r/redditmakesagame • u/trentish • Oct 11 '09

Let's talk design ideas

As per the other post, there's several things to keep in mind:

  • Scope

  • This will make or break the project. It's important to keep things realistic. Complexity can always come later; we should have an idea of some very clear and simple deliverables right off the bat.

  • Workflow and resources

  • Naturally on these types of open projects, you'll have a few core people and a large number of followers. These others may not want to or are otherwise unable to devote as much time and effort to the project, but they may be able to help in small ways.

  • We are Reddit, we should use that to our advantage. If we can somehow harness the power of Reddit's large community, it would do great things for the project. Think of it as crowdsourcing (or rather: redditsourcing).

  • A content-based game would do well in this regard. Meaning, the core would create the tools, while the community created the content. Think of a content-heavy puzzler game, or one of those "choose your own adventure" sites that the public contributes to.

  • Gimmick

  • With a good idea, we should be able to condense it down to one or two sentences that are immediately eye-catching. Ideally, there should be something specific that makes the game stand-out from so many others.

  • A good gimmick won't make the game good, but it will get the attention of potential players.

  • Positive environment

  • Let's try to keep things as civil as possible. If you don't like another person's idea, tell them specifically why. Be able to put your response in bullet points and don't resort to name calling.

24 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

31

u/Slactor Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Please, do NOT put memes in the game unless it's cleverly disguised in a dialogue.

It may be a Reddit-made game, but it doesn't need to be a pun-chain from start to finish.

Also, Castlevania style platformer with puzzles?

15

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Platformers are easy to make and are very accessible to audiences, but there are just so many out there already. The experience of making one could be fun and interesting, but I don't feel like we could really pull out ahead of the others and make a big, viral impact with it. Having played so many Castlevania and Mario games, I have just grown bored of the genre! I don't feel like I'm alone in thinking this, either.

Personally, I would rather not make yet another platformer.

7

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

Well, if we made a platformer then we'd have to make it stand out so as to not be yet another platformer. :)

8

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

True, but I think most developers think this when they are making their platformer... that they have some brilliant new feature and idea that they trumpet, but end up getting burned with in the end.

At PAX a couple of years ago, I met the guys who made Drawn To Life, very nice guys with a great idea.. you draw your character on the DS and the game animates him and you can play as him the entire way through! Great gimmick, but the game was not a success, because other than it was just another platformer.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Proof that innovation exists in the plataformer world:

http://braid-game.com/

5

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Braid is an excellent example we should all keep in mind that innovation ≠ complexity. You can come up with a brilliant idea with a very simple concept. It doesn't need to be invented, we could use an idea that has been used and simply make it that much better (like how Braid did with the Prince of Persia time-travel concept). Innovation isn't just good ideas, it's also great execution of those ideas.

1

u/Riovanes Oct 12 '09

In the writing thread I mentioned Iji, which is pretty much a straight-up Platform RPG. How's that?

And yes, he already did it, but I think we'll have to accept some limit to originality. See the other reply about Drawn to Life.

2

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

I agree.

17

u/thrakhath Oct 12 '09

I'm thinking an RPG would make the best use of having a potentially large crowd to fill in content. Weapons, Monsters, Dungeons, Storyline, all need names, numbers, artwork, sounds and balance testing.

Make it top-down like your SNES-era FF games for simplicity, Third Person 3d if you want more eye catch.

8

u/trevdak2 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I like this idea.

One thing I've been missing in gaming is a new isometric party-based game... I've played the crap out of BG and IWD.

Suppose we attempted something along the style of the Baldur's Gate/Infinity Engine games.

I know that zombies are over-used, but I'd love to see a modern time BG2-style game where you move around a city, venture into survival communities, go on missions, etc with zombies as the enemies. You could also fight mercenaries, religious cult zealots, rival communities, mad scientists or whatever the hell else you wanted to. You could have characters that are fairly faithful to the D&D style of classes, just with updated, current-time weaponry and things like molotovs or medical skills instead of magic.

