Make our own 'sequel'?

I was planning on making a game in the spirit/style of the original OB, from the ground up. I have some experience in programming from my profession, though it is mostly in R, a statistical language. I had seen that there are free courses on using Javascript and HTML5 to generate video games, so I have begun to re-learn js (had used it in college for a course), and afterwards, HTML5 (already having learned html in college, as well). I was curious if anyone else would be interested in joining along in the process, if they are willing to learn js, or already know it?

This is the site I have been using for learning js
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

and then today i saw project spark- which seems like it may be an easier way to do this, rather than from scratch

http://www.gamespot.com/project-spark/

Well, I have gotten a few people together to work in project spark, which is going into beta later this month (for windows 8 ).  I have talked with the CMs about the Ogre Battle group and asked if it was possible to share beta accounts in order to do a cooperative build, they said no- but that they may be able to supply beta keys to those who do not get in.

The idea of the group is to produce the framework for producing games in the style of Ogre Battle games, which can then be applied to whatever game people want, and customized to fit everyone's own game.  The focus will first be those core mechanics, the overworld real time map, the turn based combat, the capturing/liberating towns, and rpg elements of character progression.  Later, other strategy games' elements may be replicated, Heroes of Might and Magic or Warcraft, for example, which could be mixed and matched with each other and produce unique combinations.

If you are on a win8 machine, and meet the minimum specs (here http://www.examiner.com/article/project-spark-beta-pc-requirements-revealed ), please let me know if you would like the join the team

Any luck with figuring that Project Spark thing out?

I know its getting really hyped but if you have some first hand experience would be interested in hearing your opinion.

Also let me know if you need any help with story, testing, or whatever. Would love to see a spiritual successor.

I was going to do a write up, but it got rather lengthy- I can shorten it to this.

1) A lot has been done, and nothing seems off limits as to what can be done.  For now we are keeping things a little simplified as to allow other people to deconstruct the game and apply the elements to their own games.  Eventually, my own version of ogre battle will be released, but we are targeting early April for the release of the proof of concept level, which will lack some features such as class trees, as it is just one level, meant to be a playable in it's own right.
2) I would be glad to set up a time which both of us are available for me to stream and show off what has been done so far, as well as what else is in the works, I think that would probably be a whole lot better than a wall of text.  It shouldn't take longer than 5-10 minutes to show everything to someone who already knows OB what is there and what isn't yet.

If you're free now, I can pop on my, or any time tonight.  Alternatively, any other weeknight after 7 would be fine, aside from Tuesday.

Let me know.

I took a look at it man, that looks really good. Really impressive and definitely captures the game play style of Ogre Battle.

A couple questions:

So when it comes to ordering units around the map I'm assuming multiple units could be ordered at the same time, or is that something you are working on?

In regards to the combat I noticed that the battles seem to go on for quite a few turns. Is that simply so you can test the attacks and is that going to change later?
Also, I noticed the combat is more RPG style allowing for the player to choose attacks and targets. Is that going to be changed to be controlled by the AI similar to the original games?

Either way, I'm already hyped for this and wish you best of luck with all. If there is anything that I can do to help don't hesitate to ask.


If anyone is interested the link is: http://www.twitch.tv/projectsparkcommunity/b/504341588
But iir Kroak said it will only be archived for about a week.

Quick note to those who watch the video and start off confused- the ogre battle starts around 8 minutes. The stream initially began to entertain the dev team who had come in to the community channel and were looking for some cool looking games to look at while they were finishing off debugging the xbox one beta release build.

1) Aye, multiple units can be used/move around/commanded at the same time, I neglected to show that.

2) Combat hasn't been balanced yet, the current plan is to give every unit 3 attack points (this can be adjusted later if need be to be relative to either level or class) and have their abilities balanced based on how many attack points they use. So an AE ability could be 3 attack points, or a strong single target attack could count as 2 attack points, while normal single target abilities and buffs/debuffs would count as 1 attack point. This is obviously distinct from the "2 front row attacks of x or 1 back row attack of y" and/or "1 front row attack of x or two back row AE attacks of y" and such, but it does provide more freedom and choice in the game, rather than saying "sure you coooould put a paladin in the back row, but he will only be able to do a weak heal".

