Adventure Gamers - Forums

Ascovel,don’t you think it’s high time we show this poor fella the good whip store?he’s gonna need it it seems

you know,the programmer part you can leave to your experienced programmer….what you can do is not think about the programming and just design the game.make the story,the characters,the puzzles,the dialogue,the twists,the locations,the style,all those things that do not require programming knowledge..or at least no software design.The software design you can leave to someone experienced in the field.there are some well known game designers who do not code.some may not even know coding.of course you should know some stuff,it helps in noticing possible problems with decisions you make but you can’t do everything in your first try.

Hi, I think it’s quite hard to help without knowing exactly what kind of project you want to do. I’m sorry but I don’t know Scratches Is it a third person or first person game, first ? It will change a lot of things in the way you will build the game. Also, do you have characters in your game ? You speak of a 3D game : you must be aware that having characters is the most difficult thing to do in the game. Environments shouldn’t be a big problem. Of course, all this depends on the graphics you want to do : realistic, cartoonish, etc.. ? I know it’s hard to find where to start, but you need a global idea first. If Scratches is your big reference, then you probably know where you’re going and that’s the most important. If not, you must get this global idea, and you must be sure of you, because once the production begins, you can’t go back !

Then, I don’t know how skilled you are. I would recommand that you make something very simple. I know that most people have great ideas and want to add tons of great stuff in their games, but unless you are a studio it will be difficult, and maybe discouraging. The most important is probably : “do not overestimate the team, or you will give up before the end !”
You say you’re 6 people : sounds like a good team, so that’s a good point. Do you have each one a speciality ? A scenarist, 2 or 3 graphists, a programmer, a musician… ? I would recommand you separate the tasks and assign them to each person. Maybe everyone wants to do a bit of everything everytime in the game (model a character, then an object for a decor, then make some music, and come back to 3D). I’d say it’s a bad idea. Chose a character designer/modeler, a programmer, etc… and be sure that everyone works on his task at the good moment.

Here’s my experience on my game ASA, but it’s still in development and I’m not sure of what people will think of it. And I’m a single developer, so that’s hard to compare with your team.

First thing I made was a short film, which received good criticism, and it encouraged me to make the game a few months later. Having this film was a very big help because :
- I knew what people liked/disliked
- I can use it as an opening movie for the game
- It gives me a strong background and a beginning for a scenario.
Speaking of scenario, this short film was based on a small book I had written in self-publishing. I don’t say it was qualitative, but I had a strong idea.

Then I developped the game scenario from this, and didn’t start the 3D production before I had finished this ! I know it’s hard to resist to the temptation of going into 3D modeling now That’s even harder if the other guys of your team are waiting for the scenarist to have finished his job ! But this scenarist is very important. The others can think to many other things while he refines his text.

When my scenario was complete, before starting the prod, I thought for a long time of the best software for programming. I have to be honnest, I’m not good in programming, that’s why I chose to make a slideshow game and that’s why I chose adventure maker. That’s probably not the soft everyone would choose, you know ! From what I read, you have someone quite good in programming in your team ? Another good point. Looks like you’re quite ready to make your game, and I’m starting to wonder if you need to read my experience lol

I don’t care, I’ll finish this block of text ! 
Be aware too that you need to buy your soft if you plan on making a commercial use of your game. I don’t say that to annoy you, but I went myself in the trap : I worked with my beloved softwares, and finally realized that it would cost me a lot in license fees !

From this point I just made some rough sketches of the world of ASA (the main ship, the planet). And when I say rough, I mean rough ! Don’t go draw some great artworks : just make plans in top view, and start placing your main puzzles. The aim is to precise your main idea, and start knowing where the puzzles/enigmas will bring the player when he solves them. That’s how I built ASA. I have drawn it into sketches, from the starting point to the end (or almost… ). Easy when you have your scenario ! Of course, it is not precise, and the final game changed a lot compared to my sketches, but I don’t imagine how you can create an adventure game without this step.

Now you have finished the most important and you can conclude your pre-production process by designing your characters and environments once and for all. Personally I started the real 3D process/programming at this point, and I met no real problem then. I imagined the puzzles gradually, depending on what I made in the environments, in order to integrate them well. The biggest thing was to stay motivated until the end !!!

To sumarize my own experience, chronologically :
- main ideas, searching for references
- scenario
- sketches of your world (top view map) including the place of the main puzzles/steps
- choice of softwares/tools
- pre-production 1 (drawings : characters/environments)
- pre-production 2 (3D : chara modeling, setup, etc…)
- production, including puzzles, 3D and programming
- finalisation (sound, music, videos…)
- beta-testing

I hope it helps and that it’s understandable, because writing such a text in english was quite perillous for me

Simon,Scratches is a slideshow first person game much like yours,only difference is it doesn’t have much animation in it…probably none.the only animations are in videos if i remember correctly but even if there are they are too few,a point that even Agustin has admitted to and was one of the driving forces behind Asylum and Dagon.

you should definitely give it a go.very good game.

also simon….they have chosen Senscape’s Dagon for the engine.they also have two programmers so it should be a good combination.

OK,thanks I should have taken the time to get more info on Scratches before posting lol
You’re right, ASA is exaclty that kind of game.
Well, if they’re a team of 6, and want to make that kind of game, all I can say is “DO IT”

I had never heard of Dagon before… Seems very interesting. Is there a forum about this somewhere, even if not on AG.com ?

Simon, Dagon is the engine behind Agustin’s new project, Asylum. There is a forum here
http://www.senscape.net/forum/index.php - feel free to also download the ‘teaser’ of Asylum as it comes fully commented and you can experiment

Muchas gracias el Pollo Diablo! ^^

Just wanted to add…

I’ve been working on my own game, Roger Foodbelly, for years. And it still haven’t hit pre-production? Why?

Well, I’ll tell you why.

Finding people that are able to stick with it, in the long run.
Money is a key factor, if not money, then make them this as much as your baby, theirs.
Set realistic goals. People will lose motivation if the story changes in a short amount of time (ours did when we found a new person to work with that didn’t like the story we had.) and that’s about when we lost about half of the staff.

Right now, I’m still having difficult to find the right people.
It’s a fantastic story, great dialogue and all. Even Bill Tiller told me this was epic. Still, it’s hard getting from start to end, and very few projects are able to make it.

So that’s the advice I want to give you.

If money will be a problem, I recommend to seek funding (kickstarter?)
We’re going there too, eventually.