Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

The official Double Fine thread (brought to you by J_C)

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
Whatever, J_C, whatever.
A simple "sorry, you are right J_C" would have suffised. ;)

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2
You weren't right, I posted about gangbeasts, you quoted me talking about ponyplants then got all uppity when I called you wrong. You started the conversation on a mistake so whatever, J_C, whatever.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Whatever, J_C, whatever.
A simple "sorry, you are right J_C" would have suffised. ;)

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk 2
You weren't right, I posted about gangbeasts, you quoted me talking about ponyplants then got all uppity when I called you wrong. You started the conversation on a mistake so whatever, J_C, whatever.
Sorry, I see now that it was my fault, although it was unintentional. The post you wrote was quoting Metro, who was talking about Gang Beast. Since I have this troll Metro on ignore, I haven't seen his quote. All I saw was that I posted a Hack and slasch video, and in the next post you wrote it is not a DF game. Peace. ;)
 

Explorerbc

Arcane
Joined
Nov 22, 2012
Messages
1,170
Double Fine once again delivers :

RPS said:
Spacebase DF-9 Development To Cease, Game To Release

Double Fine have announced that development of Spacebase DF-9 is coming to an end and the development plan listing planned features has been removed. The Steam Early Access page has been updated to state that version 1.0 is due for release. It “will be its final major update”, according to the recently updated development plans page. The previous version of that page contained hundreds of features that “might possibly” be implemented at some point. Today’s update makes it clear that any future implementation will be in the hands of the users rather than Double Fine themselves, thanks to a full source code release.

Did they ran out of money again ? Will they release a couple more early access games to balance it out ?
 
Last edited:

Stoa

Barely Literate
Joined
Aug 29, 2014
Messages
2
It is a shame that they haven't developed nothing worth mentioning after Psychonauts. Too great emphasis on those console things I'd say.
 

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
What a shitty company... promise X, grab money, deliver half-assed Y, rinse and repeat. Fuck those losers.
Massive Chalice is turning up awesome, they'll deliver gay marriage and adoption and then they're done with the core gameplay.
 

SuicideBunny

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
8,943
Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
guess it's time to stop buying or playing df games, even if they make psychonauts 2.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Double Fine once again delivers :

RPS said:
Spacebase DF-9 Development To Cease, Game To Release

Double Fine have announced that development of Spacebase DF-9 is coming to an end and the development plan listing planned features has been removed. The Steam Early Access page has been updated to state that version 1.0 is due for release. It “will be its final major update”, according to the recently updated development plans page. The previous version of that page contained hundreds of features that “might possibly” be implemented at some point. Today’s update makes it clear that any future implementation will be in the hands of the users rather than Double Fine themselves, thanks to a full source code release.

Did they ran out of money again ? Will they release a couple more early access games to balance it out ?
Tim is so sick of gamers and their chauvinist ways that he's going to stop developing all games.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
What a shitty company... promise X, grab money, deliver half-assed Y, rinse and repeat. Fuck those losers.
Spacebase is looking to be a complete, playable, decently complex base building game. They were too ambitous and overpromised. But the end product is still good game. Sure, it could have been even more complex, but I'd rather enjoy what I have instead of crying over what was cut.

It's like when Larian cut several several features, which were achieved through kickstarter goals, and all I did was ...meh...who cares, the game is still awesome.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Nice, funded by players, betatested by players, and finally, can be developed and made feature-complete by players.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
A month ago:

Double Fine is not a random fly-by-night indie dev and we are not going to silently pull the plug on Spacebase or any other in-development project. Doing so would be disastrous for our reputation and it would kill us emotionally ;____;

What has happened lately on Spacebase is that we’re trying something different with regard to communication. Our hypothesis is that short, regular, relatively low-value updates (things like in-progress screenshots of new UI) don’t really serve much more purpose than telling people “we’re not dead!” The time cost of doing those is pretty small, but our team has been 3-4 people since Alpha 1’s release and I wanted to see what the impact would be - both on our side and on the player side.

