Feb 1 2015, 1:55 pm
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Albro1
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If this gets off the ground, I'm down for being a concept artist.
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So I've been doing some thinking and I think a single player story driven game is the best bet for this. Multiplayer is great and all, but if we want a commercial game that will actually get completed and that we can charge for on steam, desura etc. then it should be some sort of love story drama or something.
In my research those sell well and kickstarter loves them. and they are easier to coordinate with a team as we would all know the story and direction the game is going toward. pretty much we build the game in a movie like format. 1. introduce characters 2. get you attached to them by showing day to day lives of the characters 3. some kind of tragedy happens 4. you work to resolve the tragedy or live with it 5.its resolved and the game ends something along those lines. of course we would have to work out the details. and what genre the game is. will there be some monster that eats your friends and you must find and kill it? does someone steal your girlfriend? (btw that is used ALOT and always works. EX. Mario,Zelda etc.) TLDR A story based game would be best since we can actually write out the various parts of the games like chapters and finish it. Multiplayer will take ages and people that aren't around enough and life in general will kill the project. Also story games that have a start middle and end are easy to sell. Let me know you ideas as well, Bloodocean7. | |
I'm currently in a group making a game that came together in a separate community. We are six months in and going strong.
With that being said, I know that this kind of thing can work. It is just a matter of making it work and making sure you find people who are motivated and want to do this. The negative people will become demotivated a lot easier. They weigh the negatives more than the positives, so they very easily reach a "this won't work" mindset on the slightest onset of adversity. You don't need to find great talent, the objective is to actually make something. Don't go into it with an end goal of having some super popular AAA game and raking in tons of money. Do it for fun, do it for the experience, do it to say "I DID IT". Motivated people, regardless of their talent, will stick around and even improve themselves. Hell, I sometimes surprise myself when I look back on the art I made when I first joined this project and the art I make now. You do need some sort of leadership. It doesn't have to be super strict, but organization is a MUST. You need someone who can step up and organize meetings, say "this is what we need to get done", people to coordinate the different teams (code, art, etc), and who will make sure the members of the teams do what they need to do and meet deadlines. Without organization, the chances of this lifting off for more than a month are slim to none. I guess that is enough rambling for me. You aren't likely to find a bunch of people willing to commit if you don't get a little more of a concept nailed down. This is extremely vague and that is why it isn't reaching out and catching the eye of many people. I know you want to promote discussion here, but most of what has happened is people telling you to be more specific on what you're looking for and what-not, unfortunately. lol | |
Well in order to have a direction we come up with the story and then assign roles to each team member. so for example:
one programmer would work on cut scenes and transitions menus etc. one or more works on gameplay and that is divided into chapters, for example I would be making chapter one where the characters are introduced and the next one works on the 2nd part etc. and when one is complete then we get assigned another chunk of the game, and by breaking it up into smaller projects each and not an entire project as a whole then it will be easier to accomplish. We will need a leader to check in with each dev and see the progress and we will need to meet in a skype like environment to discuss the direction of the game bi weekly. then we would have sound engineers work on parts of the game at a time as well and do a song for each required area and sound effects. if we must we can use free sounds and music. as for artists I have read alot on it and we can use free art assets either as placeholders or as the permanate artwork for the game. Devs may realize we did this but the average buyer of our game will not and it is not wrong to use free art assets if it relays the story well and the game is fun. over all the game needs to be story boarded and concepts and ideas dicussed. we should combine our schudules so we know when we can meet and set a day every other week to skype chat and discuss the project. when we complete the game we will use kickstarter or indie gogo to fund us and try to go for steam and desura. then we would divide the profits to each member of the team and a percentage would go to building new projects. we would of course mention byond all over during the marketing of the game in order to draw positive attention our favorite game engine. OVERALL we must keep this simple and not to feature heavy if we even hope to finish it. | |
NOTE: I was writing my last post during albro1 writing his lol but most of what I said is much like his post. overall we need organization and a small fun to build project that is clear and direct.
EDIT: now that this is all said we must discuss roles and IDEAS no idea is stupid just start spit balling until we find one that we like. | |
Some ideas from the top of my head to get things rolling:
Themes we can use: Sci-fi Fantasy Modern day A pirate love story/adventure western- a old gunslinger dealing with the modern world taking over. on the same note perhaps a samurai who is no longer needed in the modernized world and is struggling to keep his family fed and to protect his honor. Perhaps a horror game where you start out in a normal life but over time start to realize you are insane and putting those around you at risk. perhaps some sort of game where an illness has taken over the land and your true love is dying and you must go on a quest to find the source of the sickness and end it in order to save her and your village. (Perhaps make it a timed game where you only have 5 hours total to finish the game) Perhaps a murder mystery where your family was kidnapped and killed and you are a detective searching for the killer but solve various other crimes in the meantime which lend you clues to the main case. Just a few I randomly thought up feel free to keep adding on . Bloodocean7 | |
We don't need to worry about roles right now. Roles within the team can be discussed and decided on when and if a team is formed. As long as we have an understanding of what field someone wants to join (code, pixel art, concept art, sound, etc), that is fine.
As for time limits on a game, I really feel like that is a very niche mechanic that is very hard to pull off well in a game. By its nature, it limits player creativity and exploration of the world you have constructed. If you utilize it, you should have a very good reason to do so. | |
Glad to see there are other positive people in the world @Albro1. People like that are indeed what will get things like this moving. I look forward to seeing what ideas this community conjures up. I'll kee checking back for new contributors wanting to be added to the list.
