Community Project Mark 562 - Game Direction Vote

[Demonpants]

+1

That’s definitely a great idea. Maybe you can also install games in your ship’s computer, and play mini games while you fly around.

The potential problem with that though is that we don’t want it just to feel like a giant collection of mini games framed in a weird space-game that just inhibits you from directly getting the game you want (via internet).

I think it makes more sense to have each planet potentially get its own game(s), and those games are supposed to be some sort of simulation of what’s going in that world. Take Earth, for example. When you dock, perhaps a certain mission requires you to collect some plutonium? In order to get some, you’ve got to blast your way past some sentries in a laboratory and steal it out a refrigerator. Then you’ve got a simple third person shooter like Left4kDead as part of this planet. Similarly if you went to Earth maybe you’re supposed to find out what the latest fad is and then buy it. This could be a people-observing game where sprites of people walk around and they have a random device on their body. You’ve got to count them up and find which one is being used the most. Or to get more specific perhaps your mission is to stop the trouble in the Gaza Strip, in which case you need to do a simple text-adventure type game where you choose conversation options between leaders to ease the tension and form an agreement.

Basically what I’m saying is that yes there are a massive number of side games we could put on planets, but I don’t think it should be like every planet has a unique Arcade game, I think it should be that every planet has its own challenges that you’ve got to overcome. As such, the main character in the mini games would be the same as in the main space game, and the graphics styles would need to be similar.

[sws26]

@SimonH

+1^e10 Brilliant! What a fantastic idea - “Explore the universe of Java games!” Each space-station has a terminal on which the player can play that station’s games (could these even be links to other sites?). they’d have to fly to whichever station to play favorite games, or they could just browse from station to station, never sure what they might find… This is really good incentive for casual gamers; trade, upgrade ship or try local mini-games. I can hear the forums now: ‘goto java-space-thing.com & hspace to planet L4KDEAD’ (or DSRTBUS for that matter…)
“Set hyperspace for star cluster J4K2010!” ;D hic

Isn’t the idea to make a good game rather than fancy way of launching other games? This would basically just be Second Life in space. Frankly I think most mini-games are a bad idea all together, they detract from the main game experience unless they are carefully and seamlessly integrated. I think the Zelda series has perfect example of compelling mini-games that do not distract from the main game. If you couldn’t rip out the mini-games and still have a compelling experience I think you have failed.

[Demonpants]

Very true. Hence the reason why I think you should still be your character in a variety of on-planet situations, and then I think it could still work. In Escape Velocity, one of my favorite games ever and a child of Elite, I always wished you could go on the planets. Instead, a text box would come up and say, “You get attacked by some bad guys but you’re so awesome that you manage to kick their butts” sort of thing. Considering that we’re going to have missions that tell a storyline (we are going to have them, aren’t we?), it makes a lot of sense to have some planet-side mechanics to play out these story pieces.

[kingaschi]

I can contribute about 2-4h per week. I’m not too interested in the coding aspect but I can create 2D/3D art…

[Mr_Light]

@t_larkworthy

Summery: I see a good RTS technically very difficult to code and little room for improvement over state of the art.

As a technical showcase the idea being technically challenging doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Little room for improvement sounds weird in the face of little changing with respect to the state of art of the last 10 years. - I see this all as pro’s not con’s.

As mentioned in the other thread by someone else; mini-games will only prove the ability of this community to create games - something I think the 4k competition and showcase threads already prove.

// edit
tbh if everyone who voted is prepared to put in some time you could probably make both of them

[bobjob]

@Mr_Light

// edit
tbh if everyone who vated is prepaired to put in some time your could probably make both of them

yeah totally. I would really like to see a community project get finished and done well. I really dont think that, there is any base code currently for a space trading game (Please prove me wrong). It also seems like the sort of game were there would be alot of (non programming side) balancing, and I fear that it will be about alot of people communicating what they think is best while the programmers have to try make it work and please them. It seems the result of this voting is tending towards a space trade.

