Author Topic: Joshex's game project  (Read 11669 times)

Shenku

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2013, 07:16:41 AM »
I would give away an idea, several if I had them. I have no interest in developing games, just playing them.

Frankly, ideas are not hard to come by, at least not for me. If I was doing a game, I would try and figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell or what kind of experience I want the player to have and then design around that.

For example, I would like a modern setting game where the story unfolds according to whatever approach the player takes. With true multiple paths of play, leading to possible multiple different endings. The world would probably be smallish, but within that world, nearly everything would be interactive and available. Some items might be useful in one path but not another and some might not be useful at all. Similarly conversation and characters as well.

The plot doesn't have to be heavy handed. It could be something very simple: What ever happened to Jake Olson, that guy I knew in High School. Maybe he moved to India and joined an Ashram, maybe he's a mechanic at dealership, maybe he's a soldier, maybe...but you get the idea.

You could use a survey of some kind at the start of the game to help seed the options for the game based on the player's responses. Different responses lead to different stories in the same locations.

Such a game would feature a level of interactivity unprecedented to date as well true branched story telling. I'm not saying that a game like this would be easy, but it would be impressive as hell. Look how gaga people got over ME3 and it's level of branched story telling is limited by comparison.

People like it when what they do in a game matters.

That's not a bad idea, but for a small indie title you might be thinking too big there.

The biggest problem with designing indie titles like what Joshex seems to be looking at doing is you have to think in much smaller terms than most powerhouse AAA companies do, because you don't have dozens of programmers, hundreds of artists, and millions of dollars to get everything you want to have in your title actually put into it. You have you, and maybe if you're lucky, a few other like minded individuals who live near you that you can collaborate with to get more stuff done, but largely it still needs to be a smaller endeavor, or you'll never finish it.

I have an "open world RPG/third person Fighting" game (Kind of like Prototype, only no zombies or mutants, and it's a fictional magic-based world, and not modern day New York...) that I've been working on solo for the past year almost, and I'm still no where near 10% completion of the intended features for the game. Granted, I am working on the project alone, and I'm no programmer so I'm struggling with building the systems I need from misc. tutoriials and patched together workarounds, but it's the same concept as what I'm warning you all against unless you really intend on following the project through all the way. I knew going in that it was going to be a long painful process to do this on my own, and I tried on multiple occasions to try and get classmates to jump in and help me out on it if only a little (with no success...), but I've resigned myself to the idea that it may take me a few years to finish the core structure of the game, and that's not even counting actual content, story, missions, or art assets, all of which will be needed once the core game systems are built up...

So as I said, think smaller. Make a "tetris" like game. Make a card game (standard playing cards), a dungeon crawl/maze or puzzle game. Something small and easy to put together, and can be made quickly. You can add icing on the cake so to speak to make it interesting once you have the game built (Angry Birds for example uses a very old and super simple game idea that's been done many times before, but puts a fun spin on it that catches people's attention), but until then, you can't try to do too much or you're going to get overwhelmed and give up part way through. I myself am already walking the razors edge of that point with my own game project, and it's quite possible it'll simply be abandoned for a few years until I get better funding/support to try tackling it again later with some help from other indie developers or friends. (Not going to ask for help on that project here, as I would much rather work with people I can speak with face to face on such a large project, rather than only through message boards, email, or skype... Smaller projects I'm more flexible with though...)

Above all, try to make it something that's as fun to work on as it is to play. Never hurts to enjoy making things as much as playing with the end results. ;)

Joshex

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2013, 04:33:39 PM »
yep small and simple is the key.

I can program fairly fast, but even so too many features will make it that much slower.

I've got a game Idea in the workings now. but now I've stifled myself agian... see I'm always looking ahead at all possible possibilities.

yeah, I can do a normal map, yeah I can do a bump map, but when mixing the two together in nodes for some reason the GE doesn't recognise them.

I want to paralax map lol. looks like I'll have to forget about paralax for now.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

The Fifth Horseman

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2013, 04:48:47 PM »
Another thing to remember is that until you have the engine ready, you shouldn't spend any more time on content than absolutely neccessary - spend that time on building the tools to edit / add content instead.
The more moddable your game is, the longer the players will be happy with it even if it doesn't come with much content initially - plusus you can always consider recruiting the best modders to help you with producing official content for the final version.
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

Somewhere beyond time and space, if you look hard you might find a flash of silver trailing crimson: a lone lost Spartan on his way home.

