Mashinky

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JanZeleny85
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Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

Hi guys,

Since I am a huge fan of TTD and also a game developer, I decided few years ago to make a game similar to Transport Tyccon, but with modern graphics and some gameplay changes I like. And that is how Mashinky game development filled most of my freetime...

Now I am slowly closing to the finish of the game development and looking for any feedback, thoughts or critics. And this community is definitely the best place to start with it.

If you wouldn't mind, this is the game overview:
http://www.mashinky.com

Hope you will like it.

Best regards,
Jan Zelený
Mashinky


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Re: Mashinky

Post by Chrill »

That is very impressive looking. Will the game feature only trains or other means of transport also? How long have you been working on that? Looks so impressive for a one-man project.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

Hi Chrill,
Thanks a lot! I plan to release it first in the early access version and in that stage, there will be trains only. I've prepared some test cases for other transport types, so if the game will be successful, I would like to extend it a bit. It depends mostly on 3D assets and sounds (for boats, it would also require some AI improvements).
I've been working on this for more than 6 years now. It is mostly because this is my hobby project and meantime I work full-time in a big game studio.
I am the only one developer on this project (and moreover it is based on my own engine) but I've got models for trees, engines, wagons and some of buildings from 2 of my friends.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Drury »

Wow I can't believe I'd never heard of this before. Reading your design document now, it seems you're very much aware of the design flaws of the original Transport Tycoon and have a pretty good plan to fix them. The token system sounds amazing and exactly what the genre needs.

[selfplug]As chance would have it, I've just made my own little game in the past two weeks which uses a bit similar, albeit VERY simplified system.[/selfplug]
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

Hi Drury.
Thanks a lot for the support and following me on twitter :) I am still trying to spread the word about this game and today I started here on this forum.

Your game looks great and I likethe art style (especially for industry). I would have only problem to remember that name, but that is the same for my project :D ... and you already have better smoke from chimney than I do :)
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Drury »

Thanks! That means lot to us coming from someone like you.

To avoid confusion though, I meant design more as in game design, i.e. the game mechanics.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by NekoMaster »

So will this game be pretty much a modern 3d version of TTD? One of the reasons I stick with OpenTTD despite there being other more graphical games like Locomotion and Train Fever is due to a handful of things.

1. Line/Route Management is easier and less complicated in OpenTTD, and you can group vehicles to make managing a line much easier.
2. Its so much easier to just drag and drop rails and road rather then doing it piece by piece like Locomotion. Train fever is ok in this area but it still feels a big tedious to build road and rail.
3. Mod Support - OpenTTD has lots of mods/GRF's out there for just about everything, and you can get just about every major countries transport set up in OpenTTD (Usa, Canada, UK, Japan, Sweden, AUstralia, etc)

I know this project is just being finished up and readied for Early Acccess, but I would like to try it my self if its closer to OpenTTD then Train Fever or Locomotion.

EDIT : Oh, and one last point, will Mashinky be industrial age/steam engines only or will Mashinky span time like Openttd allowing people to play after the age of steam and into modern day with Electrics and Diesel Locomotives?
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

@Drury: "someone like you" Do not glorify my, I am just a big fan of TTD able to write some code:) But thanks! ... With Game design, I agree. It means the same for me, rather than some visual style (I am not graphic artist able to do any stylization), Game design imho refers more to mechanics.

@NekoMaster: Hi and thanks for the response. Yes, short version is that this game is something like 3D version of TTD, but there are many differences and gameplay ideas implemented. I thing we are on the same page, I don't want to create a game closer to simulation that it is necessary. I plan to create sandbox game, where you build on a tiled map, optimize rail crossings, searching for the best patterns, etc. with rules close to board games. It should be rather fun than correct simulation.

