Firstly, Let me apologise for this as i found no other place to post this, and this seems the most logical. A little bit about me I hope it does not hit you like a wall of text, that is not the what i am going for, My name is John im 20year's old and i live in Bradford ( England ) I have wanted to create a game since when i was a youngster, the earliest memory i have of this burning passion was when i was about 4year's old and i was thinking "Man, if i made a game i would have sand bags that made it so you did not take damage and then you could throw them at people or peek around the corner to shoot them" That is the earliest memory i have of wanting to, I setup my first business when i was 19 Year's old and that business is still running today, but that's not who i am or what i want to do there are 3 Directors of that Company and i am one of them, but i know this is what i want to do with my life and starting somewhere is better than never starting at all. The game i wish to create I wish to push the boundaries within my game i want people to sit there in awe and sometimes wonder how the hell we managed to get away with putting certain things into a game and then releasing it, i want my game to represent real life emotions and struggles not meaning to end up been bad but been driven to it, The Image of the title would be like this, The Camera would be looking at the Main character the Gamer plays and the surroundings Like if you are sat at home watching the TV on a wall across from you but at an angle, it would be a street with an ally to the far left side of the camera, in this ally you would see a man with a gun and a women on her knees, a speech bubble over the Main characters head saying "This is the world we live in" the image would be in black and white, The Image on the title is quite controversial as you can see but with it dimmed in black and white i believe it would create a more real effect than it would with it been in colour. Of course, i have full scenes that i have thought of, the next seen i have already got planned, i get inspiration every day from looking at my surroundings and i jot them down and peoples experiences and my own experiences further my thought process and further my understanding of certain situations i want to make Real situations within the game that are not normally in games we play anyone can make a shooter or a kill this guy kill that guy but i want to make something more than that. People ask me "You need to know how to Code to do this Job" I disagree it would help sure but it maybe gives someone else a chance who can code to replace what would be me coding, pulling them out of a slump or giving them a full-time Job, or something to do while they are not so busy. I have ideas about what would go on around the Game world, not just the Main characters story but the surroundings would progress and things would happen that was random within the game, but i will save those details for another post. Programs im thinking about using I am thinking about using Euphoria Also interested in 3DS Max for the animation aspects or the Models to be drawn into there and imported into the game If anyone else knows of any good programs out there then please list them as all ideas and help is welcomed and encouraged. Platforms for the game Im thinking about Making this Game for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Im undecided about the PC at the moment, i can push the Graphics and make the game look absolutely suburb on a PC, but again i myself always find myself playing Sand box games on my Xbox 360 and PS3, But you can make the world look lush and have everything detailed beautifully on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but you would have to ship the game with multiple disks the other alternative would be to have a standard download when first launching the game, these are some of the ideas i have had. What about Costs? To be honest, this is the only thing stopping me doing anything, i have the systems to do the work but i do not have the money to pay Developers/Animation artists/sound engineers and i can not ask them if they want a % of a company that has not been created yet you may fall back on my Original Company, but i want this to be fresh, no ties, no hook ups, Like the gaming company's of Today they was started in a house or a dorm, with nothing more than 3 or 4 people coming up with ideas and then creating the ideas. I have friends who would do Voice work for me, but as i said i can have everything in the world but without the correct people who can Develop/animate/draw and have a valuable interest in a vision like i do, then i can not do anything, unless i get lucky and a big Publisher sponsors my game, but i believe that would be like finding a needle in a hay stack, but you never know i might get lucky. Why are you posting this here Well, what i am looking for is Feedback, Insight and maybe even a little interest. If you wish to help me then i would appreciate that beyond belief, if you wish to give criticism then that's fine too as everything needs to be looked at, if you wish to get in touch with me Please add me on skype - de.bug1 Thank you for Reading my post, and thank you for taking and interest or providing me feedback, i appreciate it. Thank you again John 12th June, 2012, Finished editing the Options Menu, all nice and neat, started to work on the exploration side of the game, been writing for 10 or so hours now, every-time i thought i had something spot on i deleted it and or edited it. This is how it look's so far, this is again a small part of it this is the options menu and load/save etc. Clicky here terrible cropping skills right xD 13th June, 2012, Went back and edited some more of the Options Menu, Added a controller display to know what buttons do what and i started to work on the Random events and player created events. Will edit and change as and when needed or if something better comes up. 14th June, 2012, Did not manage to get anything done today, Had a problem that i had to deal with will crack on tomorrow. This was edited after midnight, but it counts for 14th June. Will post on the 15th after a night's sleep and some more hours writing. 15th, 2012, Took a break from writing today as i don't want to just mash everything together and end up with a mess so i will take my time.
