Quick Deadshed update
Shortly before moving to Melbourne, I was chatting to my brother about Deadshed to help me get perspective on some of the concepts. From this conversation, I came to the conclusion that I really was just building a complicated duplicate of Zafehouse. A good one, but not unique compared to its predecessor.
It needed spice. Preferably, the sexy type.
We threw about a couple of ideas – air-strikes and such – until we came upon X-Com. I love X-Com. My brother loves X-Com. There aren’t many (sane) people who don’t have a warm spot in an internal organ for it. Particularly, I liked the resource management and base-building aspects.
At first, I thought these subjects were outside the scope of Deadshed. But they’re not. Reinforcing a house or shop to keep out undead invaders? Making sure you have enough ammo for your next fight? These activities sound like base-building and resource management to me. I was always enamoured by the research element as well, and this, if anything, was the most left-field idea to come out of my brotherly musings.
Regardless, I knew I wanted it all in Deadshead.
After pondering it for a little longer, I sold myself on the idea of converting my six survivors into newbie soldiers. Your troop will have to find and secure a building, retrofit rooms to serve their needs (somewhere to keep supplies, a radio room) and send research data off to their HQ in exchange for ammo, food and other bits and pieces. You still have the survival horror thing going, it’s just from a different viewpoint (the armed rescuers) and quite a shift in gameplay from Zafehouse.
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_internal_ organ?
Got to love scope creep, I get in a very similar way with my projects, I start at one point and sort of evolve the idea and end up somewhere very different.
I guess the difference between people who succeed and people who don’t is that those who succeed sit down and think their crazy thoughts while their code is either non existent or still flexible. Take the time at the start to think, there’s nothing worse than a change of direction or ideas when a project is far underway.
At least I tell myself that, makes me feel better for sitting on my hands instead of getting stuck into coding at times.
Dean Longmore said this on October 28th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Skin is an organ and not internal! Though the qualification goes without saying for the most part. :)
Fortunately the changes to Deadshed won’t require much of a rewrite. My move to Melbourne enforced a natural break in development that gave me time to consider the design before I was heavily involved in content creation.
I’ll get to coding again, if I can pull myself away from 4th Edition D&D.
Logan said this on October 28th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Not sure what’s more interesting — that you’re changing gears on Deadshed (for the better, I think), or that you’re playing 4E. And you’re next in Sydney… when?
David Kidd said this on October 28th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I’m actually back next weekend for two days. Not enough time for a 4th Ed game, but definitely a chat.
Logan said this on October 29th, 2008 at 4:15 pm