[Role Playing Game] Island Survival (Alpha)

[AJalex]

Island Survival Release 2 (01/10/2016)
(Title subjected to change in the future)

You find yourself stranded on the shores of a mysterious island. You have just gotten used to the idea that you will be here for a while but a strange feeling doesn't let you to clear your mind. Its like the trees are pulsing with energy, even the rocks make your hair stand on the back of your neck.

Its best you get moving and get a fire started before you start exploring...

Island Survival is a basic survival RPG where you begin by gathering resources in order to survive. However, the more you advance the more you discover that the island you are on is not what you have expected it to be. Although you find standard wildlife, you also find that the island is inhabited by more "civilized" denizens like trolls, murlocs and undead(!).

By conquering the foes that dare to challenge you, you find that they drop scrolls covered in mysterious runes which you can easily read, despite never seeing the language before. Reading them out loud, you start to feel a strange energy filling your body and ancient knowledge filling your mind. Concentrating on that ancient knowledge, you notice that you can cast different spells and use battle techniques that you never knew before.

Spoiler: 01/10/2016 Changelog

RELEASE 01/10/2016 CHANGELOG:

• GAMEPLAY

1. Added a revival system
2. Added stacking to crafting items
3. Unarmored units take full damage from ALL damage types
4. Armors do not grant armor they just reduce incoming damage by a fixed amount
5. Modified the crafting system a bit

• ABILITIES

1. Added the fishing ability (you can catch 4 types of fish) - Only works propperly on starting island
2. Added new spells that you can learn (11 total spells added - scrolls can be taken from the troll area)
3. New crafting abilities
4. New cooking abilities

• WILDLIFE

1. Added 2 more wildlife: Wild Pig, Wild Boar
2. Added a rare spawn: Ancient Ancestor
3. Added 2 neutral spawns: Frog, Lizard
4. Added a Murloc camp on the east island (does nothing but attack you for now)
5. Added Necromancer's Hideout (does nothing but attack you for now)

• Terrain

1. Various tweaks and experiments (will change)
2. Changed tree models

• ITEMS

1. Added 2 new armors: Medium Leather Armor, Tree Bark Armor
2. Added 3 new weapons: Torch, Fishing Rod, Stone Knife
3. Added meat types: Stag Meat, Pig Meat, Boar Meat, Bear Meat
4. Added fish types: Trout, Pike, Salmon, Carp
5. Added 3 eatable vegetables: Wild Red Apple, Wild Carrot, Wild Spinach
6. Added the cooked equivalents for fish and meats
7. Added 2 metal types: Copper, Iron (can be gathered from veins - unused for crafting)

Spoiler: Screenshots

The second release is just so that i can get some feedback on the gameplay and system changes that were made.

Also some ability feedback would be great! (just as a heads up, abilities are not at all balanced so the numbers will change for sure)

 

[Fruit Forest]

1. Resources gathering
_1.1 I think, a system where you need to run across the island to find appeared items is inappropriate.
I hope in further versions Survivor could collect resources from objects, not find already appeared items. If you need wood, I need to chop a tree for example.

2. Inventory
_2.1 Do a system of bag swapping. It would be important in survival maps, where you need to grab tons of items as first variant. (I recommended second variant: create spell book ability called "Inventory" and add 11 resources (11 passive abilities + cancel button) based on modify rexxar's passive atttribute modify, set hide button as yes on 1st level. When player picks items a proper passive ability increases its level. For drop system here are a lot of variants, just need to create the most convinient one. If you have more, than 11 resource, made Inventory 2 spell book etc.) It's up for you, but an increased inventory size is good for survival maps.

3. Survivor
_3.1 Do lesser vision range. To increase it, you need to made range - increasing item.
_3.2 Magic abilities is interesting thing. You may do either battle magic or survival magic.
_3.3 Would you do a hunger, thirst, stamina system?

4. Weather
_4.1 I hope you added more weather effects, like acid rain, which ruins your buildings or snow, which freezes survivors and causes local blizzards, or meteor rains, which forces you to find underground.

EDITED: What about hero's attribute? Strenght may be used to wear more items and hit harder. Agility - dodge, run. Intelligence - more recipes to learn.

 

[AJalex]

Well as i mentioned before, its just in its infancy stage.

1. You will have to run across the map for certain resources while others will become easier to gather as you get more tools. There are also magical crafting materials that drop from mobs, etc. This is just to get some calculations for some balancing. You don't want to get too many resources at one point of the game, so much so that they clog the map and you have to destroy them by hand.