Shenku

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2013, 11:18:15 PM »
Another thing to remember is that until you have the engine ready, you shouldn't spend any more time on content than absolutely neccessary - spend that time on building the tools to edit / add content instead.
The more moddable your game is, the longer the players will be happy with it even if it doesn't come with much content initially - plusus you can always consider recruiting the best modders to help you with producing official content for the final version.

Not sure if you're familiar with the game project called ZEQ2-Lite(A Dragonball Z based game using a heavily modified version of the IO Quake engine), but it uses a pretty similar development strategy, which is how I got pulled into their more centralized team to help out on the project for a while before development from a dedicated team stalled out for the most part.

Plus, with the entire project being open source now, development could theoretically continue indefinitely since it's primarily fan supported now. In fact, most of the characters and maps that can be used in the game currently were fan contributions, either wholly or in part, and there's a group of Addon makers who actually work as a semi-dedicated team to add more characters maps and features all the time.

Definitely a good proof of concept for what you describe, since the base game was extremely "lite" on content when it was initially released a few years ago (hence it's name having the "-Lite" added on, as well as to distinguish it as a separate project from ZEQ2 which has a much more elaborate goal in mind for the final game...), but has had many things added by the fans who play it since it was released.

Joshex

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #24 on: August 15, 2013, 05:44:47 PM »
Another thing to remember is that until you have the engine ready, you shouldn't spend any more time on content than absolutely neccessary - spend that time on building the tools to edit / add content instead.
The more moddable your game is, the longer the players will be happy with it even if it doesn't come with much content initially - plusus you can always consider recruiting the best modders to help you with producing official content for the final version.

Yeah I know, I've actually got most of the programming done and now need to replace placeholder models, so now I'm kinda focusing on player models, on that note, I have figured out how to apply the paralax map in the GE yay.

next of coarse is player models and textures.

before I talk much about contents I should really get an IP signed, I probably wont do a patent, I've heard they are expensive, probably copyright and trademark. close to $500 just to do that, I'd hate to see how much a patent can cost.

btw I'm using my own characters and story and gameplay, this particular game might not be in Fifths play style. it's just a quick simple game (though with many levels.)

some of my more complex stories would require Fifth's gameplay style, for which he'll get credit.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2013, 06:03:58 PM by Joshex »
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

The Fifth Horseman

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #25 on: August 15, 2013, 09:24:37 PM »
Quote
before I talk much about contents I should really get an IP signed, I probably wont do a patent, I've heard they are expensive, probably copyright and trademark. close to $500 just to do that, I'd hate to see how much a patent can cost.
Right, here's some stuff you probably need to know:
1. Copyright is automatic as long as the country of your work's first publication is a Berne Convention signatory - or your work becomes published in a country that is one within 30 days of its' original publication. Most countries are Berne Convention signatories these days, therefore you can consider it automatic, period.
2. You can patent mechanics, not content. Basically, patents do not really factor in unless you have invented a mechanic you want to prevent anyone else from using unless they license it from you. What you might want to do is research if there are any non-expired patents that may make things difficult for you. Also, you could try protecting yourself from patent trolls by making the mechanics in question partially public; that counts as "prior art" and makes any subsequent patent filings on the subject invalid.
3. In theory you could - at least for some time - operate without registering your trademarks. Some countries offer a limited automatic protection even if you have not registered the mark.
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

Somewhere beyond time and space, if you look hard you might find a flash of silver trailing crimson: a lone lost Spartan on his way home.

Joshex

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Re: Joshex's game project
« Reply #26 on: August 19, 2013, 04:40:25 PM »
Right, here's some stuff you probably need to know:
1. Copyright is automatic as long as the country of your work's first publication is a Berne Convention signatory - or your work becomes published in a country that is one within 30 days of its' original publication. Most countries are Berne Convention signatories these days, therefore you can consider it automatic, period.
2. You can patent mechanics, not content. Basically, patents do not really factor in unless you have invented a mechanic you want to prevent anyone else from using unless they license it from you. What you might want to do is research if there are any non-expired patents that may make things difficult for you. Also, you could try protecting yourself from patent trolls by making the mechanics in question partially public; that counts as "prior art" and makes any subsequent patent filings on the subject invalid.
3. In theory you could - at least for some time - operate without registering your trademarks. Some countries offer a limited automatic protection even if you have not registered the mark.

thats very helpful! thanks for letting me know.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.