Conga Lyne
Software Developer - Game Designer
About Me
Hi, I'm Conga Lyne!
I'm a Software Developer with a passion for game design. I've been interested in videogames since I was a child and spent years modding games, learning to program and ultimately how to create them!
I'm currently working on a top down roguelike inspired by Noita and Nethack.
Apotheosis
Mod
Apotheosis is the largest and most popular content mod in Noita, completely overhauling the game, over doubling the content within it and introducing multiple new mechanics.
Working on Apotheosis has been my biggest learning experience by far, outside of developing my leadership skills I had to learn how to keep such a large project properly organised, how to optimise my code where it mattered so thousands of changes to the game could be loaded in less than a second, how to improve in skill-sets I was weak in and many other things.
I think the most interesting thing to talk about with Apotheosis would be the design process.
When developing apotheosis my #1 concern by far is always how something affects gameplay, my order of priority when adding new content is as follows:
Gameplay is always the top priority by far.
If a new structure is being added to the game and it grabs the players attention it should do so for a reason, otherwise if it doesn't serve a purpose it should sink into the background.
If a magic spell has an audio visual redesign I should ask, is it visually distracting? Does the new audio conflict with any existing sound-cues and mislead the player? Does this make any existing content irrelevent? Does its saturation blend into the background and make it difficult to see?
If a new enemy is added, are its attacks properly indicated? Is its threat level properly indicated? Is the player given the opportunity to escape the enemy if they are intended to have the option to do so? Is the enemy easy to identify from a glance? Does the player feel like they're being treated fairly?
Gameplay, Gameplay, Gameplay is always top priority.
Gameplay trumps everything
It doesn't matter if people are excited for new content if the new content itself turns out to be boring, and you won't get people excited for your next piece of content if the last one was a flop.
Every new addition should integrate smoothly into what already exists, new content should add decisions for the player to make rather than take them away, but also leave the door wide open for future content to integrate into it.
There are countless different situations I could talk about for hours regarding gameplay design but my general philosophy is always thinking about the big picture about how every system, mechanic and piece of content interacts with each other, exponential content is right there waiting to be brought into existence and you only need to make a few systems work with each other to attain it.
Website
GluttonyGame
Game
GluttonyGame is a work-in-progress top-down rogue-like with infinitely generated terrain using HerringBone WangTiles, SMA* path finding, a destructible environment, chunk based loading and a functional biome map.
Up to 20 chunks can be loaded at once and chunks are loaded in a 3x3 area centered on the player
If a 21st chunk is loaded, the oldest active chunk has its data saved to a file before all its contents are deleted, essentially an LRU-cache system.
The naming scheme for saved files is "c.posX.posY.json", I intend to research better file saving methods than raw json in the future but for now while chunk files are something that will likely change significantly it's easier to work with a file format that's easy to read for immediate debugging data if needed.
Speaking of files, when a file needs to be loaded, it looks for a file which matches a given set of coordinates.
For example if I wanted to load a chunk at "-4,5", then the game would look for a file named "c.-4.5.json" and if it exists then it'll load it.
That's a glimpse into how the chunk loading system works, there are more checks for things like biomes, how entity data is saved and other parts of the system but it should be an interesting glimpse into what already is!
Conga Bot
Twitch Bot
Conga Bot is a twitch-chat bot capable of playing sound effects, running predictions and logging chatter data.
Koth Hotflags
Teamfortress 2 Map
Hotflags is a custom King of the Hill map for Team Fortress 2 with tight, fast-paced gameplay and plenty of verticality.
Each side is given ample area for each class in Team Fortress 2 to excel in, with areas which encourage aerial combats, tight nooks for close-ranged combat classes and ample angles for classes who fight at long range.
Lights are used to help guide the players eyes in indoor environments towards areas where enemies are likely to emerge from and the respawn timer after a player dies is adaptive to which team is currently winning the center control point of the map, with defenders taking longer to respawn since they hold the territorial advantage.
I did not venture much further into 3D game design after this project and found my love in 2D games instead but I would not be against experimenting in 3D game design again in the future.