2. I will see about that. The inventory needs to be strongly connected to the crafting system so that complex stuff can be made. (current things are basic as hell)

3. 3.1 The torch is in there but i didn't make it constructable because i didn't get to make the plant gathering system. (you need some bushes to stick on top of a stick and light them up to make a torch )
3.2 Nah i want to leave a ton of freedom to players, to let them chose what they want to be, what to call themselves (as long as its viable). There is also an alliance system in the making right now so that you can battle in the arena (1v1-5v5). The alliance system is also thought out so that players can create mini parties so that they can better survive/fight together.
3.3 Hunger/thirst/stamina is already covered by the HP. You eat/drink you get healed; You increase your strength, you also get more HP so that your survivabillity is increased. At one point (lvl 15) you will be perfectly fit to suvive and you won't lose hp at a considerable rate anymore. Its thought out as the longer you survive and do stuff the more adept you are at surviving.

4. Yes, there will be a variety of weather effects in the future, as for now the basic environmental inconveniences will remain.

5. Strength is used to hit harder and to be better at surviving out in the open.
Agility is used for dodging and running (its just too low for the level you can achieve for now so that you don't notice it)
Intelligence is used mostly for spells. Depends on what you want to use: physical or magical abilities.

Sorry for the late response, i was out of town for the last week and i just got home and back to working on this map.

 

[apsyll]

Here feedback from my side:

That will be long sorry for that:

First what will be the goal or the main idea of this map?
it helps to test the map and to create the systems more for this map.
for understanding what I say:
For a singleplayer map I would increase the inventory space much say with 1-3 bags, 1xbackpack your need 1sec to open and 2xbag you can easy acces but when your game is focust on coop multiplayer then i would just add a stack system because when 3 player play this game you have alredy 3x the space...

-gathering I go with Fruit Forest, it is a good idea to have some recourses on special places and you need to explore this places to get new things to create better equiptment and than use this to get the next better recourses but the way it workes now seems not good for me, maybe that can be fixed that you spawn some recourses in the beginning of the map so that there alredy something to collect.
But the player don't feel like he is gathering/ he is collecting and this in a not very exiting way. Give the survivor abillities to gather wood from trees there so many trees why i have to walk across the island to get wood?! harvest stone from rocks, give the survivor a collect ability you can use in different areas like bushes to get berries on beach to get shellfish etc.
or maybe change the way you harvest with the tool you using so when you use an axe you can harvest wood and when you use a pick you can harvest stone, ore... Let the player interact with the world to give the feeling you doing something.

-builing I like your building menu system this look good.
On one situation I can't place my fireplace and my hut but I wanted so let me craft everything I have discovered on every time.
You can add submenus when you explore more things to craft like in the beginning you can craft a hut but you researched in mid game some
new things and the hut skill becames a houses sub menu that has everything inside from the hut to say the stone house..
Give the building more static so that the fireplace don't remove from the place instead it turns of and you can add a wood and use a lighter to r
relight them because the stones don't disapear when the fire turn off so you can add a destroy or pick up ability to them and either has a
chance to get some recourses back or get an Item you can use to build again.

-crafting Same here like the system, maybe go more to the interaction with your craftingstation now you must be near the fireplace to cook
maybe give the fireplace a inventory and the skill cook, and make a workbench and give them also an inventory and his skills so your survivor
can use many crafting skills without have to many abilities on the character itself also it improves the I do something aspect for the player.

-wildlife for this I would use 2 faction the passive and the aggressive because of auto attack.
You can make that the animal changes from passive to aggressive when you hit it or maybe when it is an aggressive animal like a wolf give them
a aggrorange.

-Inventory please add a stack system! for the rest see on top.

-stats buffs I would go with more debuffs like bodyheat, hunger, thirst, rested and indicate them via buffs also you can add your world to impact
them like a poisen flower where you walk on poisen you or food that causes diarrhea so you need more food and water for this time...

-misc please add traps and fishing that is for surviving the main get food actions because you use less time to build traps then go active hunting.
And you are on an island so you should be able to fishing...
~maybe add flora regrow and procreation so you need to look that you don't harvest every tree on your island to get more wood in the future
~you can add daily actions to the trolls to so they need to hunt and cook, you can add theire procreating too..
~weather you alredy write something for this so i looking forward for new weather and events
~have you protect your map? I wanted to look in the triggers to see what you have done so far for better understanding and can't open it :/

Ok you made it! this is the end!
looking forward to see this map grow and became a nice survival

 

[daverave1212]

I am working on an island survival map myself
You will have a hard time competing with what I'm doing ^^, but let me review yours

It lacks content, A LOT, it's a bit too early I'd say to release a testable version
You should add a tutorial. I couldn't understand how to build things, I did not have a button for that.
I loaded the map twice, also, and the first time I had no food craft menu.
Resources are much too scarce. I could only find a flint and wood, if resources spawn automatically and randomly, then they should also spawn instantly some on map initialization.
The terraining is null. I hope this is just because it's still in alpha. Try to smoothen out the beaches with the smooth tool and add more diverse tiles. Another terraining tip would be not to make zones that are just widely spaced apart trees and flat grass. That's nasty. Add more cliffs, more plants, oasis, critters, etc.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I don't mean to ^^. Good luck tho

 

[AJalex]

Sorry for the LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time between answers. I had some work related issues.

