Showcase Killer Game

I've been wathing JME development for the last two years and i really like the improvements that have been achieved.

So this is a call to the community for the creation of a free game showing JME's capabilities and driving the development

of more game-oriented features. This is an open call to potential developers, artists, story writers etc., anyone interested can participate. I can provide web hosting, collaboration tools, some models i have purchased and development on my free time.

The target of this effort will be more like a game demo (e.g. an RPG with one level) for start.

Is this just going to be for showcase? I'd like to do something larger than what I can do alone, but not if it is going to be mostly for showcase.



                              -Gibi }:-@

Sounds like JME needs a Quake or Unreal Clon. Imho they are just "games" to sell the engine.



But I have a better idea. What do you think about a Benchmark? Not a penis-mark clon. I think of something usefull. The Benchmark give points to some categories. Then this file can be read by every program and the graphic options are automatically set to have the best result (in the developers eyes).

One categorie could be "How drops the framerate with antialiasing" or "How fast is shader 2.0". I really dont know what are good categories…

Finally you can enter some options you always like to have. The resolution for your TFT for example. The benchmark will always use these. And every program that read this file can use this options too.

there already was an attempt (or almost an attempt) like the one you just proposed kman:

http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=3120.0

The showcase killer games never get of the ground… people want to work on their own games, and the things they need for their games (not everyone is building games even).



I think a tech demo is a more realistic goal, because people can reuse the things they make for their own game. Even this would at least require one person dedicated to making this, putting the various bits of code together etc.



I must say though your offer (hosting, tools, development and even some models) is the most concrete so far.

The Gibi said:

Is this just going to be for showcase? I'd like to do something larger than what I can do alone, but not if it is going to be mostly for showcase.


                              -Gibi }:-@

The first concept of the proposal is "Think big, Start small".
llama:Yes the showcase game will be some sort of tech demo but game oriented.
I don't call people to stop developing their own games but i believe it is a good idea to have a showcase of a complete game stack
and work on this can provide reusable pieces of code.
for instance for a demo rpg game:

  • particle system for spells and effects

  • entity management

  • music and sound

  • path finding

  • steering behaviours

  • scene management



Anyway even the development of a simple 2d game needs many things and has a cost (especially regarding art).
Take a look at tech demos and playable demos of other 3d engines.
and one other thing to mention is that JME's core development team has many things to do to enhance the engine
so a community initiative for developing something to show JME's capabilities, and even drive the development of more advanced features and possibly
create something so good that can even go commercial some day in the next feature is a good thing.

Personally, if it's not an MMO or RPG, I can more easily participate.  I think those are rather ambitious for what this game is intended to do anyhow.  I think a platformer of some type could be plenty cool enough to show off the engine.

I agree with renanse. I think that an MMO or RPG is aiming too high, even if it is just tan idea.

                              -Gibi }:-@

ok, what about monkey maddness, a crazy monkey runs in the jungle chasing bananas, jumping from tree to tree etc

an open source showcase demo could also be quite valuable for jme beginners.

btw kman: that's "etc." is bothering me :slight_smile: it could mean "and casts spells in pvp fights where it can level up its skills" :slight_smile:

Hi,


kman said:

OK, what about monkey maddness, a crazy monkey runs in the jungle chasing bananas, jumping from tree to tree etc


Oh My God thats an awesome idea!  I envision a cross betweenDonkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog!

jMonkic Engong Country if you will!  :lol:

No wait...  :|


- Chris

Sounds cool!  I like the sound of a 2d-style platform game written in 3d…  Attempted this a few weeks ago but am sure you gurus will enjoy much better success.



Question is:  has anyone got the 3D skills to transform our favourite monkey into a 3D model (which can walk, run, jump, swing from trees etc…)… If I remember from a previous post (a long time ago), there isnt a 3D model yet of our monkey friend, I suspect this will be a bit tricky.  Am sure the bananas will be a lot easier to model tho :slight_smile:



Unf. cant help tho, am working on a 'killer' game of my own at the mo… (not to mention am still lacking a few basic jme/3d skills…).