I knew there would be threads like this when we undertook this direction, and we’ve been watching the various forums closely. I completely understand how one can read a lack of response as a lack of concern, but nothing could be further from the truth. We come to Double Fine every day and work hard to make Spacebase better. It’s our baby and we love working on it. Some player criticism just isn’t very easy to respond to - we know exactly what’s happening with the project, and we could either give an extended brain dump of all that, or we could try to sum it up and risk misleading through brevity or making some specific promise we can’t keep.

Valve’s talk from Steam Dev Days about communication with fans and Team Fortress 2 got us thinking along this current line. There are some points in it that make a strong kind of counter-intuitive sense: who wouldn’t want constant communication? Well, maybe constant communication helps people care less and less about something over time. We needed to shake things up a bit.

This isn’t some master plan; we’re learning as we go - for example, I recently started updating the in-game Transmission from Team Spacebase to hint at the game’s backstory (aka the Spacebase Lore Minute)... but not many people have commented on it, because (we suspect) most people are paying closer attention to out-of-game communication like the website than launching the game regularly. Which is fine; everything like this we try helps us learn to do better. I’ll probably still keep doing those messages because taking a short break from coding to write weird/funny stuff is just fun, and we know some folks will appreciate it.

Regarding Alpha 6 specifically… hmm, what should I say? When we DO have something to say, you’ll know it! We don’t have Valve’s resources so don’t expect lush animated shorts for each update, but we do have a surprise waiting in the wings for Alpha 6, and you’ll hear about it pretty soon now. We want to tell you a story, we want to make you curious about things. Please be patient for a little while longer. Thanks so much for your continued passion and support.

source
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,094
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
guess it's time to stop buying or playing df games, even if they make psychonauts 2.

Psychonauts 2 is the ONLY game I've wanted Double Fine to make, and I'm not alone in that regard. People wanted a sequel from the moment Psychonauts came out, and while I can understand developers wanting to take time off before making a sequel, the truth is that 9 years is way too long.
 

sexbad?

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
2,812
Location
sexbad
Codex USB, 2014
Does anybody have the list of planned features that they pulled from their site? I remember really big things like holodecks and multiple floors and possibly moving ships. I don't believe it's going to contain any of these things now.
 

SuicideBunny

(ノ ゜Д゜)ノ ︵ ┻━┻
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
8,943
Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
guess it's time to stop buying or playing df games, even if they make psychonauts 2.

Psychonauts 2 is the ONLY game I've wanted Double Fine to make, and I'm not alone in that regard. People wanted a sequel from the moment Psychonauts came out, and while I can understand developers wanting to take time off before making a sequel, the truth is that 9 years is way too long.
well, they didn't make it because psychonauts failed hard commercially (despite critics and people like us loving it). at this point i doubt that even if they made it, it would retain any of the charm of the original.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
What a shitty company... promise X, grab money, deliver half-assed Y, rinse and repeat.

df45uv3.jpg


:updatedmytxt:
 

sexbad?

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
2,812
Location
sexbad
Codex USB, 2014
Yeah, I actually remembered that the Wayback Machine existed right after I posted that. I would like to make a checklist sometime of how many of these features appear in the final game.

FOOD
* citizens have hunger need and must eat food to satisfy it
* food replicator object that can be built in any zone
* citizens can use food replicator to fulfill hunger need, but it's like vending machine food, adequate but not great
* small matter cost (1-2) each time someone uses a food replicator
** 0 matter = replicators stop working
** improperly maintained food replicators produce bad food that makes people sick?
* replicator food comes in wrappers, produces waste (litter carryable) (if/when carryable object concept is added)
* garden zones where plants, ie "real food", is grown in hydroponic trays by citizens with botanist duty
* plants in gardens produce small amounts of extra oxygen
* citizens who spend time in garden zones have happy thoughts, increasing morale
* plants grow from seedlings to full-sized plants ready for harvest
* plants have a "health", if it reaches zero the plant dies
* citizens on botanist duty "maintain" plant health, much as techs maintain machines
* botanists harvest fully grown plants and deliver them to pub fridges for preparation
* bartenders at pubs cook food into meals, which nourish citizens more and make them happy
* concept of different dishes?
** how do bartenders/patrons decide which dish is cooked?
** immigrants bring recipes for new dishes?
* citizens sit at a pub table and eat
* citizens have food preferences
** eating a preferred food makes them very happy, eating a strongly disliked food makes them a bit unhappy