Here feedback from my side:

That will be long sorry for that:

First what will be the goal or the main idea of this map?
it helps to test the map and to create the systems more for this map.
for understanding what I say:
For a singleplayer map I would increase the inventory space much say with 1-3 bags, 1xbackpack your need 1sec to open and 2xbag you can easy acces but when your game is focust on coop multiplayer then i would just add a stack system because when 3 player play this game you have alredy 3x the space...

-gathering I go with Fruit Forest, it is a good idea to have some recourses on special places and you need to explore this places to get new things to create better equiptment and than use this to get the next better recourses but the way it workes now seems not good for me, maybe that can be fixed that you spawn some recourses in the beginning of the map so that there alredy something to collect.
But the player don't feel like he is gathering/ he is collecting and this in a not very exiting way. Give the survivor abillities to gather wood from trees there so many trees why i have to walk across the island to get wood?! harvest stone from rocks, give the survivor a collect ability you can use in different areas like bushes to get berries on beach to get shellfish etc.
or maybe change the way you harvest with the tool you using so when you use an axe you can harvest wood and when you use a pick you can harvest stone, ore... Let the player interact with the world to give the feeling you doing something.

-builing I like your building menu system this look good.
On one situation I can't place my fireplace and my hut but I wanted so let me craft everything I have discovered on every time.
You can add submenus when you explore more things to craft like in the beginning you can craft a hut but you researched in mid game some
new things and the hut skill becames a houses sub menu that has everything inside from the hut to say the stone house..
Give the building more static so that the fireplace don't remove from the place instead it turns of and you can add a wood and use a lighter to r
relight them because the stones don't disapear when the fire turn off so you can add a destroy or pick up ability to them and either has a
chance to get some recourses back or get an Item you can use to build again.

-crafting Same here like the system, maybe go more to the interaction with your craftingstation now you must be near the fireplace to cook
maybe give the fireplace a inventory and the skill cook, and make a workbench and give them also an inventory and his skills so your survivor
can use many crafting skills without have to many abilities on the character itself also it improves the I do something aspect for the player.

-wildlife for this I would use 2 faction the passive and the aggressive because of auto attack.
You can make that the animal changes from passive to aggressive when you hit it or maybe when it is an aggressive animal like a wolf give them
a aggrorange.

-Inventory please add a stack system! for the rest see on top.

-stats buffs I would go with more debuffs like bodyheat, hunger, thirst, rested and indicate them via buffs also you can add your world to impact
them like a poisen flower where you walk on poisen you or food that causes diarrhea so you need more food and water for this time...

-misc please add traps and fishing that is for surviving the main get food actions because you use less time to build traps then go active hunting.
And you are on an island so you should be able to fishing...
~maybe add flora regrow and procreation so you need to look that you don't harvest every tree on your island to get more wood in the future
~you can add daily actions to the trolls to so they need to hunt and cook, you can add theire procreating too..
~weather you alredy write something for this so i looking forward for new weather and events
~have you protect your map? I wanted to look in the triggers to see what you have done so far for better understanding and can't open it :/

Ok you made it! this is the end!
looking forward to see this map grow and became a nice survival

The main purpose of this map is that it doesn't have a specific purpose just yet. I wanted to just make a nice PVP/PVE survival hybrid but quests and other objectives will come soon.

- Gathering is screwed, i knew that before i posted it but it was just for some calculations and just to test the crafting systems, i began changing that with some new additions. Also the inventory will be stackable i just need to redo a bit of the crafting system to accommodate that;

- Buildings will be subject to a lot of changes in the upcoming versions.

- Crafting systems will change and will include Anvils/Forges/Tables etc.

- Wildlife - you're on an island, if its not something small and fluffy, its going to kill you but i will add some harmless eye candy there just so that people don't feel like they're in Australia an everything wants to kill them.

- Can't add too many buffs because that will just destroy the simplicity with which it was intended.

- Will consider traps and fishing, thank you for your suggestion.

- Will implement flora regrow after gathering system changes. Thanks !

- There will be a lot more PVE interactions like the troll dungeon and they WILL pose a threat to you even outside of their lairs.

- Oh there will be some new weather, it will rain fire baby!

- Yes, i've protected it, its a mess inside, even i had problems understanding WTF was in there after 2 weeks of not touching it.

