Thursday, June 3, 2010

Thinking of starting this again.

It's been almost two years since I went on hiatus. In that time, I've developed actual game making skills, enough that I think I could at least make a working prototype by the end of the summer.

Some of the changes to the project I had in mind were:
  • Allowing use of non-free software to create content and code. Originally I was set on using Blender to make the models, GIMP to work with textures and such, Eclipse for the IDE, and the OpenJava JDK for code. But trying to teach myself to use Blender was a pain in the ass (the default UI and controls are just a headache, and given that the new version seem   s to change a lot of the UI, I put it off). I've learned to use a wealth of other 3D authoring tools, namely Maya and have my own copy for personal use. I'm also much more proficient with Photoshop than with the GIMP, which is nice since Photoshop is industry standard. I also decided to change the development environment entirely, which is explained below.
  • Using a different engine - Unity. Originally I wanted to use jMonkeyEngine as I was impressed with the work done on JCRPG. But having worked with Unity over the past year, it is incredibly simple to prototype in Unity (I've done two 48-hour game jams using the engine). It just seemed like a natural choice to start the project at this point.
I hoping to get started some time this week, but work keeps me pretty busy (two jobs will do that to you).

Some other issues I have on mind:
  • Hosting: Right now I have a web host for my personal website, and I think it would be possible for me to install some type of code repo (though I could also go with a decentralized repo like Mercurial).
  • Attracting talent: I do not want to do all of this on my own. So there a few positions I'd like to have before really setting off
    • Art Director: someone to set the style of the game.
    • Musician: The game will need music and sounds.
    • Web Developer: This person would be in charge of the web PR for the game, so they would build a website for the game, handle social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
    • Mac tester: I'd like to have someone test builds on a Mac just in case. I don't have a Mac personally, so I couldn't do it.
  • As for the art content (chracters, and other models), I'd like one person or a small group to be in charge of each of the non-player characters (NPCs). So they would design character based on the established art style, write backstory and dialogue, and possibly voice act for them.
  • Animation wise, all the characters will be built off a base model, so they'll have the same skeleton and pull from a common library of animations. But each character group can customize with individual animations if they so choose.
The first thing I'm going to do is create a simple base model, create two animations (idle and walking), and then load that into Unity and make it control by walking.

If anyone is interested this project, leave a comment! I'd like all the help I could get!

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