RAPTORS - become a dinosaur - prototype (3D TPP game)

Hi Kubold can I continue the project?

 

This is good!
Needs a little work on the environments, they seem a bit generic
BUT THIS IS AMAZING!
Is there going to be a character creation/selection screen?

 

Man we don't want Dinosaur Battle Grounds, We want Raptors, hehe honestly i don't like what i've seen of battle grounds. What you have done is at a higher level. Are you working on it again? i think if you don't do it we're gonna wait forever to play something with your concept, nobody will release something like that never ever. and if they do i bet it won't be as good as i think raptors would be. Greetings, Waiting for Raptors...

 

Well... every 2 months I think I want to do this, but there are couple of showstoppers.

From the feedback so far, I think people want different "Raptors" than me. Most of the feedback is that Raptors should be open world mmo, when you are a dinosaur minding your own bussiness. This idea is totally different then I wanted this game to be. I'm more of a "Uncharted" games fan rather than "WoW" or "DayZ". Also making an mmo by myself is just impossible (the scope, the servers, community management, marketing etc. etc.). Making an mmo requires bigger team and a looot of money.

My game always was supposed to be a single player story-driven experience in semi-open world (so a lot of free space, but with one big storyline). Essentially, an action-adventure. That is doable for a one-man team in reasonable amount of time and a little bit of outsourcing and some royalty-free assets, but it seems to not be what people say they want.

Anyway, we could maybe do a little experiment. I could make a first like maybe 15 minutes of this game (re-do it from scratch using Unity 5 and all the goodies I didn't have back then), release it for free and see what happens. I'm very good at making first 15 minutes of games and I consider it a hobby. It's the "finishing the game" part that requires tons of money and time.

Estmating roughly, assuming I would be making a full, finished game in year and a half, with no delays (there always are), I think I would need $150 000 for production. That would be costs of living and maintaining my mocap studio (because either I make a game, or I make animations for other people for a living like I do now, can't do both, no time), costs of software and assets. Not counting the marketing costs.

Let's make estimates just for fun:

$150 000 - gross
$28 500 (19%) - taxes
$6250 - mandatory social insurance for 1 person for 18 months in Poland
$2000 - accountance

$113 250 - left for production
$113 250 / 18 months = $6290 a month after taxes (rounded up)

Now, monthly expenses for my family:

$700 - mocap studio rent
$900 - mortgage on the house and bills
$1200 - living (food, clothes, gas, stuff etc.)

$6290 - $2800 = $3490 a month left

$1500 - Monthly expenses for software, outsourcing and royalty free assets. So for example an enviro artist, speed tree models, buying or modelling dinosaurs (I can model a few, but I'll be busy making gameplay and animating most of the time), buying plugins for Unity and licensing software like Maya or Adobe suite.

$1990 a month left - a buffer in case release slips, unpredicted expenses, house and car repairs, vacation, restaurants, beer and just simply, savings (because you can't have 0$ savings if you have kids - stuff happens in life and you need to have extra money).

So there, finishing "Raptors" would cost $150 000. I don't think I could raise $150 000 for a single player game, nor I have that amount of money to spend. Also I'm not sure it would sell so well to earn that kind of moeny in today's "indie flood" world, it would just simply flop. Therfore, we all wait for Battlegrounds (which raised $11,152 on it's Kickstarter btw.) and Saurian.

 

Well it's possible people want a mmo game, What i've looking for is a dinosaur adventure such a Lost World Jurassic Park for PS1, i have never seen another game like that. But it's true is too difficult making a whole game by yourself without any monetary support. However a demo of 15 minutes would be enough enjoyable for some, i think ..And you never know what could happen. i don't know about this, but there could be another people interest in continuing the develop. lots of games are comunnity made.

 

I just got a moment of clarity: I'm good at making first 15 minutes of a game, because I usually get my kick out of first 15 minutes of any game. When I play games I usually get bored when I get familiar with all the mechanics, just repeating them for the next 8-20 hours is usually boring for me. So maybe you are right, maybe 15 minutes is just enough for many people to have fun and not want more.

And if I add some "out of the story" random, procedural events, encounters etc... that might work. Nobody would buy it as a proper indie game (because too short), but maybe for a symbollic $1? Every 150 copies sold would be enough to buy 1 additional dino model. And it would show nicely how many people is really interested in a dino game. Because if $1 is too much, then obviously the interest is 0, no matter what people say.

 

Ha ha that was great. Downloaded the build, loved running around. Funny how we always think of a raptor as some badass dinosaur. In this little demo I felt really small and like there were far more dangerous things out there.

 

Yeah, dromaeosaurs with it's 15kg weight... Droma vs. Hadro would be like a hawk vs. wildebeest in modern world. I don't think they could kill an adult. But, a small one - sure, if they work together and avoid being crushed by it's parents...

