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Author Topic: why don't we make it ourselves?  (Read 39348 times)
general_klefenz
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why don't we make it ourselves?
« on: December 02, 2008, 06:20:09 am »

i know maybe i'm not the first to suggest this, but nowadays it isn't that hard to make a game, specially a 2D adventure game.
i've been working this afternoon and, in some hours, i imitated the inertial movment of the SC2 ships in a simple program, and then made this earthling cruiser sprite:

it's not much, but a good result for only an afternoon.
we can create a project and get a sequel out of it!, or just wait for someone in in a large company to take a forgotten old game back to life, wich isn't very likely to happen.
if you want to help me, mail me.
if you think i'm crazy, mail me too.
if there is already a sequel project in work, please mail me.
if nobody answers, i will supouse nobody readed this. thanks!
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Lukipela
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2008, 10:14:30 am »

Hello and welcome to the forums!

A few background facts/thoughts that might be helpful on your journey

- There is a previous fan-based effort to create a sequel, which is called TimeWarp. The project stalled years ago, but you might be able to scrounge up some helpers over on their forum, if there's still anyone left. Timewarp demonstrates some of the difficulties inherent in creating a sequel this way. They managed to get the melee off the ground, but the actual game mechanics and story dragged on for years and pretty much never amounted to anything. Different opinions on story and gameplay issues eventually led to the project splitting off into several directions, none of which amounted to more than several melee engines.

- There is also an addon for UQM being constructed, check this topic for some helpful hints. It demonstrates the difficulty encountered in even modding the code of the existing program, to say nothing of coding a new one from scratch.

- Finally, take into account that while you seem to be pretty good with sprites, you'll need a lot of coding skills as well. You need to figure out an engine, a story, dialogue, music and so forth if you want to do this sort of project. And if you recruit other people, you also have to be a diplomat, because people can be amazingly touchy.

All that said and done, any new SC project is always welcome. If you manage to get it off the ground yourself and can dangle some juicy screenshots/videos/demos in front of the userbase you'll probably get a lot of eager helpers. You might want to check in with Scott on PNF once you get started, he'll probably give you some more exposure as well.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2008, 04:45:49 pm »

- There is a previous fan-based effort to create a sequel, which is called TimeWarp. The project stalled years ago, but you might be able to scrounge up some helpers over on their forum, if there's still anyone left. Timewarp demonstrates some of the difficulties inherent in creating a sequel this way. They managed to get the melee off the ground, but the actual game mechanics and story dragged on for years and pretty much never amounted to anything. Different opinions on story and gameplay issues eventually led to the project splitting off into several directions, none of which amounted to more than several melee engines.

Though I haven't ever really followed TimeWarp, wasn't this mostly due to people coming up with their own brilliant ideas for aliens, and others saying that those ideas were crappy, causing debate and rockthrowing amongst some of the story developers? An 'easy fix' for that could be to NOT introduce any new aliens at all.

Also, I really like the cruiser general_klefenz posted! Smiley
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2008, 07:40:41 pm »

Though I haven't ever really followed TimeWarp, wasn't this mostly due to people coming up with their own brilliant ideas for aliens, and others saying that those ideas were crappy, causing debate and rockthrowing amongst some of the story developers? An 'easy fix' for that could be to NOT introduce any new aliens at all.

IIRC it wasn't just aliens but also the story in itself. The original Timewarp was divided into teams, and I think Team Beige was the story team. The group was pretty ripe with strife, I recall several members leaving because of fundamental disagreements regarding the story arc. I think the other teams, who focused on technical issues fared better.

The cruel truth is that a large(ish) group of people will probably never agree on a story, especially if they are amateur storytellers.  Unless someone is clearly in charge and everyone accepts it, this kind of cooperation will usually fail. I don't know if Team Beige had a boss, but the personalities involved were probably too wilful to accept much leadership.

