Why?
"If I had any advice for the BYOND community, it would be to stop spending so much time worrying about the latest drama, and start producing something." - Ben "SilkWizard" Mallahan
To create something unimaginable. A large development team.
Now, I know most of you are thinking this is stupid. Well, I am too. But, what else are we doing? I'm pretty sure most of us are wasting our lives. Why don't we waste it together? So, without further ado...
GitHub: Not available until project is decided on.
Kickstarter/Indiegogo/other sources of funding: Coming soon!
Website: Coming soon!
Current Jobs/Applicants:
OG Wizard
- DarkNinjaNaut
Project Manager
- Pongy
Programmers
- Ease
- Bloodocean7
Designers
- Ease
Concept Artists
- Albro1
Pixel Artists
- ---
Level Designers
- Pongy
Sound Artists
- ---
How this will work:
1) We will need a project manager or a series of project managers who will do the following.
- Create a task for a specific person or a group of people.
- Give this task a description in this format --
Module Name: [Name Here]
Module Type: [proc, datum, verb, etc]
Module Params: [params and a description]
Module Functionality: [What it should do and what it should do with the params, if any. It should typically be functionally independent.] - They need to know that there will be small occasions when these modules will have to call other modules. In this case, it should be included in the Module Functionality what that function returns and only what it returns and why it returns that. Nothing more.
Additionally, which is obvious, it should include the name of the module so the person creating the newer module will know what to program.
If all of the project managers does his or her job right, one of the largest projects can become whole.
2) Programmers are required to have a good amount of experience and knowledge of simplifying their code processes in such a manner that it is efficient and does not hinder the process time of other procedures. In short, it should be efficient.
They won't need to see any other code. But, they will have access to it. What is given to them by the project manager is all they need to understand what is required in their module.
3) A designer, or a series of designers, is required to tell the project managers what needs to be written. He or she should also tell the concept artist what should be drawn for art.
When telling the concept artist what should be drawn, the designer should be sure to include a shape of the art to the best of their abilities, the color, the size, and describe any animations if required at the time. Description is key to getting the best results! If you have more to put in, put it in!
Before releasing ANY ideas to the concept artist or project managers, all ideas should be talked with other designers. Designers must show a sense of good taste in terms of games, development, and design. We don't want to put out faith in the hands of a moron who has no sense of design.
Though, that may be me right now since I have no idea what the hell I am writing. But, that's besides the point. I'm not making this, you all are! I'm just here to get this thing started. So, I don't matter.
4) Concept artists draw up art/sketches for the UI, tiles, and characters. After drawing 1 item, they do not continue on to something else until their work is approved by the designer. Their work should be placed in a box on the cloud for approval and reviewing by the designers so designers can review them in bulk. The project manager will take a look at this bulk and when he or she feels that it has grown to a size that it wouldn't be a waste of time for the designers to take a look at, or if the designers are free, then the project manager should notify the designers to review it and reply to the concept artist to let them know that they need to now send it to the pixel artist for drawing.
5) Pixel artists just draw concept art to the best of their abilities. Nothing more do it. No creativity here. Draw. Shade. Color. After this is done, send it back to the concept artist for reviewing. If the concept artist likes it, he or she sends it to the designers box for future reviewing in a box labeled "finished". If at some point it is turned down, it is simply sent back down the chain to be worked on until perfection.
6) Level designers are just a sub category of the designer. They do the exact same process. Only, instead of designing tiles, UI, and other basic things, they organize the tiles, UI, or asks what type of things are needed, gives examples, and gives a brief layout as to what it will look like in the end.
7) Sound artists should ask the project manager for help with their work. The project manager should take a look at current scenes in the project and come to a conclusion what kind of theme should sounds be. 8-bit, modern, etc. Is it a cave? Being punched? Jumping? Just vague things with an example sound/song if possible to get a general idea. The project managers should work together to find what is needed. The sound artist should remind the project managers how this process works as they will be focusing on other things and may not remember this task which usually comes at the end.
Good luck! What the project will be about is up to the community. Nobody is a leader. It's a team effort. BYONDers, roll out!
P.S. If you have any other suggestions as to what other roles should be added or what roles require a different/more thorough procedure, message me or comment below. I don't care which.Don't forget to include this on your resumes, kids.
I'm in.
I'd like to take a Programming role. If more than one role is permitted per person, I'd also like to snag Designer.
My resume;
Completed GiaD with Hivemind (http://www.byond.com/games/Ease/Hivemind) - I designed the entire concept from scratch, programmed it all myself, made (barely) acceptable graphics, and pretty innovative sound effects.
I've made a simple Pong game, proving that (occasionally) I can stick a project to the end.
Stark Realities - incomplete, due to acquiring a girlfriend, and a child, and a new job three hundred miles across the country. But I believe it demonstrates the complexity I can manage: it's crafting system works well, its equipment system is intuitive and easy to the user, despite being a right mare to program, and it has some other clever features.
My biggest selling point is that since making all of these, I've been employed as an Embedded Programmer for two years at two large defence companies, and have also done a year intern-ship for IBM. My DM is weaker than ideal, but my sense of programming concepts and how software teamwork and projects work is strong.