Mate, good luck! I've always wanted to make a game but am quite honestly talentless Take this video in the spirit that it's meant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw And by that I mean, think honestly about the game and mechanics and what's fun to play and how it all gels together - not just some random concepts and a blind 'i like games' Let us know how it goes!
Thank you for the video, i enjoyed watching it, it broadened my perspective atleast The main struggle is i have no Developers/writers/Audio Enginers/Animators, if i can find some of them then ill be cooking on gas, but i will keep my thread updated
You could try and turn to the free software community for models and animations. Set up a competition of sorts, whereby the winners get their models put into the game (and credited of course). Should you present the game as a project that really will get somewhere and not get stuck in the works, then you might find that many people would jump at the chance to get their work recognised - and help with their own employment. Same thing can go with sounds, to a lesser extent perhaps. As for developers, you do not have much choice but to either write it yourself or team up with colleagues, if you do not want to pay any/much money in advance. I doubt that many professional developers would want to do work, without pay, with only the promise of money should the project work out. Saying that, you may find some young developers (like me) who you could team up with. As they are young, they do not have much, if any living costs, and do not need a 'proper' job to keep them going. This route would not make for fast development, due to the part-time nature of these developers, but it would be cheap. And just to finish - do not discount the PC yet! If you start on the PC, it will be easy to then scale down your game to work effectively on a console. PC development is also cheaper and easier to start with - try and get a game working before you put it on more restricted platforms.
Damn, where you live fancy coming and been a developer to help me out haha! Thank you for the constructive post, i really appreciate it, im thinking about getting some concept art drawn and then going to universities looking for people that want to help me, while been at uni so when they leave they have a job to come too, or something along the lines as you said if i can find the right people many of them would be happy to get some input on the game to get there work shown. The only thing stopping anything is indeed cost, as you said Many developers will not work for free, unless as you said they was studying in uni or at collage and wanted to work on the project in there spare time. I will be posting some concept art up today/tomorrow to see what you think. Cheers for the feedback. Edit, This post was addressed too - lp rob1 This post below is addressed too Feathers. Hmm, that's something that i need to look at, i could develop it for the PC and then have it ported to PS3/Xbox but many Ported Game's end up terribly optimized and full of issues, so i would have to have the developers i had working with me port it, But again this is something i need to think about.
I wanted to make a game a long time ago. Something in 3d. Back in the 80's I wrote a graphics extension in z80 assembler for my Amstrad CPC. I created an interrupt driven sprite routine. Tried getting into level design on shadow warrior, doom and CSS but got bored.
you may also want to look at this http://bbrathwaite.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/creating-a-game-design-document/
If you want to give it another shot, i would welcome the help and the knowladge you could provide, add me if you have skype de.bug1 I have already posted there for feedback, if you click the link you can see my post That is extremely helpful, thank you for that, i now know how i can hold all my thoughts and the process and keep everything within the game somewhere solid. Thank you.
I have decided that as of tomorrow, I will be Writing the Design content for the entire Game from tomorrow and untill i feel ready to release the information to any developer, at the current time My 2 friends who can draw and who will help me with concept art will draw what i need, but there will not be an abundance of pictures. I will update this thread every day untill i feel the game is completed, maybe if i make it in the gaming industry i can release this as memoir of what i had to go through and what it took. some of you may not be interested and this will be like my mini blog but on a forum. Basically what you can expect is the main thread to be updated daily, and a new post every day stating what i worked on and small snippets of the content i have wrote. Thank you for the support.
you changed that fast you're right i don't believe it. MS are pains in the arse when it comes to the legalities of their platform, i honestly cant believe they'd give someone with 0 track record in the industry that kind of assistance with no proof of concept.
a publisher wont do ****, its a dev studio you need to grovel to, and even then its got to be greenlit by a publisher (most of time, studios are trying to break away from being publisher dependent)
Unfortunately if i went to a Dev studio i would not be able to put my own touch on it, so i would much prefer a publisher back me that way i can oversea the project and hire the developers who will be best suited to the project.
