What about a boardsie made game?

witnessmenow

I've always really wanted to make a game, but i think its probably too much of a task for me to under go myself, plus I have the creativity of plank of wood.

So as they say, strength in numbers! I'm sure there is other people in a similar position to me, who'd like to make a game but cant under take the whole task A couple of could team up , brainstorm ideas, manage the project with google code or something. Even having other people waiting on your productivity will give you a bit of drive!

So would anyone be interested in something like this? I really like the first project to be something small and simple.

[Boring]
Just to give you a tiny bit of a background on my experience (or lack of!)

I did Electronic and Computer Engineering in NUIG and finished in 09.
I've been working as an embedded developer since January.

Toyed around with DS development (Palib) while I was in College, My FYP was an app for the DS that would control a robot over wifi using a simple socket server.

Also made a stab at a couple of crappy DS "games" in my spare time, made a space invaders clone (with a dodgy hitbox, never bothered fixing it) and a sudoko solver (really half finished, would solve really simple ones, had some issue where it wouldnt run on real hardware, again never bothered with it)

Also did a few projects in college with games, I made a text based towers of hanoi game that used reinforcement learning to learn how to play itself optiminly and a real crappy open gl version of space invaders.

Anima

I might be up for something. Why don't you take a look at the Unity engine? Theres a free version and it can run on PC or iPhone/iPad.

witnessmenow

Cool I'll have a look into it. I haven't used any third party engines at all so it will all be fairly new to me.

I honestly believe that someone could not right a single line of code and be a very important member a game development team, Ideas is where its at! There is lots and lots of people who can program, but its the ones with the ideas that succeed Also its not just the initial idea, there is always going to be a tonne of design decisions along the way

I personally think the first step would be the idea, decide what you want the game to do , fan out some of the finer details (like if you want powerups, different player classes levels etc) how you would like it to be controlled (does it need touch screen inputs? etc). And when you have that nailed down pick a platform and then how its going to be implemented (engines etc). Do people have better suggestions on how to attack the task?

humanji

Well the first part is putting a core team together. Then you have to decide what type of game you want to make. Then you have to add more team members to fill the roles that the core members can't. Then you have to plot out exactly how your game works. Then, I believe comes profit.

Edit: Oh, I should probably ahve said that I'd be interested too. Don't have a huge technical background. I did some programming in college, made a few mods for various games but nothing special. But I'm a writer and handy at the creative end of things.

Anima

witnessmenow wrote:

Cool I'll have a look into it. I haven't used any third party engines at all so it will all be fairly new to me.

Unity is very friendly to begin with I think. Theres lots of tutorials and everything is done inside one editor so its all there. Plus there are lots of different demos you can look at and break apart to see how you might make a certain type of game (racing, platform etc).

The only problem with a 3D game is that theres a lot of work involved and you need various skills. So basically you need a team unless you can code, do 2D and 3D art as well as sounds.

I think just pick a very simple idea that doesn't need too much graphical content and work on coding the basic gameplay mechanics. The best way would be to sit down with some pen and paper and plan it out and see what work needs to be done. Then you can look for people to help out.

witnessmenow

Ok, I'll describe one idea of a game i "had".

I'm playing a lot of a game called Altitude at the moment. Its a simple 2d plane dogfighting game with a few different classes and a various perks for each class. Specifically I'm playing a mode called ball, which is a football mode (there is a ball and two goals, planes pick the ball up and can shoot/pass it) In the last couple of months I've sank 60 hours into it, its nothing special just, good fun!

It reminds me a lot of a mini game I used to play on exitabike64, where there was a giant ball on a big open playing field and you would try score against the opposition (1v1 2v2 only), this was a bit different to Altitude as you dont pick up the ball, you hit it with you momentum. It was the sort of thing if you had a few fellas playing it you could play for hours.

So I was thinking of doing something similar but with cars, ala top gear soccer. Ok so your probably thinking other than hitting a ball what makes this different to any other game... well there is one thing.