 

Hey Kubold,

I just randomly found this thread. I've been playing that demo of yours for years now and had no idea you were thinking of continuing to make it. That's great!

Just a quick question. Do you have any history in UE4?

 

This looks AMAZING.

One thing that bothered me. The tail is wagging back and forth while the velociraptor is running. First, this is distracting. Second, It is entirely unrealistic of any bipedal animal with a long tail. The tail is for balance, and will be extended straight out while running. That being said, a little wag isn't super bad, but that wag is a little over-dramatic.

keep up the good work!

 

UE4, no not really. I have a long history in UE3 from animation side.

About the tail - yes, absolutely. It's 2 times too long and sways 2 times too much.

 

I did a refactor of that Dromaeosaurus just for fun. I retextured it, changed the feathers and made a proper Idle animation.

Heads up, animations in Sketchfab are still in beta stage, so it may not display correctly on your machine.

 

i can't watch it correctly, but i'm glad you kept doing things

 

Incredible prototype. I like the idea of doing 15 minute games. I'm doing a 15 minute game right now. I would totally pay $1-5 for a great 15-minute ride. I also think there should be a 15-minute game competition round here.

Keep up the great work!

 

The 1$ thing is an interesting idea, but I have a strong suspicion you won't get a lot of interest; here's why:

Most people will take it as "I am selling you a demo of something that could be much cooler, for a dollar". Other developers totally understand why you are doing it, and where you are coming from, but the average gamer is likely to see it as paying for a tech demo. This won't just make them ignore the game, but there's a good chance they will be dicks about it.

*** Alternative: Show the demo on Kickstarter, and give the Demo version of the game away to ANYONE who donates one dollar or more to the campaign.

In fact, here's something you could consider. Possibly do a step by step, chewable chunk approach to kickstarter. Say, "I want to make an epic dinosaur game, but it isn't doable without money. I want to do a kickstarter for each chunk of my game. First, my goal is 5,000 dollars, and I promise additional dinosaurs (list them), along with combat between the dinosaurs, and a stealth system. The result will be made available. Once this is complete, I will begin my next kickstarter for the next chunk."

This would be a fairly unique approach to kickstarter. First, you are doing things in reasonable chunks. Instead of promising a massive set of results for some arbitrary price (where you are so far from the finish line that you can't know if you can deliver), your backers will have a really solid idea of what you are delivering, and you won't get in over your head.

Eventually, you will have an entire game, and everyone who has backed you with a certain value higher will get the final as a reward, whether they backed the first leg of the adventure, or all of them.

 

I'm like @Kubold in that I generally play games for a quick fix. The 8-10 hours of missions don't interest me, I have better things to do. I just want a few minutes of fun and novelty is a big part of that. However you're probably right that most gamers would immediately start worrying about 'money's worth' rather than deciding that 15 minutes of great fun is better than 10 hours of mundane quest grinding.

This mentality really has to change. I just don't get how someone could feel ripped off buying a 15 minute gaming experience for less than the price of a cup of coffee. Hell, I would buy a decent wallpaper for that price or more, how much more is an interactive experience worth? Unbelievable.

 

I really would love to download it but I got 2 questions...
1. Is it free?
2. Any virus by download?

 

It's free, and the second question is funny.

 

Why is it funny...I got a really Bad virus from one Forum like this and it deleted All of my pictures so i wanted to ask first...But I am gonna risc it because it looks so epic
Nice work

 

Why is it funny...I got a really Bad virus from one Forum like this and it deleted All of my pictures so i wanted to ask first...But I am gonna risc it because it looks so epic
Nice work

 

It's funny, because what answer do you expect? Either I am a normal person and I don't knowingly spread viruses, or I am an evil, evil man who spreads viruses, but in that case I would not admit that I infected my game with a virus.

 

Ur right...But any other Person maybe got a virus of it?
But Hey i am downloading this awesome game hehe

 

I got it now...u are a Genius love it man

 

Hi Kubold,

saw your new raptor model and found this thread as well and tested of course. As a gamer I would say it has some nice flair and base idea to play as a dino is good, especially the big dinos looking around and possibility jumping on it to attack it is great too. But also it seemed bit buggy as well as I was not able to kill or jump of the big dinos once I attacked it or it is supposed to take more than 5-10 minutes to kill one and hundreds of klicks. Of course as a prototype it is buggy and I understand that, just pointing out what I experienced. Propably it would need like 100 hits maybe but it should begin to slow down or such the like I think, cause that was annoying for me while the camera was turning around and around. But yeah. Start is great just needs more polishing. And needs some more AI for following dinos and the like of course, food/hunger system. hmhm yeah..

Hmhm flair.. For me the camera turning was very very blurry and stressful for eyes.. Not sure if that's an issue as I'm becoming old too and others might see this different.

What I disliked was the fact that the dino kept turning around in circles only. I would try to change the behavior here bit more.

