Loonyland II: Winter Woods

RPGs that take risks and give gamers something a bit different are always worth keeping an eye on. Hamumu is working on a sequel to the cartoony adventure title, Loonyland. Loonyland II features bigger adventures, more skills, talents, and a deep look into the holiday land of the Winter Woods. Mike Hommel from Hamumu software gave Game Tunnel some answers to our questions. Check them out below.

[William Usher] - In Loonyland II things unfold in the Winter Woods. Why the woods this time around, and why winter?

[Mike Hommel] The original Loonyland was intended to be a Halloween surprise - a quickie cranked out from the Dr. Lunatic code. That's where the whole idea of Halloween Hill came from. It turned out instead to take 6+ months and got released in summer or something. Same idea has happened again - I thought I could make a quick game out of Loonyland, in time for Christmas (2005...) release. That's where Winter Woods came from. Woods, by the way, because it's alliterative. The game should make it out in time for Christmas 2006 though... I think?

The other reason is that I came up with this naming convention for the provinces/areas/whatever of the country of Loonyland. All over it there are regions named [Holiday] [Type Of Terrain]. Why they name things this way, I don't know. Already in the games there has been mention of Valentine Valley and Easter Island. I recently made a map of the whole place, which has dozens more on it. Even the obscure (and likely sequel) Diwali Desert.

[William Usher] - All the provinces of Loonyland sound kind of intriguing. Is it possible there could be an omega-sized Loonyland down the road where it’s just one giant game world, with each of the provinces included in the final product?

[Mike Hommel] That would surely be nice! I have dreams of doing that (an MMO, but of course), but no plans to. I am thinking of other games I can set in the realm, though, with different characters. The actual Loonyland series has a specific arc of its own (including starring roles by other characters) , which should culminate in big surprises and twists and turns. It is after all at its heart a simple mystery: how did this amazingly heroic young boy ever grow up to be a psychotic mad scientist (that's redundant, but there's such a big difference between 'scientist' and 'mad scientist', I had to put it in there)? That should be answered by the end, if I ever finish making the series, and the answer is hopefully not anything close to what you could guess (and hopefully not too stupid either). I didn't actually know the answer when I made the original game, but before I ever started on this one, I had dreamed up the entire arc, and I am excited about it. I think it's going into realms you don't see in games, where a true multi-game tale emerges, and you can look back at the first game from the end and say "That all makes sense now!" Well, as much sense as Dumb games do.

[William Usher] - Pure RPGs aren't abundant in the independent community. There's a lot of games with elements of an RPG but rarely are there pure RPGs like Loonyland. Was this something you wanted to change in the independent gaming community...by adding more adventure RPGs?

[Mike Hommel] Not at all... I made this for the same reason I make all my games - it's what I wanted to make! I'm discovering that perhaps this very thing is exactly what I want to make forever. I just love the power you have in RPGs, the ability to make up quests, abilities, and items, and tie them all together. I don't really care if there is a shortage or surplus of them, and I've never been one to do my market research. More specifically, I made it because Diablo 2 is my favorite game of all time, and this is what you get when I clone Diablo 2.

[William Usher] - You know, in a weird way both Loonyland and Diablo are quite similar. Would ever consider using the Loonyland gameplay design to make a much darker version...more on the line of Diablo?

[Mike Hommel] No... I don't do dark for a few reasons. First is that my site is all family friendly, and intended to stay that way. Why constrain the audience? Second, silly games are always going to be more fun, both to make and to play. If you're laughing, you're going to be having fun. Third, I can only draw/model cartoons! A dark game can certainly be lots of fun (or rewarding even if not 'fun' - think of Schindler's List), but I prefer to hit every angle of entertainment I can. It's the shotgun approach to amusing people. And pointing a shotgun at someone is often an excellent way to amuse them. Or at least to get them to agree that you are amusing them when asked.

[William Usher] - The dialogue in Loonyland II is pretty funny. There's a lot of witty remarks about some of the obvious indiscretion that other RPG characters carry out in mainstream titles. Did you specifically design some NPCs to be caricatures of other RPGs?

