Dev Diary #10 - Moving Forward; Development, Name Change [message #258] |
Thu, 04 April 2024 15:15 |
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Horemheb
Messages: 86 Registered: October 2022
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Member Administrator |
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Hello all! It's been awhile. Welcome to the 10th dev diary for Discipline Master: School Simulator ("DMSS"). Well first then the name change. School Builder going forward will be known as what was just written before.
After development on Tales wrapped up a few months back, we took a hard look at where things stood on School Builder, and opted to make some changes to the design of the game.
The first major change is the gameplay perspective. We have opted to go back to the 2D side scrolling style of the Discipline Master games, as oppose to an overhead view that the early screenshots showed. The second major is change is that we have largely scrapped the 'builder' part. Instead you will be presented with a school like CHI but closer to real world size. Most of the rooms and such that you might have been building and adding to the campus overtime will already be present.
Our core vision though remains the same: a simulation of a school where smaller, disparate systems and decisions end up interacting at the larger scale; of course with an emphasis on corporal punishment and discipline. Ultimately the heart of DMSS will be the simulation of a school; from this simulation elements of gameplay will be built off. For example the player taking the role of a student, teacher, Discipline Master, etc.
To make this simulation a reality, the ability for the game to generate a truly life-size student and staff body is needed. As I mentioned in this thread ( https://www.disciplinemaster.net/community/index.php?t=msg&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;th=108&start=0& ) we've been working on a system that has individual character components that can be assembled on the fly in different ways to create whole classes of students.
Indeed this entire month of April has been set aside for working on the game graphics. In addition to the character graphics we are also working on new as well as updated maps. Also I can tell you that DMSS will support higher display resolutions, specifically 2650x1440 and 3840x2160. All graphics are being rendered and/or rerendered for 3840x2160 ("4K UHD") display; the graphics from other D.M. games were rendered for a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 ("Full HD").
Lastly - the release - the million dollar question. We'd like to release something in August 2024; be that an alpha, beta or even the full game if development goes well. That is a very rough date though and may change.
That's all for now. I'm going to go check on our main render machine which is pounding out graphics for junior student body parts in 4K.
[Updated on: Thu, 04 April 2024 15:19] Report message to a moderator
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Re: Dev Diary #10 - Moving Forward; Development, Name Change [message #261 is a reply to message #260] |
Mon, 08 April 2024 17:34 |
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Horemheb
Messages: 86 Registered: October 2022
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Member Administrator |
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Quote:However I do understand the huge development challenge to build a new "model" from scratch, I do feel a newer model can help the sales of game. Even if you stick with a 2D design, it's better to build a newer model and make some assets into module instead of image, for example the fixtures in classroom and other equipment, that will imcrease flexibility by a lot.
That's more or less what we are doing; Aiden & Alex in D.M. will likely be the last title using most of the original CHI school models/maps. While the visual perspective will be similar to D.M., the gameplay premise will be quite different. One such area of gameplay will be cp. In DMSS there is no distinct "cp mode"; it's integrated within normal gameplay / viewing perspective.
I like the idea of modularizing the fixtures in the classrooms; that wasn't something we had considered.
[Updated on: Mon, 08 April 2024 17:51] Report message to a moderator
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