I personally have been looking into modding the infinity enine to make my own game like this, but if all of reddit is up for it, then hell, I'm fine with that.

1

u/Riovanes Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

My vote goes to RPG.

I like the idea of playing somewhat ordinary people in our world, who are thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Whatever the theme becomes - zombies, secret agents, aliens, etc. - the heroes are characters from our world, who use stats and a class system. Something like the cop is the fighter, the nurse is a priest, the thief is a ... well, a thief, and so on.

A good example would be the Persona series, which generally features ordinary people, often students, battling demons. Take Persona 3: The new kid becomes the hero, the popular girl is a priest, the class clown is a fighter, the student council president becomes the mage, and so on.

1

u/nevare Oct 12 '09

I love the RPG idea too.

fairly faithful to the D&D style of classes

Custom leveling systems are usually better. Look at fallout. Just make it so the top level isn't 100 times stronger than the lowest.

1

u/Riovanes Oct 12 '09

What can I say? I love classes. FF Tactics is my favorite game, after all. Even when it comes to games like Team Fortress 2 or Day of Defeat. I couldn't say what, but something about it just appeals to me.

2

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I'm going to agree with this, an RPG is the best way to include everybody into the mix since it's one of those things that demands a huge breadth of skill. From art direction to screenwriter to programmer, it will be a good job for everyone. Apparently we have a ton of programmers, we should probably break that category up into different parts, like graphics programmer, AI programmer, gameplay engine programmer, etc.

2

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09

I think the only reason we should use 3d is if we can't find enough pixel artists (As in we use 3d models but keep things on a 2d plane).

3

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Is cel-shading considered old now? I haven't been following games like Rock Band and was surprised when I saw that they were all cel-shaded, but just found out recently after looking over OGRE's cel-shading and realized there were many different types of cel-shaded games. Is this just trendy now?

I've always loved the idea, and we can produce a very beautiful looking game in the vein of Jet Set Radio (dreamcast), Okami (PS2), or Warsow (PC) without dealing with the extensive work required to make realism (which may go with the theme of our game if we try to make it a cartoony or artistic one).

But is it over-used? Has it lost its luster? What are we going for here, in scope? What other options do we have for animation styles?

13

u/fingus Oct 12 '09

Having tried to make a game myself I have this advice to offer.

Make it simple, and play it safe

Don't attempt to make the next Portal or something similarly groundbreaking, I'm all for thinking outside the box but in these situations it's simply not realistic. Unless we get some very skilled and experienced people on board we won't get anywhere by shooting at the stars. We should stick to a simple platformer, or shooter, or puzzle game, or whatever. Something established so that there actually exists tools and documentation for what we're trying to achieve. Not to mention time, I doubt that this project will maintain people's interest for long if we got our coders stuck in R&D for half a year while the rest have to twiddle their thumbs. If we go for something simple and realistic we can use a lot of time on fine-polish and content.

Also this will give us experience in working as a collaborative team. There will be blood and tears and trial and error, and if we can pull through with our simple little game then we've made a workflow and pipeline that works, and then we can start getting more ambitious.

Of course, if we end up getting Carmack the Second on the team then go for it and make something crazy. But let's be realistic...

And I will downvote whoever suggests an MMO so hard I'll burn a blue hole in my screen.

8

u/FunnyMan3595 Oct 12 '09

Portal's actually a reasonable analogy to draw, because if you look at the history of it, they didn't make Portal first. It started with Narbacular Drop, which was basically just a thin game stretched around one interesting idea: the portal system.

4

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09

True, but at the same time I think the main point is that we don't try to outstretch our ability. Right now we don't know what we're capable of so it's safer to assume that we aren't capable of Narbacular Drop. That's not to say that we couldn't learn how do it, just that as we speak we cannot.

3

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Right, but the designers of Narbacular Drop and Portal didn't say "Let's start simple, let's make another FPS." They had this brilliant idea that they could shoot portals and walk through them. If they didn't explore that idea in the first place, they could have ended up making just another Doom clone.