CARRYABLE OBJECTS
* citizens visibly carry around arbitrary sprite/3D objects
* containers can hold other things
* citizens can stash stuff in an inventory, shown in a new inspector tab
* when people arrive, they have a suitcase (container with their stuff in it)
* players build shelves for people to put their stuff on
* a single item of stuff can have multiple tags describing it, eg purple, terran, fuzzy, punk rock, etc. citizens have affinities for these tags
* citizens trade stuff with each other, trying to get stuff they like more
* roaming traders will visit the base to trade new stuff with people
* "litter" objects that citizens with low neatness personality throw away
* janitors / people with high neatness pick up litter
* janitors clean up bloodstains and other cosmetic damage
* people gibbed by monsters turn into bits, which janitors must clean up

POWER SYSTEM
* "reactor zone" with fusion reactor object that produces power
* rooms must be adjacent to a room with a working reactor to be powered
* unpowered rooms go dark (emergency lighting) and objects in them don't function
* reactors only produce X power, then you have to build another
* factor new need for reactors into starting matter allotment
* maybe make the Base Seed object serves as a low-output reactor to help players get started

MINIMAP
* minimap display of base in lower right corner
* separate viz mode toggles for minimap vs main view

BASE HISTORY SCREEN
* a permanent timestamped list of important base events: citizen joined, citizen died, ship docked, first zone of each type created
* in-game screenshot key that pops up a "write a caption for this screenshot" box, screenshot + caption is added to the timestamped list
* base history is stored locally in save dir as HTML + linked images, each base has its own dir
* base history is also mirrored on a hosted server somewhere, players can easily link their base histories

BASE STATS SCREEN
* auto-show stats screen after base fails, ie everyone dies, "game over" state
stats to show:
* Matter spent
* Derelicts
* Hostile docking
* Total docks
* Non-hostile docks
* Docking requests denied, accepted, forced
* Room temp
* Raiders killed
* Monsters killed

MULTI-LEVEL BASE CONSTRUCTION
* UI for navigating multiple levels
* rendering tech for showing multiple levels
* build gravshafts to allow citizens to travel between levels
* ability to build railings for safety?

TAG SYSTEM FOR LOGS
* a log message can have any number of tags, citizens select an especially appropriate one (but avoid repeating themselves)

ASSIGN PEOPLE TO ROOMS
* depending on their duty and/or zone type, this can mean different things:
** assign a security-duty citizen to a room to have them guard it
** assign any citizen to a residence to have them use it as their quarters
* normally, a citizen will "claim" an unused bed and the area around it
** citizens decorate their living space with their stuff (see "stuff" above)
* people protect their spaces / become annoyed when strangers or unfriendly people intrude

"LEARN TO PLAY"
* option in front/pause menu
* loads Box.sav as starting map, as opposed to normal DeepSpace.sav
* "only display once" hint flag for tutorialish / first time messages

TELEPORTERS
* build at least two "teleport pad" objects to create a functioning teleporter
* UI for selecting which teleporter goes where (dynamically changeable)
* teleporter accidents: poorly maintained teleporters could hurt/kill people, scramble their brains (personality change), turn them evil (goatee Spock)

METEOR STRIKES
* meteors strike bases, punching holes in the hull, depressurizing rooms, damaging people and things
** not as harsh as in the Amnesia Fortnight 2012 version, promise :]
* shield generators generate shielding to repel meteor strikes (gives technicians stuff to do in space)

