Procedural Hex-Voxel-World looking for gameplay...

Hey everybody,

i had some free time last week and tried to build a basic hexagonal-Voxel terrain. I came quite far until now, and now i am thinking about turning this thing into a game. Problem is, a can't think on anything else than minecraft and civilizations whenever i see those hexagon voxels. But i really would like to get some ideas other than that. So this is where i need you - if you can think of any game-mechanics or gameplay ideas i would be really thankful if you point me in some directions!

here is the current Webplayer Link:

WEBPLAYER (new)

 

Tactical RPG style games can use systems like this.

 

Some sort of ballistics-based thing, Worms style. Raise and lower terrain then place catapults and cannons etc on 'foundation' tiles (specially reinforced concrete tiles to take the weight of the weaponry, take extra resource to create). You build up tiles to make castles that your opponent has to knock down, place the siege equipment, fling rocks and stuff all over the place

Maybe you have to harvest certain tiles to construct the weapons and castle walls in the first place, send your dude out to mine trees for wood, stone, ice, metal etc. You then craft catapults (1wood + 1metal for eg), walls (1stone or 1ice) and then use the same raw material for ammo (perhaps ice walls can only be destroyed by flinging burning wood at them?) stuff like that.

Would be cool if you kept the path-finding "player" object in there from the webplayer demo, he's your main character, he can be killed by being hit by catapults, so you'd get fun situations where you are desperately running out from the castles you have made to collect more resources (to repair and make new weapons) while your opponent is flinging rocks at you Some good decisions to make for the players there too: Do they concentrate fire at the other player's castles and weapons? Try to hit the other player when he's safely inside his castles? Or save ammo to try and hit the player when he's running outside to collect resources himself?

 

Thanks guys - i prefer the round based, tactical RGB idea and really would have some ideas - but i can't get sucha a gameplay properly combined to the voxel-world, meaning destroying/placing voxels.

 

I had some hours this weekend and added some kind of bomes to my landscape - still looking for gameplay though. I really love the idea of some tactical-RPG battles (FF Tactics style), but can't get this concept to fit in a bigger "game"-thing... For the new (Biome) version, i updated the original webplayer.

Cheers!

 

So you have a sense of what you want the mechanics to be (FF Tactics style RPG battles) so what is it you are actually asking for when you say "the bigger 'game' "? Do you want suggestions for a setting/theme? Storylines etc? Or more mechanics?

Also, found some floating cells and wierd formations in the mountains biome, dunno if these sorts of features were something you were trying to eliminate or not as the rest of the world feels pretty plausible/solid. See attached pic.

 

I can understand what you are talking about. Tactical RPGs usually have a quite limited playing area while this tech is fucused on generating "infinite" landscapes, which might not be a good match for a tactical RPG. What about a more adventure oriented Tactical RPG maybe?

 

I was thinking about things like "what should the game be about", "what is the final goal of the game" or questions like that. So with "bigger" game-mechanism i mean like e.g. is it a story-driven-rpg, open world survival game, economic simulation, multiplayer strategy game, building your city game ... I think you know what i mean

@virror: I really like the idea of slow, tactical, turn based gameplay and could imagine a lot of games based on this - but i can't find any that somehow take account the voxel-terrain thing appropriately.But perhaps you have a point in my tech not beeing a good match with tactical gameplay as i was imagining it.

 

Maybe a tactical game with a bigger scale than just single units? Maybe a bit more like the Total war series where you instead control armies and cities? Just trying to brain storm a bit here : )

 

And I really appreciate your brainstorming This was one of my first ideas, i first thought of games like Total war or Civ when creating the hexes. But i can't find a place for my voxel-terrain destruction/creation in those gameplay ideas...

 

Looks really good. Love the terrain generation and the pathfinding.

How much time do you have? Do you have anyone else to help you?

I'd make several small, interesting games.

For example; You start on a tiny, floating island with only a few blocks. Whenever you move from one block to another, the block you stood on disappears. The goal is to remove all blocks without getting stuck.