I like the idea of a simple but flashy platformer.  Maybe we could even have it in both applet and webstart flavors making it easy to embed into a jme page.  :slight_smile:



As for models, perhaps there is an artist or two we can twist the arm of…

Don't twist too hard or we'll get some messed up models.  :stuck_out_tongue:

I think the idea of a showcase game is a really good one, I know I personally dithered for quite a while before using jME, since I couldn't find a full game example, in the end I looked at the flagrush tutorials and they were shiny enough to finally make me get started :slight_smile:



These initiatives seem to roll by every now and then, normally they seem to get bogged down, I think one key reason is that everyone wants to make a game-type that involves large amounts of resources, levels etc. to be fun. Platformers need to have quite a lot of animation, maps, and "tiles" or whatever the 3d equivalent is, to look like anything, and don't even think about mmorpgs :slight_smile: By contrast, something like that new game "Defcon" has about 5 vector graphic "sprites", a map of the world, and some dashed lines, but it is great fun and actually pretty impressive graphically. So maybe the best game-type for a showcase would be something with quite simple rules, in a fixed environment, but with gameplay that still allows a lot of variation. Something like a puzzle game, or an arena shooter, or a free-form shoot 'em up like Every Extend or Warning Forever seems like it would work well. I'd be willing to try doing some graphics and gameplay ideas for any of those types (I've got some concepts for a combined shooter/puzzle game that could be a little original, that I've tried out a little in my old 2D engine). But someone else would need to do the coding… I've already got far too much coding to do on my own painfully slowly progressing game :slight_smile: Actually, if anyone wants to help out on aircarrier that could be a showcase of sorts :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:






there are also huge problems to overcome when it comes to working together "over seas" on a project. core teams need time to get to know each other, communicate goals etc, and a project lead is really needed…someone that keeps it all together.



so, to prevent a project like this from going under(like they almost always do) i suggest doing an extreeemely small game for starters. a game so small that it seems laughable, just for practise(and setting up channels for communication, coding phases etc). if doable with a very short deadline, and without caring all that much about the showcase factor of it…



then move on to bigger stuff after that…my2c

How about that game loosely based on volleyball, where you can just move your player left and right, and jump, and the ball bounces off you? (Applet version here http://jn10.com/on-line-games/blob-volleyball-game/volleyball-game.php )



That would only require a ball, two "blob" players, a simple background that could use the nice new water, and some simple code. It could still bring in physics for the ball bouncing off players, and a little simple AI for a computer player, then some network code if necessary. Plus it is actually pretty fun, basically a slightly more complicated pong. It also has quite a lot of potential for some fancier looking stuff, like motion blur or a "trail" on the ball, effects when the ball hits the sand, nice shaders on the water and blobs, shadows, updating the sand heightmap with little dips where the ball hits etc. which could make it a good graphical showcase, but none of those are necessary for it to actually work. It could even be extended based on that very simple start to be a fuller volleyball game, which might not be bad at all. Given that there wouldn't be much in the way of graphics, I would be happy to contribute towards them, I've done blobby stuff with eyes before, the squid-thing characters from my puzzle game (puzzlebeans.sf.net) would actually work quite well, what with having round heads :slight_smile:

and maybe we can choose players from monkeys, llamas and frogs? }:-@

it might be a bit unfair to do that blobby remake. i'm sure the guys at http://sourceforge.net/projects/blobby won't be so happy :slight_smile: …they just started a few months ago  :expressionless:

blobby volley 2 isn’t going to be 3d, i think. and even if it is, competition is a good thing.  :evil:



another great game that could be done without to much effort could be a 3d remake of pogosticker (http://jet.ro/feats), a really nice fun game with innovative gameplay and well worth the download if you haven’t played it. on the other hand this could really be considered a rip-off and it would be hard to beat the greatness of the 2d version.  (btw i would even buy a nintendo ds if it was available for it, perfect for that platform.)



a nice old dosgame, that could be remade, would be paratrooper (http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?id=3867). quite simple game, but still lot’s of room for flashy effects.



by all means, no tetris/pacman/breakout/…, please!