2017-08-31 16:44:24

Hi, folks,

So, I've been working a bit on an RPG off and on for the last year or so. I have a great deal of the documentation written out, and there's going to be no problem with the statistical/story-based side of things.

Unfortunately, I lack two things now, and both of them are integral to making the sort of game I'd be interested in publishing. One is a sound designer. The other is a programmer.

Let me be very, very clear. I'm not just another player so desperate for new games that I have all kinds of far-fllung ideas that mostly won't work in practice. I'm not just shooting into the ether and hoping to get lucky. I have notes, documents, formulas, a story arc and the beginning of a script written, and the script will not take long at all to flesh out. I know where I want the game to go, and by and large, I know how I want it to get there. This doesn't mean I'm entirely uninterested in other input, but it does mean that I didn't just dream this up last night. I know what I'm doing.

So what I need from the community is at least one coder who knows a language that would suit a turn-based JRPG-style RPG. Here's the sort of thing you'll have to be able to work with:

1. Top-down-style map navigation (right arrow moves the character to the right, up arrow moves the character up, etc). Think Entombed, Manamon, Paladin of the Sky.
2. Map navigation that includes puzzle elements (example, switches, movable blocks, teleporters, etc).
3. Turn-based combat where stats of both the party and the enemy can be raised or lowered dynamically (i.e., if an enemy uses a defense-lowering tactic, the player stats reflect this until the buff wears off somehow).
4. Rudimentary AI from enemies. This means that enemies will behave predictably if hit by attack x, or will follow prescribed sequences of attacks (boss fights especially) but can change the sequence based on certain conditions (i.e., at low health, or when poisoned, etc).
5. Time-based day and night system which can affect enemy encounters and NPCS (shops only open during daylight hours, wolves only appearing at night and so on).
6. Map zoning in certain areas to delineate which enemies will show up where. Example: long grass may be home to a particular type of insect which won't appear anywhere else, or roadway tiles are safe during the day but prone to bandits at night.
7. The ability for voice acting. Yes, I do want to have voice-acting, at least for major cutscenes and dialogue, if it's possible. I'm aware this is very ambitious and won't be the first thing done, but it's something I really do want eventually.

So, if you think you're interested, or know someone who might be, then let's talk, and let's see where this goes. I know I may be asking a lot here, but I hope the above has demonstrated that I at least know what it is I need in order to make the sort of game I'm interested in releasing to the public.

Thanks in advance!

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-01 09:04:52

Hi.
I'm a programmer and I've seen these kind of topics more times then I can count.
If you are going to capture anyones atension, give them an outline. A start of the story. Something...

If you like what I do, Feel free to check me out on GitHub, or follow me on Twitter

2017-09-01 12:35:50

Hello,

This project seems very interesting. I can handle your programming needs, but for sound designing you should probably ask someone else.
If you care to know, My prefered programming language is python, and I know how to use libaudioverse. so more advanced audio effects are possible.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2017-09-01 13:56:51

@1
Though I can't help you in the programming side of things, I really wish you the best of luck with this.

@2, you're right with the idea of needing some more info.  That's all that would be needed to fully convince someone who might be interested.


@everyone else
Please don't immediately post a negative response to this.  Seems like the OP has a good idea of where this could/should go in termsof their vision.  That and also,w e don't have many RPGs anyway.  Let's just see what happens.

Again OP, best of luck.

Regards,
Sightless Kombat.
***If you wish to refer to me in @replies, use Sightless***

2017-09-01 15:42:01

Okay, you want it, you got it. *grin* I'm happy to provide more information if that will help catch people's interest.

My project has something of a classic JRPG style to it. Turn-based combat, some smallish puzzles, complex and somewhat difficult boss fights, a full party of more than just one player, magic, classes, skills, all kinds of sub-quests (eventually anyway), and it's a fairly large world. Eventually you'll end up with a mode of transport that lets you get around it much more easily, but for the first fair portion of the game, you'll be relying on your own two feet and on transport items.

But that's not why you're here. So this is sort of the basis for the story arc I have in mind.