Just curious, would anyone be willing to focus on an RTS project, Im willing to contribute my own project (currently only LWJGL), main things it would need are: particle engine, 2D render version(currently only 3D). Heeps more but to give an idea of the main things still lacking

[kevglass]

1. The vote isn’t over yet, it might be RTS here yet
2. At least 50% of the people say they have time now, won’t have when it comes to it
3. Fragmenting before anything gets started isn’t a great thing to do
4. Having a set of base code that one person wrote and not everyone has buy into isn’t good for motivation or progress. Check out the JRPG project for a perfect example.
5. I’m still very happy to let someone else take the heading up job and be a willing participant instead if anyone wants to volunteer.

Kev

[bobjob]

@kevglass

1. The vote isn’t over yet, it might be RTS here yet

yeah I wasnt really focusing, its 37oC here and Im sweeting like a pig, just typing as I think.

@kevglass

3. Fragmenting before anything gets started isn’t a great thing to do

yeah, A bit premature.

@kevglass

5. I’m still very happy to let someone else take the heading up job and be a willing participant instead if anyone wants to volunteer.

Youve got the gears spinning smoothly so far

[gouessej]

@kevglass

4. Having a set of base code that one person wrote and not everyone has buy into isn’t good for motivation or progress. Check out the JRPG project for a perfect example.

It depends on the quality of the source code. If it has been written by a single man but it is readable and documented, it might be more motivating than starting from scratch. In my case, I began with a dirty source code with only a very few comments, it was more motivating than starting from nothing on my view.

kevglass, is it an open source project?

[kevglass]

It’s not decided if it’s open source or not yet. Hopefully that hasn’t got anything to do with the voting.

Kev

[kevglass]

I’ve added a 3rd option since there seems to be general approval for it over on the main thread. This would be:

HarvestMoon/AnimalCrossing style sandbox world in which people are free to take on activities and build a world. The amount of multiplayer interaction is still debateable, from trying the whole darkstar thing to simply having each person’s area available to explore to everyone else.

You can of course change your votes and feel free to carry on discussion on the other thread.

EDIT: Can you change your votes now, because I no longer seem to be able to thought I could when I first created the poll. ChrisM - is there a problem here?

Kev

[irreversible_kev]

I remember seeing a remove vote option but this option is no longer availible to me.
I need to vote for the persistent world sandbox !

[kevglass]

Ok, give it a couple of days and see if Chris can sort it (I’ll message him now), at which point we can change our votes as required. If not I’ll stick up a new vote.

Kev

[Motley]

I have just voted for an RTS as I think it will be a more interesting game than an elite clone. I’m not sure the sandbox idea is particularly worth while it seems a bit incoherent to me.

As for time I could as always try, it will probably be more in the playing and testing department though.

</2cent>

[ORFJackal]

To get more reliable results, it would be better to reset the poll now that the third option is added. We can not be sure, that all who have already voted, will notice that there is a third option and will reconsider their vote. With the current poll we have already seen, that Space Trading and RTS are about equally popular.

[Riven]

I’m a little worried that just about everybody mentions between 5 and 10 hours per week can be put into this project.

We have to remember this is a team that’s not going to meet, and where progress is very distributed and commited at random times with probably poor documentation, and not to forget: lots of regressions.

It would already take five hours per week to keep up with the state of the project, refactoring your code to keep it working in a changing environment.

Really… five hours per week for the major contributors is not enough, to make this project a success.

[Demonpants]

What about 10?

Also I agree that if you’re adding a new option then the safest thing to do is just to make a new poll.

[dishmoth]

All the cool kids are doing it, so count me in! 8)

CV: a couple of decades assorted programming experience; game projects as per the link below; happy to do nasty mathematical stuff.

Simon

P.S. If the project were a ‘space’ game that featured (a) trading, (b) battles with alien armies, and © colonization and development of planets, then wouldn’t that make all of the voters happy?

[bienator]

another idea:
fallout 2 clone

[ORFJackal]

@Riven

and not to forget: lots of regressions.

For that reason it would be important to have a good automated regression suite of unit and acceptance tests. That would allow keeping the system working at all times. Although I have no idea that how many of the people here are already using TDD, so many might have to learn it first. (I’ve been writing a tutorial some time ago - I can finish it and post a link here if you like.) For TDD and continuous integration to work, everybody in the team must be using it.

For version control, I recommend Git (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8). It’s better than Subversion, especially for a distributed team such as this project.