Working on a game. Need ideas.

[randyrules711]

Game name/logo:

Desciption:

String theory will be a top-down partially open world action-adventure RPG. It will have some extent of shooting in the more dangerous dimensions, but it will mostly be story driven and adventure based. A lot of it will have to do with figuring out how to go about acquiring what you're looking for. A few puzzles that you will have to use the technology you've discovered to get past. Convincing people about how important your mission is and hopefully recruiting them to help. It will include mod support, and a development kit.

Story and concepts (Words in brackets are not yet decided or are subject to change):

You are a scientist at [lab] by the name of [name]. The year is [near future]. The lab has been researching other universes called 'strings'. Strings are formed at every point in time where there are several possible chains of events. The universe splits into new strings every time this happens. The lab has been able to tap into electrical signals and radio waves from nearby strings and listen to broadcasts. They are now almost done with a way to jump objects to nearby strings and back. Then [generic disaster] happens. Your lab is called upon by [group] to gather technology from other strings that may help in ending the disaster. The lab rushes to complete the project and select you as the head of a splinter group to go into other strings and acquire these technologies.

Current stage of project

Core engine development (That's very early)

Current help needed

Ideas

Story writing

Future help needed

Texturing

Models

Level design

Various areas of code

Music

Credits

Project leader, coder, designer:

Me (Randy Layne)

Alpha build

None yet

The alpha of String Theory will be free to play, but I will eventually start charging however much I think the game is worth. The price will not exceed 20 USD, however. If you purchase the game early in it's development, you will get it for much cheaper than full price (Probably less than 10 USD).

Edited August 3, 2013 by randyrules711

[Synapse]

What idea do you have?

[randyrules711]

What idea do you have?

All my ideas are listed in this topic. Not much yet, but it's very early in the concept stage. I haven't even started writing the engine.

[Synapse]

What is the gameplay? Your description did not describe anything at all. Is it a first person shooter based on alternate histories like Assassin's Creed? A science game about string theory? I really didn't understand

[randyrules711]

Again. VERY early concepting. It will have several alternate histories that can be traveled to. It will have some extent of shooting in the more dangerous dimensions, but it will mostly be story driven and adventure based. A lot of it will have to do with figuring out how to go about acquiring what you're looking for. A few puzzles that you will have to use the technology you've discovered to get past. Convincing people about how important your mission is and hopefully recruiting them to help.

EDIT: There. I added most of that to the topic to make it more clear.

[Synapse]

So it is a science puzzle based Assassin's Creed?

[randyrules711]

So it is a science puzzle based Assassin's Creed?

Not much like Assassins creep at all. But yes, a sort of science puzzle.

[Synapse]

Have you played MDKII? That had a science portion of the game which worked kindof nicely.

[Grove]

Tardis simulator 2022?

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

I could future help you with level design. But I might ask. What you want me to use? or you just want me to draw it on paper?

[Crush]

When it's a commercial project I would like to know how much you pay per hour before I offer my help.

I haven't even started writing the engine.

Unless you want to do something very uncommon, you should use an existing engine. That will save you years of development time (literally!). The Unreal engine is surprisingly affordable, even for independent developers, and it's the engine used by most AAA titles. But there is also Unity which is very popular with the indie developers due to its flexibility and portability, or open source engines like Ogre3d.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Crush

[randyrules711]

I could future help you with level design. But I might ask. What you want me to use? or you just want me to draw it on paper?

I plan to put together a series of assets to be used in level design. These could be brought into a 3D modeling program and used in the levels along with custom stuff.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

I plan to put together a series of assets to be used in level design. These could be brought into a 3D modeling program and used in the levels along with custom stuff.

Okay sure thing.

[randyrules711]

When it's a commercial project I would like to know how much you pay per hour before I offer my help.

Unless you want to do something very uncommon, you should use an existing engine. That will save you years of development time (literally!). The Unreal engine is surprisingly affordable, even for independent developers, and it's the engine used by most AAA titles. But there is also Unity which is very popular with the indie developers due to its flexibility and portability, or open source engines like Ogre3d.