Your main character - who can be given a name and gender, btw - lives in a small town, living an everyday life in a world where magic is real, gods and such are at least somewhat common and creatures both common and fantastic wander the realm. We're talking pretty pure high fantasy/sword and sorcery here. I'm going to refer to your character as Hero for now.
One day, Hero is approached by the local priest who asks a favour. His daughter is dying very slowly - the priest thinks she's sick, because she has a fever, constantly murmurs and cries and shrieks in her sleep but refuses to wake up - and he's at his wit's end. Praying hasn't helped. The local healers have done everything they can, and it seems that all they can do is keep her body alive. The priest wants you to set out on a quest for him. Scattered across the realm are eight age-old shrines which are said to be tied to the eight threads of existence: life, flame, water, air, earth, spirit, lightning and death (which are, in fact, the eight elements of magic also). He wants you to go to each shrine to petition the patron god, goddess or elemental aspect for help. It's his hope that they will intercede on his daughter's behalf and save her, or at least grant the wisdom that will empower someone else to do it instead. Since the priest is someone Hero respects, the task is accepted. Hero's childhood friend Brek sort of ambushes Hero before they can leave the village and insists on tagging along.
What follows is an adventure across the land, where you'll gather party members as you go and explore a rather large world. The gameplay will start out being fairly linear, but will start to branch off eventually (you will always have the thrust of the main quest to drive you, but there may be side-areas with equipment, quests or just some extra goodies to find). You will eventually recruit a fairly colourful cast of characters, each fulfilling a fairly typical but highly customizable combat archetype:
Brek, the rogue; hotheaded but fiercely loyal; with you from the start
Rahl, the survivalist; used to being on his own, he's just into his middle years, doesn't say much, but is self-confident and strong in a quiet way; encountered relatively early in the game
Tyra, the warrior: she's fierce, loud, pretty and passionate; there's no one you'd rather have as a friend when times are tough, but no one you'd rather have as an enemy either. She's always dreamed of being a soldier or a mercenary, and chafes at her father's wish that she settle down to manage the family's accounts. Joins you a little after Rahl does
Corlis, the black mage: he's big, burly, bearded and seems very happy most of the time; he's got a mean temper though. A little clumsy, but extremely good at what one might call offensive magic.
Rikailin, the healer: she's small, shy, almost childlike in appearance, and has wings, but is actually not that young. She's of a different race than the other party members, and is always rather hesitant to speak much, but her gentleness and unwillingness to bend in the face of danger is an admirable combination. Probably the most selfless of the group. The party saves her from a rather unscrupulous person who wants to experiment on her.
Zha-Mya, the shaman: Proud almost to the point of arrogance, Zha-Mya is the last member of the party. She communes with spirits and keeps herself apart, but has total faith in the mission the party is embarked upon. She is totally blind, but when the party meete her  toward the sixty-percent mark of the game, she has a vision which causes her to pass the guidance of her people to someone else so that she can aid Hero and his friends.

I plan to give each character a great deal more than this, by the way, and this is where voice-acting really is going to shine. I want these characters to live and breathe.

Each character will have a general class path, but that can be switched (see below). The game will have a normal and a hard mode, and you unlock hard mode by beating normal mode. In hard mode, the characters get access to their second class path, which you can then use instead of the class you used to beat normal mode. Beating hard mode will let you play these new classes I mentioned in normal mode.
I may think of a less involved way to do this, but yeah.
Example: Rahl's main class is sort of a hunter-ranger sort of deal; his unlockable class is more like a druid, which is a bit more magic-heavy and hard to manage but may yield certain advantages, particularly against bosses. I have all of these things mapped out, at least in rough, already.

I think that ought to be enough...

Or maybe not. Because while I've put together what looks like an interesting plot with rather predictable expectations, think of this.
Why is it you're being asked to fight at every elemental shrine? Why are you getting so much resistance? There's got to be a good reason, hasn't there?

And I'll leave you to chew on that, because I don't want to spoil the whole thing.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-02 12:50:02 (edited by defender 2017-09-02 13:06:51)

I don't have much to offer accept a list of decent sound designers.
I haven't worked with many of these guys personally, so I can't tell you much about how easy they are to deal with or communicate with unfortunately, but I can tell you that their work speaks for it's self.