This could also be turned into a multiplayer game ala Spleef: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Spleef

Use the same mechanics to make a game where you have to move through all the blocks, but each block can only be touched once, like Q*bert

Make a racing game with procedurally generated levels: you move one tile at a time, and always forward and to the left or right, depending on obstacles. Press left to move left, and right to move right.

"Whack-a-mole"-ish game: Evil flowers appear and spread corruption. Click a flower to remove it before it spawns enough corruption to make more flowers.

Guide creatures (lemmings, vikings, cubes etc.) through dangerous landscapes by placing terrain to block or create new paths. Add lava, falling trees, rock slides etc. and/or creature abilities like frost magic, mining, chainsaws etc.

Make a turnbased platformer with pocket tanks-like controlls. Jump from one platform to the next by setting the angle and power of the jump.

Need more?

 

I like the lemmings idea : )

 

Hey guys, thanks a lot for your replies - i still have not found the "perfect" gameplay, but your ideas definately give me a lot to think about. Meanwhile i programmed a system to save worlds (works only in Standalone build right now, because it saves files to disk) and some simple "creatures". Those (currently red dots) update/move/act in the "virtual" voxel-world and are only displayed if in visible range.

Webplayer updated!

 

Two words: BattleTech and HeroScape.

 

nice - thank you a lot sir! I definately have a look at tabeletops!

 

i always loved making castles in minecraft, but there was no reason to.. nothing is gonna attack the castle, and no one lives in it >< ..

 

Hello there! Nice hex work!

Are you still looking for ideas? I have what I believe to be a really great idea for a 3D Voxel Hex Turn Based Strategy RPG, with the main feature being that individual hero or units have the ability to create/destroy and manipulate the terrain. A hex engine like yours would allow a battle ground to be fully deformable, allow a wide array of creative terrain manipulation and strategy, and also feature randomized computer generated battlefields. Or create your own maps and share. So in order to win you have to manipulate the terrain to your advantage, I don't think thats been done in Strategy RPGs ever?

I imagine a nice hybrid cross between the old skill/job system of turn based classics like Final Fantasy: Tactics but with the landscape manipulation and biome/world generation of a game like Minecraft (but with hexes). Skill trees allow heroes to upgrade and personalize their abilities and fighting style, expanding the ways in which they fight and interact with the hex world.

That format is more in favor of battlefields with borders, isolated fights. But your giant open world generator could maybe be the world travel screen? With your party represented as a single traveling unit exploring a hex map, avoiding threats. A battle occurs when you hit a threat at which point it would switch to more detailed but smaller hex battlefield that looks like the Hero Scape and Battle Tech battlefields posted above. At this point it'll play out like most Strat RPGs, but with 100% more awesome terrain control! The battlefield would be generated like a biome depending on what sort of world hex you started the fight on. Get it? Is that doable?

I am not a programmer, I am a designer and artist but I've been playing games and making my own tabletop/board games for years. So I have a pretty solid game here on paper, has been play tested on simple homemade board but it really needs the functionality of 3D voxel engine, with some fun particle effects and flexible UI layed over it.

If you are interested I would be happy to go into detail, but I am not sure if you are looking for such an involved sort of game. If you are please message me. I think it could be a unique and fun game!

 

Hey - thanks a lot for your ideas! I am still "working" on this project and my current idea of it is very very close to yours - i was also thinking about round based tactics game (like FF tactics) on my Voxel terrain, with the only difference that (in my imagination right now) i would like to have my huge Voxel-Map as World map and fighting ground. I thought about when engaging in a fight, some kind of "battle arena" is marked on the Terrain, and you can't leave it until the fight has ended. But your idea definately has the advantage of more "tactical" Battle-Map generation and you could have it more detailed too. So, yes, i hope it is doable, at least i am planning to do it (kind of).
Unfortunately I have very litte time to work on this right now (because it's a hobby-project and a lot of work needs to be done.. ), but i am planning to continue this in the future for sure. I'll message you when i do!

 

This is a little late(a month), but this looks really cool! I hope you're still developing. The first thing that came to mind for me was Cube World, I think that's its name. Something like that would work well on this terrain, I feel!