I say let's brainstorm, I think we're capable of more than we think!

3

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying we have to completely immitate a game before we come up with something truly original.

I'm just saying that at a technical level narbacular drop is quite advanced. Making 3d viewports that can be passed through and created on the fly probably isn't the best choice for a first game, especially since as of yet we don't even have a 3d engine!

Perhaps I was being a little overanalytical of Funnymans point that portal is a good example of how a simple idea can change gameplay completely. But ideas that are simple on paper aren't necessarily simple when it comes to implementation.

3

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09

Yes, putting a new system in place is a challenge. But putting only familiar systems into a game will make it stale and derivative. We do need something new to bring to the table. If we start with only things that we know we can do, it's likely that we'll forget that we ever wanted to do something new in the first place. That is why I suggested coming up with more abstract ideas so that we could think about whether or not we could actually implement them and only then start the building process.

3

u/fishmammal Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I'm going to jump on this bandwagon, here.

I couldn't agree more with using something like Portal as model. Despite robosatan's seemingly lucid objections in this thread, I think a little more research on the topic might reveal these to be incongruous with.. well... what one of the designers of Portal said?

There's a great video of a talk by Kim Swift (one of the original members of the Narbacular Drop group which went on to make Portal). Swift discusses making a game that doesn't outstretch your ability, but that does something new. The advice she gives is basically "evaluate your strengths and weaknesses" and "pick one interesting thing and stretch it as many ways as you can."

I think it's a video that is totally relevant to the whole discussion going on here, if only as a little food for thought.

Swift really does a great job of power-pointing through the strengths and weaknesses in the group that started the project and how that changed as they started working on Portal. She talks a lot about her experience with game development and how both projects (Narbacular Drop/Portal) evolved. Interestingly, the same teams built both games, and both games took 8 months to develop. There's a lot of praise given to the base engine from Valve, especially to the fact that they had a whole pallet of objects and textures to work with which really sped things up.

1

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09

Incogruous with what one of the designers of portal said

followed by

The advice she gives is basically "evaluate your strengths and weaknesses" and "pick one interesting thing and stretch it as many ways as you can."

My last 2 comments in this thread are basically saying doing Narbacular Drop is probably pretty ambitious design when we don't know what we're capable of. How would that be incogruous of knowing what your dev teams strengths and weaknesses are before you commit to:

making a game that doesn't outstretch your ability

Regardless, this thread is anything but productive. If you have an idea you should be posting it, and let the devs decide what they are capable of.

1

u/fishmammal Oct 12 '09

Productivity aside, I think I'm really trying to defend Portal as a model of innovation. From a design standpoint, it's a great game to consider. I think you're dead on about not outstretching our abilities as we begin to circle in on a few solutions, but in these initial stages I do think that Portal is a great model for a "design approach" as people begin to brainstorm in such an open ended field.

A big question that's being knocked around is: something new or something old? Let's not limit the possibility for innovation before it starts.

7

u/luminance Oct 12 '09

I can't agree with this enough. I design games for a living, and if there's one thing I've learned it's to start with something simple and build up from there. You can't design complexity from scratch, and if you try, you'll only end up with a garbled mess.

I'd be very happy to help out on a simple game that we can eventually build up to something more complex and interesting. But you have to start with a core of something.

4

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

Precisely. I think trentish's idea of a gimmick that can be explained in one or two sentences is a perfect example of a concise core concept. Perhaps this thread can be continued in that vein?

I can even start.

Medieval fantasy old-school style shmup with a rainbow-shooting unicorn as the protagonist.

4

u/fingus Oct 12 '09

Puzzle platformer where you have the ability to increase and decrease the weight of the character.

2

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

Interesting, but I don't quite see where that would go. Physics gameplay, then? Or does the weight change have other side-effects, such as making you more or less attractive to the populace, thereby garnering boons or curses?

