GD open game project?

GDevelop general
1

Would be anybody interested in an open GD project (including 4ian) to make a commercial game or tech demo mainly to show the capabilities of GD?

We would have a game idea and a todo list. Anybody who interested, can choose anything from the list to make it in GD and contribute to the development of the project, including resources such as art and sound. Once we have a complete game, and good enough to be released as a commercial game, can be released by CompilGames on steam or desure for free if 4ian interested. If the game is not complete or not good enough to be released, still can be a sort of tech demo of GD and the source of some nice screenshots to use.

Of course the project would not follow any kind of schedule, anybody can contribute with anything, anytime when have some spare time and the game would be released (if ever) ā€œwhen it doneā€. Of course if the project going to have some active members in development permanently, we could set some schedules between us but mainly I would go with no schedule and commitment.

If anybody interested, first of all we have to find a project leader who would take the time and put everything together as it developed and lead the project really. Even the project is open and anybody can contribute, need a leader who hold everything together.
In my opinion could make everything easier if 4ian would be interested.
I mean, if anybody would say Hey! I have this idea, here is the project files, need to do this, this. this and this, if you can please contribute. Would anybody contribute? I donā€™t think so but still an option if 4ian not interested for any reason.
If 4ian would take the lead and open a dedicated page for such community project, I think that would be more incentive for people in the community to take part and contribute. At least I would be interested. Anybody else? 4ian?

A community made commercial game or even a tech demo could benefit GD and the experience we could acquire from the development on such scale, could benefit to us also can be good fun.

2

Are you suggesting yourself as project leader? What game would we be making? I might participate in some kind of project like this.

3

Nope, I donā€™t suggesting my self as a leader because I donā€™t have much spare time, Really, I hoped 4ian would be interested and would launch and lead an official community project in case of interest. I hoped a bit higher interest from the community and suggestions for a game so we could choose something that everybody would enjoy to work on or something which is already in development by someone and can be developed actively. With such low interest I think the best way to go would be to share a project with the community which is already under active development and simply let anyone to participate. At the moment, I donā€™t have enough spare time to launch such project, but Iā€™m interested to participate (mostly on weekends) if anybody have time to launch.

4

I might have time to launch a project like that in the summer, but really not until the summer.

5

Would be great, I could help on weekends. The main difficult is the way to work together, is very problematic download the file, make the changes, re-upload and hope that nobody else have edited the file simultaneouslyā€¦
What do you think about a game with a lizard as main character? :stuck_out_tongue: (please, this is just a joke)
Maybe something like a game with multiple game-modes inside the same history (a bit of rpg, action, puzzle, shootingā€¦ vehicles?)

6

I can host a specific page for this, provide help and create a specific forum category for it if needed :slight_smile:

7

Great :slight_smile:

This is the reason why we need a project leader. Basically my idea is that, we would have a todo list, and anybody could choose anything from the list to work on. If you want to work on something, you can let the project leader know, and the project leader can put your name on the todo list next to the feature so nobody else going to work on the same thing accidentally. When you are done with the feature, you can send it to the project leader, and the project leader going to put everything together and update the project so everybody can work on the most recent version of the project all the time. Of course everybody should use always the most recent version and comments and external events to make it easier for the project leader to see what changes you have made. Maybe we could have schedules for when the project gets updated, maybe every month or every 2 months, the project leader can set the dateā€¦ This way, we can make sure nobody going to start to work on something only few days before the project gets updated and have to restart from scratch because of the new version. So if you want to work on something and the update only few days away, you can wait and start to work on the most recent version. You also going to know when would be the best time to finish what you are working on, of course you can coordinate with the project leader if you want to fit in to the next update but need a bit more time or something. Of course no problem if you not finishing in time and miss a scheduled update, no commitment or anything, but because you always have to work on the most recent version, an update could cause problems if something changed in the project completely and you have to start something from scratch because of that.
But I donā€™t have experience in this, maybe it is a stupid way to do it. But this is the way I imagine. Any suggestion are welcome.

I was think about something similar too. How about a GTA style sandbox game filled with minigames?

It would be a sandbox game in top down view where you can do anything. You can be a:
-taxi, bus driver and the goal is to transport passengers in to the specified locations within certain time and with no damage to the vehicle
-ambulance driver: the goal is similar but you have to get to injured people and transport them to the hospital
-truck driver: no timer but you have to travel greater distance and also very important to cause no damage
-car thief: you have to find, steal and transport specified vehicles with minimal damage within certain time.
-story missions: of course if anybody have a good story idea, we can build a storyline and also adjust the gameplay and game world to fit, to be more or less action or rpg oriented and such but if we donā€™t have good story idea, I would go with a simple sandbox world in GTA style where player can do anything can go anywhere in top down view. Though, donā€™t have to be a modern present day world, can be medieval, western, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, horror or even futuristic (sci-fi).

