trouble with game development

Im trying to duplicate Spore's creature creator? Would any of you guys be willing to help? I can pay

 

Yes.

If the pay is good...

...which it is not.

 

Just try to do it, look up any specific problems as you find them, if you can't find a answer with search post your question to the relevant subforum.

You can move forward two ways: willpower or money power. Doesn't seem like you got the requisite money power, so that narrows things down a bit.

 

Spores creature system was a major milestone in procedural generation. Procedural creature building, procedural creature animation and behaviour, mesh and texture system, smart visual editor.

You are not going to get good results on something like that unless you put in tens of thousands of dollars. That's like cross discipline and complex.

 

That said if you're happy with a simple implementation you could just combine a socket-based system for attaching objects to each other and a mesh deform asset like this one on Github.

https://github.com/keenanwoodall/Deform

 

Thing is, multiple people were working on only this feature alone.

 

Multiple people from the demoscene at that. For anyone unaware the demoscene is a computer art subculture that is constantly creating little demos using procedural generation for the enjoyment of it. The people he hired weren't just experienced programmers. They were experienced in exactly the fields needed to make a game like Spore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Spore#Procedural_generation

 

Where i live 50 dollars are just paying for 1 hour of a freelance game dev (you know taxes...).
I dont think it can be done in 1 hour... and not in 10 and not in 100.

 

Fixed. Name your price. I would just need a little help from time to time

 

I find this difficult to believe. Do you have anything that can show off your current skill level?

 

Also want to point out on top of the point @Ryiah made that, demoscene programmers are not just programmers but the rarest of programmers, they are basically god level magicians. Its like taking all the knowledge you need to be a shader or graphics programmer, and combining it with all the low level optimisation skills needed to effectively write your own graphics engine (which a lot of them have gotten jobs doing after moving on from the demo scene).

The ability to whittle down an entire 3d procedural program with audio to something that is at most 64kb, is not something anyone in these forums will likely be able to afford. Im not trying to be mean, just pointing out that you wont find those people here let alone be able to hire them for 50 usd for an entire feature to be made.

 

The best company in the history of gaming was founded by Demo scene guys, it was called Digital Illusions. A few years later they were bought by EA and now make crap games

 

Yeah, thats really the problem with approaching something like the spore system. It needs super specific art made in a super specific way to work with all the other systems. It doesn't surprise me that the guys who did it were like mega gurus who were inherently cross discipline.

Like getting the 'art department' and the 'programming department' and the 'animation department' to work together on something so detailed and interwoven... that ends in failure or mediocre result. I thought spore was overhyped nonsense as a game and I don't like will wright, but spores tech really was sick.

 

I loved Spore, similarly as Fable series from Will Wright. Yet Spore did left me somehow unsatisfied. Maybe I was a bit more demanding. While I know some kids, which loved to play it and create own funny, crazy creatures.

Used mechanics and tech in my view is marvelous. And even for these days. However, with left some not fully utilized potential.

 

A buddy of mine was the one of the EPs on Spore (sadly, he was one of the key drivers behind the "cutification" initiative.) It wasn't that they game was overhyped, it just was different than than what the hype was originally built upon. The first demos/videos of the game was amazing. It was then severely stripped down and made "cute" to appeal to a wider audience. It was "good" game in the end, but no where near what it could have potentially been. Most of the hype was really for a game that was never really launched.

 

I really liked fable - I don't think that was Will Wright though, was it?

 

If you want to "hire" somebody, use Unity Connect.
https://connect.unity.com/

 

I really put a lot of the blame on will wright misunderstanding why the sims was so good and what the sims was at core (an interactive doll house).

I remember watching a lot of talks Wright gave at the time and they were so full of hubris and "believing his own press" - it felt kind of like the Matrix sequels, where they latched onto so much of the press pushing the 'deep philosophy' angle; the result of which was crap like The Architect sitting there blathering on and on with meaningless exposition for like half the movie.

All that said, spores tech was still really incredible. It's rare that you see tech from a decade ago that still stands up, but spores tech really does. Still impressive today.

 

Yeah spore was a game I followed for literally years, starting with the 2005 gdc talk. I was so hyped up for it to be a scientific game and was one of those that would have been happy if they had just released the on rails gdc 2005 demo complete with underwaterness, and when the new art style was revealed on lead up to release I was so angry. I had spent years hyping it up in my head and when I finally played the space stage, I was so angry I was all "I am done with games" and all that.

Ofcourse years later I am still getting over hyped about the next thing, but I take everything I see with a pinch of salt until it is in my hands now and as a result, I gain much less "butthurt".

 

Sorry my memory failed Thx for pointing out. Fable was made actually by LionsHead Studios. I mixed somehow WIll Wright with Peter Molyneux. My bad

 

@zombiegorilla, One note I'd like to make in defense of your buddy being a 'cuteification' advocate.

I think this had to happen to spore. Fundamentally the premise (at least according to Wright) was that emergent storytelling was the secret sauce for his games, and that the key driver for emergent storytelling was the ability for the user to mold the environment and characters to suit them. That the incredible success of the Sims represented the blending of those two elements. He then took spore and promoted it as "the ultimate story generator", since you could entirely craft the evolution of a lifeform up through its beginnings as a single cell through space colonization.

The problem though, is that people aren't all that interested in "stories" - they're interested in stories about people. And creating your own species could kinda be fun, but it was never going to generate the kind of intense, widespread adoration that the Sims did.

The people who were probably most open to stories about weird creatures werent adults or teens, they were little kids. So to market the 'story generator' to the audience that would be most receptive to making stories based on weird, funny, bizarre creatures they kinda had to go with 'cute'.

It was kind of an inevitable direction, just based on the stated goals of the project and the materials they were working with.

Spore was never supposed to be a simulator, it was always supposed to be a story generator, and that's why the game itself never reached its real potential...imo of course.

 

Such blasphemy! Peter Molyneux was a god among men. Him and Sid. Towering giants! Never again utter them in the same sentence with Mr Will Wright!

 

I was less angry, and more just really sad/disappointed. The science heavy one they had been demoing looked amazing and fun. I did enjoy the released version... but not super excited about it.

 

I mean I should probably mention that even with all the butthurt I still poured like 3-400 hours into that game, so you can imagine if they had released it in line with the original concept, I would probably have never stopped playing!

I have faith though, a number of true-to-original spore style projects are in the works right now, some even #madewithunity so heres to hoping one day I can play the game I had in my head in 2005!