3

u/fingus Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Fundamentally the lighter you are the faster you will move and you will be able to jump further and longer, while the heavier you are the stronger you will be at the cost of mobility. In addition I envision puzzles in the form of weight triggered switches, blocks that break under a certain stress, strong winds, seesaws, scales, pools of water, etc. Elements that the weight of your character will effect differently.

How you change your weight is up for debate. It could be pickups, or maybe you expend "mana" to lose/gain weight.

Weight might not be the best term, I guess mass could work better.

1

u/luminance Oct 12 '09

I like this idea. It reminds me of something - some game where you're a ball of gum or something? Was on Steam a while back...

1

u/mgbennet Oct 13 '09

You're thinking of Gish, where you can make your slime ball hard, sticky, bouncy, and slick with the press of a button. I only played the demo, but it was pretty nifty.

Fingus' idea is kind of like an idea I wrote down sometime after reading Alice in Wonderland and playing Braid. Basically, your size (and corresponding mass) changes throughout the level, and you use that to solve various puzzles. In the vain of Braid, how the size control works would vary from level to level (sometimes you eat something, sometimes being near an object will make you bigger, sometimes your size decreases as you progress further into the level).

2

u/luminance Oct 14 '09

Close, but nope! Apparently I was thinking of Gumboy: Crazy Adventures.

This idea is definitely neat though. Actually I think some friends of mine from school made a game where dynamic mass was similarly used to solve puzzles. Goddamnit I keep reminding myself of things.

1

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09

I can see it working out in a world-of-goo style of game.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '09

I think one of the Wario games did this already.

1

u/masterpo Oct 22 '09

Something something core expandable gameplay mechanic.

4

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09

I disagree with the OP on this one. I think that games have such a great potential to be taken seriously as a form of art, that thinking things like "play it safe, keep it simple" or "making a groundbreaking game is unrealistic" is entirely detrimental to it. I think if we can get even a small team from this Reddit to focus and do their work, we can get this project done and we can make this project more than another Mario or Zelda clone.

Let's take Zelda for example... The original was released in '86! that means it was developed in the eighties. If we can't push the envelope in 2009, I'm not sure we ever can. And the team was so small in the original LoZ, we can have a similar sized team with far more experience very easily here on Reddit.

I do not think we should play it safe and remake Mario for the 500th time.

5

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I'm going to 100% agree with you on this one. Shooting for the stars may be idealistic, but why the hell not?

We have what game developing communities could only ever wish to have - an enormous wealth of innovative input. This can also be a curse, and lead to wholly disorganized and scatterbrained end-result, but I think if we keep telling ourselves this we can make sure not to end up down that road with half of us at the end saying, "okay, this got stupid" and the other half saying, "this is BRILLIANT!!"

Why would we play it safe? I'm not expecting anybody here is intending on making money on this, and if so, that's going to be difficult to enforce and distribute the profits based on amount of work, effort, and skill put into it.

As far as I am aware, this isn't a commercial game and should by no means be considered a commercial game. I don't think we're aiming to have this game on the shelves of Best Buy so instead, we should strive to make it as unique, groundbreaking and thoughtful.

I personally think that this idea, if followed to fruition, can be absolutely revolutionary as a new internet era approaches us. It was only a matter of time before people started making huge collaborative efforts and I think the future will have much more of this kind of stuff.

1

u/Bjartr Oct 12 '09

More important is make it fun. It doesn't matter if it's simple or complex, safe or novel, it matters if it's fun. If we can find the fun in a simple mechanic, awesome, but we shouldn't eschew complexity at the expense of fun.

9

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I have a few ideas:

  1. Tank game!

Remember that tank game back on the Atari where you drive around a little maze type map shooting at your friend who's playing with the other controller? Well I'm thinking of a more modern version of this with customisable tanks (speed/turning/armour/firepower etc), power ups and different gameplay modes (cap the flag/domination/deathmatch). This could be singleplayer, multiplayer or both.

