I think most of you can relate to the following experience, a hobby (game) programmer starting enthusiastic with a new small game project in your spare time. Then never finishing the game due to lack of motivation or losing interest because you hit a wall during the project and there is no one else to keep things rolling. One man can only do so much. I have lots of ideas for small game projects and the know-how to program and use a 3d engine but lack the time and skills to create some assets like (3d models and textures)
I am looking for a group of people who are interested in creating a game in their spare time using of course this fabulous engine There is no budget and no real game idea on the table. I am more then happy to organize things. My thoughts for the project logistics so far:
If you are interested please reply or send an email. If possible tell something about what you would like to do during the project and when available share some work you have done in the past. Also any ideas or remarks are more then welcome
Not that I don’t like to have more team members but if you have to try really hard to spare 30 minutes it probably will be better if you focus on your current things
Edit: I just send out a PM to the current team members to get things rolling. Really excited to get this going
Wow cheescake, I would love to help out I am not very experienced with JME3, but can do some blender stuff, although have not done any animation yet, and some programming. I have actually been pondering a bit lately about creating sound for my own projects, but really lack the skill for that. The best idea I could come up with is to get some random people I know and offering them something like 1 gold (replace gold with your currency) for each sentence they let me record for some voice overs lol. And ofcourse getting their names in the credits haha.
You can check out one of my contributions in a game here:
jatheron said:
Wow cheescake, I would love to help out :) I am not very experienced with JME3, but can do some blender stuff, although have not done any animation yet, and some programming. I have actually been pondering a bit lately about creating sound for my own projects, but really lack the skill for that. The best idea I could come up with is to get some random people I know and offering them something like 1 gold (replace gold with your currency) for each sentence they let me record for some voice overs lol. And ofcourse getting their names in the credits haha.
Great to hear you wanna help out. I will add you to the interested list for programming and design. There is no budget for this game project and everyone that is going to help out should determine how much spare time they are investing. IMHO paying 1 gold or any amount for delivered content creates unfairness. Then we should also be paying the design guy for assets and the programmer guy for code. Maybe an audio guy or woman will come along to help out in this project :)
@cheesecake Well, hoping other people have experience in lacking time and skills is not a good thing to hope for
Other than that, apart from doing a lot of test games in the past month (running up to a few thousand lines of code, hell yeah) I share the lack of ‘keeping things rolling’. I do have experience using blender, lots of modelling, uv mapping, bit of animating too, but never really got onto texturing tho (apart from filling up the uv map with premade textures and putting some shadows on). If you have any nice ideas for some small game projects I think I could join you in that, depending on what kind of games you are aiming for (I’m really hoping for some Awesome Stick Figure Adventure episodes, perhaps we can start off there, got some shadersettings and basic model stuff/ideas prepared for that)
As I really want to improve my own skills anyway, I might as well put my practicing to some use.
baalgarnaal said:
Hmm, add programming to my part too, I'm a Bsc of Computer Science, should be enough :P
Oh, and I vote for the name "ASFA: Episode 1", I think episode sounds more impressive :P
Ok I added programming. Out of your first reaction I got that you might want to practice more design aspects. Mostly I want everyone doing what they like doing in a game project :)
Currently we have 3 people interested in the game project. Maybe we can ask around in our own environments for people who would be interested. Aspects that could be helped with (programming, design, audio, documentation, testing).
I would like to start setting up some things next weekend from March 19th. Start the brainstorming and requirements gathering with the team :)
Dunno how experienced you are in this sort of collaboration but here are some tips:
Scope for max 2 developers. E.g. 2 programmers, or 1 programmer and 1 modeler if you have an art-intensive design.
Dedicated modelers/artists can be extremely hard to come by: If you don’t have an artist on board that you can count on from day #1, don’t design an art-intensive game. One example of effective “programmer art” is of course Mythruna, but these games are harder than they look The easiest way to go is to make a prototype that’s a lot of fun to play even with plain placeholder assets.
Make it easy for anyone to contribute, but don’t change (read: expand) your scope relative to your active team members. Your scope should always remain fixed. You can extend it once you’re done.
It’s not a must, but I would recommend setting a timeline. It doesn’t have to be “release by this date or we’re doomed I tells ya!”, but setting a date when you would have liked to be done can help you stay realistic. Say I gave myself 3 months; they come to an end and I’ve only got a scanned drawing I made of Batman on my harddrive to show for it. This isn’t going right… Good soft end dates are times when changes in your daily schedule are likely to occur, e.g. end of school, new school, new work, end of extended holiday, the day when my gf is likely to break up with me…
Have you considered making a derivative of MonkeyZone? It could use a little more maturing of its own first, but with Alpha-4 out it’s now becoming our prime focus. Definitely don’t wait around for it, but just keep it in mind as you decide what to aim for.
Thanks for the tips. I have some experience in managing projects and hope to get things rolling this weekend. When we get started and have a more concrete project I will create a new topic about it somewhere.
I am willing to do some texture/art work and/or help in some other way.
Could maybe produce some sounds also together with jatheron.
Not much experience in both, but happy to learn along the way.
~ Thomas
Good to have you on board. I will try starting up the communications with the team this Saturday. Maybe we could all come together in some kind of chat channel, preferably using a voice client like teamspeak or ventrillo.
Now if only I could find a nice big box filled with spare time....
Or maybe I should just prioritze better :)
I heard they are selling some spare time at BB&B next to the consoles and game isle :) I wanna try and get a good sense of how much time each team member can spend and set some soft milestones for the game project. I do not want to create an atmosphere were people feel obligated to do something for the project even though they currently have no time.
If I try really hard I think I could spare around 30 minutes to an hour a week from my current project. Unless you want to take the project to multiplayer and incorporate the OGF component for that…
Then I’m your man. That’s where 100% of my spare time is currently being put into service.
I updated the OP. Another person wanted to join the team For people that may have overlooked the PM I wanna ask if you could send me your locations and timezones so that we can setup communications. I would like to gather the team members tomorrow for the kick-off.
play (Netherlands) is available this saturday starting from 16:30 CET.
For team chat, I highly recommend Jaconda.im. The jMonkey core team uses Jaconda for the bulk of our internal communications, and it has removed the need to schedule any meetings, ever. Instead “meetings” happen organically and the participants are engaged and attentive because we’re only there when we have the time and wish to make ourselves available.
There is no budget and no real game idea on the table. I am more then happy to organize things. My thoughts for the project logistics so far:
(I’m really hoping for some