Charcoal Rock card game

To put my opinion back into this thread, I think we are going with the OP ideas because:

- Lack of people willing to help design the game better.

- 1337_hax_ftw agrees with my ideas.

 

Here is our new team?

Directors:
Torsh
1337_hax_ftw

Terrain Designer:
JoshSavage (is making terrain for the game)

Programmers:
Tim (active)

Concepts:
Taybre (active)
Heather (active)

Concept Artist:
DemonRoxas

 

I agree. It would also allow him to not spend the time he could be working on the game with chatting in the forums

So just to settle this little debate:

• Make a prototype (shouldn't take anymore than two-three weeks if you program the core stuff), present that if you want.
• Then add in any additional mechanics and present (optional presentation)
• Add some aesthetics and more functionality, test and present.
• Clean code, create levels, add level specific code,
• Add some of the major graphics and story,
• Test, present alpha, clean alpha, present beta, etc.

Creating that prototype will REALLY help you find out how fast and well you can create your game.

SN: I partially agree with Lukasuarus when it comes to how fast a game can be created in 48 hours if you really pressure yourself (or having external pressure put upon you). I was in a team of three and we managed to create a Pikmin styled game within that amount of time (gameplay, 7 character models, interface, and a level). I'm not saying this to gloat, but to demonstrate how much you can accomplish in a short amount of time if you REALLY work hard. Sure, the game wasn't pretty, but it was suitable as a prototype. I never would have thought we would have completed a game project that fast.

 

Team of 7. That's still good. But trolls don't like that. Trolls think we have to have a game to end all games with a team of 3 within 3 weeks.
Lawl.

But it works.

 

@Torsh and 1337_hax_ftw - I think you're coming up against hostility because while you're both talking the talk, you don't have any proof you've taken that many steps when it comes to walking the walk. If that sounded flippant I apologise, but in this part of the forum you'll get opinions coming back at you.

I don't think anyone's suggested you should have created a complete game within 2 weeks, but something as basic as getting a character moving around a terrain with some simple interactions sounds like something a team of 1 or 3 or 7 or 20 could get going in a couple of weeks.

@The rest - Keep comments helpful, you can deliver a negative opinion in a constructive manner.

 

I'm just saying that almost everyone on the forums wants people to have an amazing portfolio the day they post their first thread, or the person is useless and has no idea what they're talking about. Or, that's at least what I've seen in almost every thread in the forums. This not only includes the collab section, but commercial, and asset store as well.

 

in the other thread people tried giving you advice and criticism, stop being a spoilt sport. Also we never said that we wanted to see an amazing game in two weeks, you should of at least have something to show if you're in a 20 man team.

 

+1 and then some.

 

We've had bad luck. That is probably all.

 

I already designed your game better in the previous thread. It had choices, it had strategy and options, it had very little random chance (the only chance was what you drew from your own deck, but you built your own deck over the course of a battle. If you wanted to be better at fighting, you purchased more fight cards etc). Yeah, it was basically Dominion/Eminent Domain, but it was better than your idea (because Dominion is a brilliant game - the physical card game, not the old PC game).

1337haxftw is a teenager, much like you. Of course he will agree with you because he thinks like you. It might be worthwhile noting that in the last 20 years, there haven't been many successful teenage game developers. Before that, the UK had a string of them, developing simple games as a one man team in their garage on ZX spectrums. Now, you have so many tools available to you, you just can't see that the basics haven't changed. You think that making a terrain will make your game. Nope, the heart of the game is still the programming behind it. Everything else is controlled by that. The programming is the centerpiece. You can have great art, but if your collisions don't work, your controls are unresponsive and your general game idea sucks, then the art is wasted.

P.S. I also wasn't suggesting that he could do a prototype in 48 hours. Just that it could be done, because he seems to think it will take him 3 months to get a basic demo out the door.

 

I'm an adult.

 

I doubt that. You've got a game called "Charcoal Rock", a bad attitude about how you think the world works, and a self inflated ego.

18 19 may qualify as "adults", but you're still a "teen".

And if you are 20+, grow up, and stop letting a 15 year old (1337haxftw) massage your ego.

 

Eww,.that sounds so wrong on so many levels and in so many States.