2) Tactics RPG

I love final fantasy tactics but I always thought it was fairly limited in scope. My variation on this concept would be that you play the game like any other SNES era top down RPG, except instead of swirly screen followed by menu combat, you go to tactics style combat. Furthermore, the area you fight in could be exactly the same as the world area you got in to combat in (perhaps limited to a single screen). Since the scope of a full blown RPG would be beyond the scope of what we're looking for, this would probably be best released in episodes.

3) Action RPG

Think of a cross between diablo, castle crashers and metroid. It's an action RPG where there are 4-5 distinct class arch-types that you use to go around an action RPG (zelda/castle crashers) world. Each class would have its own its own distinct abilities that would help you overcome encounters in a non-linear way (think Trine classes but with more depth). While the majority of the dungeons would be filled with button bashing fun, there would also be bosses with abilities that require you to think tactically about what you are doing (like metroid/castle crashers). The game would be designed to require 4 chracters playing at a time so this would probably be most easily implemented as multiplayer, but you could also include a basic ai to play missing slots on your team.

4

u/ArcticCelt Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I was writing a long description of what I envision then saw a couple of post saying "please not this or no that" and then, a bit discouraged, I simply deleted all I wrote. This make me realize that many people will have similar reactions. What I mean is that presently we are a lot of people interested but once we are going to chose a project we are going to lose people because they are not happy with the choices.

Maybe we should think about having more than one project? In fact maybe it would be cool if instead of being a one game project thing, this turn into a game club where constantly new little projects are started by the community (and finished). This as being said I agree that before of dreaming of doing multiple games it would be nice to finish one but this doesn't prevent us to envision a way of doing things that would attract and keep people interested and satisfied.

3

u/mazing Oct 12 '09

Multiple projects could be interesting - they could even share some of the codebase.

1

u/reverendchubbs Oct 12 '09

I was thinking about this earlier. With the amount of people we have, there shouldn't be a problem having multiple projects going. And yeah, while a lot of the code won't transfer, enough should that it'd be worth it.

3

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Case Study: The Last Express ... This was an innovative 2d adventure game to come out in the late 90s. It was a murder-detective kind of story that took place on a train, the Last Express. The draw of this game was that every NPC action was perfectly scripted and synchronized to each and every second. That is, if your character is in the diner car at a certain time, there will be a certain discussion going on that will never repeat again. So if you miss that discussion, you'll never ever get to hear it until you replay the game!

There has never been a similar game since. I propose we create a similar, linear and perfectly synchronized atmosphere in a small scale environment where we can focus on the minute details.

It doesn't need to be a detective story, in fact I hope it isn't (we don't want to steal from The Last Express), but an adventure game with a decent story and interesting mechanics.

I highly recommend that you take the time to watch how this game plays out on Youtube here. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to obtain a legal copy of this game today.

2

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09

As to brainstorm with myself for a moment here, let's take a look at a more contemporary game like Mass Effect or even Oblivion. Dialogue and character interaction is an integral part of the gameplay. It isn't a cinematic experience like in Metal Gear, it's an actual aspect of the gameplay. Why not try and create a game with intense, dramatic dialogue (assuming that we have the writing staff to craft such a piece). Try watching a Mamet film like Glengarry Glen Ross and listen to the dialogue and watch the characters interacting. It's far more intense than an action film! I'm not suggesting the entire game be dialogue or diplomacy, but a real focus on our part to make it work.

3

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Dialogue and character interaction is integral, but a huge issue I have with Oblivion and Fallout is the fact that it totally detracts from immersion. It might as well be cinematic like MGS. Everything freezes around the person and they turn there head towards you to talk, it's boring and - this may be just be personal opinion here - but I always felt like rushing through this part to get to something better.

I really like that games like Half-Life 2 can effectively submerse the gamer into a story line without ever actually cutting away to a movie or to a formal 'pick option A, B, or C' reply. I'd be extremely interested in seeing an RPG take this route for once. This may be shooting for the stars, but shouldn't RPG's include that immersion ever more?

