Hi, everyone, I am designing a game that will be fully funded next year, and I would very much appreciate it if some of the programmers here would shoot by my page with the rough docs and tell me what they think. That is, how do-able the project is. Its only a few pages long. I'm not a programmer, and I really need a little knowledgeable feedback. Some of the info is out of date with my current thinking, but the gist is all there. Most recently I've decided to add physics (rigid body dynamics, etc) and to code the combat engine first and add the other engines one by one. here's the page http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/satur9/index.html and here is a thread at garagegames.com with a little more info http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=forums&page=result.thread&qt=1848 (in marketplace>team building>a different kind of torque project if it doesnt work) i welcome any feedback you have to share. regards, jeff Edited by - alonzo3 on October 8, 2001 6:30:24 PM

nudge

that bad eh? doh!!

I didnt get to read the whole thing cause I'm in class so I skimmed through the topics. It looks good in type. I'm a newbie newbie to C++ so I cant program anything for it but Id like to see that in action if someone did do it.

Btw have you posted this in Help Wanted to see if anyone was interested in strating it?

Edited by - TechnoHydra on October 9, 2001 5:04:11 PM

alonzo3 i will give you a detailed comment on weekend ... doc size ...

It seems pretty doable. I would be wary of things like physics, it sounds simple but you would have to find the right person and it could end up being a major time-sink for little value-added.

In general though programming wise it doesn''t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. I mean it has action, talking, etc, just like plenty of other games. Does it do anything technically that other games don''t to? (I don''t mean that in a bad way, I just mean that I didn''t see anything that looked like a techincal hurdle)

The hard part IMO would be to make it work well while being flexible enough to be an actual platform. If you want it to be usable by other people you have to design it to be easy to understand, different parts to work consitently, have good documentation, etc.

thanks for the replies

hydra - yes i posted a help wanted ad, nothing there yet.

jonus - looking forward to it!

anonymous - what i have in my head isnt all in the docs yet, but the more i think about what i want to do, the more i think physics is the way to go. in the short run it is more work (although i dont plan to do it in house but with middleware). in the long run, with something based on flexibility and extensibility like the URGE, its starting to look like the way to go. instead of needing to animate every physical reaction to forces like bullets, punches, swords, etc., from every angle, bite the bullet early on and invest in physics. that way it keeps on paying for itself. i want the URGE to have a long shelf life. nothings written in stone, of course...
No, it doesnt do things other games (existing or in development), not feature for feature, but the breadth of what i plan is much greater than anything ive seen. i tend to agree with your comment that there are no impossible hurdles. still, there are a LOT of low and medium ones to jump. one concern is by the time its finished it''ll run like crap, as i have no knowledge of what goes into memory handling.

>>The hard part IMO would be to make it work well while being flexible enough to be an actual platform. If you want it to be usable by other people you have to design it to be easy to understand, different parts to work consitently, have good documentation, etc.

exactly. it will need pristine documentation, and it must be consistent, and it might need multiple layers (maybe even a layer of scripting for customizable elements).

thanks, every bit of feedback helps. I have a design in my head, but nooo way of evaluating the feasability of certain parts.

dont know wtf i cant edit all of a sudden, but it should read
"it doesnt do things other games DONT (games existing or in development can do what i plan)"

Well its a difficult to give constructive criticism to this document - things are kept quite general in it right now.

My first impression is that you should write more on how you plan to let people [...] create their own rpg worlds [...] and u lose not a single word on how combat will work in your game(creationthing).

From the looks of it, you want to create a MRPG SDK. Unlike making a game, developement enviroments are quite heavy in terms of support apps and enginnering skill required to make one. With a game you can decide what you want and hard code what you can, spending time on only what is absolutely nesseary in terms of support apps and research.

With a generalized developement enviroment which you want to build, you will have to spend much of your time developing support apps (which ultimately your users will use) and testing the robustness of your core engine (becuase it''s a generalized platform for MRPGs, you need to maintain an accepetable level of performance over a much wider operating criterion than a hard coded narrowly focused engine).

Some of the concepts you present have been implemented before within other RPGS. Knowing that, check them out to get an idea of how they worked or didn''t work in those games. Also if you can find out how they were implemented (very important). If your team doesn''t have the depth of computer RPG developement experience, you will have to do alot of research, don''t skimp on this. Every hour spent on reasearch will pay off later in the project.

Study other SDKs to find their faults and features. Know your target audience, and spec out as much detail as possible your vision of what you want. The better the specifications, the better the estimated cost and schedule you can build.

Also study the process of software developement, I suggest Rapid Developement by Steve McConnell.

Ultimately the success of your project will be determined by the amount of funding you have, your management skill and vision, and your teams experience and dedication. Weakness in any of these areas, greatly reduce the chance of success.

Good Luck!

-ddn