Particle's Projects

[(Designer)Particle]

Another thing I was wondering is would it be possible to make freeform mode more interesting?  I wasn't even sure what that meant, really, because honestly the best part about freeform is that it is just sandbox mode, and you build neat zoos.  But for me, the gameplay is still sort of based in this idea of maintaining your zoo, and I would like it to be more about managing your zoo.  So I began to pick everything apart to see what I could do.

 

Also I had this idea to turn the guests into animals, and the animals into guests, so here is what that looked like:

 

This is a fun screenshot.  You may be like wait, what is happening... and that is sort of the point.  This is actually just a zoo with invisible zoo walls.  It was another experiment that I was working on, to try to make a zoo that was less like a zoo, and more like a wildlife refuge.  We'll get back to that, well, eventually.

 

But for now let me say that I was able to add this map to the freeform map list, and I figured out some other neat tricks.  I thought this could lead to something, but then I started to play around with creating scenarios, and that is when I realized that I would have much greater control over the challenge and story of a zoo, if I just made a scenario.  And this is when it hit me, would I be able to create a scenario, that was like a freeform mode on steroids!   Like what if the scenario was to make 1 billion dollars, and it might take you 100 years to do it?  And what if there was a storyline as well, with characters, and new animals, and unlocks every 10 years instead of every 3 months?  Also in a scenario you have very specific control over the economy, so you could make the challenge much harder than anything in freeform, and best of all, freeform would still just be this really simple sandbox mode that was always there for you to just relax and watch the lions mate...

 

Conclusion:  I'm going to be making some scenarios that are built to be replayed.  They will have stories, and multiple goals, and custom maps, but also encourage as much of a freeform building style as possible, considering the format.  This project is probably a year away from being realized, but it is on my list for sure.  I just wanted to tell you guys about it to get the brainstorming going so if anything about what I said makes you curious, or excited, please dive right in here and let me know!

[(Designer)Particle]

What else is on my list?  Well right at the top is fences.  I love fences.  My concrete fence set was something I was pretty excited about because I thought it was going to be the first of many.  The reason why I did the concrete fence set first was that the concrete fence has those blue lines, and that made it fairly easy to set up the rotations.  I was going to use everything I learned with that set to make a template, and then bust out like 5 more sets.  Then I made bigger menus, and well, things sort of changed after that.  But ever since then, I've been wanting to get back to fences.  So I have plans to make fence sets that are stone walls, brick walls, hedge walls, among others.  This is what I'm going to work on first, I want to be a fence master.  Back when I first made the concrete set, I just copied everything Fern did because her mods were always perfect, so honestly I didn't really know what I was doing.  Now I'm ready to really figure out every little aspect of fence making.  Stay tuned for screenshots as I play around with the possibilities. 

 

Also, I believe the game needs more buildings and scenery that changes colors.  Can this be done?  As I said before, JBL has said it will work so I just need to do what he did.  Stay tuned for that in the next week as well.

 

And what else?  Toys.  Animals need more toys.  I can't imagine anyone will disagree, but for some reason we hardly ever see user made animal toys.

 

Also I'm going to make a few more animals.  So far I made just one animal, the AOE dragon, but it wasn't my artwork.  I'm actually pretty good at sprite work, so I'm hoping to have time to make some custom animals.  But it might take me a little while to get to them.  They are on the list, and like most of the stuff in this post, they will eventually be part of the R&D overhaul.

 

Now that is not everything on my list, I will keep sharing stuff as I go, but that is probably enough for now, that you all can see I have some fun ideas that are sort of different, and we'll see how they develop, and if I can finish them.  I realize that this is a lot of work, but a year ago, the two biggest things on my list were to make a program that edits zoo.ini, and also to redo the User Interface of the game, and now those 2 things are crossed off.  I honestly didn't know if that was possible.  So is it possible to do all this other stuff?  Maybe?

 

[Fern]

1 hour ago, Particle said:

What else is on my list?  Well right at the top is fences.  I love fences.  My concrete fence set was something I was pretty excited about because I thought it was going to be the first of many.  The reason why I did the concrete fence set first was that the concrete fence has those blue lines, and that made it fairly easy to set up the rotations.  I was going to use everything I learned with that set to make a template, and then bust out like 5 more sets.  Then I made bigger menus, and well, things sort of changed after that.  But ever since then, I've been wanting to get back to fences.  So I have plans to make fence sets that are stone walls, brick walls, hedge walls, among others.  This is what I'm going to work on first, I want to be a fence master.  Back when I first made the concrete set, I just copied everything Fern did because her mods were always perfect, so honestly I didn't really know what I was doing.  Now I'm ready to really figure out every little aspect of fence making.  Stay tuned for screenshots as I play around with the possibilities. 

There are brick fences in the works that are using genki's graphics. I have parts that RDing did that need working with. I also have some taller versions of the ingame rock wall to finish and recolours of many ingame fences and tanks. Thinner hedge walls would be nice. the ingame one is too thick. Let me or Jay know if you need help. As you will learn rotations are a pain with some no matter what program you use.

 

1 hour ago, Particle said:

And what else?  Toys.  Animals need more toys.  I can't imagine anyone will disagree, but for some reason we hardly ever see user made animal toys.

The reason for that is user made cannot use ingame toys and the only way a toy can work is it has to be coded to a specific animal and the animal to it. If another animal uses it it causes problems. Jay can explain this better and how he did Taz's ones. But this toy that goes with Taz's warns you.

http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5436.0

[(Designer)Z.Z.]

Sounds good to me :)

 

On your fences, are you making new Zoo Walls, Exhibit Fences, or Decorative Fences?

