A start to something better?

Where will I go?

from JoeUser Forums
Ok, well I have my new game planned out and have started the long process of actualy making it. Part of the fun is of course showing people your progress and getting feedback always helps.

I guess I will start by explaning what the game is going to be. My plan is to make a side scrolling RPG shooter. I have no clue how the gameplay is going to turn out but I have tons of ideas and I really havn't seen anything like it. The plot is centered around a character concept I have had for awhile and used in a previous game that I made before. The idea of it is bascialy the hero, Vince Jordan, kicks a bunch of aliens butts. The truth is I'm more concentrated on getting through the development of a finished game then the plot.

Ok, now lets get technical! I want to show off all the new toys I have learned off since my last game. This means I'll be using OpenGL and create a 3d enviroment. I hope to add some of the shaders I have been working on with GLSL. I've had alot of fun writing the shaders and you can get some cool effects in a *fairly* easy way. Render Monkey is a great tool to developers... ATi is awesome! To make my life easy I'll be using SDL becasue its so nice. I havn't decided on audio yet but I'll probably be using OpenAL. No multiplayer... my networking experiance is very limited and I want this game to be things I know howto do, just more of it.

So what have I done so far? Its no fair to talk so much about WHAT I'm going to do without showing anything. I'm pretty notorious for starting projects and not finishing them, but I think this one will go far. It gets easier the further you go along becasue more people see what you are doing and more people get interested... So here we go, lets see if I can interest anyone.

To get started I wanted to finish up my model loader. I'm planning on using the md2 format(Quake2) but will probably end up changing it to use more animations depending on if I can get an actual artist. This was a descision I made based upon the fact that I have no artist that will do anything more then a few drawings or such. I need a lot of models and with md2 there are tons to find on the internet. So everyone likes pictures, heres my loader:


And I was messing around and tried out a few little effects to add the outline(and yes, thats homer simpson!)


The animations are in there, I can't show you through the screenshots. All I have left to do is interpolate so the animations are smooth, and get the textures loaded in... I work 3 days a week this summer, so my goal is to start spending the other two working on this game... I'm going to clock my hours and everything just to get a feel for what its like, considering this is what I'm planning on doing for the rest of my life, I gotta start getting used to it(normaly my programing hours are between 12 and 4AM on weekends(:p)

Well thanks for reading, if you did, I hope you liked the pretty pictures.

16,972 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds like an interesting and ambitious project. Obviously you've got some cool ideas brainstormed for this game. I would just suggest spending some time and putting them down into a design document. That way you get everything you want to do down on paper (in case you forget anything), and can create an outline of everything you want to do with the game. Since this is going to have RPG elements, there's probably going to be a lot of stuff to track.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Awesome, I already had a little bit written down but I went back today and filled in a few blanks. This is only the second "design document" I ever wrote so I just throw words on a page, haha.

Thanks for the input!
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Sometimes that's all you need.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Hey DarkHelmet,

Looks good. You may want to look into NVIDIA's FX Composer. I prefer it over Render Monkey because I can use the shaders as-is. I don't have to go through some wonky export function.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I believe you should come up with a really great plot and then worry about graphics. I think a vast majority of games suck nowadays because they try to show off graphics. Graphics are good and all, but they won't keep you attached to the game like the gameplay or the plot. I still find myself playing Nintendo and Supernintendo. They were good (Super Nintendo moreso) because they focused on plots and gameplay. I've been searching for a Side-Scrolling RPG and the only thing I've found is Eternal Daughter. It reminds me of the game from Nintendo called Battle For Olympus. I wish you luck in your programing and if I remember I will try and play it.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hey thanks... I have been working on the plote quite a bit, but I must admit it is not my number one priority... whily I do want to create a memorable game I mostly want to make a GAME... as in a complete game. Right now its pretty fun cause I've got all the md2s loaded in how I want and you can control the guy and make him walk around a "level"... still have lots of stuff to go but it is slowly progressing. Ive been very buisy with work latly and I've also been pretty sick these last two weeks so the work is slow, but I really want to follow it through and the slower I work on it the more I am thinking about how I am going to do things so mabey its better this way, I don't know...

As for using NVidia and cG, I would rather kill myself... I am a huge ATi fan and have had no problems with render monkey... but thanks for the input still!

I'll see if I can gather together what I have done and make a new post with my progress.