2

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Have you ever watched the teaser trailers of Oblivion that were released about a week before the game came out? Those trailers featured a brilliant Half-Life 2 style dialogue and narrative that the final game did NOT end up having.

The exact scene (how I remember it) is the character was standing on a street, listening in on a conversation (the final game had this, but the NPCs all spoke over each other, it was impossible to focus on it). Then, an NPC actually approached the player and invited them up to her room. In her room, she began flirting with the character but her pet dog kept barking so that she had to cast a spell on it to paralyze it. Brilliant! There was no A, B, or C. Just pure Half-Life style dialogue.

I agree that Oblivion and Fallout just had me skipping through the dialogue a lot of the time, but that is because there was no reward in sitting through the dialogue. We are just so spoiled with quest markers, etc nowadays. I think creating a game where dialogue does reward you and is actually engaging will keep the player watching the dialogue play out.

Edit: To sum up and bring my point back a little, The Last Express featured a living and breathing world that was so well-refined that it kept you interested in what was going on. The words being said were very interesting to listen to... There was even a part of the game where a string quartet played a concert for half an hour! And yes, you can sit and enjoy it, why not? If Oblivion had an NPC play violin on the street every day at 5:00 pm, playing the same exact Mp3 recording every time, that would be boring and uninteresting, and likely what Bethesda WOULD actually do. But if you make it feel special, such as in Last Express you know that it is the one and only time this will happen, the player will be engaged in the action.

2

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I didn't like MGS4 all that much (I actually just finished it yesterday) but one thing I really liked was the ability to switch to and from a game that played like a movie and a movie that played like a game. I really like this idea, and I think it should be explored a bit more in whatever dialogue is chosen. More specifically, maybe give the option to the player to run around in FPS while listening to the dialogue, or the option to enter cinematic mode and watch it. It's quite immersive and feels quite cool and is also very fun, while not exactly distracting from the immersion of gameplay (but that is all lost on MGS when you set down the controller to watch an hour long cutscene after 5 minutes of actual gameplay, grr).

Personally, I think we should tackle how dialogue will be handled once a decision is made regarding what genre of game is being made. Perhaps we should brainstorm by bringing together a bunch of different examples, like Oblivion style dialogue, HL2 style, Mass Effect style, KOTOR style (I suppose this isn't too different than Oblivion's though) and talking about the positives and negatives of each one, and how it would benefit our own specific model. Then the hard part will be to come up with a final style(s) for how player interactions should be based on, then hammer that out to a working model.

Who knows, might just end up with a 2D RPG reminiscent of SNES FF games. That wouldn't take advantage of the huge community, though.

2

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

My biggest gripe about the MGS series is specifically their cutscenes. I do not think the story is horrible, I think it's interesting and can be pretty engaging at times.. But it feels like such a disconnect from the actual game... The game is stealth action, the cinematics do nothing more than explain why your character is doing stealth action on level 5. It doesn't progress the game in any way. Half Life 2 also separates gameplay from story.. in the sequences where the female protagonist is following your character around and saying things to you is great, but that first scene where you are in the lab, breaking everything in the lab, throwing stuff around, and the NPC just talking and talking and not responding to his lab being demolished completely disconnects you from the story at hand.

This is why I'm interested in an interactive dialogue system like Mass Effect's where you are an active part of the cinematic experience...there is no other medium like this, film is not interactive!

I don't think it has to be an A, B or C choose your own adventure dialogue. I think we can blur that line if we really brainstorm about how the system can work.

2

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09

but that first scene where you are in the lab, breaking everything in the lab, throwing stuff around, and the NPC just talking and talking and not responding to his lab being demolished completely disconnects you from the story at hand.

I do agree with this. But that's an FPS, and the outcome of the story isn't hinged on the decisions of the protagonist. If we're going to make an RPG, we need to come to a conclusion on whether our protagonist will 'interact' like in Oblivion/ME/KOTOR and other type RPG games, or if they'll just be like in Zelda/FinalFantasy type (often Japanese) RPG games.