Possible minigames as jobs in game world
-burglar: you can rob houses but this would be basically a logic game about need to get an item. You have to get the items before the resident wake up (would have a timer), if the resident wake up the mission fail, you could also rob the bank. What kind of logic game? This would be the part of the team work to find out. In case of success, maybe you still have to get your item to a certain location to get the money
-dock worker: an other logic game, mainly about pushing, pulling, moving containers to get to a specified container
-pipe worker: a logic game, mainly the remake of pipe dream
nesbox.com/game/snes/pipe-dream/ ā€¦ 34e8ed8190
-fisher man: a minigame, something similar to Master Fisher
m.spielspiele.de/games/agility/master-fisher/en/
-soldier: I can imagine this as a maze game with same shooting, something similar to platoon:
nesbox.com/game/nes/platoon/rom/ ā€¦ 94a7e43317
Or can be a traditional platform shooter such Contra:
nesbox.com/game/nes/contra/rom/4 ā€¦ 6bcc8aa079
But with random levels and enemies.
Or can be a target shooter, something similar to duck hunt but with terrorists and such.
nesbox.com/game/nes/duck-hunt/ro ā€¦ 571d040b5f
Or can be random. Sometime platoon, sometime contra, sometime targeting
-hunter: duck hunt definitely
-farmer: first you have to earn money to buy a land and start to build your farm, it would be something similar to farm frenzy
-bartender, chefā€¦etc: time management games about to serving drinks, foodā€¦etc

Possible minigames as entertainment in the game world (anything really)
-casino = roulette, slots game, card games
-theme park, zoo: anything fit in here really, memory games, reflex games, logick games
-sit in front of a PC or console and play anything: galaxian, angry birds, tetris, pac manā€¦etc

I know, this is not very creative idea basically a sandbox game where you can go around and play all kind of games.
This is the reason why would be great if more people could participate. Not only with sprites, sounds and
technical help. We could also use some creative help. If somebody would like to participate but donā€™t have the experience or time to help with assets and actual development, but have some good idea, suggestions, please post it, that would be a great help too.
Maybe we could start with how all these minigames can be part of a big whole and could blend in to the game world because in my head they are just locations in the game world really, you can steal a car and go to the casino to play some poker, as a pipe worker, you have to go to different locations in the city to play pipe dream, as a hunter you can go to the forest to play duck hunt and staff like this. Not really polished idea. Also because this would be a sandbox game, player need freedom, freelance missions in the game world but I have no idea what kind of missions can be. Find something, kill somebody, steal something would be boring, I donā€™t really want mafia GTA, only a GTA style sandbox game. Any suggestions?

8

Iā€™m up for making a GTA style sandbox game. Is everyone okay with doing it as a web platform game? I donā€™t mind to make the basic framework (wordl) in which to make the game if people want that done?

I think people should make their changes in an external event (with a sensible name) and then the project leader can add it to the project very easily. Also, the framework should be quite general to allow as much extension as possible in the game. We can get some artwork from opengameart.org, but of course, if anyone can contribute art it will be very helpful still! You cannot find everything on opengameartā€¦

Yes, this would be awesome!

9

GTA Clone is cool idea actually! Iā€™m in. What gfx style would you prefer? Pixel or realistic?

10

For such a project, as with lots of other, better start with something with a ā€œsmallā€ game and then enhance when the gameplay and graphics are good enough. GTA likes games implies a lot of activites that can be done and lots of graphicsā€¦ Maybe you should try to develop a subset of the game first that is fun to play and which doesnā€™t need to much work for the first versions :slight_smile:

11

I think the web platform is fine, if the game going to be good enough to be released on desura for Windows, Linux we can easily
port it to native platform anyway, though I may going to miss the 3D boxes from native platform.

