Let's make a Videogame: The hip new version

[Maxios]

ARTISTS AND PROGRAMMERS NEEDED!
Since the old thread is dead, I have created a new one. Basically, the talented folks at the Playground* work together to create a videogame**. First, we have to come up with ideas about the game. I have two main ideas for the game:
The Frontier: Of Gold and Lead
Synopsis: In the time of the American Wild West, a lone gunslinger rode. Nobody remembers the Gunslinger’s name, and in the various tells told the Gunslinger’s gender, but the Gunslinger’s feats…they were the stuff that legends were made of.
Game Play ideas:
Create your own gunslinger. Choose your name, gender, and appearance and then ride out to leave your mark upon the Wild West.
Interact with the world: Get drunk as a skunk in saloons, enter sharpshooting competitions, explore…
Your actions effect the world: Play a lawful sheriff or a chaotic desperado. When you enter a town, will people immediately hide in their homes or will they cheer your name?
Story ideas: Your character is shot and seriously injured during an attack in the village you’re in by the Inferno gang. Two weeks later, your injures are fully healed and you’re out for revenge against the desperados that nearly killed you.

The Parody: GTAelderfallouthalflife (aka Parody: GTAefhl)
Synopsis: You are an avid video-game player, when one day, you get sucked into your game console to enter…the GameWorld, a patch-world made up of parodies of various games.
Game Play ideas:
Create your own character. Will you be a ransacking bad guy or will you be a lawful stupid heroic paladin? Will you be sarcastic, or will you be serious?
Encounter a wide variety of characters: Encounter colorful parodies of renowned gaming icons, like Jordan Lawman, the mute badass hero who screws with physics to battle villains, or the insane guy in security armor who thinks everybody he meets is a space-zombie (which may or may not be true).

As you can read, the first idea is a serious concept while the second is a very comical idea. Thoughts?

*-including me as Creative Designer because I can't program yet but will begin learning how to EXTREMELY soon!
**-I use the term videogame loosely. Flash game or downloadable game doesn't have the same ring that videogame does.

[Domochevsky]

This... is the same stuff as before, just phrased differently, isn't it. :smallconfused:

[Maxios]

This... is the same stuff as before, just phrased differently, isn't it. :smallconfused:

...no. Before, the project was supposed to be in the Nexus. A Western-setting or a parody of the video-game genre? Nothing like the Nexus.

[Domochevsky]

...no. Before, the project was supposed to be in the Nexus. A Western-setting or a parody of the video-game genre? Nothing like the Nexus.

I actually meant the framing. The "yo, do stuff for me for a indefinite amount of time". :smallwink:

[Trazoi]

Maxios, what is your objective for this project? I'm assuming you actually want it implemented given you're calling for artists and programmers, but if you haven't yet nailed the idea I think that call is extremely premature.

Honestly, both your ideas sound way too ambitious for a bunch of novice game developers working over the forums, and I fear this project is going to follow the exact same path the last couple of attempts you made will. You're going to attract a lot of creative advisors to throw ideas together to make an unimplementable "best game ever", and the few novice programmers and artists you attract will get overwhelmed and quit in frustration.

[Dr.Epic]

The Parody: GTAelderfallouthalflife (aka Parody: GTAefhl)
Synopsis: You are an avid video-game player, when one day, you get sucked into your game console to enter…the GameWorld, a patch-world made up of parodies of various games.
Game Play ideas:
Create your own character. Will you be a ransacking bad guy or will you be a lawful stupid heroic paladin? Will you be sarcastic, or will you be serious?
Encounter a wide variety of characters: Encounter colorful parodies of renowned gaming icons, like Jordan Lawman, the mute badass hero who screws with physics to battle villains, or the insane guy in security armor who thinks everybody he meets is a space-zombie (which may or may not be true).

Does this sound a lot like Captain N: the Game Master: the Game to anyone else?

[Prime32]

Maxios, everyone in game development needs to be a jack of all trades. This includes the project head. Especially the project head - he should be able to make a smaller and uglier version of the game by himself.

The last time you tried to start a project like this, the few instructions you gave were impossible to follow. Please, if you are interested in making games then make games so that you will know what to do. If you can't do that much, people will assume that you don't care enough to see the project anywhere near to completion.


And you still have never described an actual game, just the story. Both of the ideas you have presented here, and that Armor of Power thing from your last thread, could be the same game with the dialogue and the main character's sprite changed for all you've left blank. You've never even said what the genre is.

[Story Time]

In addition to all of the above, "Student, tutor thyself."

[Maxios]

1. ...when was the last time I tried to make a new LMAV?

2. I'm TRYING to learn how to program

[Trazoi]

If your goal is to learn how to program games, how about we set up a community monthly challenge so people can learn together? Such as: In August, aim to make a Space Invaders clone, or if you're keen a more complicated shmup. Programmers can share tips and code, and anyone who wants to try their hand at sprite art can join in too.