I suggest talking to people like Robjoy AKA Arjin, Kai aka Xoren, Sam Tupy, Gortholon, Damion pendelton, Carlos AKA Keywasfull, Oriol Gomez, and Pitermach.
I'm likely missing a couple but it's a place to start, you can probably find their emails here or search for them online.
Sam is really busy ATM and he's not great on the communication or followup front, and Gortholon has a job and he's doing his own stuff, Carlos has a lazyness problem last time I checked, aside from that, I would generally vouch for Damion, Pitermach, and Gorth the most from what I've seen in terms of reliability, but some I just don't know much about.
Oh and I wouldn't suggest my self either, lol, I don't practice enough and I'm way too unreliable for a big project ATM.


A word of advice though, based on my experience with various projects, if your sound person doesn't communicate with you for more than a week when given a task, unless it was something you guys talked about in advance, or it seemed like a good reason, as long as it doesn't happen allot, then drop them, ASAP, as they will only drag down your project, there are allot of people with good intentions around here that can't back it up, much like most of the young devs, school gets in the way and such, and you've asked right when school starts up again.
Also, expect this to take a while, maybe even a year, I don't know how ambitious your project is, and expect to switch coders slash sound designers at least once.


Also also, and this goes for both sound and code, you should make frequent, as in at least once daily when your doing any work, backups, at least 2, and keep at least one of those backups offline and only connected for as long as it takes to make the transfer, not only because so much work has been lost that can never be gotten back in the past, The Wastes, the STFC source, SBYW, and many more, but also because you never know when someone might fuck you over do to association with someone your working with, because they know your doing something interesting, or because you dropped them from your project.


Which is also also also why you should keep your team to a minimum size and periodically check to see who's a part of your shared folders, and I'm not sure if you can code any, but if not, you need to be very, very careful about who you hand your code to, otherwise you could easily have a million halfassed clones running around, so I suggest asking around to find the most reliable people and then seeing who's available, and actually talk to them a bit first before committing.


Be patient with your coder as well, especially at first, there are so many libs to try and different approaches to take to find the best one, and trial and error is really the only way to do it, and expect to be called on to do spur of the moment testing of new features or bug fixes at the drop of a hat.


I also also also also suggest not having an open beta at all, though I know that's later, it honestly just never really works well, and you have no reason to do any server load testing as your game isn't multiplayer.
When I say open Beta by the way, I don't mean not asking for applicants on the forum and filtering them to find the ones you want, I mean letting any old person in.


It's very good that you actually have a plan though, that's rare in this community, especially as of late, and that will drastically improve your chances of making this work, as I'm sure you know.


By the way, the only decent coder I know enough about to comfortably suggest is Nathan from NASoft, maker of park boss and tube sim, he's a software dev by day and has the most professional approach to projects in this community by leaps and bounds from what I saw when I was on his beta team, though he's only worked alone in the past.
I would say that approx two thirds of the coders here who've actually put something out aren't worth working with if
you truly want to get anything done.


Also also also also also, if you aren't selling this, I'm assuming your not as that would complicate the shit out of everything, I can give you plenty of resources to find free sounds with CC licensing, if your chosen sound designer doesn't already know them, so can Magurp, it's good to share info on these things either way.


Good luck, is all I can say, and stay patient and on your toes. I hope to see what ever you put out in the future.


PS. I regret nothing.

2017-09-02 15:36:40

Hi there, Defender,

Thanks for your advice. Some of it, indeed, is stuff I've thought about before, but some of it isn't, so thanks for that. In particular, the recommendations for sound designers and such is good.

I'm a fairly professional person on the whole, which is to say that I tend not to just take the very first person who comes along. If anyone does show interest here, or via a forum private message, I'll probably want to know their bonna fides and get a feel for them before I just dive right in. I'm excited, but I'm not a fool. I do not want half a hundred clones running around, and given that this is going to eventually be a paid project and not a free one, I need to have a team whose integrity I can count upon.

