 December 10, 2013 - 7:20pm | Any writers here that may be interested in creating a short Sci-Fi Star Frontiers-esque adventure module for the IceBlink Engine? It is a simple cRPG 2D system with a strong focus on story telling and Gold Box style combat (turn based). We will be releasing the initial version on Dec. 20th, but the Beta v7 is available on our website for testing. Long time SF fan. Played Star Frontiers for the first time back in the 80s as well as Top Secret and D&D with my brother and some neighbor kids. |
 December 10, 2013 - 11:34pm | How big are you looking? I have an adventure scenario that would probably do nicely for a short encounter. It's basically a raid on an outpost carved into the side of a mountain. A couple of largish (40x30 square) maps, some NPCs and robots and doors and machinery and such. I ran it as a game at the on-line Con back in 2012. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 11, 2013 - 6:15am | That sounds like it would be perfect. Does it have a lot of potential dialog (NPC and Ref/DM)? Would you want to use the toolset to make it yourself or would you want to have someone else make it? Thanks, Jeremy |
December 11, 2013 - 7:32am | It was never really intended for there to be a lot of dialog. The base staff are basically fanatics so there is no winning them over to your side. There would be interaction with the computer and maybe some of the robots and some talking but not a lot. Another scenario I had involved trying to recover a stolen spaceship. That one had a lot of potential dialog but was so open ended that trying to shoe horn it into a game engine might not work. There were literally 4 very different paths that I thought of to accomplish it, not to mention any other ideas the players had. When I ran it the players basically went down one of the paths I thought up and I had to invent over a dozen NPC on the spot based on their actions. Planning all that out in advance is probably possible but would take a lot of work. I'd be interested in trying to do it myself (I don't know C# but work in C++ and Python all day long) with the tool kit but don't know that I could even think about looking at it until late January. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
December 11, 2013 - 7:48pm | Okay, the first module idea (raid on outpost) may work best. The toolset doesn't require any coding to use. Most scripted events can be done using exiting scripts that accept parameters like gaGiveXP where the input parameter is the amount of XP to give. Of course, you can write very powerful scripts from scratch (C# is the scripting language used). You can have a look at the videos on our website on the toolset page to get a feel for how the toolset works. If you want though, one of our community members could convert your module into the IB engine. I made a conversion of the first part of Crash on Volturnous for testing purposes. |
December 18, 2013 - 3:15pm | Two more days until initial release of IceBlink v1.00 (engine free, toolset $5 donation requested) Final Stretch Schedule: Wednesday - finish documents (Player's Guide and Builder's Guide) and put together a candidate build. Thursday - last bit of testing. Friday - Post IB v1.00 on the IB Vault page at 12:30 PM Arizona time (GMT-7:00) Friday - Start a Google Hangout with open discussion (10 people max) 1:00 PM Arizona time (GMT-7:00) Friday - Start a Google Hangout on Air (automatically recorded unlimited number of people) 2:00 PM Arizona time (GMT-7:00) - come watch me play various modules and keep the discussions going on the current state of IceBlink and the future. The files will be posted here on The IB Vault: http://neverwintervault.org/catalog/ib Adventure modules will also be posted there by the module authors. I'll be posting my conversion of the first part of Crash on Volturnus as well. |
