I have dreamed of starting an open source sandbox game filled with autonomous bots for over a decade, but while I know programming just fine, I have object blindness which makes searching for information nigh impossible. Finding a seeing-eye programmer to create a skeleton program for me to work on is my only hope for completing anything, but I am just as incapable of searching for help as I am searching for instructions in the first place.
My dream is to make this a community project that everyone can contribute to, but for anyone to care it would need a base to work on. And since I myself would need help making that base, no one has been willing to help either. I'm at the point where I'd be willing to even pay to get this started, if anyone could help, or even help with finding help because I seriously can't find anything on my own. Having object blindness is like being the only colorblind person in a world where no one believes that you really can't see what they take for granted.
What I need boils down to a few things, in order of complexity:
-NPC paths to object
-Function runs when the NPC reaches the target object
-NPC picks up, carries, and drops object.
-NPC creates a building either around the center of the map or near other buildings, and the navmesh gets updated accordingly.
Here's a full description of the idea:
The game would be based mostly around the bots AI, making them seek food and shelter on their own and so on. Starting the AI from simple things like just picking food and building a basic shelter would make it faster to get the first basic release done, and also ensure that they had methods to keep living even if the late game houses and food markets got destroyed. As the basic survival needs got fulfilled, the bots would start improving their settlement further, building proper housing and workplaces, making proper plans for freetime and so on.
As for what the player would do, once the sandbox ran indepently they could mess with it however they please. Spawn monsters, drop meteors on them or order them around to do what you want. Posess a character and play around in person, living a normal life or going on a rampage. An independently functioning town of NPC:s would be a great base for many kinds of games from Sims to Assassins Creed.
Developing the project in arcs like Dwarf Fortress would help split the seemingly massive project into small chunks, each release adding a new function to the game. First release would be just about making the characters move, eat and sleep, second would be adding framework for professions and construction, third would be items, interiors and ownership, fourth about desires and socializing and so on.
This is the game I'd want more than anything, but like I said, I can't do it alone. I can write up design documentation just fine, but I definitely can't do it alone. Would anyone with normal eyesight here be interested?
And finally, here's the spaghetti code I've managed to make until now. It's my second attempt and as discardable as the first, because the only instructions I ever managed to find on how to actually
use Unity's pathfinding come from a forum post where someone asked for help with his project and I just copied the code without understanding any of it. The way its used here is like hauling an entire wrecked car home because you needed a reading lamp and couldn't find any other light source.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/aljemo
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Topic: Paying For Programming Help (Unity, Unreal or Godot) (Read 2950 times)