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About the proposal of new features/gameplay elements

norritt 6 years ago • updated by Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago • 1

I really like the general idea Lacuna Passage is based on: the environent is your worst enemy a lot of focus on maintainance and resource management. Actually this made me buy the game, because this is rather unique so far.


However in the current state the effective playtime one can get out of LP is rather low. I do understand that LP originally was not planned to be a super long game. Then again both on Trello and here in the forums I saw that there are features in the pipeline that make LP potentially a very long lasting or even "endless" game (i.e. the green houses).


I believe I have a bunch of ideas that are very compatible with LPs theme so far but can greatly improve the long term motivation of the game. Before I start to propose things I'd like to know how I can present the proposals here so that they are maximally useful.


  • Should there be one proposal per post or is it better to make a big brain storming post and pick the viable ideas out of that one and put the distinct viable" requests in seperate posts in a second iteration?
  • How complext can a feature request be before becoming useless because it exceeds the time allotted for development?
  • Is there somewhere an overview of features that have been suggested but rejected. This would help to not bring up this stuff another time.

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Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago

I would say that one larger post with your most generalized suggestions would be a good place to start if you have lots of ideas. Myself and other players can comment then and we could break out individual concepts into their own more detailed posts.


Complexity is difficult to gauge unless you are familiar with the background systems programming that has already been done. Some things that people think would be very difficult are actually relatively simple because I have created the gameplay systems to be extendable. Other things you might assume would be simple are actually quite difficult because I haven't built the game in a way that would support it. Most times the thing that ends up being the most time consuming is asset creation. If I have to do a lot of that myself or pay contract artists to create lots of assets then that is somewhat prohibitive, but if it is a really good idea I can still rationalize putting the resources towards it. So with all that said, I don't think there are any ideas too crazy to suggest, but just keep in mind that it may just not be feasible.


I don't think I've really kept close track of rejected feature requests. A few off the top of my head:


  • Extensive base building. (Doesn't fit the theme of the game I'm trying to make.)
  • Customizable character, male or female. (Story mode will only be the one character so I don't feel like accommodating custom characters just for the survival mode.)
  • Visible body from first person perspective. (Still not impossible, just a matter of development time.)
  • Weapons or enemies. (Again, just not the kind of game I'm interested in making.)


I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting, but ultimately the survival mode that's available now is just a testing ground for the story mode, so if a feature would be out of place in the story mode then it's unlikely that I would put resources towards it for the survival mode only.

Answer
Answered
Tyler Owen (Lead Developer) 6 years ago

I would say that one larger post with your most generalized suggestions would be a good place to start if you have lots of ideas. Myself and other players can comment then and we could break out individual concepts into their own more detailed posts.


Complexity is difficult to gauge unless you are familiar with the background systems programming that has already been done. Some things that people think would be very difficult are actually relatively simple because I have created the gameplay systems to be extendable. Other things you might assume would be simple are actually quite difficult because I haven't built the game in a way that would support it. Most times the thing that ends up being the most time consuming is asset creation. If I have to do a lot of that myself or pay contract artists to create lots of assets then that is somewhat prohibitive, but if it is a really good idea I can still rationalize putting the resources towards it. So with all that said, I don't think there are any ideas too crazy to suggest, but just keep in mind that it may just not be feasible.


I don't think I've really kept close track of rejected feature requests. A few off the top of my head:


  • Extensive base building. (Doesn't fit the theme of the game I'm trying to make.)
  • Customizable character, male or female. (Story mode will only be the one character so I don't feel like accommodating custom characters just for the survival mode.)
  • Visible body from first person perspective. (Still not impossible, just a matter of development time.)
  • Weapons or enemies. (Again, just not the kind of game I'm interested in making.)


I'm sure there's others I'm forgetting, but ultimately the survival mode that's available now is just a testing ground for the story mode, so if a feature would be out of place in the story mode then it's unlikely that I would put resources towards it for the survival mode only.

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