That said,..I do enjoy the idea of "cards" in game( see Sig), but what we have here is 3+ pages( counting the other thread) playing
Show Tell: e.i. You're telling us everything but showing us nothing( ty Christopher Walken for that).

now That said,...I do wish you luck and I think what you are doing is fine and very necessary,.you are working out your game,..it's just that maybe you came here a bit too early in the process as you have nothing really demonstrated( Webplayer).

ReGroup with your buds, do your skype thing,..paper model it,.whatever,..then come back with a basic demo of game mechanics even if it had cubes with googled jpegs on it as placeholders.

cheers
-Welby

 

I hope to be picking up pace. But we'll see.

In 2 weeks, I expect to have an intro. The intro will hopefully involve good landscape and 4 orbs. The landscape, which is Kelk Village, will be zoomed in upon to show the 4 orbs. This landscape will carry over into the base arena of the game.

We would like to get more people to help us. I'll post in Collaboration about it later. We need as many people as we can get to make this intro. We don't need them, but we want it to look cool.

Once we get this done, we'll move onto programming the core logic. I just want to see this menu done before tackling the large stuff.

This is also our first time goal.

Don't expect a lot from us though. The problem is that we're a newb team. We need to all learn to work together to make this game. I'm focusing on small things while that happens. And it may take longer than 2 weeks, I'm not sure. But I would like for it to be 2 weeks . I'm sorry that we're not moving faster.

 

Change of plans, I might be a texture artist making skybox textures instead of a programmer.

Here is an example free picture of what our game will look like for the intro, but there will be 4 orbs:



Image search.

 

Will the into be playable ?

 

No, I'm afraid not. It will be like a video.

 

The expression putting the cart before the horse springs to mind with this project.

You are focusing on totally the wrong things, a game is nothing without gameplay that is the core of the game and where the project needs to start. What you are doing is similar to a film director trying to record a film before having a script, a storyboard or even a single camera.

 

Some/most of the content of the intro will be used in the actual game.

It's just a project to get us started.

 

I totally agree with Varedis.

Just Start with the card fighting part. Make it works in text mode with some buttons and labels.

I'm prototyping somethings of an adventure game right now and the map system is not the core of the system so right now it's just some labels on a black screen. Like my intro.

Focus on the core of your game ! what are you going to do after the into ? the box for retail ? the manual ?

 

You don't seem to grasp what I am saying.

Put it this way:

You want to make a burger, but you don't know how to cook the meat, so you go to the supermarket to buy the buns, you return home and slice the burger bun and put it on your plate, at this point you don't have a burger.
You go back to the supermarket and buy some sesame seeds because you can't have a burger without a seeded bun. Unfortunately this still doesn't produce a burger.
You then chop up some lettuce and put it on the bun to try and make the burger, you still don't have a burger.
You get out a Tomato and chop that up into perfect circles and put that on the lettuce and put on the mustard and ketchup, but you still don't have a burger.
You still don't know how to cook the actual burger so you blame the bun and throw it away and have some noodles instead.

Now swap the burger in this scenario for a game. The core gameplay is your meat, everything else is filler.

There was a very good reason I went for a burger as it takes lots of components that arent much on their own and brings them together to form something special much like a game.
To clarify:

The bun is the thing that holds your game together. (ie menu screens)
The seeds would be extra little touches (like intro's)
The lettuce represents models
The tomatoes represent animations
And the sauces represents sounds

 

Man you're really deluding you're self, this project is going to crash and burn if you don't listen to other people

 

I do hope you power through and make something out of this and I wish you the best of luck. But as others clearly are stating, and if the objects in the intro are going to be in-game, why not make the game first?

Usually a prototype has the actual core of functionality, this is because everything outside of that is filler which Varedis described very colorful. Filler content can't be made without its core. Intros, menus, fancy GUI, are usually just dummies until the very end of production. There's a great reason for that, because when something is changed in gameplay during the development stage, it usually reflects those parts vastly.

A project is a living and breathing thing, it takes turns, sometimes really wide ones during the development stage. I'd suggest to start working on an intro at the very late alpha or beta stage. There's sadly a huge chance you're shooting yourself in the foot otherwise.

 

@save - We will try to make the menu system expandable.