I like racing games with un-realistic slide physics, something like earlier GTA3 where you can throw your self around a corner fairly forgivingly at any speed! And I was thinking has anyone ever used a touch screen (or mouse on the screen) to implement a slide? (this may be hard to describe without a diagram) But what if touching on the screen created an imaginary circle , where your car was on the circumference of the circle and where you touched was the centre and the car would travel along that path.

I'll pad out the idea a bit better later (better get back to work )

docdolittle

I'd be up for making a boardsie game Just about to start making my own game in Unity for a portfolio piece (Might switch to Unreal if I just end up with models and bad gameplay) But a collaboration might work out well

We could always do a practice run at a small game, even a demo or prototype and see how we work together..? Big projects seem to get abandoned a lot especially with mods and things like that.

witnessmenow

More the merrier.

Does anyone have any ideas to ping around? Even if the first thing that was made was little more than a tech demo it would be good to get something up and running

humanji

I'll kill anyone who steals this idea. I was going to make this in Flash, but got distracted by bigger plans:

It's called Zombie Proof (patent pending!). The idea is that you've got two guys in a room and they have to board up the doors and windows to make the room zombie proof. The rooms will vary in size and shape and will have more entrances as the difficulty increases. Zombies randomly get into the room and try to kill the player.

The player controls two guys with a mouse (it can be adapted to a gamepad). The right-click controls one guy, the left controls the other. The right-click guy has a hammer, nails and boards. If the player clicks on a zombie he'll hit them but won't kill them (he just knocks them back). If he clicks on a door or window he'll board it up, temporarily stopping the zombies (but the longer you take to finish the level, the more chances of them breaking through).

The left-click guy has a shotgun. He can't board up doors, so he has to protect the other guy.

There can be various upgrades to the shotgun and hammer etc that will speed up their use, or make them more powerful etc. The zombies change too, some being faster, some needing more shots to be taken down.

If either of the two guys is killed, then the player loses. The level is complete when all doors and windows are boarded shut.

How's that then?

docdolittle

humanji wrote: »

I'll kill anyone who steals this idea. I was going to make this in Flash, but got distracted by bigger plans:

It's called Zombie Proof (patent pending!). The idea is that you've got two guys in a room and they have to board up the doors and windows to make the room zombie proof. The rooms will vary in size and shape and will have more entrances as the difficulty increases. Zombies randomly get into the room and try to kill the player.

The player controls two guys with a mouse (it can be adapted to a gamepad). The right-click controls one guy, the left controls the other. The right-click guy has a hammer, nails and boards. If the player clicks on a zombie he'll hit them but won't kill them (he just knocks them back). If he clicks on a door or window he'll board it up, temporarily stopping the zombies (but the longer you take to finish the level, the more chances of them breaking through).

The left-click guy has a shotgun. He can't board up doors, so he has to protect the other guy.

There can be various upgrades to the shotgun and hammer etc that will speed up their use, or make them more powerful etc. The zombies change too, some being faster, some needing more shots to be taken down.

If either of the two guys is killed, then the player loses. The level is complete when all doors and windows are boarded shut.

How's that then?

I came up with a slight variation of that, but it was 4-6 players and you could sacrifice others to escape the zombie horde and barricade the next area.. They could use anything in a room (Tables, chairs etc.) to help barricade everything up before the timer ran out and the zombies reached where you are. once I wrote it all down and showed it to some people, I was told it's been done before in a mod :rolleyes:

witnessmenow

Sounds interesting! I wonder how the brain will cope with controlling two guys with the one mouse, like if one guy had a shotgun and a hammer I wouldnt see any issues, but I wonder how I'd cope with two guys!

Other than writing a local (same machine) co -op game we'd be venturing into the lovely world of networking, although it wouldnt be hard to implement does add an extra level of complexion

humanji

witnessmenow wrote: »

Sounds interesting! I wonder how the brain will cope with controlling two guys with the one mouse, like if one guy had a shotgun and a hammer I wouldnt see any issues, but I wonder how I'd cope with two guys!