Unreal engine requires me to be 18 years or older to register for licencing, which I'm not. Also due to a ridiculously low budget and minimum wage income, I really kind of need to write my own engine.

I'm working alone out of my den here. I may have pick something a bit ambitious to do, but It's not my first project. I wrote an engine for a platformer a while back. 3d stuff can't be too much harder, right? ...Right?!

[Crush]

3d stuff can't be too much harder, right? ...Right?!

Oh, you have no idea how much harder it is to create a 3d engine. Just go and read an OpenGL tutorial. As soon as you get to projection matrices you will be crying. And then you still have just scratched the surface.

There is a reason why companies with million dollar budgets still license the unreal engine - paying 25% of your revenue to Epic Games is still cheaper than creating an own state-of-the-art 3d engine from scratch, even when you sell millions of copies worldwide.

And Unity is free unless you make more than $100.000 a year or need the features of the pro version (you likely do not). And then it's only $1.500 which is a steal considering its feature set.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Crush

[randyrules711]

Well... ****. I might end up making it a top-down game, then. Top-down can be fun. It'll just be missing the immersive feel I was looking for. I can do this. I can salvage the rendering bits of my platformer engine to cut down on coding time, and go from there.

[randyrules711]

Okay sure thing.

It's a top-down game now, due to low budgets not allowing me to buy an engine. Can you do that?

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

It's a top-down game now, due to low budgets not allowing me to buy an engine. Can you do that?

Yeah sure thing.

Edit: Top down games can still be immerse. It depends on the sounds and the graphics.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Brody_Peffley

[randyrules711]

Yeah sure thing.

Edit: Top down games can still be immerse. It depends on the sounds and the graphics.

I do play The Binding of Isaac, so I know top down games can be immersive if they try. I'm just worried I won't be able to pull it off.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

I do play The Binding of Isaac, so I know top down games can be immersive if they try. I'm just worried I won't be able to pull it off.

Haha look at squad, There first game and they have good ratings. As long as you try. It will turn into something you thought would never happen Just like notch. His first game was good. But people said it would fail. Now look at him. If we make this game what we want it to be. Theres always people playing games they like. And I bet people will play this game as I never saw a game use string theory. So I bet it would be more played than usual since nobody probably made a game like this.

But getting on topic, How are we going to share game files? SVN?

Edited August 1, 2013 by Brody_Peffley

[randyrules711]

Haha look at squad, There first game and they have good ratings. As long as you try. It will turn into something you thought would never happen Just like notch. His first game was good. But people said it would fail. Now look at him. If we make this game what we want it to be. Theres always people playing games they like. And I bet people will play this game as I never saw a game use string theory. So I bet it would be more played than usual since nobody probably made a game like this.

But getting on topic, How are we going to share game files? SVN?

I'm just going to upload the alpha builds to mediafire. Beyond that, I have no idea.

Minecraft was not Notch's first game. He did a few free to play things before Minecraft. Here's an older one by him done for the Java 4k Competition.

https://mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4kd/

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

I'm just going to upload the alpha builds to mediafire. Beyond that, I have no idea.

Minecraft was not Notch's first game. He did a few free to play things before Minecraft. Here's an older one by him done for the Java 4k Competition.

https://mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4kd/

Oh oops.. But I was thinking of using SVN to share files in a file which is our game.

[randyrules711]

Oh oops.. But I was thinking of using SVN to share files in a file which is our game.

That might work. I'm getting some sound assets done right now. I'm doing this in a weird order, but I'm having fun doing it this way.

[Guest Brody_Peffley]

That might work. I'm getting some sound assets done right now. I'm doing this in a weird order, but I'm having fun doing it this way.

Yeah sure how ever you want it to be

[Crush]

What's wrong with Unity?

The basic version is free unless you make more than $100.000. And even then it's $1.500 per developer. That's 1.5% of your revenue! Considering that it saves you between 50% and 90% of your work, that's a quite good deal.

I haven't used Unity myself, but it has a reputation for being really friendly for beginners at game development.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Crush