This project started with a different coder, who asked me a fair number of important questions and taught me a good bit about game development from the programming side of things. I'm not going to be using his code - we didn't get too far before things got in the way, unfortunately - but I feel like I have a very strong platform to work with here. I know what I want, and I know enough about programming in general to have a fairly good idea of how things can be done. I've got resources to help a little in that particular area as well (not with the coding itself, but with the logic of things). This way, if I'm working with someone I don't know, I can verify things externally if I have to, if something they say or do seems suspect or fishy. Frankly, however, I do not expect to be screwed over by someone I work with. I expect to get as good as I give, and will trust a colleague until or unless they breach that trust somehow.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-03 03:30:01

here is also another thread with some other thoughts on this subject.

https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/69 … nt-5354133

I don’t believe in fighting unnecessarily.  But if something is worth fighting for, then its always a fight worth winning.
check me out on Twitter and on GitHub

2017-09-03 15:58:40

Kyleman123, thank you for the link and, by extension, the advice. I think I need to make a couple of things clear though.
1. This game is already built, in the sense that all the formulas are worked out, and as far as I can see, the math checks out. Exact numbers on skills/spells may have to change, but I know how I want everything laid out. Ditto the game's layout, the general storyline, the way I want items to work, damage types, map details, sound details...all of it. this isn't just a spit in the wind and a list of ideas with the hope that someone does 98% of the work.
2. I know from experience that the audiogame community, being fairly small on the whole, tends to be a different market entirely than the mainstream. This means that a lot of the defeatist-sounding advice in that thread you linked me to may not apply. I'm not sending my idea in full to some mainstream developer hoping they'll read it. I'm trying, essentially, to develop a small team to make an RPG. Given that it's not going to be a free project, and given that I absolutely do not expect a programmer or sound designer to work for peanuts, the idea would be to work out a financial arrangement where the team shares the profits somehow. I am not expecting to be the only one who is financially compensated here. The only hangup is that I can't pay in advance, but as far as I've ever known, this is not generally expected when people collaborate on projects, so long as financial terms are fully understood at the outset.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-03 19:48:41

If you need a spare sound designer, contact me. I haven't been designing sounds for too long, but I might as well give it a shot.

“Can we be casual in the work of God — casual when the house is on fire, and people are in danger of being burned?” — Duncan Campbell
“There are four things that we ought to do with the Word of God – admit it as the Word of God, commit it to our hearts and minds, submit to it, and transmit it to the world.” — William Wilberforce

2017-09-04 17:09:45 (edited by Kyleman123 2017-09-04 17:22:24)

Jayde, I know you weren't looking to submit your idea to a big developer, but I read most of that thread and there still were some good general knowledge things that you could use. also I hoped that someone else might find it and get good info from it as well.

I'm interested in a least learning a bit more about this project. Its good that you have it so flushed out. Although, like that thread said, an idea for a project such as a game never comes threw a process like development unchanged.

Reading threw your explanations above, from a gamer's standpoint, I don't want to play a game with a dozen characters in my party. That sounds like a logistical nightmare trying to manage all of their items, spells/skills points, experience, and leveling. but like I said, this is the kind of stuff that would be flushed out during the development process.

speaking as a coder now, I'm interested in this project. That being said, I don't have much tangible experience. you can find a python script and an unfinished python project up on my GitHub. the link is in my signature. While I haven't abandoned python, I'm currently learning c++ in my programming classes. I like it much more than I thought I would and it has a lot of the good aspects of python plus many more that comes with a compiled language that python doesn't have. I also have a python based game that is more than a 1000 lines long that is about 80% done. When I get time I am slowly working the bugs out of it. I'm also currently working on a c++ game/project that I hope will be an easy system for me to build games on top of a set of frameworks.

all this being said, I have nearly 5 years of python and almost a year of c++ experience. The best way to contact me if you're still interested in having me work with you, is probably twitter. The link is also in my signature. if twitter doesn't work, let me know how we can get in touch. If you send me a forum PM, please post here. I do not check them.

//edit
seems that signatures were removed or something? I don't see mine anymore. anyway, here is the info I mentioned:
Twitter

GitHub

I don’t believe in fighting unnecessarily.  But if something is worth fighting for, then its always a fight worth winning.
check me out on Twitter and on GitHub

2017-09-04 19:00:21

Hi, Kyleman123,

I definitely appreciate your advice and your perspective, and I'm well aware that nothing comes through the dev cycle totally unchanged.