Does it have a chance.. Depends on gameplay. From flair and graphics I think it has. Personally I think you should go some co-op way for sure, allow some alteration on the look of the own dinosaur, so people can play together and have something like. Look I'm the white colored dino while the other one is the black. I would not allow a whole recoloring of everything, so no pink dinos or so, use some possible colors for different dinos and allow feathers, skin and the like to change differently. Just look at ARK and how they did as they have done a very good job there. Also to make one simple compare to what went wrong in Ark in my opinion is dino turning. I think you did a good job here already as you can turn dinos in much smaller space needed. That's good.

Gameplay overall.. Running around attacking stuff, even fighting each other would not be enough if more than some mobile game I think. But also it depends on price and marketing. I often wonder if some games sold 100k+ copies which I think are real trash. Personally I think if you plan to improve it you should have following gameplay possibilities. Also some ideas for interesting gameplay.

- Singleplayer
- Co-Op / PvP maybe open for later once it grows bigger
- Setting of own territories (propably having other dinos of your species you have to fight against. If you win vs pack leader your pack can grow. Here you have some really great possibilities to enhance gameplay I think)
- Breeding / Hatching (well need some way to compensate losses. For singleplayer it's simple. If dino you play die you can switch over to new one, even have minigame as baby with a % chance to first have to hunt some small things like butterflies or whatever while staying in range of your pack if danger is there. But people won't always want to do this steps if dino dies, so make an option to disable it. People like to have choice on their own)
- more dangerous enemies also depending on areas, raptors, t-rex, triceratops. Of course need proper behavior here like food/starvation. T-Rex should not try hunt you down if there's some really fat dinos around and you don't bother it too much. Triceratops only attack if you attack, come too close to it or babies and raptors maybe only attack you if you don't have enough packmates around, like being easy prey. Just rough ideas of course.
- sneak system. Of course you need such. Being such small dino you should have possibilities to sneak in high grass and bushes and get some advantage on your attack. Needs to be tested but I think it could work like if you run out of high grass and dino is eating in that moment you have a surprise chance like not being noticed for 3-5 seconds, enough to catch up to it and start attack. This surprise win can of course save you stamina, therefor food and thus make you stronger.
- yeah about food. Make you stronger and deal more damage if well fed. Don't let it degrade too fast as this would be annoying, people might want to be able to just run around with friends, enjoy the areas and make stupid things.
- later patches for playing other dinos as well (or maybe as add-on, but I would personally make this depend on how good it sells, because if you happen to make real big money you can be more generous in return than if not. Really depends on what happens I think, how big team and costs is and so on. Also possible to go middle with some patches first and later some not too costly add ons. This propably is most fair.)

Yeah and more ideas I propably get if thinking further about it because the more I do think about it actually, the more ideas I have as well. Now only question you have to answer is what you can do yourself, if you depend on help from others and where your problems are in creating this. As one of your customers I as well say don't stop offering animations and models, don't spend too much time here, those are great and we want more. If you need some testers and ideas guys you propably find them around here as well, I would certainly be willed to help more with what I can like testing and finding bugs as well, but spending more time only if I could get something out of it as well, like help on my problems and learning or the like. Else I would loose too much time unfortunately.

Well. I for sure wish good luck. Make more good packs for the store to have sure money flow, but also spend some time here as well as it could pay out very well for you. But how exactly you spend your time only you can answer. If you like to chat more feel free to drop a private message. I would certainly enjoy talking to a pro as I'm just a hobbyist.

Best Regards

 

Wow! That was a solid piece of feedback. Thanks.

 

Glad to help and no problem. I would be happy to see and test more and give feedback. Just hope I don't miss on something interesting you do for such long again. I also saw dragon prototype, very interesting too I think. Basically I found this thread because I found your raptor dinosaur model in store and searched for a thread. Have not found any btw. so is there a thread for it to reply to ? If not I would like to request a few more color options there as well. Also bought it, thanks for offering such great model and so many animations and of course playmaker controller. For me this is great because your controllers help me learning playmaker and doing my own controller even if slow. I'm just sad that we germans always have to pay so much more here, had to pay over 100€ while model is 95$ and Euro is worth more than dollar atm. Not your fault of course but bad thing for everything in store I think. Oh and if you happen to create a team for this I'm interested.

 

Hi,

Oh, thank you for buying!

I thought of some more colors for the dino and maybe additional normal maps - that would totally change the look of this raptor. Also a texture mask for blood, wounds etc. I'll post in the next update.

Hmm, ok, I'll start a forum thread.

 

I downloaded the winzip, then tryed to open DinoGame.exe and it didn't open. what do I do?

 

Omg This game is already pretty great. I want it to become a reality so bad!

 

Lol, its fun to see this OLD thread gets resurrected time, and time, and time again : p