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I'll throw my name in the hat for level design.
Ive read through this post and wow. I've seen a few of those (we won't point any fingers here) that prove SilkWizard's point exactly. While Xirre wants to actually TRY to put together a team to build SOMETHING, there are those who just can't help but to nay-say. I very much agree with bloodocean when he says we should shoot for something single player and story driven. This I also think will be our best bet of getting whatever is made some public attention. As for concerns about leadership, all are very valid. With no sense of direction, the project will surely fail before it begins. Leadership provides the sense of direction every project needs. We SHOULD be thinking of this as a team. If we don't, everyone makes their own decisions which in the end result in a jumbled mess of a game. And while I agree that everyone will have to compromise, seeing as they have always lead themselves on whatever projects they have worked alone. We need multiple leaders, one for each "dev team" (art, code, sound, etc), who coordinate their efforts to make sure everyone is working on the same game. As for ideas, anything but zombies. Zombies are far too overplayed and the game will end up being just another zombie game in the pile. A survival-esque type game would get attention, but could prove challenging to build a story in. Sci-fi is garnering plenty of attention lately as technology forces people to question what it really means to be human. But alas, these are just the ramblings of a madman. . . | |
@pongy I agree with you on mutiple team leaders, I think that would help alot as one leader wouldnt have a ton of work to oversee.
Also I like the scifi idea perhaps some kind of AI that keeps the world running smoothly goes haywire or something. I know people are all about if AI become alive things are going to change drastically so that may be a good story. Also with Contara and windows 10 coming out peoples interest will be at a all time high in AI stories. Certainly no zombies, I agree there are just to many of them, and sandbox being my favorite type of game has a lot of hurdles to jump through, so a simple straight forward game to raise awareness of our team and get some funding should be the first project then we can tackle larger projects if we ended up working together very well. | |
Bloodocean7 wrote:
so a simple straight forward game to raise awareness of our team and get some funding should be the first project then we can tackle larger projects if we ended up working together very well. Just a quick question. Sorry to interrupt the group's discussion. But, funding for what? I mean, typically you only really need funding for licenses to things like steam and to pay for servers and not to mention artists of all types (who don't come cheap). However, since this is a community project, in the event you get artists do you really need funding? I can actually purchase a Steam Dev License for a BYOND project. I have enough sitting around to do just that. Or, you all can pitch in $10.00 or so and easily conjure that up. Or, spend $25.00 and release a mobile browser game on Android. Is there anything that's really needed that requires funding? Also... @pongy I agree with you on mutiple team leaders, I think that would help alot as one leader wouldnt have a ton of work to oversee. This is what the OP is for when it comes to giving each role a task to complete. It makes everyone a leader. Everyone depends on everyone. But, when there are multiple people doing each role, you don't run in to the whole issue where "Oh my gosh. We're missing our _____. Now we can't do any work!" Because you have 3 others to fill in anyways. If there are new roles, are changes to the roles that the group feels should be made, rewrite it and I'll post it in when you all agree on it. Well, once again, best of luck! | |
The reason for funding is a future sort of thing, should this project get completed we will need funding for marketing the game and for future projects we may work on.
Just throwing a game up on steam doesn't ensure success we need to launch advertising campaigns and merchandising etc. if we want this title and our future titles to gain alot of ground in the gaming community. Also for the future projects we may work on getting some kind of payment will motivate the team alot more and ensure a quality product. And furthermore in all my experience and research I've found artists DO NOT work for free and if they do it isn't for long, it seems all artists have ADD when it comes to unpaid work. so if we need great art for our future titles we will need a substantial budget for that. All in all, we should of course monetize the project. Indie GOGO and kickstarter should be our prime goals so we all have much more free time to work on projects. If our bills are paid and foods on the table there is alot more time to be devoting to byond projects and not to a 40 hour work week . Just my opinion of course and I'm open to other thoughts. | |
Also..
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Hey Xirre, assuming you aren't trolling. What is your role? I assumed project manager but that's blank.
Are you saying that you're just gonna make this thread, link some people then leave them to make a triple A game? | |
Xirre said he wanted to try to get this moving, but couldn't participate himself.
He made the wheel and gave it a little push for us, now it is up to us to get behind it and get it up the hill. | |
Bloodocean7 wrote:
Also.. Haha, good point. I'll donate to the Kickstarter/Indiegogo then since it's not my show. Albro1 wrote: Xirre said he wanted to try to get this moving, but couldn't participate himself. Correct. | |
Well, without a project manager and not even the original poster wanting to manage the project... Project will fail. That's not an opinion even, without a manager it 'will' fail.
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Well, I am willing to manage the programmers, but we would need two more managers. I have some free time and Id love to see this turn out to be more than talk.
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Zecronious wrote:
Well, without a project manager and not even the original poster wanting to manage the project... Project will fail. That's not an opinion even, without a manager it 'will' fail. I'm wizard, "it" shall not fail. Thus I have learned the dark arts which will bring our success rates to the extreme. My black magic will fuffill every posisition that is needed. I required this kind of power by the book of Zeref. | |
Bloodocean7 wrote:
Well, I am willing to manage the programmers, but we would need two more managers. I have some free time and Id love to see this turn out to be more than talk. Well so far nothing has been started. So currently all talk. Also, 3 manager. Ha oh god. Yeah good luck with that. Have you ever seen what happens when a whole bunch of people all think they're the leader? | |