Regarding framework, I think first of all, we should agree on a game concept.
If everybody agree on a GTA style game (it seems like) and nobody have any suggestions or idea, then yes, and thanks Mats
A framework would be useful at least we going to have something to get started. :slight_smile:

Regarding development, in my opinion we should implement these features first:

-player control
-player can jump and climb over obstacles
ā€“cars, fence, walls
-player can get in the vehicles
-player can drive vehicles
-player can get off the vehicles
-collision between player, vehicles, buildings
weapon system
ā€“weapons can be picked up
ā€“player can switch between weapons and shoot
ā€“shoot can cause damage to people and vehicle
ā€“in case of damage people get killed, vehicles get destroyed
basic AI
-traffic
ā€“vehicles stay on the road and follow a random path later we can improve it to have traffic lights, random destination and also some
delinquent and accidents
-people
ā€“civilians stay away from road and also follow a random path on sidewalks, later we can improve it to have different type of civilians move at different speed in curtain cases, groups with random destinations also traffic lights, use crosswalk and also to have some criminals, car thief and kamikaze
-police, ambulance, fire fighter
ā€“I think these should be the very last things to be implemented in to the traffic and AI system as they can brake the rules,
and follow special rules in certain cases, so everything should be implemented before we start to work on these guys imo.

Once we have implemented all the core features, we can start to work on:
-build and design the game world
-different type of weapons
-different type of vehicles
-different type of civilians
-missions
-mini games
-story if anybody come up with a good one
-improved AI
-art

Any suggestions?

In my opinion we should not worry about graphics for now, we should concentrate on pure gameplay. Art and sounds can be the very last things imo, except an artist would join the project. I have some experience with gimp and mtPaint so I can make some place holders but this time we need something way better. What type of graphics to choose is really depends on the skills of the artist who make them.
Personally I would prefer realistic graphics, though if the artist have better skills and experience with pixel art, Iā€™m ok with pixel art too.
I think we should go with that type of art which can be done better by ourselves.
If anybody interested to make art I suggest to make same samples first, a car, some building, road and will see if it something we like or not. But I think we should wait with the art, because an artist with good skills could join the project in the coming months, never know, and it would not be nice if any of us would work a lot on graphics but finally we just drop them because we have better arts.
So, really I suggest to wait with graphics and concentrate on gameplay except any of us have really good skills in art, either is good pixel or realistic but need to be really good (if achievable).

12

I think first steps should be to create the following:

-A main character with basic movement controls.
-GUI - Including stats such as health and other appropriate info and a game menu.

The following groups with at least one member in each:

-Static obstacles - This might include trees for example. Stuff that the player and other objects do not interact with other than collisions.
-Jump-able obstacles - Obstacles that the player can jump over. This might include fences and walls.
-Moving obstacles - Obstacles that have collision detection but can move, such as gates.
-Buildings - with collision detection and code allowing for player interactions with them.
-Cars - Initially static (parked) but with ability for player to get in and drive them.
-People - Initially static, but with appropriate stats (health, move speed for example).

I am happy to do most or all of this stuff after the end of May (Iā€™m quite busy until then). Then we have a foundation on which to build the game. Of course, if anyone else wants to do some of it (or all of it), that would be very good. I will just say I can do it if no-one else has started to implement it in the next 2 1/2 weeks. I have already implemented all these kind of things before in GD, so I know how to do it at least reasonably well I believe.

Also, is there anything very important missing from that list or does anyone disagree with stuff on it? Further discussion is required about what exactly is the style of the game too. How should the GUI look? Should we include aircraft/ships? What can/canā€™t the player interact with? Can the player swim?

13

Exactly, we need a game concept before we can go any further with this.
My idea mainly is about to implement arcade games, within a game world, where we can go around and play all kind of games and I thought a GTA style sandbox world could fit my idea and everybody jumped on ā€œGTAā€, seems like everybody interested to make a GTA game. But really, we need a concept, ideas, suggestions for style, story, design.
The only thing we know, is that we want to make a GTA style game and thatā€™s it, we donā€™t even know if it would be present (modern) day, futuristic or fantasy.

Unfortionately I donā€™t have any ideas that could make unique a GTA style game, my conept and suggestion for a community porject is mainly about to create a game world and fill the world with many small games to play. The purpose of the game world mainly is to select games to play, something better than a simple menu. I thought a GTA style world could fit my idea, but Iā€™m not sure now.

How about a theme park, zoo as game world for my concept?
Player could walk around in a theme park and zoo as a kid and play all kind of games. It would give 100% freedom for game content, we can implement all kind of games in to the world of zoo and theme park, only restricition is no killing, blood, pornography and violation and really the purpose of the world is mainly to select games to playe a bit more intuitive way then clicking with mouse in a flat menu.
It also could help with design, UI and art as we already know how a theme park an zoo looks like, we know the style which is colorful, happy, funny, magical something cartoonish, so we already would have something to get started with UI, menu, art and style.