@yls - After the intro, we will work on the game.

 

But you've been working on this for weeks and have just said you're going to take another few weeks making a goddamn flythrough cutscene.

I don't think you've given this any hint of thought before recruiting a 'team'.

 

Every time I follow advice though, people have problems with it:

I followed the advice of posting this in the WIP. Then people said I have no WIP.

I followed the advice of cutting my team down. Then people wondered why I cut my team down.

People said to make this game in 2 weeks. I can't do that, so I'm making an intro. People don't want an intro in 2 weeks.

 

People want you to post in WIP when you have something worthy of a WIP.

You cut your team down yet to ask newbies posting in the collab section to join you.

We said to get some basic gameplay elements down in two weeks. It's really not that hard. A cutscene is completely irrelevant when all you have to show is a basic terrain that honestly my 10 year old brother could produce and a rectangle made in paint that just looks like it's ripping off pokemon's battle system.

 

Guys the OP's reported the derailing in this thread. Can I request you guys leave of giving feedback for now, until there's something to criticise.

 

^^^^ Agreed..

There's yer problem right there. You are just 'learning',...forget about 20 man teams and epic gameplay. Make a simple game,..you must have heard that advice before.

I started with this all by myself:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Wenliss/unity-test1

and ended( still ending) with what's in my sig. Cheesy , yeah,..but it's doing something,..and now I have learned a great deal of game mechanics for whatevers next.


Do a search on youTube,..tons and tons of great examples of works in progress showing gameplay elements.

Example:

this guy has a bunch more,..you should watch them. Notice how everything is Unity default GUI with simple Icons and primitive shapes,..yet it demonstrates way more than some Intro cinematic and Menu.


The problem with doing what you are doing( besides what was mentioned) is that by the time, if, you actually get to actual gameplay and beyond,..your game will change,..the aesthetic may change, the mechanics will change and you will end up reDoing all your GUI and menu anyways,..

I know you won't take any of our advice,..and I guess you just need to "see for yourself",...
and with that,..It's your decision to have fun,...

...just try not to drag 20 other poor beginners down your path

 

opps,...I was still typing when ya posted that,..sry/

 

I'll go ahead and post this now:

Check out the skybox I'm working on and am almost done with: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/117729-Small-WIPs-that-do-not-need-their-own-thread-(2012)/page95

Once I get the terrain from JoshSavage around Monday, and the 4 orbs from 1337_hax_ftw, we will be ready to have craigscott program it.

Here is a timeline for the game:

Tuesday, June 12th - intro

Friday, August 24th - playable demo

Friday, November 23rd - completed game

Expect the intro to look a bit like Zelda: Twilight Princess.

Also, I think this game will be fun if it borrows the right concepts from Golden Sun - buying weapons, simplistic battle system, leveling up, etc...

Expect us to get more organized and work-friendly as we go along.

Also, I'd like to request positive feedback only. Please go with my wishes and PM me if it's something negative.

 

That skybox texture really doesn't look like a sky.

 

I just read through this whole thread, about 90% useless posts and about 10% LMAO entertainment.

 

We have some unfortunate news. Our terrain designer lost most of his data and has to redo a lot of the terrain. We may not be able to meet the first release date because of this, I'm not sure.

I think the skybox actually fits our purposes.

 

Nobody really knows what your purposes are, including yourself.

Seeing as you are making a card game, I'm not sure why the terrain is going to set you back. The core of your game is card based combat. Have you done anything with it?

 

I would have to agree with this.

 

Make the game for now an interior only and not worry about any terrain. Make a small castle or something and play through it and battle people in other rooms via the card game.

 

Our dynamic is to make Kelk Village (the terrain) first and then later work on the dungeons.

Stage 1 - The controversial making of the intro. We will make the terrain (Kelk Village) and the 4 orbs.

Stage 2 - We will have the player playing the card game in Kelk Village.

Stage 3 - We will have the player playing the card game in Kelk Village and will also include the 3 dungeons.

I view the 3 dungeons as add-ons, and Kelk Village as the heart of the game. Not to mention gameplay will work a little differently in the dungeons, because you control a PC.

 

When is your deadline to have this all accomplished?

 

Stage 1 - Tuesday, June 12th was the deadline but we're going to have to delay it, it looks like.