Advice that you likely need which hasn't been said so clearly yet: slow down. You're talking about opening scenes and multiple discs because of your highly detailed world and you currently don't have the capability to actually create anything. As the video sotu1 posted covers perfectly, you are certainly not alone in this and do not sound terribly different than the box-man talking about his game idea. Start with the basics and build from there, Gunsmith's link is excellent for this. Make sure that all areas of your game's design recieve attention before going into details on others just because they interest you more. The second bit of advice: do no expect the game you want. You may run out of funding, your ideas may not be perfectly expressed by others, or some features may not be feasible in the final game. You may have a very clear idea of your dream game but remember that it is a dream. This is your first game, it will not be perfect. If you dream is important to you you may be better of not creating it at all and using other ideas to make a different game. Even experienced, professional game designers often delay their best ideas to be implemented when they have the experience and money to do things right. And the third piece: what do you bring to the table? You have an idea, but how will you be helping realize it? Are you any good at programming? Are you a decent artist? Are you a good writer? You will need to pay others to do everything you can't if you wish to actually implement your idea as you want it. On the option of being hired by an existing company, if you have just ideas and no skills you can forget it, sorry to say.
Thank you for the Post, i appreciate it. At the moment, i am taking it slow believe it or not i know i seem to be rushing things in this thread. I followed the advice of a link just above that said create a design document and list certain aspects of the game, and then go into detail about them so Programmers know what it is im trying to convey. This is a snippet taken from the document i will spend the next few months working on. Obviously there is a title to that page that states "Main Menu" and this is only a small snippet of information. I understand that i will have to hire people to do the things i cannot, and i understand that things may not be possible or fee-sable to do with a limited budget if i got a funding boost from a company. In this document there will also be concept art to go with certain things, it will not all be just text and i'm lucky to have 2 Friends who are very good drawers and who can create me good concept drawings and later Real graphical drawings, but i would need to bring in an animation specialist to bring the characters to life. I also understand that this project will not be finished and ready to go in one week, This could take Months and months to finally feel Finished or for me to feel like i am ready to send it to people to look at, that is what i was already planning as i do not wish to send a sloppy mess around to people as it just looks bad, i want to think about things, if needs be i will cut things out to make other things fit and i may have to re-do an entire part of something. I will also Mostly write the entire story for the game, based on experience and real life experience and friends/family and personal experiences i have gone through and witnessed, that should bring a very real aspect to my game. Again people may not like it as with any design there may need to be tweaks in the final moments most probably there will be. At the moment you are right, i have nothing but a Computer and a Document open where i am writing my ideas, i don't know if my beautifully detailed world can be created, or would i have to dim that down a bit most likely i will, i don't know if will ever ship this game but im hopeful. If this fail's then i will take a crack at game distribution haha! Again, thank you everyone for the feedback i really appreciate it bad or good.
Sloth pretty much hit the nail on the head. I used to work at Codemasters and whilst game design wasn't my official job title its what I found myself moving towards with everything I was doing. After leaving over a massive contract dispute I've taken time out to focus my efforts, setting myself apart from the crowd and demonstrating my skills. Starting with the brief of "System Shock 2 in a racing game" back in January, I set about building the core of "Grandshift" over the coming months; carefully layering game mechanics over the top and making sure everything complemented each other, admittedly I could keep on going forever but I decided to stop at 7 game play mechanics, more then the **** being shoveled today but no so much as to alienate those playing it. I then set about devising a system of introduction; introducing the player to said mechanics, It also doubled up as a nice way of writing the GDD. As you write expect to double back on yourself from time to time to double check everything is in place and "works" I'm going to show you some pages from my GDD to give you an example of the level of quality that you should be aiming for. I'm currently in talks with 2 studios atm regarding work.
Damn, that's absolutely suburb haha, ahh i want you! hehe but alas i cannot pay for you at the moment and im sure the other 2 studios defiantly can hehe. I also will take note of how you structured the actual File for when someone is reading, Im doing the same type of thing but i will be adding images at a later date, i also am not sure if i should do as you have done and Write the entire story while im designing the game. The problem i foresee with only designing the game currently is that when it comes to write the story then i would have to make sure it fit well, otherwise i would be having to remodel the design work i already put in, but then again im sure everything needs tweaking. That has given me alot to think about, should i write the story as i do the design process or should i design the game get the concept art implemented and then write the story in a different document? Advise would be good, and thank you for the feedback your work looks great.