There's really only one thing I have to point out, regarding what you've said. Now, please take this with a grain of salt, as I'm not trying to invalidate your opinion. If you, personally, are not the sort of person who likes multiple people in a party, having to manage there skills/stats/equipment and all that jazz, then I definitely can't take that away from you.
However, most of the JRPGs that have become wildly popular use this mechanic to one extent or another. Final Fantasy IV has a cast of thirteen or fourteen, I believe. Final Fantasy VI has a cast of fifteen, many of whom you can decide never to use or to abandon once the game hits a certain point. Crono Trigger has seven characters, each of whom is unique and fulfills a given role.
My game plans to have seven playable characters (Hero, Brek, Tyra, Rahl, Corlis, Rikailin, Zha-Mya), and your party will contain three characters at any given time. You will be able to swap characters in and out of a fight if you wish, but you can only ever have three on the field at any given time (swapping, by the way, will take that party slot's turn and will remove whatever buffs/debuffs (not status effects) were on the retreating character. You can, of course, decide from the party screen outside of combat who your main three will be (I'm thinking that I want Hero around at all times, but I am certainly willing to bend on this.
In other words, the setup I'm using is very definitely time-tested. It's very common, and the popularity of the games which use it, in my view at least, attests to the fact that, properly balanced, it works well. Now, this doesn't mean you have to like it or agree with it or use it, but this is actually a pretty common setup in the sort of genre I'm trying to work with.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-05 18:16:27

Jayde, If the combat is done well i don't think it would be an issue. I was more speaking from my own gaming point of view. I honestly wasn't really aware that this is a big part of other games. I guess it does make more sense the more i think on it. i honestly was envisioning all 7 players in your party and having to use them all for different things in a battle... i have seen some recordings of Manamon and i remember that this uses this style as well. but i have not played it nor do i plan on it. but thats a post for another topic. I was by no means trying to destroy your game, just was posting my initial reactions with not all of the info.

I don’t believe in fighting unnecessarily.  But if something is worth fighting for, then its always a fight worth winning.
check me out on Twitter and on GitHub

2017-09-06 12:07:05

hi unfortunately I have neither programming abilities beyond writing hello world scripts, nor do I have any major audio edetting skills. But I wish you the best of luck in getting this off the ground, and I'll gladly help out if alpha or beta testing is ever required.

I used to be a knee like you, then I took an adventurer in the arrow.

2017-09-06 14:38:58

Well, when I get to a point where alpha or beta testing is required, I'll throw that door open. I can't guarantee that anyone will get a spot, but I'm open-minded. Because of some of the gaffs I've seen make it to the end of a dev cycle, and also owing to my attention to detail, I suspect I'm probably going to be fairly discerning about the people I choose for a beta-testing team. It will absolutely not just be picking names out of a hat, or grabbing the first few people who apply. In fact, if I reach that point at all, it very well might be a case of reaching out to specific individuals in private. We'll see though. Thanks for the vote of support, in any case.

Kyleman123, a party of 7 on the field at once would be quite a bit to juggle, I agree. This is why I thought a party of 3 would be appropriate, chosen from a cast of 7.

A few things I can absolutely promise you won't have to deal with:

1. No annoying beep-style magic spells or skills. They'll use magic points to cast, you click on them, and off they go.

2. No random game mechanics that do absolutely nothing except screw with you. I'm not going to make you choose who gets gold and then arbitrarily tell you that you can't transfer coins between party members. All items and currency will be available to the party at large, not to specific characters. Weapons and armour will only be equippable by specific characters, but beyond that, no limits. I'm not going to have a random NPC give you a random challenge with no story relevancy whatsoever just because I can't think of a boss. I'm not going to force you to level up all your characters evenly with artificial difficulty enhancements. I'm not going to ever dump you into a fight where all the things I've been teaching you about game balance suddenly fly out the window. And I'm absolutely not going to kill off a character only to have another person you know sub in for them in every way, gameplay-wise.
Note: this does not mean that a character you get in your party won't die, it just means I won't cheapen the story experience by subbing in a new char over the dead one.

3. No permadeath. If a character dies, there will be ways to revive them (items in battle, party-heal items outside of battle, or certain areas where you can pay a little coin to rest the party, though don't expect these to be everywhere). There may even be a spell which can raise the dead. Pro-tip: you are not going to get through this game without getting a character or two killed from time to time, and you might even get the dreaded game-over screen more than once during tricky boss fights. You'll just go back to the last place you saved. Death will be inconvenient, but not heavily punished. I don't want to do the Entombed thing and make it an insane hassle.