Stage 2 - Friday, August 24th.

Stage 3 - Friday, November 23rd.

 

Well lets hope we see some progress soon.

 

Your game idea sounds just fine, and its great to start getting your storyline written, but it sounds like you're doing a whole lot more thinking than doing. Check out some tutorials (link provided at bottom) and start learning how to build a game, you can always come back to your project after you have a basic grasp of coding.


In an effort to be helpful here is a rundown of what happened with my current project: Approx 5-6 months ago I started coming up with the idea for my game, and couldn't get the idea out of my head so I downloaded unity, and stared at a blank project for awhile. Knowing that if this game was to become a reality, I would have to do it all myself.

As I've read many times in this thread, programming is the backbone of the project, not the graphics, not the idea, textures, or story. So I read through a unity tutorial book, and then followed several unity training videos that were listed in the Teaching section. If this sounds like its going to take you way away from your project it won't, this stage took less than a month of getting my hands dirty. I may have had an advantage in that i took 2 semesters of Java, but I had no experience with Javascript or c#. About 3 months ago I started to teach myself C# through the power of google, and started working on different components of my game, and within a month I had a working prototype. This is all while taking my final semester of my 4th year of my university degree, so it could hardly be considered as even 'part-time'.

I had to stop for almost 2 months but now that university has ended I have been working on it full-time only this last week, and in this week I've rebuilt nearly ALL of the core mechanics of the game, and it runs better than ever and is actually a fun game to play. At no time did I ever work on graphics, intro movies, terrains, etc. but my c# skills have improved so well that I rarely need to google for a solution, I just open a new script and start coding. my game is green spheres vs red spheres, moving about on a white plane, with cube walls as obstacles. Setting random deadlines will do no good. I haven't started a WIP thread because at first I had nothing to show, and now I'd rather wait to start a showcase thread!

This leads me to the moral of my story: the only thing that will do any good is GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY
Good Luck.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/69938-Unity-3-Video-Training-Course-(FREE)-Walker-Boys

 

Improving my programming will only do so much good as right now, we need a 3d modeler more than we need a programmer. We need a 3d modeler for a hour and a half of work that I can't do myself because I don't know Blender well enough and am not good at 3d modeling.

I understand how people want me to work on the core game because people want to see it in action. What I don't understand is how doing the hardest first will help me much. I can learn programming better if I have to while we're making the intro. I'm just here to make sure the game gets done and direct it. We are leveling ourselves up right now. If I have to get my hands dirty, I will eventually figure it out, but it'll probably take longer than having a novice of the field do it.

I have had team members challenge me to do more.

 

How do you know its an an hour and half of work? You have no experience in the matter. How can you possibly give a time frame? I've been doing custom application development for small business clients for 10~ish years, and quite honestly, giving accurate quotes requires a loooot of experience.

Because that's generally how indies do it. We don't have the huge budgets and support systems of publishers required to run large parallel teams. To compound the matters, you have little experience designing games and thus lack the foresight required to manage a parallelized workflow. Hell, even experienced studios end up making large changes to ideas they thought were going to work.

You have little to no experience in directing anything, except perhaps somebody you babysat at some point. You've never made a published game. You don't know how programming works, or character design, or even game design for that matter. I doubt you've ever read a book or taken a class in any of these subjects.

Eventually, if they have brains, they'll just get rid of you because you don't do anything.

 

Please. Just...no.

 

I need something like this modeled:



But without the hand on it. I need the orb part of it in the following colors:

Black
Yellow
Red
Blue

I've read two books on the subject.

 

You need a solid colored sphere???

Alright, I'm gettin' trolled.

 

I need a sphere with the ring around it. I also need textures that look detailed for the sphere and I need the ring to look shiny. I want it to look good, so I would actually prefer a novice do it. Beginners are fine too though.

I tried modeling it myself with a sphere and a cylinder (too simple approach) but I couldn't figure out how to apply materials in the new Blender. And like I said, that approach is pretty simple.

 

My guess is that the reason why you couldn't figure it out is because you are using the wrong approach. 3D modeling a 2d button doesn't make much sense to me at all. Have you tried using a 2D program like gimp or inkscape for that button?