3) And the targeting system is also a change from ogre battle's automated system, we opted to have the player decide who the units will target, and give them the statistical information on how much damage they can expect to deal on average per target, and what percent chance it would be to hit each respective target.

If someone else was interested in switching to previous ogre battle systems, it shouldn't be that hard to do so (presuming theyre comfortable with the programming language, of course). it is our desire to create text and video tutorials on remixing the game to suit anyone's preference. Though it may be a bit difficult and/or tedious to code something up to determine the "best" option for targeting enemies, while "lowest hp" and "leader" would be pretty easy.

The 3 attack point idea is interesting, I like the idea of balancing depending on how many points it uses. I can see where you are coming with about giving more choice to the player in combat, but I worry that it could slow the game down quite a bit. I guess as long as the army count doesn't get too big it won't be a big deal, but it could get crazy with a lot of units. I will note though that part of the reason for the rank-based attack restrictions of the old games was to make flanking a useful tactic. If that isn't going to be in your game that is one less reason for the rank restrictions to exist anyways.
I didn't notice it in the video but are you going to restrict certain attacks to targeting certain ranks of the formation first? For example melee attackers have to go through the front lines first while ranged attackers have to target back line soldiers first?

Its encouraging though that it will be easy enough to change settings around when the game is made available. In that case your game is already a good enough template for a starting point. I'm gonna be keeping an eye on Project Spark now thanks to this, hope for its success.

Yeah, we haven't put in flanking into the game, it would be possible to code it in, but we weren't concerned with it.

targeting is currently in place to block the back row from being targeted, it is currently a work in progress as it blocks all attacks and not just melee, also it blocks healing your back line units. but it will be something that will be changed, clearly.

if you want a project spark beta code for when it goes onto xbox one, now would be the time to go to joinprojectspark.com and request one, the key will be valid for both xbox one and win8.

I'm new to this forum, so please excuse my rant

I would absolutely love a current gen console game like OB. Aside from the Zelda games, this game is the primary reason that I have a closet specifically designated for my backup N64's.

This game is legendary, and I don't understand why more of the world doesn't see it as such. Nothing (that I know of) has come out like this one. It is my all time favorite of ever.

The game length, the statistics, the replay value, the strategy, the imagination, the alternate endings... all things that no other game has come close to creating. I wish we could hunt down the creators and lock them in my basement until they create an equal to this game for this generation consoles. (Ogre Battle PS4? Anyone?) It makes me sick when I see games like COD at the top of the best games list, because games like those require little to no brain power, thought, or creativity. Heck, even if you DO cheat in OB, you still have to have the dedication and time to go through and apply the items to each character!

I cannot express my love for this game enough, and I wish I had the connections to legitimate game developers who would be able to accomplish this task of an era.

Rant done

just a quick follow up- the short version is that the game has been put on hold for a little while. many of the systems are in place and will be ready to pick up at a later date.

there are some other things which are being introduced to spark which we will want to incorporate into this game, such as level linking (rather than just having one level to play through, it would be like only having access to the dragons haven level) and even multiplayer.

we felt like we could have tossed together a few mechanics to make it 'playable', but we didn't think at this point it would be 'fun', so it has been put on the back burner for the time being. other games we make in the meantime will likely have a tangential impact on the development of the ogre battle game as well, as we plan on making use of the really cool combat system that we had implemented for this game.

if anyone is using spark and wants to see the progress that we had made, i can explain how to access the level and what to do in it to get it to function- keeping in mind that it is still in development mode.

I neglected to update this- sorry about that. We were doing work while Spark was still in Beta, and unfortunately the game caught a bug that only existed in some Beta levels, and basically made it so we could no longer progress. We opted to work on other projects while we waited for more content to be released to use in populating the world, but content production in Spark has recently ceased.

We are working on a game from scratch in Unity, it should be very much in the spirit of Ogre Battle, but our hope is to make the combat more engaging rather than something that is simply observed by the player.

keep up the good work and keep us posted. This may not be the most active place but there are a few super fans here