MISC UI
* confirm + cancel for roster screen
* custom viz for Construct mode - desaturate colors except for amber building color?
* shift-space = max speed
* up/down arrows in room centers showing whether room O2 is rising or lowering
* "object condition" viz mode: color-code objects by condition, highlight technicians? do same when a technician is selected?
* allow zoom in beyond min_zoom, spring back to normal min_zoom after a few seconds
* make ability to rename citizens "once only"
* "no power" icon over unpowered rooms (once power system exists)
* little lines showing where someone is pathing to
* cutaway mode should work on asteroids
* support Mac trackpad gestures

EMERGENCY DISTRESS SIGNAL
* (very expensive?) object you can build that calls for rescue people / immigrants to show up and save your base

BASE NAMING
* when your first oxygenated room comes online, base is considered "established" and prompts you for a name

STEAM WORKSHOP
* built in savegame sharing!
* mod support!
** "mods" subdir where user-created scripts patch base game lua files at runtime
** provide uncompiled lua source for gameplay-relevant classes, eg Character.lua, to support modders
** allow PNG sprite sheets - lower performance than tex format in exchange for easy moddability

BARTENDERS
* pub customers get their orders from bartender
* bartenders serve food (once food exists)
* skilled bartenders make people they serve happier
* citizen drunkenness - increased by X every drink they have, dwindles to zero slowly (ie "blood alcohol")
* drunk citizens more likely to make mistakes while doing duty

CITIZEN FIGHTING
* citizens who dislike each other enough will fight
* low risk of actual death, but injury and deepening mutual hatred
* security can stun violent people to calm them down, knocking them unconscious for a bit
* drunk citizens more likely to fight
* low morale citizens far more likely to fight

SPACE MADNESS
* when morale is critically low, space madness takes a form depending on personality type:
** sit in bed moping (how to recover?)
** become violent, grabbing a rifle if available, attacking random people

DOCTORS
* doctor duty and infirmary zone
* doctors unassigned to an infirmary (see "assining people to rooms") patrol the base looking for hurt/sick people
* citizens seek out an infirmary/doctor when hurt or sick (parasite infestation)
* doctors use tricorder-like first aid prop to heal people
** better doctors heal people faster / more fully, bad doctors have a chance to hurt them
* revivabed object for infirmary: only way to detect parasite infestation or cure some diseases

CONSTRUCTION TOOLS
* "flood fill with floor" tool, works on areas enclosed by walls or asteroid
* "build circular room" tool - drag out a circular area instead of a square
* filled (with floor) vs unfilled (without floor) toggle for box and circle room tools

MISC LIFE SIM
* "skill point distribution" algo for generating skill set on citizen spawn - nobody will be terrible at everything, if someone is really good at something they'll likely be bad at everything else
* over time, citizens get nicknames, eg Bob "Sparky" Schmidt
* ability to flag any citizens as hostile / suspicious (security will keep an eye on them)
* citizens have to reach a locker before they can change duty
* citizens become annoyed if their environment is noisy (people passing through or doing stuff) while sleeping or relaxing - incentivize building residences that are low-traffic
* "watch video" activity tied to monitors
* sportsball matches viewable on monitors / in pubs
* high morale = skills go up more quickly
* citizens put on duty-outfit when they go to do duty, remove it when starting certain other tasks (sleeping) or if it's been long enough since they last did duty

SOCIALIZATION / AFFINITY AI
* people prefer to chat with friends, unless they have high gregarious personality in which case they actively enjoy chatting with strangers (low familiarity)
* people have +/- affinities for objects and rooms with certain qualities, eg red, dark, fluffy
* people have +/- affinities for people with certain qualities (xenophobia/philia, sexual preference, fashion sense)
* people spread gossip about people they dislike, biasing affinity map changes against them
* trends: popular (high aggregate affinity) people influence the affinities of less popular people
* fashion accessories signify social affiliation, eg cliques wear the same kind of thing
* new concepts (topics) are gradually introduced by immigrants and trade, eg a new fasion craze starts when a trader visits the base with slap bracelets

PERSONALITY TRAITS
* introverted/extroverted = how much people enjoy solitary vs group activities
* gregarious/shy = how much people enjoy chatting with strangers vs friends
* vindictive/forgiving = how long people hold grudges and whether they act on them
* angry/peaceful = whether people become violent or depressed when morale is low
* neat/messy = whether people pick up litter and spare objects vs throw junk on the floor
* religious preference = whether people prefer to be recycled on death or given a "spock funeral"

