Confluence - A Human Strategy Game

[Ethan.Calabria]

Hi, this is my project 'Confluence'  I've been meaning to start a topic for a long time now.  I still have a long way to go, but I wanted to start a topic eventually, so I might as well start now!

Confluence is a story driven strategy game with (digitally) painted art:



It's mainly a game about interacting with other people:



But there's exploration:



And some combat:



I'm building the a prototype right now, so gameplay details will be a while yet, but here's one thing I'm working on:

How should I give the player directions?  I'm planning on having an 'overworld' map, but locations on the map also have different sub-locations.  I wanted to try to stick to physical directions in the environment like in the WIP below:


Or do people really love mini-maps?  If anyone has some opinion / insight, let me know!

[Carlos Augusto Br Cpp]

wow man... I enjoyed so much the art... its you that have draw it? 

[Elias Daler]

That art is truly incredible!

And yeah, it's great when games show layout in real world without relaying on maps too much. You may have maps if your levels are complicated, but with good level design and directions on the walls, you can do a lot of things done.

[Ethan.Calabria]

Thank you Carlos!  Yeah, I'm the lead artist and programmer...and animator...and accountant...and marketer, haha.

Thanks Elias!  That's a good point...the layout of the areas will matter a lot.  I've been talking with another artist I know about maps...so my ideas are still evolving on that, but I want to keep a very clean UI when possible.

[Hapax]

Art looks very good. Nice work!

People tend to resort to mini-maps as their security blanket. Indeed it's the thing you glance at regularly to get an overview of the situation. They are generally left off when there is little choice of movement, few things would happen in the map, to increase a sense of claustrophobia or to increase immersion. The latter mostly only applying in 3D realistic games.
However, note that, like text-based games, navigation requiring some skill and/or memory becomes a part of the gameplay itself.

EDIT: just noticed that actual images are too large for the forum and most of it is missing from view. Consider reducing its size (in forum code, not the actual image) to fit; a width of around 600 is pretty safe.

(click to show/hide)

[img width=600]http://www.ethancalabria.com/img/intro-bg.jpg[/img]

results in:

[Ethan.Calabria]

Thank you Hapax!  (for the compliment and the formatting help!)

I think I'll have to test it and see how the players do (which will be a way down the road).  I like the idea of no mini maps...but I also remember how frustrating it can be get lost.