Thank you for your feedback, hope we will get to play it together sometimes !

I am working on an island survival map myself
You will have a hard time competing with what I'm doing ^^, but let me review yours

It lacks content, A LOT, it's a bit too early I'd say to release a testable version
You should add a tutorial. I couldn't understand how to build things, I did not have a button for that.
I loaded the map twice, also, and the first time I had no food craft menu.
Resources are much too scarce. I could only find a flint and wood, if resources spawn automatically and randomly, then they should also spawn instantly some on map initialization.
The terraining is null. I hope this is just because it's still in alpha. Try to smoothen out the beaches with the smooth tool and add more diverse tiles. Another terraining tip would be not to make zones that are just widely spaced apart trees and flat grass. That's nasty. Add more cliffs, more plants, oasis, critters, etc.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I don't mean to ^^. Good luck tho

I am working on an island survival map myself
You will have a hard time competing with what I'm doing ^^, but let me review yours

Bring it!

It was too early for this release but oh well the 'damage' has been done.

Crafting will be simplified so that anyone can understand what to do. Also some tips will be included to help with that.

Resources are subjected to change a lot.

Terrain was just there to keep you out of water. It went through some changes and will change even more every day.

Thanks for the feedback and may the best map win

 

[apsyll]

@AJalex Good to know you still working on this. Can't wait to test the new map maybe also to trow a quick view in the editor if you like...
I think you should get your main purpose of the game as fast as you can to build your systems around this maybe its the systems itself that makes the game enjoyable or its the dealing with other players. This is what I get from your informations that the game will be a sandbox-ish multiplayer survival with some gather/crafting/questing elements did I got it correct?
I should have an island map regrow and "lifecycle" simulation system for units(animals) and trees in my old stuff it is not the best you need to improve it a lot and it's GUI, it was just to get some rough concept done but if you like I could search for it so you could use the main concept of the system?

 

[AJalex]

Glad to see someone is eager to play this map

I will make a new release in a few days, i just have to wrap up some stuff.

The purpose although not mentioned, is to finish the end "raid" situated on the top of the map in order to get off the island. But you can also opt to stay there and just PVP against other players in FFA or teamed combat.

Thank you for for suggesting to contribute with a "lifecycle" system but for the moment it is not necessary until i redo the whole gathering system.

Cheers !

 

[Fruit Forest]

First try to make a system. Terrain and doodads - less priority

 

[AJalex]

First try to make a system. Terrain and doodads - less priority

Well actually thats what im doing. I only apply changes to terrain and doodads if i get an idea and them immediately do it so that i dont forget.

Also currently changed and done:
-New collecting system - Some collected resources stack so that you have more free space in your inventory
-New gathering system - Some resources need to be extracted before they can be gathered (currently just ores)
-Crafting system done - May be changed if i get a better idea (but for now its done)

New release soon (approx. 1 week).

 

[AJalex]

A new release is here! (i know i said 1 week a month ago... sorry)

Hope to get some feedback

Check the changelog to see what was changed.

Cheers!

 

[JaysProjex]

Suggestions,

If you want us to test things out, then I would highly suggest to give us more resources than what is currently provided.

I can understand your goal of resources being scarce but there are literally no resources, especially if we have to run around for 5 minutes in a dull environment searching for a simple recipe, then it's a game-play issue.

There are no hints, hardly any explanation on what to do, & the tool tips are lacking vital information.

I think your map needs a name change, you have a different perspective of island survival with a mix of mythological/fantasy creatures, perhaps renaming it to something like Tropical Island RPG.

 

[Fruit Forest]

1. I walked around an island, and I didn't find any resources. Can you make small experimental island instead of large one.
2. Inventory system - Every survival map must have advanced inventory system (at least increase inventory slot items by an adding a dummy "backpack" who follows a hero. Survival map with 6 slot inventory is cheap.
3. Starting position must be on a beach with broken boat and starting small-valued equipment (you can disagree with equipment, but since you appeared on an island, you better start from beach, not in the middle of it). It helps players to not be eaten by high level monsters just after starting a game.
4. I see a lot of trees on my way, but no wood resources. Make these trees to be hitable or make ability to lumber trees. It also spreads on other resources.
5. I don't like hunger system, where you just losing health. You have a lot of valuable, that can count your hunger. (For example you have a Food scale, why not to use it. Each X sec. you losing one food, when food is low you gain a penalty to your attributes, if food scale is over, you starts losing health. Eat food... to increase food scale.
6. Make uncooked food to cause disease and even decrease a food scale, beacuse of diarrhea, with a certain chance (Strength attribute decrease it) while eating.

It's clearly seen, a project is raw, you have a lot of work.