[Mike Hommel] Yes, parodying RPGs is a fundamental part of the Dumb strategy. Later in the game, you will gain access to the mighty Allusionary, which is a book that explains all of the allusions and references in the game. It's completely laden with pokes at RPGs. Not really specific RPGs in most cases, more like the genre conventions. The clever part is that parodying them allows me to stick to them at the same time! It's easier than being creative, to be sure.

[William Usher] - With extensive missions, fighting, leveling, magic, skills, and adventuring, are RPGs less frequent in the independent community due to the amount of work and time required to complete them, or is it because of some other reason?

[Mike Hommel] I would guess that it's almost entirely a question of the work involved, judging by the way every indie out there is always talking about their dream (MMO)RPG that they'll someday make. Seems like everybody *would* make one if they could justify it.

[William Usher] - Following up on that question. Loonyland II is quite extensive in the gameplay department. How long has it been in development?

[Mike Hommel] Well, I started at the beginning of December, 2005, with the ridiculous idea that I could finish by Christmas. So that would be 10 months so far! Looks like it'll be about a year total.

[William Usher] - How did you decide what skills and talents would be available for players to use? Was there a list of possible attacks/skills/lore or was it based on what would suit the general atmosphere of Loonyland?

[Mike Hommel] Making up skills is absolutely the best part of the job. I didn't make any effort to suit the story or atmosphere, what I did instead was to decide on a set of categories - Passive (general boosts to attributes - the plan was to have no stats to upgrade, just skills that act as stat upgrades), Attack (melee), Throwing, and Magic. There was a time when I toyed with a 5th category, since my intent for no reason was always to have 50 skills, but I ended up feeling too cramped with only 10 magic skills. And magic, being magic, can do anything, so I didn't lose much! Although I had considered adding pet skills, which is kind of a sad loss. Saved me a lot of work, though. So knowing the categories, and the expectation of 10 skills in each (20 magic), I came up with what sounded fun to me. I tried to think about 'builds' the player might make and how skills could work together for that, and especially I tried to make the magic very diverse. I hate when you have Ice Bolt, Fire Bolt, Lightning Bolt, and Acid Bolt in the same game. In my game, there are 20 spells, and only one of them is a fireball (okay, Cold Wave is very similar). And what a fireball it is! It's the most costly spell in the game for a reason.

The real trick was making a good set of melee and throwing skills without the ability to trigger them much. Because it's an action game, they had to all either be passive - things that take effect on every swing - or triggered with a button combination. I didn't want to make Street Fighter (for accessibility reasons, not because I don't LOVE games that have special moves!), so I only have two 'special' moves, that are executed in simple and semi-logical ways (tap jump while swinging, tap jump while already in the air). Spells were less of a problem, because you pick them from a list and trigger them outright. Doing that with attacks would've been cumbersome and too much like making them just different spells.

Then there were the Talents, which were a later addition. They were a simple idea - just match them up to the various skills as ways to boost the power of the skills. The few talents that don't work this way were actually originally skills (things like smithing items), but the idea of having to spend your skill points on non-combat stuff was flawed. Nobody wants to sacrifice damage for knitting.

The lore behind the skills and talents was an afterthought - I just wrote descriptions to explain why they work once I decided what they did! There are a few exceptions in the magic. Because the main character is the youthful version of Dr. Lunatic, I specifically made some spells that postforeshadow (a necessary term when making prequels) that game in a way.

[William Usher] - The fighting mechanics in Loonland II are straightforward enough to keep the gameplay fluid with entertainment values. I noticed, though, that the attacks didn't seem to be as hit/miss oriented as other real-time RPGs. So, does Loonyland II use the hit/miss (invisible) roll dice, or was that scheme abandoned altogether?

[Mike Hommel] No, there's no way to miss. Actually, there are ways for enemies to miss - some skills and items grant that. But not normally. That's my own pet peeve of sorts. If it's a turn-based strategy, that stuff makes sense - each swing is representing a combat exchange. But an action game isn't representing combat, it IS combat. When I swing, if my axe passes through the space where the enemy is, I should hit that enemy! I think that's an abstraction that just doesn't fit. It's kind of different in Diablo, where melee fighting consists of walking up to a guy and smacking at him while standing there. Again, it's a representation, an abstraction. In Loonyland, you have free control, so you're running around, dodging shots, jumping, dashing in and hitting. If you land a hit, you deserve it. Same for the badguys. That's my own issue, and my games are the living embodiment of my issues.