Other than writing a local (same machine) co -op game we'd be venturing into the lovely world of networking, although it wouldnt be hard to implement does add an extra level of complexion

Well, the fun of the game comes from f*cking people over when they mean to do a right-click, but do a left-click. That sort of thing adds to the fun.

With regards multiplayer, there's always the possibility of having one player as the "Zombie Master", which adds a bit more fun to the situation.

docdolittle

I just re-read the idea... It's going to be a 2d game?

humanji

Who's? Witnessmenow's or mine? Mine could be top down or 3d. Originally I pictured it as a simple top down flash game to play in your browser.

witnessmenow

I presume he was talking about yours


Mine would be 2d btw

docdolittle

humanji wrote: »

Who's? Witnessmenow's or mine? Mine could be top down or 3d. Originally I pictured it as a simple top down flash game to play in your browser.

Yup, was talking about yours Ah I'm more than likely out, I'm mainly a 3d artist...

humanji

Well you don't have to go with either of the two ideas posted, and both could be modified to 3d, I'm sure. For example, my idea could be done like the Alien Swarm game.

RedXIV

I'd be interested in joining this. I'm trying to get back on the coding bandwagon. I did the Games Developement course in Carlow and coding would be my (albeit very rusty) strong point.

Would be up for any kind of collaboration that I could fit around work and family.

Might even have some old ideas floating around in a college folder somewhere that i should dig out

docdolittle

Hmm... I never actually put up any of my ideas :pac: I've loads of little game ideas written down in notepads and all over my computer, my as well put one up. (If any of it doesn't make sense, just ask, I usually write these fairly fast and they prob only make sense to me since it's in my head already )

I didn't finish the level brief but here's basically what one idea was. Think Lego games for the camera view/style of game. 3rd person or 2d could also work.

Papercraft Adventures

Overview: The Main Papercraft character starts off badly crafted,other materials/elements are taking over the 'world'. Papercraft decides to strike back at this. Fighting against elements such as metal, plastic, ink and environmental hazards such as rain & fire. Can fight each one of these elements with learned abilities form defeting previous elements. Example; After you defeat plastic gain laminated character, Metal – gain paperclips (ability to climb certain surfaces and resist fire). The characters appearance also becomes improved as his/her own papercraft abilities grow.

As you progress through the levels, they turn to paper as you defeat the bosses of each level e.g. confetti rushes through level, textures change to paper

Level 1
Paper Level. This will be the main training level of the game, showing the control systems and how to play and progress through the game. Starts with a bad papercraft character. Low amount of easy enemies.

Level 2
Ink level. Avoiding ink puddles and other items such as pens. 1st boss at the end of this level

Intermission: With the power of ink and papercraft learned, you can now customise your characters appearance.

Level 3
Plastic level. Slippy level in places. Boss. Gain ability to use plastic (Laminated against water)

Level 4
Water Level

Level 5
Metal Level

Level 6
Final level. Fire level with all other elements needed to be used to win.

I know it still needs a fair bit of work, but.... What you guys think?

humanji

Oddly enough, I had a fairly similar idea just the other day. I was thinking more along the lines of a Zelda kind of adventure. I pictured a 2d paper character that was done in 3d (when walked up the screen you would see that he was just some slices of paper held together with thumbtacks).

I was thinking that there could be all sorts of areas to go that would require different abilities. Because he was paper he'd have to avoid water and fire etc, but getting laminated would protect against water (and fire would melt the lamination, making the player vulnerable to water again). The user could find and buy different weapons and tools to help them along their way and other tools could be made by the player. For example a paperclip and some chewinggum foil could form an umbrella, or the paperclip could be straightened to form a spear etc.

The main premise was that is was a paper figure in a large office, but the normal office materials formed into a "Dungeons & Dragons" type world. It would be interesting to make different items from things you find lying about.