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Also, I really like the cruiser general_klefenz posted! Smiley

Yeah, it looks really good. Even if nothing else comes of his project, if he can redo all the ships like that and upload them to PNF or juicy, that would be great. They can always be used for something.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2008, 09:24:57 pm »

If I were to start an SC project (or any project, for that matter), I would take full charge of the game, that is, I would make all of the decisions. This would prevent arguments from affecting game development, in theory at least.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2008, 09:47:57 pm »

That way jay...you will just never get anything done. You will learn over time that do that will only make your project an army of one. There is a slight balance in beetween dictatorship and open democracy
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general_klefenz
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2008, 05:38:04 am »

i worked a bit more on this and got three more sprites



the umgha is a hard one, i think something is wrong with it, but i don't know how to model it, the close explanatory picture shows it as a cylinder, but in the game it looks different, i made this out of a cylinder and shaped it into a picture of the drone, i got problems with the side engines.

i figured out to program the earthling cruiser misiles, when i get a complete programmed ship and an IA i'll post the program
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #7 on: December 03, 2008, 06:28:50 am »

What we need is a game that uses procedural generation! Black Sky is going to use it, I think.  It's not a SC/UQM sequel though. They need another programmer unfortunately, so it might be a long while until the game is finished. Infinity is going to use it, but that might not be out for a while either, and the main version is an MMO (also not a Star Control game though). Someone on here made a game that seemed like it would be great. It was called  Aftermath. Unfortunately,  the project just kinda died off.  I think it was meant to be a Star Control-based game too.... possibly a sequel.  Sad
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #8 on: December 03, 2008, 08:07:22 am »

That way jay...you will just never get anything done. You will learn over time that do that will only make your project an army of one. There is a slight balance in beetween dictatorship and open democracy

On the other hand, if everyone gets a say nothing will get done either, because they are bound to have different opinions. In a project with voluntary contributors, new content can be very challenging to create/get accepted.

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What we need is a game that uses procedural generation!

Er, I think that might be ever so slightly outside the realm of what a fan based initiative can produce.

General: Nice going.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #9 on: December 03, 2008, 08:22:51 am »

Er, I think that might be ever so slightly outside the realm of what a fan based initiative can produce.
Okay, yeah, I'll admit that I exaggerated a bit. (I suppose I was thinking more of professional game development teams.) But it's very possible to make a game with lots of places to explore without that too. That's what we need. Procedural generation isn't absolutely necessary, but it would be very interesting.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #10 on: December 03, 2008, 02:37:01 pm »

What we need is a game that uses procedural generation!
Er, I think that might be ever so slightly outside the realm of what a fan based initiative can produce.
Procedural generation just means that content is created by the game, instead of in advance. UQM uses procedural generation for most of the star systems and planets. It's very simple, just using a (pseudo-)random value (based on a fix seed here) to determine how many and what kind of planets there are, what minerals to put there, and where, etc., but it's procedural generation.

And I don't see why a "fan-based initiative" couldn't do that. In fact, what a fan-based initiative usually lacks is time and people. Procedurally generating content could save on both.
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #11 on: December 03, 2008, 09:10:31 pm »

I think this is the first time I've seen Luke get owned. Tongue

So you could maybe change the races' homeworlds to make it more challenging, so you don't just know where to go?
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #12 on: December 03, 2008, 09:28:32 pm »

How does UQM use it? Isn't everything always in the same place?   Huh
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #13 on: December 03, 2008, 09:40:22 pm »

UQM uses procedural generation.

Thing is, lots of people often associate procedural generation with randomization, yet forget that a true random function doesn't really exist in computers (even when you use the time as the seed of your randomize function, it's still predictable and not truly random, though random enough for most projects)..

You see, random functions use a so-called seed, from which random values are generated. If the seed is the same, I will get the exact same results out of my random function.

Thus, to generate a starfield that's always the same, I would set my seed to a specific value, then call a few random functions for each and every star I want to place on the map. Since the seed is constant, I will always get the exact same set of values out of my random function, and thus the starfield will be the same every time I run my starmap generating function.

There are many other ways of procedurally generating content, other than using a random function. Wikipedia has a little article about procedural generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation
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Re: why don't we make it ourselves?
« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2008, 10:45:12 pm »

I think this is the first time I've seen Luke get owned. Tongue
He didn't get owned; he got corrected. Smiley
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