[William Usher] - But you know, Loonyland makes sense,. in that if you see the axe hit something, it actually hits it in the virtual world. I still can’t get over looking at a sword clearly impale an enemy, but a roll-dice says that it misses. Which brings me to my next question, is it easier to design a fighting mechanic based on roll-dice, or contact damage?

[Mike Hommel] Well, one requires the other. The contact damage is in there - you have to register when guys are getting hit. Even if you're rolling for accuracy, you need to know if they swung in the right place to begin with (I suppose you could let the player swing anywhere and hit, but that would look pretty bad). So a roll-to-hit game would be layering that roll on top of the actual hit check. I guess that means it's harder, but it's really pretty trivial. The code part is totally trivial. Here, I'll give you a free copy of it: "if(rand()%100
It's just another number you have at your hands to use in balancing, which can be advantageous, or just more work. From the designer's perspective, you can only balance via statistics (and hardcore players look at it this way as well): if you have 50% chance to hit and do 5-10 damage, then as far as a designer is concerned, you do 3.75 damage (which is what it averages out to over time). Usually that's taken even further to factor in the speed of attack, to get a DPS - damage per second. I think WoW even calculates that number for you. So it all comes down to the same thing. Or at least it does over time - it sucks to have a 5% chance to hit, no matter how high the damage is.

That's part of my reasoning for avoiding it - the frustration of missing is a negative. I tried out City Of Heroes, and that kept striking me as I kept not striking enemies. I'd wait a couple seconds for my power to recharge, then ZAP! A miss. Wait a few more, and another miss. Sometimes there'd be big strings of misses, and that's just so annoying. The dumbest was with things like a big explosion - the enemy's right in the middle of it, but "MISS" floats up from his head anyway. You could make a functionally identical game without that frustration by lowering all damage by the percentage chance to miss and making them always hit.

Would it be better? Maybe, maybe not. After all, the chance to hit is another form of gambling! And it means one less number for players to upgrade (which is a big deal in City Of Heroes, a game with very limited upgrade options).

[William Usher] - The art-style in Loonyland is quite distinct. The Loonyland games don't appear to imitate any other adventure title out there, when it comes to the visual design. Is the art-style in these games seminal to Hamumu's design process?

[Mike Hommel] The art comes from the deepest reaches of my soul... I make cartoons with googly eyes, therefore my games have no choice but to consist of googly-eyed entities. Sorry, games! It's also what I like. I mean, if I could, I'd do much prettier graphics. Amazing and stunning wonders, I'm sure. But it would still be cartoons, without a doubt. That's part of what makes them Dumb games, it's part of what makes them my games, and it's part of what makes them fun. Guild Wars looks boring - it's reality. Whee.

World Of Warcraft looks awesome - it's a cartoon. Who wants to stare at reality all day? You can do that without turning on the computer. I keep simplifying my art every time, and it always looks better the further I go. I used to have cartoon hands, and now they just have round spheres. That's both way easier for me to do, and it just plain looks better. Laziness as an art style. Eventually, my games will just be spheres.

[William Usher] - That makes me wonder, what do you think of all these “next-gen� titles trying to achieve realism as an art-style? Do you think it detracts from the process of creativity or heightens the aim to be more creative?

[Mike Hommel] I don't like it. There really is no artistry in it. All you're doing is plagiarizing someone else's work (God's, in this case) to the best of your ability. It takes incredible skill to do, but that doesn't make it interesting to look at. I recently saw a video of Team Fortress 2, and I am now officially excited about that again, since forgetting about it when it never materialized in the Quake 1 days (I never played TFC). It's an absolute stand-out in the sea of guys in camo shooting each other. It looks amazing! A place I would enjoy spending time, instead of a drab brown world.

But the more powerful video cards get, the more freedom you have to explore art. Yes, it can be used for extreme realism (and it should... I don't find it interesting, but lots of racing gamers want a totally real experience, and others), but it also expands what you can do creatively. I could make Loony have to wade through a crowd of 100,000 toy mice!