Anyway, In case everybody more interested in making a GTA style game, but nobody have any ideas, my suggestion is that to simply make a
clone, a remake of GTA 1 or 2 in GD including style, UI, gameplay, everything. If we have done it, we can still add any content, features to the game world to make it unique at some point.

14

The zoo/theme park idea has two problems - Firstly, itā€™s quite graphically intensive. At least one decent artist would have to contribute a great deal to the game. Second, I donā€™t think the game would have very much appeal gamers.

I also have a problem with cloning games. GTA I was already done, released and played. Cloning it is not really adding anything to do the world of gaming. =/

I think a GTA I/II style world would be nice, where you are quite free to move around and interact. However, I think that is kind of where similarities between this game and GTA should end. Being able to go into arcades and interact with stuff in them is already something that would make this game different from GTA I and GTA II. We could also make totally different missions. For example, instead of all this trying to kill people and destruction, how about trying to get the parts to build a bridge (which you can then use) to get to more of the landscape? Or a driving school where you can pass a driving test on the open road? Or a race track where you can build a reputation as a racer?

15

This is the reason why we need a game concept, without a concept we canā€™t make a different game :laughing:

By saying to make a ā€œclone, remakeā€ I meant to remake, clone the core gameplay, implement all the features of GTA 1 and 2 and once we have done it, we can still add any kind of missions, art, arcade (mini) games, story and game world.

So , my suggestion is that, without a concept, we should not worry about art, game world, style, about anything that make it different as to make something different, we need a concept. We donā€™t have a concept other than fill the game world with arcade games and make different missions, and so I suggest to start with only the core gameplay mechanics of GTA 1 and 2, and once we have the core features, gameplay mechanics implemented, including AI at least something basic for traffic and civilians, hopefully more people going to join and share ideas for style, missions and game world and maybe even someone with some nice art. Without ideas at the moment we canā€™t go any further than a GTA remake really and I mean the core features, gameplay mechanic.

In my opinion at the moment we should only make a small sketchy game world and ugly place holders in paint, simple text objects and implement the core game mechanics in to this sketchy, schematic world based on GTA as we donā€™t really have any ideas at the moment. Once we have all the core features in place, we have something playable, not nice, not unique, not complete but something, we can come back to the question and start to work on style, detailed unique world, gameplay/AI improvements, new features, art, UI, missions, arcade games, any kind of game content maybe even story to form our schematic GTA game in to something different, something unique something playable by the public.

The point is that, once we have implemented all the core features we can still add and remove anything we want as/if more people join with some ideas, but first we should get there, and also need to remember that to purpose of this community project would be in first place to make a tech demo for GD to show it capabilities technically with the option to release on Desura (and maybe one Steam later) by CompilGames if we end up with something really good :slight_smile:

16

If you want to show the technical side of GD, Iā€™m not sure that a GTA-style game is the best bet. You can easily set up this kind of world and environment in all 2D game engines I have seen. If you want something technical, a better option would be to make something technicalā€¦ Something like Freeciv, Nethack or Magic Pen (Google them if you donā€™t know them) would be a serious technical demonstration of what GD can do. They bring the following impressive stuff:

Freeciv:

-Isometric world
-Map generation to specified or random parameters.
-Unit movement on different terrain types
-Combat
-Resources
-Simple animations
-Statistics tracking
-Large AI management
-AI interactions

Nethack:

-Dungeon generation/terrain generation
-Isometric view (?) - Included in one version
-Combat at range, close combat, magic combat.
-Simple animations
-AI with movement and combat
-Statistics tracking

Magic pen:

-Shape recognition
-Lots of animation
-Lots of physics interactions

GTA:

-Doesnā€™t offer much? Collisions (required in all above games anyway), basic GUI, basic AI.

17

I donā€™t know if the first goal of the game would be to demonstrate the technical capabilities of GD. Players first want a game that is well designed, beautiful and fun to play. If these goals are reached, the game can be successful and be considered as a demonstration of GD capabilities.

18

Freeciv, Nethack and Magic Pen are all very popular games. I didnā€™t meant to suggest that gameplay should be forgotten about. :wink:

19

From all people I know only one person played Freeciv or Nethack. That person being me. And about Magic Pen I learned from yourself (will have to check it out).

However all people I know at least heard about GTA.

But if you want something challenging from technical aspect, how about game like Terraria?

20

Did all these people know about GTA when ONLY GTA I had come out? Of course everyone knows GTA now itā€™s one of the biggest and most successful games series everā€¦ Also, just because you personally do not know many people who play them, does not mean their playerbase is small.