4. No vagueness. I tend to over-explain, and when I have to update the game, I'll be as specific as possible.
Example: You will see "Tuned the damage of Palm Strike down by approximately 12.5% but increased its stun chance to double its previous rate". You will -not see "fixed some bugs to enhance your gameplay experience".

5. No arbitrary decision-making. Look, folks. I think I know what I'm doing here in the game-design phase, but I also know I'm only human. I'm bound to screw something up. I will hope that my beta team catches my goofs, but in the event that they don't, I am willing to listen to player feedback. This does not mean I will take every single criticism and implement exactly what players want, but it does mean that, say, if nine out of ten of you all say monks are too hard to use, I will probably look at it, do a lot of testing and tune them up a bit. If one person tells you a thing, they might be right; if virtually everyone says it, they're almost certainly right, and I'd be a fool to ignore them outright. If I stand firm on something, it means there's a really, really good reason. Little annoys me in video games more than sheer stubbornness.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-22 01:44:12

Just bumping this back up, as I'm still hoping for a little help.

If you're interested in the project, particularly as a programmer, please say so directly.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-22 08:21:19

Hello Jayde.
this sounds very interesting, and it sounds like you thought things through very well. What a coincidence that I decided to brush up on my programming  skills. Right now I'm currently using python and trying to get into c#.
Anyway I am very interested in this project. I would like to volonteer my services as a programmer for this rpg and see where this goes. However there is a catch. I will need 1 to 2 months to get my programming skills up to snuff, so that I can give you some good work. If I get things done in time I can make it one month. If you can wait that long I could start the programming process. Also I am a slow typer, just to let you know but I do get things done.
I will need to speak with you eventually, so I have some idea of your vision for this game. Do you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? I ask because facetime is the best way to get in touch with me right now. I can't figure out how to use skype and I don't get cell service where I live, plus facetime is so easy! I don't mind talking on the forum, but I don't check pm's, and if you want to keep things private such as spoilers we'd have to take things off the forum.
I don't have any pieces of software to show you but I am a hard worker, I'm patient, a fast learner, and i am a huge fantasy buff! Fantasy novels are one of my favorite things. I've read Terry Goodkind, Patrick Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb, Jim butcher, Kevin Hearne, and many others. I only bring this up to let you know that I have an understanding of fantasy and rpgs in general. I get things like magic systems, the way a fantasy world should feel and sound, how to make an epic ongoing storyline, all of that
Just one more thing are you sighted at all? Only reason I ask is because I want to know if you want graphics in this game. If so you will have to get someone else to do that, I'm totally blind and have no experience with graphics.
Anyway, if your interested in having me as your programmer for this game, post here and let me know.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-09-22 19:35:25

Hi there, and thank you for your interest!

I'm not in any enormous rush to do this, so giving you a couple of months to brush up on things won't hurt me. I might be in school by January, which will limit my own time, but frankly a lot of my work is done already.

I do have an iPhone, but am unused to facetime. That said, I'm willing to work with that, too, if we want to develop something going forward.

An RPG is, by all accounts, fairly difficult to code, given the depth we're talking here, but it's not as hard as, say, a first-person shooter. We're looking at top-down navigation (think Manamon here for the way the character moves), and so any sound design should be pretty simple. I do want the whole game to be one package eventually, compressed in such a way that players can't pick it apart without knowing how to hack. I assume python can do this, and that if you don't yet know how, you can work that out?

No, I don't want any graphics in this game. They're unnecessary, as the sighted world has enough great RPGs already and the blind do not. Besides, being a non-multiplayer endeavour, using graphics is just a whole lot more headache than it's worth in my opinion.

I am more than happy to try you out and to give you the time you need, given those bits of information.