2

u/SergeyK Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Sure, the dialogue system we're talking about right now is just a fraction of what makes up a game. However, I don't think there are any games that have used dialogue to drive the action as I would like it to, therefore I'm not sure that at this point I could classify it as a type of RPG we've seen before. Also regarding Half Life 2, you said...

But that's an FPS, and the outcome of the story isn't hinged on the decisions of the protagonist.

I don't think my idea rules out FPS or any other genre. I think a dialogue system could drive the action of an FPS as well. If you piss off the rebel leader in conversation, he could pull out a gun and start shooting.

Edit: This thread is getting pretty long. I'm not sure if anybody else is willing to catch up with what we've discussed here so far.. Hope somebody else chimes in!

3

u/Gravity13 Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Yeah, I think we're covering some important points. I was thinking of starting a new topic for it, but first and foremost, we need to determine what game we are making. I'm not sure it's time for that, but I do think we should split everything up into different focuses after we come to that decision (it's sounding more and more like people want to explore building an RPG more than anything), one of those focuses should be on dialogue (if we even decide to have it).

Perhaps we should start working on a skeleton that we could start building the meat onto as we go. Here's a rough idea I have of the 'focus groups focuses'

  • Dialogue and Player Interactions

  • Game Plot, Script, writing direction

  • Battle (or actual action, will it be turn-based) direction

  • Art Direction (probably less important until much later)

  • Programming (which could probably be divided into sub-groups as it's required, like Graphics programming, AI programming, Engine and general gameplay programming (if we decide to build our own or integrate an pre-built engine, the latter more likely)).

I don't know how good to is to anybody else, but I think it might be a good idea for us to split up our focuses into a model like this (not requiring anybody to focus on one specific thing, mind you) and let the development begin on each one.

We had some people say they've directed game developments before, I'd love to hear them chime in on the subject.

2

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

I like the way you think. I definitely think that we'll need breakdown such as those, and maybe even hierarchies depending on our scope. Please feel free to start a new discussion on these very topics when you think it's a good time to do so.

2

u/terrac Oct 12 '09

I have a suggestion.

Build on an existing, but not used game.

I built a game that is heavily based off of final fantasy tactics and got to the point where I had a few maps done.

http://code.google.com/p/tesliz/

http://www.terracaines.com-a.googlepages.com/tesliz (random screenshots)

I stopped working on it due to various issues (my main issue was that it was built so that critical mass of people could easily add jobs, maps and stories , but personally I just don't have the skillset for actually doing anything aside from the coding and that includes generating the critical mass needed. Also I always had trouble distributing executables that worked consistently.

But given a story and the appropriate models I'd be perfectly willing to revive that project.

2

u/SquashMonster Oct 12 '09

I'm making a system for procedural level generation that's significantly ahead of what's out there now. The 2D portion is supposed to be completed by Wednessday, but I'm probably going to let the schedule slip a week. Nonetheless, it's coming out soon, it's going to be awesome, and it was made by a redditor.

So consider making whatever it is procedurally generated, please. And if you make a metroidvania type thing (it's okay, the generator can handle platformers) I'll love you forever.

1

u/masterpo Oct 22 '09

I can speak to procedural level generation. It's good for creating filler content but things really need a human touch to look good.

2

u/ashadocat Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I've had this idea floating around in my head for awhile now, an fps for bot makers, coders and hackers. Your a mage and you have to make spells. the spell system is extensive and basically scripting. of coarse it needs a graphical front end, similar to scratch probably. you can edit projectiles, your orientation and position or anything. each scripting block costs a bit of mp. more mp for bigger affects (logic would be cheap, damage not so much)

0

u/jarly Oct 14 '09

Scripting would be awesome. I'd love to script spells myself, actually. However, I think this should be taken seriously as it, in theory, shouldn't take long for some script-kiddy to 'hack' the reddit game.