1) This is something I have to clarify for myself, OTTD is a good source, since it is made also by players who play it a lot, so the game design and ui layout is probably iterated and optimized more.
2) Yes, I tried many ideas before having very intuitive mechanism to lay tracks. Now it is like painting by mouse, but still very deterministic so it will do what you want rather than automatically solving best routes for you.
3) Mashinky game has big support for modding since I am the only one developer and I am not able to create all that content by myself. Mashinky supports mods for new engines/wagons, new industry/building, new upgrades for stops, industries, depots, new terrain shape and textures, new game rules, new town names, new languages, new scripted events, new tutorial, etc etc...

and yes, Mashinky will have 7 eras from steam age to modern maglev trains.

Hope this answered most of your questins;) and thanks for such a good ones.

Best,
Jan
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Re: Mashinky

Post by NekoMaster »

Oh, I have another question that just popped into my head now. Will Mashinky have Company Colors with support for recoloring vehicles like in OpenTTD, or will everything be a non-changeable set livery/theme/color based on the textures like in Train Fever.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

There is already implemented not just colorization of vehicles and stations / depots, ... by company color, but also each wagons visualize amount of cargo loaded. (plus engines are animated as well as industry buildings when producing). :wink:
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Drury »

JanZeleny85 wrote:@Drury: "someone like you" Do not glorify my, I am just a big fan of TTD able to write some code:)
Well, you're an industry professional and we're two guys living on crappy part-time jobs covering our instant ramen expenses making quick free Unity games on the side. Besides, apparently you worked on Mafia games and DayZ, former of which are my favorites, latter of which Googer's favorite. I relayed your message to him as he was playing DayZ and he had a small heart attack :wink: Definitely got our motivation up for our main project!


Anyway, here's the gameplay video, should be in the original post. It's too damn good not to be.




And I feel it's important to link this here, lots of info on the game's direction.

http://monade.cz/blog/2016/06/07/game-mechanics/

To cherrypick the best parts:

Numbers/readability:
– I don’t prefer huge numbers. Anytime I end up with number longer than 3 digits, I feel like I failed in a game design. The reason is that player easily get lost when numbers like $ 103157.62 appears and usually it means that I was not able to balance the game so I used every “scale” from $ 1 to $ 1 000 000 000 to achieve scalability for different game parts / epochs.
Resource/tech tokens:
– Every economy strategy game is about earning some money and investing them to earn even more. In this game, money will be the very first “token” you have, but once you start to deliver some cargo, you will also earn other Tokens. For example when you deliver logs from forest to saw mill, you will earn small amount of Wood Tokens. You can spend them to buy new small steam engine, invent better steam engine or build wooden bridge, build some wooden upgrade to one of your train stations etc. In each history epochs, there will be one more token type introduced and it will be more difficult to earn them, but also more interesting things to buy.
– It also kind of auto balance rule in the game. When you don’t have enough Tokens to buy current trains, you would not unlock even more expensive trains. On the other hand, when you don’t need to invest to your train fleet, you can spend some Tokens to unlock new tech. There will be always more possibilities, you can either keep your fleet small but modern and effective, or use cheaper but huge fleet of trains, or upgrade your infrastructure (stations, bridges, tunnels, ..)
Procedural quests:
– For example, lets say there will be a quest, where some amount of unique cargo appears in one of your stations, some unique wagons in one of your depots and you have to deliver the cargo by those wagons to some specific station / location. You will get not just money out of it, but for example one “prototype” of not-yet-invented locomotive, special wagon, or get some unique reward. Possibilities for quests are huge, and I would like to support some of them by a small back story.
Terraforming:
– For such sandbox game, it is quite vital to allow player modify terrain freely. It comes with the price, but you can modify terrain to allow you some better station or track placement. You can also create unforgettable landscape scenery or bring sea to the town by digging a long channel.
– I like customization of the terrain, so you will be able to plant trees, bushes and some buildings. When you are in the editor, you can also place industry, prepare some scripted events and etc.
Visuals:
– I like board games a lot, but since I was render programmer on few AAA projects, I also like the immersion of realistic look. To deliver both, I worked hard to combine realistic look and schematic map, similar to board games. At the end, I realized, that it needs to have two separated modes and switching between them. One for realistic look, second for construction mode. And it works perfectly. Player can easily thing about the situation, but at the same time, he can let himself enjoy what he accomplish, ride in one of his trains.
Honestly this all sounds super exciting, and there's more, just read it. It's all I ever wanted, I have no objections, and that's pretty damn rare for me. It's just so well thought-out. This could easily be the next Factorio.