[Maxios]

If your goal is to learn how to program games, how about we set up a community monthly challenge so people can learn together? Such as: In August, aim to make a Space Invaders clone, or if you're keen a more complicated shmup. Programmers can share tips and code, and anyone who wants to try their hand at sprite art can join in too.

That's...a really awesome idea :smallbiggrin:

[Tyndmyr]

I actually meant the framing. The "yo, do stuff for me for a indefinite amount of time". :smallwink:

Seems like it. Basically, this game seems like "Fable, but with cowboys". Well, with rather less definition to it.

Your first game should be something simple. Trivial, even. An astroids clone perhaps. Or Tic-Tac-Toe. Is it easy? Of course. That's the point...it actually gets done that way. Expecting to make an actual production game with your first attempt is like expecting to produce a popular song the first time you pick up an instrument. That's not how skills work.

Game development is all about developing skills. Coding skills, graphics skills(even programmer art is better than no art), audio skills, level design skills, etc. It's not a simple or easy field...hell, it has a reputation for an unfavorable work/pay ratio even by the standards of coders, etc.

The idea of a monthly challenge to show off aspects of game design, and learn new tricks is a FANTASTIC one, and one in which I would gladly participate.

[Teutonic Knight]

Just curious, for making a video game, what are the roles you need people to fill to make a standard video game, and what do they do?

[AsteriskAmp]

From the top of my head:
Coding and Art suffice. But usually there is a bigger structure that includes more positions, like making an independent department for art and another for programming and a guy called the Director keeping everything together.

[Trazoi]

That's...a really awesome idea :smallbiggrin:
If there's interest I'll join in, or maybe write a few rough guides/walkthroughs of what I'm doing. I'm as rusty as is and was planning on doing a few game development warm-ups anyway, so it syncs nicely. Plus I never really got that far in learning ActionScript for Flash games. :smallsmile:


Just curious, for making a video game, what are the roles you need people to fill to make a standard video game, and what do they do?
It depends what a "standard" video game is. I think there's almost as many breakdowns of team structure as there are teams.

Back when I was more seriously involved in PC game development, a smaller development team would be about a dozen or two people generally split into programming, art and level design. Programmers program and artist do art (duh), and the level designers have a skill-set somewhere between the two. There also might be a music/sound person and an in-house test team. The roles would flucuate as the game was developed, as you'll have less need for programming and more need for testers as the development goes on. The publisher would also have their own QA teams and handle the marketing and so on.

Each group usually has a head, like lead programmer, artist and so on. There's usually someone in charge of the entire project, usually the lead designer, or sometimes the business manager. It depends on the team who has the power and how orderly or chaotic everything is.

Larger teams would get more specialised. You'd have in-house tool programmers, engine programmers, a difference between the 3D modellers and the 2D artist, and so on.

An indie team on the other hand usually consists of a handful of developers, often with a core team of one or two. There's almost always a programmer/designer who either works with an artist(/designer/programmer/whatever-else) or who contracts that out.

[Haruki-kun]

Just curious, for making a video game, what are the roles you need people to fill to make a standard video game, and what do they do?

It completely depends on the videogame. A game can be simple and made entirely by one person or enormously complex and made by a whole company.

If you want more info, I had to write a paper on it and my teacher povided us this site (http://www.skillset.org/games/careers/profiles/) as a source of information. Bear in mind that the roles explained here are thinking of big projects funded by big companies.

[AsteriskAmp]

I'm bound to say: Google ZUN.

[Teutonic Knight]

I understand ZUN and his Touhou, but the link Haruki provided was more of what I was looking for. Thanks you.

What I want to say to Maxios is take some initiative. If you want to make a game, imagine we're a board of executives and you want to pitch us an idea. To the best of your ability, show us what your game will be like. Sketch potential character designs, levels, UI, NPCs, character progressions, that kind of thing. You have the idea, we don't, so you need to give us more than just a couple sentences of description that looks like it belongs on the back of the game box. So yeah, like what other people said, you need more info.

[Maxios]

I understand ZUN and his Touhou, but the link Haruki provided was more of what I was looking for. Thanks you.

What I want to say to Maxios is take some initiative. If you want to make a game, imagine we're a board of executives and you want to pitch us an idea. To the best of your ability, show us what your game will be like. Sketch potential character designs, levels, UI, NPCs, character progressions, that kind of thing. You have the idea, we don't, so you need to give us more than just a couple sentences of description that looks like it belongs on the back of the game box. So yeah, like what other people said, you need more info.

A pitch? I can do that. Once it's all done, I'll post it on here.

[-skimmer-]

If your goal is to learn how to program games, how about we set up a community monthly challenge so people can learn together? Such as: In August, aim to make a Space Invaders clone, or if you're keen a more complicated shmup. Programmers can share tips and code, and anyone who wants to try their hand at sprite art can join in too.

As a newbie actionscripter myself, I would be interested....

[Tyndmyr]

Look, we've got enough interest, I'm going to start a thread. If someone else is keen to run it, they're welcome to do so, but I figure I might as well start it up.