Now, to the community at large: do games like this usually only have one programmer, or would having, say, a pair of them working together be even more advantageous? I ask because if the latter is true, then my door is still open. No, Guitarman, I am not trying to accept you with one hand and shove you aside with the other. I want to make this thing the best that it can be, that's all. I have faith in your ability to learn and to produce good work, until or unless that faith proves unmerited. But hey, if two are better than one, then the project may benefit. Just let me know, guys.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-22 19:58:16 (edited by roelvdwal 2017-09-22 20:01:31)

Regarding obfuscation, it can be done somewhat, but keep in mind that python and all of its modules are opensource. Add to that python was never designed for hiding code, and you get a not so great language if you want to obfuscate your code. You can make it harder by compyling python yourself and changing the opcodes, but this technique will not stand up to someone who knows a bit about hacking. All you can do is make it harder for someone, not more. You should probably ask yourself the question why you need a language that obfuscates your code. If you really, really want to try and avoid piracy, you will have to spend a lot of time on something that might break later. Also worth reading is what the bgt manual has to say about the subject. It's another language, but nearly all of the same aspects apply.
And about a second programmer, its possible, but it depends on whom you pick. There are many different ways of developing a program, and you'll need to find 2 people that fit together.

Roel
golfing in the kitchen

2017-09-22 23:44:15

I think he's also talking about protecting the game assets like sound designs, level maps and such. You'll want to use an encryption scheme like AES-128  to do this. Where this comes in on the programming side is making sure that people can't just grab the encryption key. A lot of BGT games have had their sounds hacked into, because the way that bgt deals with sound encryption is that the programmer sets the decryption key that he will use for all his sound files, and then BGT uses this key to decrypt future sounds that have to be loaded. But where does BGT store that key? In memory of course. So if you can get a memory string scanner, the key is right there in memory. So there has to be a more secure way.

I like to sleep, Sleep is good,
This is how I do it: Lie on a nice warm cozy bed, and dream dreams about how to rule the world!
Follow @TheGreatAthlon5 on twitter for humorous facts and game updates!
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2017-09-23 01:36:33

If you need anything else, I'm your guy.  Audio production and sound design, soundtrack scoring, etc.  No charge.  My personal pay will be knowing I was allowed to work on it.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2017-09-23 03:41:01 (edited by keyIsFull 2017-09-23 03:48:37)

Btw jade, I have thought about sound design for your game and I've only ever designed for free projects including my own. When I design for someone else's project, it's a little harder for me to keep up the drive and the motivation, but that seems to be  because they lacked one or more of the following:

Self motivation: If the project sponsor (the person woh cares the most about the project), loses motivation, he brings the entire team down with him, nothing gets done, which leads to an even greater demotivation.
Visible progress being made: This is a big problem with young developers who have to juggle school and homework and stuff. progress often happens in spurts followed by long times of inactivity. Those inactive times can really lead to no productivity at all. A way to hold everyone accountable to this progress is to create a sort of checklist of the various tasks everyone has to do, so they can check it off, to show that things are still happening, and give a sort of scope about how much work still needs to be done. Which leads me to ...

An accurate and detailed description of requirements. It looks like you have a much better idea than most people do. Including I, who for most of the time I was developing games, just added random ideas as I felt like it. That turned into all my games being unfinished when I swamped myself with too many ideas. In our system analysis classes we talk about feature creep, where the business wants the programmers to add way too much stuff that is not necessarily needed for now. It's better to roll out a version of the product with a solid feature set that is decided at the beginning. That also means that the checklist of things to do doesn't change much, which means that the programmer and asset creators don't waste time creating assets and code that don't actually get used, or have to scramble to add something last minute.

Communication and affirmation: This has not actually been a problem with too many people I've worked with because the quality of my work speaks for itself. It's important though that not only the project sponsor, but also others on the team, stay in communication with each other, so that they are all working toward the same goal. For the prospective 3 man team you mentioned (head designer, program, and sound creator), the communication roles might be something like
Head designer: communicate with programmer about the interface he has coded. Communicate with sound designer about the message the audio is conveying. Asking for at least placeholder sounds until the particular feature is finalized.
Programmer: Communicate with designer about the various algorithms used, the efficiency of such algorithms and possible performance bottlenecks, and the amount of time it will take to have a certain feature coded to specification. TO the sound designer, ensure that the sounds are of the correct type; sample rate; decide on an encryption scheme, make sure that sounds are synchronized to what's happening in the game (for example, making too long of a game assets loading sound might just cause unnecessary memory utilization)
Sound maker: to the head designer, indicate what sort of possibilities for various sounds he has, and of course provide placeholder files. Audio overload seems to be an issue that people seem to neglect, especially the younger sound designers, so it's important that listeners aren't hit by a wall of sound, no matter how impressive it is, and a compromise must be made somewhere if this occurs. To the programmer, the least amount of communication is necessary, as hopefully the head designer has screened all the sound assets before they reach the programmer and approves of them, thus the programmer only needs to implement them into the code.