I'm gonna spread the word any way I can.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

Woow, thanks a lot man! Now I feel like a celebrity :mrgreen: ... btw. there is not such a big difference between your games and "the big ones", and on top of it, finishing even small own game is a HUUUUGE advantage in a job application in any game studio ;) so don't underestimate yourself!

About the video, well, it is quite confusing I've recently changed the name from Logistics to Mashinky, so I will hopefully create a new one soon with proper name in it :) I am also migrating web pages from monade.cz to mashinky.com (I will also copy blog posts to keep these information reachable), but after it is switched, there will be definitely this link functional:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/mashinky/f ... mechanics2

I am super exited that you share so many of my thoughts and design ideas! It motivates me and keeps me on the track to finish the game. You know, it was always the toughest part to keep me motivated in one-man-show project :) And thanks a lot for spreading the word!

...and Good luck with your project!
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Dave »

VERY impressive.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Pyoro »

Especially the switch between modes. Usually either one is badly done or useless (or, I guess, both), but this looks really good.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by NekoMaster »

There is only one thing that I truly hate about this project and some other games I've been looking at and it really grinds my gears...

THE WAIT!!! BLARGH!!! All the games I want to play right now are 6 months to a year away and thats many months of waiting!

I can't wait until Mashinky is available to the public!

Also I wonder if Mashinky is going to be the final name of the game or just a project code name, I mean I have no problem with Mashinky but I imagine some people will see the name and pass it off as another indie game or not as a transport game like openttd, locomotion, or train fever.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

Guys, thank you all for such a positive feedback!

I will do my best to release at least some playable part as soon as possible.
You can anytime follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/JanZeleny85

and thanks to your motivation, I worked hard and I've migrated most of my dev blog (still work in progress) to

http://mashinky.com/blog/ where is FINALLY a mailing list. I will use this to inform anyone interested about releasing or important stuff.

Looking forward to any idea and especially critics too since it could make the game even better. Thanks.

Jan
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Ameecher »

This gets me excited.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by NekoMaster »

From what I gather you'll be able to make new locomotives? or just upgrade existing ones?

Also if modding is going to be supported, will mod engines/vehicles also be able to do this as well?

YOu know, I've always wanted the ability to make my own in house locomotives like some railroads have done, or upgrade/retrofit locomotives to breath new life into something like a EMD GP9 and turn it into a EMD GP9u.



Also I hope the computer specs wont be too demanding, I only have a Phenom II x4 (3.4Ghz), 8GB of Ram and a GTX 570 Video card. Im finding a lot of new games are pushing my hardware or even not able to run on 2012-2013 vintage hardware.
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Re: Mashinky

Post by JanZeleny85 »

I was thinking about upgrading locomotives (bigger tender, better injector, faster sand pipe, stroker, etc) or as you mentioned retrofit some old one, but I would need to spend years studying it and it would also make the game more confusing. In Mashinky game, the player will have possibility to unlock new types of locomotives / wagons and the only way how to upgrade your train itself is to connect special wagons providing some bonus (dining car, crew car, sleeping car, second tender, etc). Plus there will be limited wagons / locomotives you can get from mini-quests.

Mods could add new types of locomotives / wagons as well as special locomotives / wagons for scripted miniquests.

Hardware specs is something I am still working on since I have older GPU than you do :D (GT 430, i3 2x3Ghz, 8GB) and I don't want to buy any newer to force me optimize it as much a I can :D But I will see how far can I go..
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Re: Mashinky

Post by Redirect Left »

NekoMaster wrote: Also I hope the computer specs wont be too demanding, I only have a Phenom II x4 (3.4Ghz), 8GB of Ram and a GTX 570 Video card. Im finding a lot of new games are pushing my hardware or even not able to run on 2012-2013 vintage hardware.
I have the same, other than an i5 Intel 3,5ghz. I find everything I've thrown at my rig works so far, even gta v runs at a decent fps
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