[(Designer)Particle]

1 hour ago, Fern said:

There are brick fences in the works that are using genki's graphics. I have parts that RDing did that need working with. I also have some taller versions of the ingame rock wall to finish and recolours of many ingame fences and tanks. Thinner hedge walls would be nice. the ingame one is too thick. Let me or Jay know if you need help. As you will learn rotations are a pain with some no matter what program you use.

If you're going to do brick fences using genki's graphics, I will wait and see what that looks like.  I really love Genki's brick wall scenery piece, but there are other fences I can do.  As for the stone/rock ones I really do want that set for my own use, so I may still do that.  (It is nice to have all the triangle pieces when you're trying to cover up the dirt walls).  If I do a stone one, it will be custom graphics though, not exactly like the ones in game.  And yes, I agree exactly about the hedges, imagine a hedge that was thin like a concrete wall, but you could lay it out like a fence.

 

I appreciate the offer for help, as I think it goes without saying that I already look at everything you do as my starting point, because I know you and Jay have been doing this properly for many years, and I am still figuring it all out.  So thanks for all the help you've already given me through example, your mods are awesome!

 

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The reason for that is user made cannot use ingame toys and the only way a toy can work is it has to be coded to a specific animal and the animal to it. If another animal uses it it causes problems. Jay can explain this better and how he did Taz's ones. But this toy that goes with Taz's warns you. http://www.ztcdd.org/DG/index.php?topic=5436.0

Yep.  I understand that part.  But I like to think a little outside the box, so I still want to see what i can do.  It is entirely possible that this will only be realized in user downloaded animals, or ones that I create, but I already know from talking to some designers, they would be willing to redo their mods to have toys that are associated with their animals.  So in the end that would just mean you may need to download those animals again, or maybe we'd just include them in the download for the toy... I'm not really sure yet.

 

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On your fences, are you making new Zoo Walls, Exhibit Fences, or Decorative Fences?

All these will be fence sets, like the concrete fence set I made.  The big difference between what I have done and what most fence makers have done is that i put all the triangle pieces in for the odd shaped fences that you get when you build zoos with elevation.  (At least that was the original design goal).  But the plan is to have all sets come with exhibit fences, and decorative fences, and probably new gates for some of them.  Maybe I should have included a zoo wall also, I just didn't even think of that.  One thing to add, my original plan included some scenery pieces to compliment the fence set, like pillars/posts for corners, and animated things like lights, neon signs or fish tanks that would be in or on the walls.

 

[(Designer)Particle]

Regarding Toys: Just to be clear, if I make any more animals, they WILL have toys.  If everyone out there that makes animals would also make toys for their animals, then we'd have a lot more toys right now, so maybe that is the simple answer, designers just need to think about toys when they are making their animals.  Most toys are basically just another animation set for your animal.  I think the ice flow for taz's animals might be different, but most of the ones I have looked at are specific to a certain animal because that animal exists in the animation for the toy.

 

So let's just say for example I was going to do a beaver.  I would also make a dam as a toy, and then in the animation for the dam, there would be this beaver crawling around on it, building it up, adding sticks or whatever beavers do... and that is why only a beaver could use it, and not a zebra.   (this may or may not be a message for Vondell).

[Lelka]

2 hours ago, Particle said:

Conclusion:  It is totally possible to do an R&D mod that replaces the current R&D of the game, but, even with all the programs I added for upgrading the staff, and some other fun things like panda upgrades and nutritional programs for other animals, the longest I could get research to last was about 10 years.   This is why I need new categories.  Especially for Conservation.  And what that means is I need content to unlock.  Like new buildings, animals, etc.  So that is what I'm going to be working towards, is an overall R&D replacement made up of several smaller packs that I will release as separate downloads.

 

The game unlocks content in a few different ways, for example by expansion, or by time, etc.  But one of the most interesting ways to unlock things is through R&D.  This leaves the choice of what to unlock up to the player, in other words, this makes for interesting gameplay choices.  So this will be a super fun project with lots of parts, that will take a lot of time, but I'm positive it will be worth it.  It is at the top of my list, but it is not the only thing on my list...

This new research & conservation idea is very appealing to me. There's very rich possibility here! And if you don't mind, I got some ideas in my mind...

1) Existing animal houses could get some extra programs. For instance, Insect house has two programs; spider and scorpion. But as it got an ant on its roof, it could have some ant/bee program, or 'exotic beetles' program.

 

2) Some researchable fences? Not sure this is possible, but there can be some variety for the fences.

 

Well, I'm pretty sure you already have your list. And I'm looking forward to see what you've got under your sleeves.

[Fern]

It is possible to do a research animal without it being a hack. I am about to release one that Jay and I reworked from an old file of jeffs/jbls

For animal houses they require dll ids and that is where things get complicated.

Researchable fences would not be something I would want. I would rather have new designs available at the beginning of the game. There are plenty of recolours available in both exhibit and decorative and some tanks. I have lots of tanks in the works.

[(Designer)Particle]

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1) Existing animal houses could get some extra programs. For instance, Insect house has two programs; spider and scorpion. But as it got an ant on its roof, it could have some ant/bee program, or 'exotic beetles' program.

The insect house only has 2 programs?  That is weird.  Adding programs to existing houses is problematic.  Adding completely new houses, in completely new categories, with new programs, that is actually easier and would be compatible with more mods.  But I do see what you're saying.  I would love an ant/bee house with an animated Ant on top.

 

Fences could be something to research.   Especially if they were like some sort of super awesome fence that was sort of like a cheat... But in general I think Fern is right.  Waiting for fences isn't very fun.  But my list isn't anything set in stone.  I love to brainstorm and try to solve puzzles, so don't be afraid to give me ideas!

 

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It is possible to do a research animal without it being a hack. I am about to release one that Jay and I reworked from an old file of jeffs/jbls

I did not know that.  I'll be interested to see how you do it. 

[Fern]

We have done it and it is being tested.