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[Gatleos]

I've been thinking about this for awhile now, and I figured it was time I got some outside opinions on it: I propose an Electronic Entertainment Apparatus, designed by the good folks here at Bay12. A collaborative effort to make a freeware game, open to anyone on the forums who wants to contribute.

There are many ways this could work, many ways to plan it, many ways it could quickly fall apart and lose enthusiasm. As I said, I've been thinking about it for a while now; I've put a lot of thought into how things could work, and I've got lots of ideas. But before I put any of that out on the table, I need your first impressions, Bay12: what do you think of a potential project like this?

[Girlinhat]

What is "this"?  You didn't really say what's going on at all.

[klingon13524]

I suppose you could help with the development of LCS. Seriously, I'm dieing for an update.

[Neonivek]

Yeah that lack of enthusiasm part does tend to kill things. >_>

Though given I have no skills I guess I'll show myself out.

[Gatleos]

What is "this"?  You didn't really say what's going on at all.

The second sentence of my post states, unambiguously, exactly what is going on. I'll elaborate in a bit, I just want to see a general consensus. I wouldn't want to start something like this if no one was interested.

[Girlinhat]

Ok, well... I'd personally need a bit more info before I cared.  "It's a game" doesn't describe much.  Genre, level of detail involved, overall type, etc?  I mean, if there's already a bit of a plan then I might get behind it, depending on the plan of course, but if the whole plan is "I want to do something" then that probably won't get attention.

[Gatleos]

I'm not even talking about the game itself yet. I'm talking about a game-development project, and how plausible it would be in this context. Is it a good idea? Has anything like this ever been attempted on Bay12 before? These are the kinds of questions I'm asking.

But I see what you mean about the project having no direction. The reason I've been so vague is because I want to discuss those details you mentioned (genre, theme, etc.) with the community. I wanted to discuss them later once I was confident that the project could get off the ground.

tl;dr There is no game yet, I wanted everyone's opinions on a collaborative effort in making one before I discussed it.

[Girlinhat]

Ok, so... any plan for what you're planning, I guess?  I hate to sound critical (no, actually I've learned to enjoy it) but you didn't seem to give a ton of information here.  I've been guilty of this, especially when I've been thinking and planning something, I don't explain it very well because I already know what I'm thinking backwards and forwards, and forget that the basics may not be obvious to someone new hearing about it.

I take it the basic idea here is "Multiple people helping to create one game" but it may help to define that more exactly, or to admit that the method isn't decided yet.  Is this one person coding and many people giving suggestions?  You giving your vision and expecting others to code it? (seen that happen before.)  A big open-source chunk of code that anyone can edit, wiki-style?  A select few chosen people making a team and everyone else becoming bugfinders?

I'm interested, probably, except that I have no idea what to expect right now.  And, in my experience talking about ideas, it usually doesn't do a lot of good to say "I have an idea, but before I explain it..." because then you end up trying not to explain your idea, and withholding basic info.  Just lay it all out, or at least the basic framework, otherwise people have no idea what they're volunteering for.

[Fniff]

You have my Paint.net for whatever you wish to create!

[Gatleos]

Welp, you're totally right. I'll lay out what I've thought of so far.

Firstly, let me just distance myself from that "lol guyz i got a cool idea for a game but you have to code it for me kthxbye" thing you mentioned. That wouldn't be it at all. Anyway: I considered a collaborative coding project for a while, with an open source, but decided that the inherently casual nature of what I'm proposing would just lead to the code base becoming a disjointed mess and stagnating. So, what I've settled on would be this: I would be the sole programmer, handling everything on that end*. Everyone else would contribute anything they wanted to the project: graphical assets, music, gameplay ideas, story ideas (if applicable), testing, etc., and the game would form from the community's vision.

*Then again, maybe a few others helping with the coding would be a good idea. Not that I have an aversion to doing it all myself, but it's something to keep in mind.


Also: thanks, Fniff!

[Fniff]

You could also ask Shook if he wants to join in, he's a pixel artist. He's pretty damn good and he doesn't seem to be doing too much.

Personally, I'd like a platformer with a good enough story. I could write certain parts as well, if you like. I'm quite good with dialogue.

[LordBucket]

what do you think

Can be done. Has been done. Will be done. Going on now, even.

From previous experience however, successful projects of this sort happen not when a bunch of enthusiastic people get together and share enthusiasm...but rather, when one person actually makes something and then shares it.

[Reudh]

Pokemon Orthoclase and Microcline - A Community Pokemon Game based on the world of Dwarf Fortress and the internet.

Nuff said.
Anyone can add to it, but USEC and Glyph pretty much have final say.

[chaoticag]

I remember trying to start something like this off way back when, so let's at least start with proposals for the game. This being Bay12, if it's going to be made by the community, then it'll have to be playable by the community ie, if you can run Dwarf Fortress, then you should be able to run this game. So lets get the details in an easy to read way down:

-Multiplatform: playable on macs, PCs, and Linux. We'll prolly have to use Opengl for this.
-Low on the graphical end (Though I'll be suprised if we hit that)
-Free

Anyway, it might be best to vote up a genre next, now that we have ground rules, so here we go:

-platformer
-RPG
-Puzzel
-Shmup

This is all I can think of off the top of my head, so others will prolly be able to suggest more.

And before we're done, we'll also need to figure out a general idea of how the game ought to be conducted, and the kinds of emotion we want to evoke in the player, aswell as a general playstyle.

As for something I'd like to see,

Genre: Platformer, with RPG elements

I really liked spelunky, but after a while it felt same old same old. Being able to expand on that game, and add more complexity might be fun, at the expense of slowing the action down a smidge to encourage more thinking and less reacting.

In the meantime, I can see if I can make simple graphics for Hitpoints and Defence, since we'll prolly need them no matter what the game we're making is going to be.

[The Fool]

I'd be willing to help draw objects. I don't think I'm quite fast enough with characters to draw them in a timely manner.