[Ninkazu]

I don't want to program this stuff anymore. I'm out.

[DeveloperX]

[Mandrake]

copycat.
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"Well, last time I flicked on a lighter, I'm pretty sure I didn't create a black hole."-
Xmark

http://pauljessup.com

[Verious]

[biggerUniverse]

This is indeed an unhappy trend. I doubt that any of us that have been programming games for so long and with so much of our hearts and souls will ever really give it up. Ideas will always come to us and we'll think, "That would be so cool in a game... Huh. I wonder if RPGDX is still around."

That said, there is definitely a change in the winds. While I probably won't give up programming games, I don't work on the same things anymore. I don't visit here as much as I used to; I can't seem to find the time. I don't see the same people posting that I used to, and hardly anyone is posting about their latest new game project.

Maybe I'm being too bleak, but I feel a certain sadness when I think about how many people don't post here anymore- how many seem to have given up on writing games.

Maybe everyone is just posting elsewhere.
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We are on the outer reaches of someone else's universe.

[Nephilim]

Yeah, it sucks that this seems to be a trend. And I'm sorry to see Ninkazu in particular throw in the towel. Seems like I haven't seen screenshots or anything from people here in a long time.

I think part of the problem is that RPG's take so damn much time and effort to create. By nature, they are complicated, sprawling, story-based systems, which is a lot of work for even the most dedicated hobbyist. It's difficult to have a life and still devote the time it takes to do it the way we envision it.

Personally, I've not been writing games since I finished 'Sacraments.' I've tinkered a bit with some graphics and some side technologies like improving my bitmap font renderer, but for the most part, it's tough to keep the enthusiasm level up for these long projects, especially after you've put one to bed.

(That actually got me thinking that it might be good for the next compo to put drastic limits on the game scope and be more flexible with compo deadlines. Require a two-hour time limit on a playthrough, and maybe a limit to the number and size of maps. Although a 48-hour compo sounds fun, there's no way I can devote a consecutive 48 hour block these days. But if I could take any 48 hours over the course of two or three weeks, it becomes more do-able.)
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.

[janus]

[Joakim]

I'm sorry to hear that Ninkazu.

All programming teams I've ever worked in have lead to failure. I stopped seeking for a team long ago... Even though I do work with people on single projects at a time.

But other than that, I'm still working on games (hey, I'm even making a commercial game heh). I can't see myself leaving hobby game programming the next few years, and it's quite probable that I will end up as a game programmer too.

The reason why I'm not posting my screenshots and games on this side is for the very simple reason that I make smaller games these days that do not span over serveral months in development time.

Hey, this makes me want to work on a game! Cya.

[Mandrake]

I'm not so sure on that, BiggerUniverse. I think that most of the people moving away from games probably won't come back- the scene is dying. I think the first person to see it and react to it was DarkDread. At first I felt kind of bad for that, but now I understand where he is coming from. I don't think I'll ever do hobby video game <i>programming</i> anymore. It's just far too much work when combined with art, plotting, etc. I just don't have the time, nor the inclanation.

[DeveloperX]

[DrunkenCoder]

It's a bit sad to see people quitting before I even got started properly. I've always been watching the 'scene' from the sidelines and guess I will continue with that for quite some time.

Wish you the best of luck with your new endavours though.
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If there's life after death there is no death, if there's no death we never live. | ENTP

[DanKirby]

My enthusiasm is fading a bit as well. Trying to make a whole game by myself is very tiring...programming the engine as well as creating all of the graphics and other content. It doesn't help that I come up with large projects, either.
I stopped working on Shifter before fully testing the battle system, the last piece of the engine. After that, I would've needed to make tons of battle sprites, tilesets for the forest outside the first town, then the maps for the forest...and that was just the first area. Too much work, after all the time I spent programming the engine.
The part I enjoy most is creating the story and the characters, and designing the gameplay...not all of the content creation. Especially since I'm not a great pixel artist anyway.

Lately I've been working on a story to follow up both Threads of Life and Shifter, set in the future. I don't know if it'd translate well into a game, yet. I envision it as becoming very non-linear, which would be a challenge to design compared to my previous ideas.

[tcaudilllg]

...What would be really useful, I think, is a community game programming library. We have Allegro already, in particular, but Allegro doesn't help us scroll sprites on a playfield, at least not directly.

If we could break down game programming into a series of ready-made functions, then I think our ideas might not seem as far off.

What do you guys think?

[biggerUniverse]

[Bjorn]

What, the scene dying? Just when I'm back to programming for 4 months now without any sign of stopping...

Anyway, I admit have lost interest in one big part of indie-rpgs, which are the single player RPGs. I've worked on a few, some released for contests. But single player RPGs are only ever fun to play once, if you're lucky. Unless there's either lots of freedom as in Morrowind, or lots of random generation as in Diablo.

So while these last two ideas fuelled interest for a while, with the idea to randomly generate a large world that would offer the freedom of Morrowind, I do realize this is indeed a lot of work. And all that just to create a game people can play on their own. Well, playing on your own isn't the most interesting thing anymore, more and more people have non-stop broadband internet connections now. People can and want to play together with other people. Hence why I've found renewed interest in the development of a free MMORPG.

Well and I'm sure MMORPGs can have their place in indie-rpg scene too. I'd love to see people helping out, or maybe splitting off into other directions than we're heading, while we could still share code and ideas.