Have you dreamed about a game in which there is no end to adventures? You save, for example, the princess from the clutches of the monster, and somewhere behind the seas it is already hanging from the tower and calls for the help of a new one, and so in a circle … Something similar in video games today can only be implemented by randomly generating content. And such attempts with varying success have been undertaken and are made: Spore and Minecraft immediately come to mind. Another variation on a given topic is right now prepared by an independent Arceen Games studio, which develops Action/Adventure a Valley Without Wind.
The end is not visible
At first glance, we have a traditional adventure with RPG elements inspired by NES classic Crystalis And Thelegend of Zelda , as well as the cult cartoon of Hayao Miyazaki “Naisish from the Valley of the Winds” (in this case, the valley, on the contrary, “without wind”). The two-dimensional character moves left-right, up and down along two-dimensional screens (while the game can not be called Top-Down action-see. screenshots), meets in his way of the city, villages, monsters and local residents.
[[Bullet]] Chris Park: “The world is literally endless, and the further you are moving, the more fragments of various times and civilizations”.
As in Nasikika, the action takes place in the uncomfortable future, in the world that has survived the destructive cataclysm. “Strong frosts and huge glaciers, crushing whole continents for themselves, over many years destroyed the usual landscape and randomly measured the remnants of past countries and continents,” the head of Arceen Games, Chris Park, tells us in an interview. But that's not all. Not only continents were mixed, but even temporary periods, events and cultures: here you can find both ancient Chinese and residents of modern America, and together with magic the hero relies on firearms and even laser weapons.
The survivors are united in groups, try to somehow restore the destroyed civilization. It is at this moment that you appear and take on the role of the Messiah, which should make the cold hostile world better and warmer. And simultaneously find out the causes of the disaster. To do this, you will have to travel a lot, fight, fulfill quests, which vary from saving entire regions to solving someone else's problems.
[[Bullet]] Authors are going to regularly supplement the project with new materials for generating content. Moreover, they are ready to use the achievements of players that they can create using open resources of the game.
But the main thing is “Search in destroyed cities, abandoned buildings, caves and dungeons all kinds of valuable materials, magic stones and artifacts, with the help of which you can not only improve equipment, but also create settlements where there will be more chances to survive”. People will begin to move there.
Strategy for behavior
Here the first unique feature of the game makes itself felt. Research and pumping in A Valley Without Wind are closely related to the strategy: finding valuable resources, we improve the world around us, but getting experience, we increase not only the level of our hero, but also the overall level of civilization, which opens up more opportunities for survival, increases the skill of artisans and quality of materials.
[[Bullet]] in places the game looks pretty creepy. So much so that it even claims to be artistic position.
The player's actions directly affect society. People fill out new settlements, and you can come there yourself and extract a specific benefit for yourself: after all, many specialists will gather in one place and you will not need to run in search of the desired blacksmith or medicine.
Specialists are a local analogue of classes. A blacksmith, a pharmacist, a catcher (Trapper), who knows how to collect and put traps, a sorcerer capable of “enforcing” a weapon-you can be one, and for the rest of the abilities you will have to contact the people's craftsmen. That is why the formation of settlements is so important for pumping.
[[Bullet] no, these are not stains of blood, these are trees!
But the most amazing one is all of the above, all these adventures, artifacts, research, blacksmiths, settlements, lasers and ancient Chinese will be generated on the fly. There is nothing completely made manually in the game. There are no ready -made characters or regions. The authors only design blanks, and specific details in all this accidentally adds AI. Such an approach, like the developers hope, will create an endless world.
No Game
“This is a game that never ends. If you defeat one evil overlord, then they saved the region and made its inhabitants happy. But somewhere across the sea or in the next desert, a new danger will certainly arise. And even in the regions you have passed, there will always be some monsters, new enemies will appear, and local residents will have new problems. The adventures are as unlimited as the number of kilometers that you can pass by exploring the surrounding world!" – assures our interlocutor.
[[Bullet]] Similar buildings here can easily be found with dugouts and wooden huts.
Naturally, the question immediately arises, but how interesting the endless adventures that the computer generate will be, and does not manually create a living person. After all, the memories of Spore are still fresh, which also tried to lure the players with endless generated content, but could not offer him really fascinating adventures.
However, the authors of A Valley Without Wind are full of optimism: they promise a system of reputation, a variety of quests, many of which can be performed in different ways, as well as an unprecedented level of freedom that will force you to explore this endless world.
Naturally, we are not at all sure that a small studio will manage to realize such a large -scale plan. But Arceen Games is not at all newcomers. Their previous game is a space strategy AI War: Fleet Command – It was interesting that she had a huge developing world, which was very interesting to explore. Well, what worked in Cosmosima may well work in a role -playing game.
We will wait?
A strange -looking budget game, which seems to be able to turn our ideas about Sandbox.
Readiness percentage: 50%
To infinity and beyond!
Potential infinity in games is possible primarily thanks to random (that is, random) content generation. A person cannot create something that has no limit, but a XL Casino set of basic parameters that can be accidentally mixed-quite.
Poker
Approximately 500 years before computer games, random events became the basis of the gameplay of one of the main games in the world. The subtlety is that not everything is in poker. As new cards begin to be laid out on the table, the player can guess about enemy combinations. In addition, as they say in the film “Cards, Money, Two Babers”, “Everyone has emotions, especially when it comes to big money”. Poker is a random scatter of cards when surrendering – only a powerful base for a real psychological battle.
Dungeons & Dragons
Random Encounter (random clashes) were an integral part of the first board role-playing games back in the 70s of the last century. The throw of the cube accidentally determined not only the probability of meeting with a particular opponent, but also who will be an enemy and where a fight will occur. Later, the basic rules will be neatly transferred to the digital format in which they will last until today (Dragon Age 2). For the game, four types of cubes with four, six, eight, twelve, and even twenty faces were originally used.
Rogue
One of the most famous computer games with randomly generated clashes, which gave rise to a whole rogulike genre. The hero cleared the dungeon from the monsters, gradually going deeper and deeper, meeting more and more strong monsters in his path. The location of monsters and treasures (armor, potions, spells) at the level was asked by accident. Not everyone knows, but such a decision was more forced than intentional. Just 1980, memory volumes could not withstand the game with a large number of pre-modeled levels.
Diablo
If only fans of retro are now copying Rogue mechanics, then the Diablo recipe is popular, as before. Each time, the game accidentally created a new unique dungeon, changing, among other things, the set of monsters and the contents of the chests. Locations with bosses could change their geographical location, but not content, the architecture of the rooms remained the same. On the same principle, numerous Diablo Clons, and, of course, many Asian Mmorpg, oriented towards endless pumping of the character.