Electronic Entertainment; Where to Start?

[Benzo]

As some of you may or may not know by this point, I want to go into game development. With this new age of gaming has come a very rapid rise of indie developers, modders getting picked up by various studios, and new companies rising from the ashes of nothingness. Thus, I want to strike while the iron is hot. Only problem is, I should probably know if I'm making a sword or a battleaxe before I begin, eh?

I have plenty of ideas as to where to start. Too many, in fact. Thus, I'm just going to present them and ask you folks what sounds fun. I also wouldn't mind help in the form of writing, level design, concept art, music, VA's (Though no offense, I'll probably stick to people I can physically work with there.) what have you. But let's get step 1 done first, eh?

1) Skyrim: Ragnarök
- Introducing Hel, Helheim and the Naglfar as a small Expansion-esc addon. Simple enough. Might need help coming up with a Jotunn design. Something like a mix between an Orc and Skyrim's giants, I'm thinking.

2) AGE - The Game
- Honestly not too sure where I'd go with this. I'd want the ability to constantly add new contracts/missions, but I'm not sure how I'd do that. Sell them one at a time? Hitman did that, and I don't think people were pleased.
This one would require a bit more work. Uniform and logo design, AGE theme music, the works.

3) RP(G)s
- I'd probably look at Hand of Fate for a good reference here. Made with Unity as well, which I use, so that's a plus.
Basically just slight D&D style paragraphs/plot decisions with slight intercourses of combat. Mine would probably focus a bit more on combat. Still a lot of work, but easier than AGE for sure.

4) Fallout 4 - The Minutemen's Rally
- FO4's Minutemen faction sucked ass. Good potential, just wasn't there. I'll put it there.
Basically just a short plotline letting the player lead an actual MM assault on Quincy, Gunner Plaza, and other Gunner-faction hotspots. Make those fuckers remember why you don't mess with the National Guard.



Annnd, idk. If you folks have ideas, lemme know. Credit and payment will, of course, be dispensed when/where applicable. (That is, to say, I doubt I'd be getting a direct paycheck from any mods. But help design theme music for AGE or something? You bet your ass you'll be getting a chunk of the profits from any Steam sales.)

[Tikobe]

Could link the AGE thing to an online server and then release new missions on that server. That would also allow for other players to develop their own missions to help spread the fun.

[Benzo]

I honestly would have to look into that. I'm not sure what server costs are like, but I can't imagine they're pretty since Dice is always too eager to sell off literally all of theirs with each new Battlefield game.

[Tikobe]

Jan 24, 2018 15:12:59 GMT -4 Benzo said:

I honestly would have to look into that. I'm not sure what server costs are like, but I can't imagine they're pretty since Dice is always too eager to sell off literally all of theirs with each new Battlefield game.

Oh yeah. It's an idea for the future, but doing it as a start would be a pretty bad idea. Wait until you can expect a reasonable profit before doing that. I just figured to throw that idea out there for reference.

[Benzo]

I really should work with AGE. Somewhat generic idea, but goddamn I am proud of that name, haha.
I should work on a Game Design Document and see what I can come up with. Any ideas for overall plot, folks? Or just any key-features. There's no wrong answers here.


I'm thinking dynamic dialogue; Add the challenge of speaking the part? But that's a whole hell of a lot more work for the VA's

Notoriety System - If you play loud, people will start to know your face.

First person or Third? I feel like First is better for gunplay, third is better for stealth.

Custom Characters? Idk how much work goes into that, but it could be a lot. It probably is.


Uhh... Anything else? Morally ambiguous plotline? Not necessarily force the player to be "good" or "evil." It IS the Association of GLOBAL Espionage. Meaning, anyone could be a target for any reason.

[Benzo]

Oh, I could try multiple "mini" plots for different characters. Make part of the Agent Dossier include an Assassin, Government Agent and maybe a few other paths.

[Kudo]

Yo, I've been interested in game development since last year, though I didn't have a clue where to start or what do etc. Just as I started to figure out how things work, my motherboard was burned and we couldn't afford to fix it so I nearly gave up.

If it doesn't bother you, could you give me some advice about where to start or how to practise stuff like programming, modeling etc efficiently?