I also had another idea that was literally a Boards game. It was a kind of comedy RPG based around Boards. The user starts off as a disgruntled forum troll and decides to try to the "Fight da Powah!" as some many disgruntled users have tried. Again, this was a kind of Zelda based game (I was just going to use an RPG maker engine), that represented the various forums and users of the site. The player had to gain ranks and win over the users of the various forums so that he can take on the forum mods, then the CMods the Admins and finally DeVore himself. And then I thought a good twist ending is that after he defeats DeVore, he realises that he's now the most powerful user in the land and has himself become the Powah that he sought to destroy.

I'm starting to think I have too much time on my hands.

docdolittle

humanji wrote: »

Oddly enough, I had a fairly similar idea just the other day. I was thinking more along the lines of a Zelda kind of adventure. I pictured a 2d paper character that was done in 3d (when walked up the screen you would see that he was just some slices of paper held together with thumbtacks).

I was thinking that there could be all sorts of areas to go that would require different abilities. Because he was paper he'd have to avoid water and fire etc, but getting laminated would protect against water (and fire would melt the lamination, making the player vulnerable to water again). The user could find and buy different weapons and tools to help them along their way and other tools could be made by the player. For example a paperclip and some chewinggum foil could form an umbrella, or the paperclip could be straightened to form a spear etc.

The main premise was that is was a paper figure in a large office, but the normal office materials formed into a "Dungeons & Dragons" type world. It would be interesting to make different items from things you find lying about.


I also had another idea that was literally a Boards game. It was a kind of comedy RPG based around Boards. The user starts off as a disgruntled forum troll and decides to try to the "Fight da Powah!" as some many disgruntled users have tried. Again, this was a kind of Zelda based game (I was just going to use an RPG maker engine), that represented the various forums and users of the site. The player had to gain ranks and win over the users of the various forums so that he can take on the forum mods, then the CMods the Admins and finally DeVore himself. And then I thought a good twist ending is that after he defeats DeVore, he realises that he's now the most powerful user in the land and has himself become the Powah that he sought to destroy.

I'm starting to think I have too much time on my hands.

Wow, I thought of something along those lines too when I was thinking up my one :P I was trying to decided what type of game it should be, I wrote down an RPG one just like that and my other one above At the time, I was thinking about making my own papercraft series (RPG, Side scrolling Action, RTS) See what worked best and put it up as a portfolio piece.

I'm just wondering now, how would you do After Hours in a 'boards' game

RedXIV

So which one would you like to do?

can't help cracking the whip here, but i've seen first hand how easy it is for an idea to die off fast. Do you want to compile a list of people with skills or start with particular tasks?

Am itching to get started with a new project

humanji

Well, I'm open. I'd say something small to start off with, that will let everyone who wants to be involved know what it's like working with everyone else. Although, I'm not adverse to diving straight in with a more complex project.

witnessmenow

A resounding "oh god no" to a boards game! I'd like to be able to have some pride when I'm explaining the premise of a game im working to friends and family! :pac:

After hours would be the last level, hell, btw :P

When I read your idea for paper craft, I was imaging an art style similar to something like coolspot on the Snes that played somewhat similar to megaman. (Just writing down my initial thoughts on it). I think its a good idea, needs padding out though. I dont know how to put in words exactly, but I wouldnt be a massive fan of "oh you just won the ability to laminate, which is fortunate because the next level is completely water based!" I'd prefer the kinda megaman method where you can choose whatever level you like, but certain power ups a re benifical in certain levels, but not essential(im actually not a massive megaman fan before anybody complains about it ) I dont mean any offense by the above

Something I think would be kinda cool would be the game is based on kid in his room who should be studying or something and he creates this character instead and imagines him going through all this stuff in his room, so one level might be at his desk another at his bed etc..

Another idea I thought of would be if he had a slightly over powered attack where he throws papers planes so something, but it does damage to him.

When he gets hurt he could look tattered and ripped and stuff

I do like the idea of the zombie survival too, i think games like that work better co-op though (although you are kinda playing co-op with yourself :P)

Whip cracking is a good thing, cause you're right it could easily be forgotten about. TBH I probably wont get to start into it "full time" Un till mid sept, I have 2 weeks holidays planned in between and the lady is going back to the UK, so thats when I'll have some spare time!

RedXIV

You're not alone there, I won't have much "free time" (if any can be had with a month old baby in house) until near the 3rd week of sept when work calms down a bit. But in saying that, if we were to do it, then even an hour or two can add something, be it to a sprite, texture or code.

I really like the paper guy idea being effected by the elements, it's simple and offers loads of potential gameplay elements. I think it could be made into something very interesting although for some reason i keep getting LittleBigPlanet in my head when I think of it.


So what skills do we have here that we can use? even for concept art to get us started

docdolittle

RedXIV wrote: »

I really like the paper guy idea being effected by the elements, it's simple and offers loads of potential gameplay elements. I think it could be made into something very interesting although for some reason i keep getting LittleBigPlanet in my head when I think of it.


So what skills do we have here that we can use? even for concept art to get us started

LBP/lego batman is the style that I was kind of going for

I have 3ds Max, Photoshop, Unity, Unreal 'skills'... :P

I can model texture and level design...(Basic Animations too) Really bad at scripting, but can do some in Unity.

I'm up for doing the papercraft idea... I know I mentioned it, but it still needs to be worked on and with more input we could actually make it into a decent enough game.

I could make a quick prototype in Unity when we decide on the gameplay we're going for if you guys want?

Crack that whip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14rrp_521tk

humanji

witnessmenow wrote: »

When I read your idea for paper craft, I was imaging an art style similar to something like coolspot on the Snes that played somewhat similar to megaman. (Just writing down my initial thoughts on it). I think its a good idea, needs padding out though. I dont know how to put in words exactly, but I wouldnt be a massive fan of "oh you just won the ability to laminate, which is fortunate because the next level is completely water based!" I'd prefer the kinda megaman method where you can choose whatever level you like, but certain power ups a re benifical in certain levels, but not essential(im actually not a massive megaman fan before anybody

That's what I was kind of thinking by describing it as "zelda like". You can play one level or area early on, but if you find/buy/win equipment of some type later on, you can go back and find other bonuses or access to levels. It'll keep the player from feeling the gameis too linear and it'll open up more opportunities for the designers to have some fun with the levels.

With regards to skills on offer, as I said above I'd probably be suited more to design than the technical aspects. I'm a screenwriter, so coming up with odd ideas is what I'm most comfortable doing. I did programming in college (although I've forgotten most of it) and I'm just learning how to use Unity right now.

RedXIV

So we've got art assets from docdolittle with some unity scripting thrown in for fun

RopeDrink for the occasional bit or artistic help

Humanji got some design skills (not to be understimated, level design can be a bitch)

I can code (but rusty, will take me a little while to get back to the standard i was)

As far as i can remember, witnessmenow and Anima are both coders too.

Ideally Another artist would be great because it's alot of work to throw on docdolitte but if he's happy with it, we could definitely roll with this. In particular if we're starting with the likes of the Unity engine. At this stage we'd be technically "brainstorming" and ironing out ideas


I like Humanji's level design idea of having levels with areas only accessible after future levels are completed but be warned that'll make level design an awful lot harder.

It is entirely possible that we've gotten too ambitious at the moment, If we can get to the stage where we have one complete level, thats when we can start really getting into this. I'd say have a goal to get one level complete by January or something (completely pulling that out of nowhere) and then work from there. If one level is done anyway, thats still about 50% of the work done, everything after that is expanding on the stuff we already have


I've also realised I've completely hijacked this thing, sorry

humanji

If this things going to go ahead, would it be an idea to ask the site admins for a hosted private forum of some sort, so we have somewhere to discuss things and won't have EA stealing our ideas?

RedXIV

I'm all for stopping EA make more money.