With all that said, I would be interested in sound designing for your game, if you believe that you are a good shepherd of your project. Because that's really what it boils down to. I have an extensive sound collection, and almost nine years of experience doing this stuff for both myself and for others, and I am very punctual about responding to communications. But I will also temper this with the fact that I am in school, and the schoolwork is laborious, I am easily distracted by other games, sleep, reading, and other similar pursuits. Anything to keep my brain active and doing different things. Because doing the same thing over and over is anathema to me. But that is what you are getting. You can check out some of mywork such as in the grave of redemption concept demo (2014), the Demon Wars Cycle tactical battle map pack (2014-2016), Battle Zone demo 2 (2015),  or the empire mud soundpack (present day).

PS. quality Voice acting is very difficulty to get hold of in this community. So you will almost certainly have to go on to a website that specializes in voice actors and hire a few from there which will actually add a good amount to the price. You'll want to make sure that your script is finalized before hiring, as getting them to record more lines for you later is only a hassle, so I would probably advise that to be one of the last things you actually do.

I like to sleep, Sleep is good,
This is how I do it: Lie on a nice warm cozy bed, and dream dreams about how to rule the world!
Follow @TheGreatAthlon5 on twitter for humorous facts and game updates!
If you like my posts, thumb me up!

2017-09-23 05:18:09

Hi Jayde.
I understand what you're saying, and I don't mind working with another programmer as long as we can get along. As far as security in python, I do know that this is an issue. I will talk to camlorn, who does a lot of neat stuff with python, he might be able to help as far as security goes. Nobody can guarantee a program will be 100% secure, but I will try my hardest. I may have to switch to another language eventually. Also as far as voice acting, some options on this forum might be dark, Aaron Baker, Philip Bennfall, BryanP and there are probably more that I'm forgetting. But you should talk to these people they have great voices for games. I wouldn't mind doing some vvoice acting either. I can do a lot of accents and things like that, but somebody else would have to edit them I'm not too good with sound design.
If we can get this rpg rolling have you thought about any company names? And we would also need to find a domain to buy, unless someone on here has extra server space. All this doesn't matter right now,  I just enjoy thinking ahead.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2017-09-23 05:25:17

A few things here. Thanks for your responses.

Voice-acting will be one of the very last things I gun for. The game can live without it, but once my script is finalized, that's a time to start chasing that dream. Maybe, and only maybe, I can release the game without it first, see how much interest it generates, then use some of the money to purchase the voice talent I'm after?

Regarding the discussion of communication/motivation/all that jazz, I hear ya. I'm fairly professional about this, and I'm pretty good about staying in touch. Nobody's perfect of course, but if I've got people who are committed to doing this thing, then we'll push forward and try to get stuff done.

Now, as to the issue of obfuscation, let me clarify something. I'm not talking about massive encryption or whatnot here. What I want is for the game to run as an executable, and for a player to be unable to access the individual game sound/music/map files just by opening up the game's folder. If the folder opens and every single file the game uses is there just waiting to be accessed, that's not okay with me. But beyond that, the game will be a paid product so I do need some sort of security...but beyond that, no. It doesn't need to be so super-protected that even a pro hacker couldn't crack it. Ultimately I know that if someone really wants to break a game, they'll break it.

Check out my Manamon text walkthrough at the following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z8ls3rc3f4mkb … n.txt?dl=1

2017-09-23 06:06:35

So I think you mainly want the game assets to be packed in order so that they can't be individually accessed, but packing the assets doesn't protect them, just as zipping up a bunch of files into a .zip doesn't protect them. They need to be encrypted inside the pack or otherwise someone can use a pack extracter and just access the files easily.

I like to sleep, Sleep is good,
This is how I do it: Lie on a nice warm cozy bed, and dream dreams about how to rule the world!
Follow @TheGreatAthlon5 on twitter for humorous facts and game updates!
If you like my posts, thumb me up!