[Benzo]

Jan 28, 2018 15:52:25 GMT -4 Kudo said:

Yo, I've been interested in game development since last year, though I didn't have a clue where to start or what do etc. Just as I started to figure out how things work, my motherboard was burned and we couldn't afford to fix it so I nearly gave up.

If it doesn't bother you, could you give me some advice about where to start or how to practise stuff like programming, modeling etc efficiently?

Aye, of course mate!

For starters, if you want to learn directly from actual professionals, you may want to check out some courses on Coursera. I believe they also offer what are referred to as "Audit Classes" meaning you can watch the videos, do the projects/tests, but you just won't get a grade and certificate at the end of the day.
If you do end up doing that, Michigan has some pretty decent professors offering classes for Python and various languages.

For Game Development, I'm not sure if this was just part of the class, but Unity is a pretty goid and possibly free game engine. Some games that you may recognize made with this include; Hand of Fate, Cuphead and South Park: The Fractured But Whole.

For modeling, I know Blender is free and pretty commonly used, but it is something I've been meaning to actually learn. At the moment, it is completely alien to me and thus, I can't vouch for its quality.

[Kudo]

Jan 28, 2018 16:14:59 GMT -4 Benzo said:

Jan 28, 2018 15:52:25 GMT -4 Kudo said:

Yo, I've been interested in game development since last year, though I didn't have a clue where to start or what do etc. Just as I started to figure out how things work, my motherboard was burned and we couldn't afford to fix it so I nearly gave up.

If it doesn't bother you, could you give me some advice about where to start or how to practise stuff like programming, modeling etc efficiently?

Aye, of course mate!

For starters, if you want to learn directly from actual professionals, you may want to check out some courses on Coursera. I believe they also offer what are referred to as "Audit Classes" meaning you can watch the videos, do the projects/tests, but you just won't get a grade and certificate at the end of the day.
If you do end up doing that, Michigan has some pretty decent professors offering classes for Python and various languages.

For Game Development, I'm not sure if this was just part of the class, but Unity is a pretty goid and possibly free game engine. Some games that you may recognize made with this include; Hand of Fate, Cuphead and South Park: The Fractured But Whole.

For modeling, I know Blender is free and pretty commonly used, but it is something I've been meaning to actually learn. At the moment, it is completely alien to me and thus, I can't vouch for its quality.

Thank you!
I remember installing Unity last year along with Visual Studio 2015. I also learnt a bit of Python - just basics.

For courses I haven't taken a professional one yet, just watched a couple of videos/tutorials on youtube - CS50 lectures; they were pretty useful to understand some complicated concepts, like arrays in C languages. I also participated in an android-game development course that was available for free on futurelearn.com, but sadly I couldn't benefit from it as I currently don't have a pc.

I'm interested, what do you specialize in; programming, modeling, graphics, sound ,etc?

[Benzo]

Oh man, if I had to choose a specialization, I'd probably have to say just concept design or something. I was always the most innovative for any mini-projects the class had us do. (Lots of peer grading. Thus, you have to test other people's and they test yours.) Just general thinking outside the box, I guess.

For example, one project was this box shooter game that just had you write up a random spawner script with various + and - value targets and various motions to them.
For some reason I was the only one who thought to add a health and damage script to the player and boxes respectively and a simple chaser command. Every other project just messed with their motion patterns.

[Kudo]

Oh, so you're the creative/idea-ish man in the squad, that's cool.
Good luck btw!

[Benzo]

Pretty much, yeah. One nice thing about the actual 'Game Design' course I took is that it treated you as the head Developer, thus you had to be a sort of Jack of all Trades.
One bad thing was the fucking deadlines. I guess you had to go in with a fullly fleshed idea ready. I had to keep jumping to different course dates to avoid falling behind. That's actually where the idea for turning AGE into a game came from; It's all I had to get a slight headstart.

[Kudo]

That's very cool, participating in courses like that and gaining experience is useful - not the deadlines part though that's painful.

I want to be a jack of all trades type guy in game development, but I guess that would be very hard. Still it would be nice if I managed to know some basic knowledge in this and that beside my own specialization, I don't have many guys around me that are interested in game development, so there's that.