fleshing out the way I'd like.  I'm tempted to just do it anyways so I don't have to bother with it any more.

All in all though, setting the goals like this worked out nicely.  I'm actually surprised at how accurate 7 hours was for the goals I set.

New Goals:
Goal 1: Work 4 hours.  Things happening in personal life this week.  So I won't have as much free time as last week.
Goal 2: Complete alternate path in second part
Goal 3: Decide on what to do for in-between work.

Weekly Targets

Here's my plan.  I've decided to set weekly targets for myself and see how far I can get.  The idea is to focus my development instead of working on whatever I feel like at the time.

After each week, I'll mark how well I did in the progress section.  Something like "3/3 Goals Completed".  If this thing works out well, I'll keep track of the last 5 weeks or so.  Just something to see how well I'm keeping up.

Anyways, here are my goals for SJ for next week.

Goal 1: Average 1 hour of work per day, totaling 7 hours.  This needs to be active coding.  Design work and picture/model hunting does not count.

Goal 2: "Action-complete" (no description or story) for the next mission.  Placeholder text as required.

Goal 3: Make sure the last chapter connects up properly to the next chapter.

Update 10/8

Update: 10/8

Worked some more on Dr. Ford.  Did some more design work on the next chapter.  I felt it lacked some excitement and areas for the player to explore and discover.  Hopefully, that should be fixed now.

Update: 9/29

Finally a good update.

To my surprise, I got some time to myself and managed to put it to good use.  Worked on Dr. Allison Ford.  I have a full plan for her section.  Also I did some model hunting for characters showing up in the next chapter (and future chapters).  A couple I like, some I'm not that set on.  I'll see how I feel about them later on and how the story goes.

Update 9/22

It's been a while since my last update.  A lot has happened, but I think I'm finally in the clear.  I'm finally 100% now (again).  I either got sick again or I relapsed with the same thing.  There were a few days where I was perfectly fine, but then I wasn't.  Fortunately, that's clear.

Secondly, my computer had some problems.  When I save something, I sometimes can't immediately reopen them.  They just become unreadable.  I suspected bad sectors or something.  Either way, my hard drive was failing.  Fortunately a friend helped me out and copied it over.  From what I can tell, nothing was lost.  At the very least, nothing related to SJ was lost.

My personal life has been busy all things considering.  Finding it difficult to get much time to work on SJ in private.

Update: 8/10

Still technically sick.  I have an occasional cough, but everything else is good.  I'm basically 99% fine, but still 1% sick.  And that 1% isn't going away easily.

Anyways, I've been working more on SJ.  Spent some time pic hunting for rooms.  As usual, this is a bit difficult.  Need to find a better source for them.

Design wise, I did run into a roadblock.  Fortunately I worked out the cause.  It's because there's two different ways I could visualize [something] and I've been flipping back and forth between the two options.  The roadblock is because I needed to pick one.  So regardless of which option I pick, I'll need to retrofit and re-design a room or two.  Both options has some nice aspects I really like, so I'm still hoping I can find a way to blend the two.

Update 7/3

Update 7/3:

More work on SJ.  I'm concerned I'm putting in too much detail that the players will completely skip over.  Been trying to shorten the minutia.  I've been working sporadically so the next chapter is a bunch of disconnected sections.  Need to work on linking everything together.

More of my time was spent on the other game.  Been messing around a bit in twine to see if it's a good match up for the game.  The more I think about the next game, the more I like it.  I like it so much in fact, I worked on a test game in Twine to see how well it'll play and code and write.

More after the jump:

Update: 6/9

Sorry about the no posts for a while.  I've been working and there's just not that much to talk about.

In other news, there's a game idea that I had for a while now.  I was planning on working on it after SJ.  Sort of like a motivator.  But I keep getting ideas for it...

Focus!  I need to focus on SJ!

Update 5/15

Update 5/15:

Not much to say actually.  Continuing to work on the next chapter of SJ.  Slow but steady progress.

Update 4/30

Some good news!  Seraphim's Javelin officially has new content.  Completely untested at the moment and will remain so until the chapter's cleared through.  I don't want bug hunting to stop my momentum.

The end of the last mission was a complete mess.  I remember the last release of SJ people weren't getting the "end of game" part.  Turns out starting and stopping there multiple times was a bad idea.  Unfortunately, I suspect it will keep haunting me until I get it fully tested.

Update 4/15

Had a really crappy personal week.  Everything good that happened was marked by something bad.  And the good never made up for the bad.  Yesterday, I thought about staying in for the rest of the week and hope everything blows over.  I think I'll be happy if nothing good or bad happens til at least Monday.

Some good news on the SJ front though, magazine scene should be done.  It's a lot longer than I'd like.  I forced some of my photoshop work into it which made the scene longer.

I had a wonderful idea on the next chapter that I definitely want to incorporate.  I don't want to go into much detail (even in spoilers) since it heavily hints to major plot points later on.  So I'll keep it a secret for now.

SJ Combat Plan 4/2

Seraphim's Javelin Update 4/2

I think I figured out the last piece of the combat system.  Design-wise.

Basically, Force is raw damage and attack.  Agility is a combo / multi-turn attacks.  And Skill is specials, buff/debuff moves, that sort of thing.  Some of the buff/debuff functionality is already added.  I just need to expand it further for the Skill combat tree.

SJ Quick Update (3/24)

SJ Quick Update (3/24):

Did some planning on SJ and figured out more details on the long term goal.  Plot is a lot more defined now.  I think only one or two areas need more details.

Quick Update

A bit late on my update.  But I have an excuse.  I was lost in the world of Skyrim.  I still am actually.

Anyways, I finished up the condom scene.  Magazine scene is coming along.  I have the pictures, just need to write it out and add the code.