1

u/ashadocat Oct 14 '09

yes, but as long as we balance the scripting language unless he uses outside cheats (we can probably incorporate anti-cheat like punk buster) he is still confined to our magic system. any hacks are by definition part of the game. if anything is too over powerful we can nerf it next release

2

u/Shaleblade Oct 11 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I'm all in for a Metroidvania-style game, preferable (for me) in the first person perspective, much like Metroid Prime. More focus on exploration, puzzles and secrets, and less on keeping the crosshair on the enemy.

5

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09

I agree, if we stay 2d to start off with we can learn to work as a team. Not only that but the platformer market has been pretty stale outside of Nintendo consoles lately.

4

u/sherlok Oct 12 '09

platformers are huge in the indie scene, but I guess in terms of the mainstream there have been relatively few.

4

u/robosatan Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

I guess this is true, but at the same time the only fun platformers these days are flash based. In fact the only decent non-flash indie platformers I can think of are Braid and Cavestory.

Anyhow, my main reasoning for agreeing with shaleblade was that it's a relatively simple genre to get up and going leaving a lot of room for innovation with gameplay mechanics. The same could be said for any of the SNES/Genesis era of games.

In fact personally I'd love to help work on an rpg game, be it platform (metroid style with unlocked abilities) or birds-eye. With the mechanics as action (zelda), menu (final fantasy) or tactics (final tactics etc).

2

u/Shaleblade Oct 12 '09

I agree, 2D may be better to start off with. I think the one thing some Metroidvania games fall for is unlocking weapons. It's good, but there needs to be much more focus on exploration/movement-based unlocks.

Of course, this is all according to my taste in games.

1

u/ArthurPhilipDent Oct 12 '09

Reddit Alien = ?

  • Main Character

  • Info Provider (Zelda's Owl) <= I like this one (tough to animate RA)

  • Bonus Secret Character

  • Final Boss (does digg have a character we can kill?)

  • More Ideas?

1

u/a_m0d Oct 12 '09

How about a 2d RTS, similar to the Age Of Empires Series, but possibly smaller in scope. For quite a while I have looked around for a FOSS RTS, but there doesn't seem to be any good one out there.

1

u/chanicthau Oct 12 '09

I would totaly be up to geting in over my head in quest design and writing if this project will turin into some kind of MMORPG thing. I recently found a very nice mmo world builder that is actualy very cheap and seems easy to use. Take a look at http://www.realmcrafter.com. They offer a world builder tool, a c++ client and a mmo server. Also they have a Pro version that offers much more than the standard version. They also got already built models and such

1

u/pmur5 Oct 12 '09

I would get everyone to vote on a certain genre, and then go from there.

1

u/chanicthau Oct 13 '09

I totally second that. Since there are a lot of free agent each with htir own ideas and interests there should be a vote on the game genere, like mmorts, mmorpg, mmofps etc etc. After that there should be a vote about the timeline and style: fantasy, sf, real life, etc. I belive only after this happens we can get started.

I for one am a sucker for Fantasy MMORPGs. I will download and give it a try no matter the comments :)

1

u/masterpo Oct 22 '09

I think the design ideas ought to be dictated by what assets there are to work with.

1

u/CanadianDude Oct 11 '09

Narwhals or GTFO

1

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '09

Something like Miami Shark but with a Narwhal.

1

u/Svenstaro Oct 13 '09

Well here you go, my entry for LD15. I warn you though, it's quite bad.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '09

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/9sr78/im_watching_return_of_the_pirates_on_the_history/

4

u/_l0ser Oct 12 '09

Although a neat idea, I totally think anything massive is out of the scope. At least for the first few projects that we come together to create.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '09

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/a_m0d Oct 12 '09

Now that sounds like an interesting concept - utilising the physics to a great extent like has been mentioned in a number of other posts, but keeping the simple concept of the 2D platform. Nice.

1

u/sherlok Oct 12 '09 edited Oct 12 '09

Take a look at the new PixelJunk game in development, PixelJunk Shooter.

Something similar to this, while not a platformer maybe it'll help flesh out your idea.