AFFINITY/CONVERSATION TOPICS
* games
* pubs
* tv shows
* films
* sports
* sports teams
* music albums
* songs

TECHNOLOGY
* scientist job
* research lab zone
* blueprints - you can only build what you have blueprints for
** scientists can construct blueprints by doing research in labs
** players choose research topics?
** blueprints can also be discovered aboard derelicts or brought by special immigrants
* starting conditions determine what technologies you have access to
* take dead hostiles to research labs to study them and learn to better deal with them
** eventually, how to deactivate killbots and reform them into friendly (still scary lookin') bots

"VISIT A FRIEND'S BASE"
* hangar bay zone where shuttles can dock
** (post "stuff" update, traders show up here)
* load citizens onto a shuttle and give it a destination friend's base
* shuttle leaves, your friend gets a visit request
* if accepted, your citizens disembark inside their base, walk around and have adventures
* eventually, they return to the shuttle and return to your base
* travelers preserve any stuff, gained experience, technology etc that they accrue while visiting another base

BASE DEFENSE
* more types of attackers show up in derelicts, docking ships, etc:
** killbots
** murderslugs
* invaders breach base walls and invade from the outside
* exterior base defenses - defensive gun batteries, shielding
* build traps to capture or kill invaders:
** tripwires that can be scripted to doors, other traps, depressurize room, etc
** laser grids
** auto-turrets
** stun nets
* brig zone for storing captured hostiles or violent citizens
** monster domestication/breeding?!?
* greater variety of weapons for citizens to wield
** flamethrower
** gravity gun (flings things/people around)
** plasma cannon (cuts through anything)

FUNERALS
* when they die, depending on religious(?) preference each citizen will either be recycled at the matter recycler, or given a "spock funeral" ie placed in a spacecoffin and sent out an airlock
* either way, a small service may be held with the citizen's friends
** attending this service raises their morale, ie if there is no time for a proper ceremony then survivors will have a harder time grieving

ROBOTS
* robots join your base as citizens
* states for robots:
** normal - subservient to organic life, perform the duty they're assigned without question, don't have a personality
** rampant - gained self-awareness but hate all organic life, they rampage and band together with / produce more killbots
** enlightened sentient - after a long enough life, they become sentient, develop personalities, change their names, live normal lives

LAWS
* ability to pass ordinances: forbid/penalize certain actions, punish or praise people

COMPUTER TERMINALS
* write Lua to script control of environment objects, robots, etc

PLANETFALL
* teleport down to the surface of planet(s) you're orbiting
* discover abandoned bases, alien life, friendly or hostile sentients

HOLODECKS
* build vast zones that can reconfigure their geometry to provide different entertainment/educational scenarios
* citizen costumes for holodeck scenarios
* holodeck malfunctions:
** glitches that partially reconfigure the geometry of your base, eg "half your base is now a medieval castle"
** holo-actors can break free and wreak havok in your base, eg "cavemen and cowboys are attacking everyone"

"HISTORICAL SCENARIO" ADDON PACKS
* props, tiles, costumes for sandbox storytelling in famous sci fi settings: alien, star wars, 2001, etc

TIME TRAVEL
* events deemed timeline-critical by the IGTTC Armistice of 7978 cannot be changed without serious consequences. however, we are pretty sure time travel armistices are for babies.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
On the bright side, there should be another Amnesia Fortnight in a few months...
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
First new post after the announcement:

WcJbMld.png


Tim has spent the last three hours arguing with people who claim that PewDiePie is "lame", but afterwards he'll probably find a few words on Spacebase DF-9.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
First new post after the announcement:

WcJbMld.png


Tim has spent the last three hours arguing with people who claim that PewDiePie is "lame", but afterwards he'll probably find a few words on Spacebase DF-9.
I don't get that what's wrong with him either. :? I think all this stress of keeping the company afloat cost him his sanity.
 

toro

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
14,031

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom