43 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

It seems that there is a consensus among the authorities that I should be the leader for this project. Not that I'm a big fan of big hierarchies and drama, so I'll keep it flat and pretty open-ended. Also, I cannot guarantee I'll be available for consultation every day, so I'm guessing we should have vice-leaders around that can be consulted when questions arise.

 

The thought is that Revora Racer is supposed to be open for anyone at Revora and outside to participate in, so adding all sorts of loops and rules is not a priority. I do intend to write a basic design document and have a short-list of items we need to get a working game out the door, but I've yet to start developing that document and it will not be mine alone to adjust, or write.

 

My goal as a leader is to get us a list of things we need, and try to keep us focused on producing something shippable. 90% of indie games never gets published, which is something to think about as we start digging into this. I'll also help out with programming, Photoshop,  concept art and 3d-modelling/animation when I find the time. As I've got access to paid licenses to most Adobe products and Autodesk Maya, it's a bit easier for us to develop this without using pirated software. 

 

If anyone has any trouble with putting me on top, I'll gladly put that up to the powers that be and we'll have a look at it. By and all, those that spend time and energy producing assets for RR will be given leeway in whatever requests they have for RR.

[Pasidon]

Har.  Why would the project need a leader?  None of us know the exact design of what we want, and all decisions and designs will be decided by us as a whole.  But yea, you can be master of... erm... things.  But I guess one thing you should be doing is ensuring we stay on track and don't stop making progress.  I've been doing that, and it's already annoying.  But yea, you keep people working and make sure we have enough staff and skills to keep going, mmm'k?  

[duke_Qa]

Yeah, I prefer it if we try to keep this as open as possible for now, and when we get into a conflict about something we have a backup-plan that allows us to keep on moving ahead. I also hope to have some help on keeping things moving from some veterans of the forums that have made their intentions known to me, so I hope to get some help on that.

[Gen.Kenobi]

Organization is a must. Even if we're an Open Project, we should have clean goals and milestones.

 

I think what we need atm is to get the basic protype up and running. Once we have all the programming side, adding assets shouldn't be that difficult.

But that doesn't means that we need to wait for the prototype to be ready. We should start discussing and doing the main art direction of the game, the main design.

So, If I may, here's a basic list:

 

> Phase I - Prototype - (a.k.a very basic racing game)

-- Needs generic art done - generic kart model & generic character model (both textured, rigged, and ready)

-- Needs codding.

 

> Phase II - Add - (a.k.a we shall start making our game unique)

-- Needs the art direction already set up, with characters designed, tracks, themes, stuff like that.

-- Needs codding for the specific stuff (power-ups, modular things, customization options)

 

> Phase III - Final - (a.k.a we add a shitload of more stuff and finish the game)

-- More art and assets, more tracks, ect.

-- Story Mode?

-- Functional AI?

 

 

But yeah. This is just a rough sketch of what we'll need.

@duke> you're free to change, do whatever you wish

[DIGI_Byte]

Well i got wind of this from Radspakr, so im still kept in the loop on the current happenings, so before i go. I'd like to pop out that I'm working on an arcade racing style game targeted for the android/iOS audiance

it's called Blade Racer and i've been messing around with bluetooth/wifi multiplayer support although i've fallen short on workable cars, the issue being arcade style and not really requiring much for physics and algorithms
i could go into it, but i don't feel its 'arcade' if the only thing telling a car to pivot back when the collision is simply falling to counter the slope

but i digress, I have a racing game in the works, the idea's are paved out and its quite a 'light' game which is one of the goals

 

the game in question is a light speed racing game simular to "audio surf" or the old G-Force games which i so do miss and love.


if you'd be willing to pick it up and help me, i'd gladly share the rewards and credits. if not feel free to go ahead with what idea's you've got

 

(screenshot attached - sorry its the only one i have available atm, its from another forum)

Edited by DIGI_Byte, 25 January 2013 - 10:18 PM.

[DIGI_Byte]

i'd like to address an issue of "open project" now when people say that, they often don't think it through.
the reason being, what part is open? is it the game design, the theme, the extra addons or features.

you have to be honest and understand that a project cant move forward if its always in the drawing board, as some people have mentioned, projects need leaders and direction on a game, open applies to smaller things along the way during development, like weapons and modifiers etc but it never strays to far from its core shell idea which those ideas go into
and someone has to lead and call the shots on a project, even if its 'open' because what if majority of the group wants some retarded trash style game and thats not what the goal is?

now I know you agree with what I said, so someone needs to pull gears and strings, and i'd be more then happy if duke does, and if he's interested in what i have at the table im more then happy to give it out and expand on it

and if that would happen there is one small limitation, i have a Android/iOs for 3.x not 4 as they changed all their licensing for 4.x
its not big deal as the only thing new in 4.x is that motion package and a few bugs/tweaks and minor things

Edited by DIGI_Byte, 25 January 2013 - 10:29 PM.

[Gen.Kenobi]

DIGI, welcome back! On a completely unrelated note - not regarding what you posted here, as I'll adress it later - would you be interested to be hosted here at Revora?

[DIGI_Byte]

ha, i used to be staff 
I miss that... anyway, as being hosted? are you referring to my Blade Racer Project?

[Gen.Kenobi]

Yep, do you want Blade Racer here with us?

Or maybe heading the Unity3D division? We could sure use some staff here to keep things up and running

Phill should have the final say about the staff stuff, but if you wish to get hosted, let me know

[DIGI_Byte]

Ha, i thought you were joking at first about heading unity division... but in honesty, I'm probably the only one other then duke that knows anything about unity, if that were to happen i'd be inclined to be around more often

anyway that aside,

Im not sure with blade yet, I mean, I'm not sure how far this Revora racer is set in everyone's minds but i really dont like the go cart theme. its cheap mockup of Mario cart and they tend to be somewhat forgotten as a generic racer as the only one that really stands out is Mario cart 64, and not even Nintendo could recreate its 'magic' the n64 had, there has been many, hundreds of clone games of it, most obvious is donkey Kong racing, you also have krash bandicoot that did a racing game of the same style, it was fun but nothing ever lived up to being something better and i think thats where we should aim if its a group project, something better, something different and i haven't seen anyone bring anything to the table.

At the moment its kind of like everyone nodding around a water cooler saying that's a good idea, maybe its just my sleepy head or its my taste in games but I've not been entirely comfortable with a go-cart thing

the main reason for not asking for hosting is a generic game like this, is often a one man job and i wont need much more then a blog page. can i get blog hosting?

the other reason is that its possible others like my idea and would like the RR project to pick up from Blade Racer
too me, i see it as doing 2 birds with one stone, but again, is that what you guys want as the RR project?

Edited by DIGI_Byte, 26 January 2013 - 04:49 PM.

[Pasidon]

I wouldn't vote for a racing game at all, but it got most people gitty, so I didn't really oppose it (after I knew I was the only one who thought it was a terrible idea).

[DIGI_Byte]

your not Alone, i mean, a racing game is a racing game and honestly it isn't a big seller to a majority, ideally you find a niche and go for it
its why i prefer Blade Racer, its niche is a mobile to mobile multiplayer game, well... when its done

[Gen.Kenobi]

BladeRacer and Revora can be "sisters", but I don't think we'll want a completely merge.

 

Our idea was to create a simple fun game with the people from Revora in order to make us all gain experience into game development, but also to bring the indie community closer to Revora, in order to shape it's new long-term vision for the future of the community itself.

 

In simple words: We want to create a fun game in order to increase the activity of our own community and hopefully expand it and it's areas of interest.

 

(That's basically the idea behind RR).

[DIGI_Byte]

Sister? I don't think so!

jokes aside Blade Racer is so different from mario cart they cant be seen as related, I'll get hosting after i've done a portion of work done on it, there's some other stuff i need to do first before i get it hosted, if i decide too
however i'll be around to help code and do stuff

[duke_Qa]

GenKen: That was ominously close to what I said in a conversation with Digi a few hours back. I guess we must have managed to communicate our thoughts quite clearly in the idea section of the intro thread.

 

Quick summary: A silly little Battle-Kart game that doesn't take itself seriously and takes refuge in audacity

[DIGI_Byte]

I feel this is somewhat relevant to our interests and the way we should work together

[DIGI_Byte]

I have several packages from Unity that I can share to help wit the development, namely
NGUI - Gui Solution
Playmaker - Visial scripting state machine, ideal for managing states such as menu's and characters

Tile Based map and Nav - allows square and hex based nev ( probably no use for racing game)
Lock'n Shoot - turret aiming system with prediction etc
Custom Radial Menu - Radial menu's simular to BFME
Radial Clipping system - create and clip textures and elements in a radial fashion
Decal System - paint decals on terrain and mesh with optimized coding

[duke_Qa]

Scrum is a scary word but its known to me, I'll look into that once I'm out of work.

 

Also on the topic of items available for us, I think we still have that accursed unity license problem that means you have to have one per contributor/unity user. is that the same for those addons?

Edited by duke_Qa, 30 January 2013 - 08:35 AM.

[DIGI_Byte]

thankfully not, you wont have the rights or permissions to the latest version sept the account holder, as long as we arn't distributing it or giving it out freely or asking money for it, its fine, so far I've only bought one thing that's one per seat and that was some tree shader package which was a failure in itself

 

only the main project leader/coder would have the packages

Edited by DIGI_Byte, 30 January 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[Gen.Kenobi]

I think we need to have weekly live-meetings under IRC (it could be on #revora channel). In order to help increase the overall organization and set up milestones.