Free forum please!

docdolittle

If you guys are looking to make this game with goals and deadlines, I'd suggest https://www.assembla.com

It's built for team projects, I used it in college and it came in pretty handy

RedXIV

A managment tool like that would be handy but i'm too cheap to shell out for one. Will look into it tonight and see if I can find a free one.

http://projectlocker.com/ has a free bundle as long as we limit the team to 5 members.

Will see if i can find something better

docdolittle

Assembla is free...

RedXIV

docdolittle wrote: »

Assembla is free...

ahem whoops

Anima

Never used anything like Assembla but it looks quite handy. Why doesn't someone set all that up and go from there?

witnessmenow

What kind of a set up would we go for?

I'm using Trac and Subversion at work and think it works very well.

RedXIV

It seems with Assembla (i could be wrong) that you only get one of the following:

• Subversion
• GIT
• Open source hosting
• StandUp / Scrum Space

So Subversion probably be the best option? I do like the idea of having a system of Trac but I can't say it'd be essential

Anima

Subversion would be fine.

witnessmenow

I'd say Assembla with subversion (or GIT, i've no familiarity with the other 2 things) could do for now ok.

Another option could be to get a linux based VPS and set it up however we wanted it (trac , subversion and we could probably host wikis and/or a website on them too)

The lowest option would be plenty. I'll have a look into it , I wouldn't mind covering the first few months, its not dear anyways.

RedXIV

Def think we need to have a good ole brainbashing session before we start shelling out cash for stuff. If we got everyone interested online for a chat or something then we could iron out details and make sure everyone is happy with the direction of the project. I'd hate for witnessmenow to stump up for something that dies after the first week. Realistically, we don't need those management tools just yet. Especially if we're still trying to decide what we're going to do.

I'd make a group chat the first priority. Boards is all well and good but it's hard to keep the enthusiasm at a high when you're waiting hours for responses

witnessmenow

Yeah I'd be up for that, could do it most evenings, except tomorrow.

RedXIV

Well give a bit of notice so people can get their stuff together or mention it to any other interested parties. i.e. monday week?

Gives people time to forumulate ideas and is not a night that people are likely to have plans (apologies to people who do )

docdolittle

Yup I'd be up for that. When you say chat do you mean text or voice because we'll have to decided on what to use to chat :P

RedXIV

Well if everyone has voice chat capabilities then we can go with something like skype?

Otherwise good ole msn messenger or even find some abandoned chatroom somewhere that we can take over

witnessmenow

Normal ol gmail will do group chats in the browser. Is also handy as it keeps a record of the chat if you wanted to reference it later.

I could host a conference bridge over VoIP if ye wanted? (You can get a free blueface account and a soft ip phone, xlite for free. The call would also be free).

The only downfall would be how my bandwitdh would hold up, but i should be able to take at least 4+me anyways

RedXIV

I think there's a valid point made there about reference. It might be more worthwhile sticking with gmail (maybe google wave?)

But if the people want VoIP, let me know so i can get me a headset :cool:

witnessmenow

RedXIV wrote: »

I think there's a valid point made there about reference. It might be more worthwhile sticking with gmail (maybe google wave?)

But if the people want VoIP, let me know so i can get me a headset :cool:

Google wave is dead man :pac: . Tex chat probably would be fine for a first meeting anyways

Well actually I could record the conference bridge too, and distribute by email ,after I've everyone consent obviously!

Anima

I don't think investing money is necessary really.

As for a place to chat, I think gmail group chat would be fine. That or maybe mIRC would be better.

docdolittle

I agree, none of us really have to spend money on this, there are plenty of free resources out there to use. I've mIRC anyway so I don't mind that, Messenger or anything like that we can group chat on.

RedXIV

I've never got around to trying mIRC, this could be the excuse I need to set it up. Will we go with that for monday next? maybe 8pm or so?

How does this sound to people?

docdolittle

around that time suits me You could also try ChatZilla red, it's an irc add-on to firefox

Oh, if we use irc and anyone isn't familiar with it, you can use mibbit to get onto the server that we're going to use and to get into a channel you write

/join #channelhere

to change your nickname

/nick yourname