[TheSuddenFire]

I used to visit this forum back in high school; I graduated in '05. I doubt anyone still comes here from back then and if they do, that they remember me. I've floated my way back to doing game work after years of strict rock/metal composition. I just wanted to say hi to everyone and see if any cool new projects are taking over. I'm an avid musician with endless capabilities and I'm available to help anyone with that end of game making. I would love to learn how to code but I can't afford any books and it's not necessarily my forte. Graphics, I guess I can do but I don't have the patience, really. I'm in love with any Diablo style games, or anything quite adventurous versus the cliche town to town RPG, but I'm "game" for anything. Pardon the pun :p

[Ninkazu]

Hello, fellow Spring graduate (well, wife from Spring myself from The Woodlands. Close enough in this international community). I was here around that time, but sadly don't remember you.

I'm currently a PhD student in Boston studying programming language theory - in particular static analysis - and very occasionally work on a distributed tabletop simulator that is a comical portrayal of the scientific process. It is not ready for art or music.

[TheSuddenFire]

Seems this place has been dead for sometime. "Fantasy RPG" looks badass but other than that I don't see much activity. How sad. This site actually had a level of fun to it. Oh, and you do know me. Glad to see you're off in the professional world of programming as I expected. Have you gotten to contribute to any major projects or are you still mud-wading like me?
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[tcaudilllg]

The site's creator got bored with RPGs and created a new forum, which he then abandoned after some other guy announced that he was working on a child molester online game on that same forum.

Where he went, his friends followed (mostly). And, it didn't help that DarKDread quit the scene, because his efforts were the main inspiration.

[TheSuddenFire]

Ah, DD. I remember revising his RPG music. Good times. We should try to round up all these doggies and bring them back. Also, maybe the people here could collaborate on one or a few projects together instead of each to his own. IMHO
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[Nodtveidt]

[TheSuddenFire]

He should've stuck to game making. Music wasn't his primary skill. To each his own, though.
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[tcaudilllg]

SuddenFire if you are up for it there are a lot of activities that could be done to improve the rate at which games are made. That game maker I made, Gamestar, is simple as hell, but no one uses it because people want to put forward their best efforts in everything they do and you can't approach professional design without a few starting points. What the community needs is to create these starting points, which will allow rapid prototyping and smooth transition to the finished product.

If people want to do a half-assed job, they'll use RPG Maker. If they want to do one better, they have limited options atm.

[TheSuddenFire]

Well, though I'd absolutely love to learn C++, my skill is music. I'm down to help anybody. You have a fantastic programmer at the top of this page, depending on the amount of free time he has. Graphics can be done or found easily enough. I'm not a powerhouse at graphics but with a little patience I can push through and get them done. I'm trying to remember the old program I had. I think it was GraphicsGale?
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[tcaudilllg]

Gamestar is written in HTML 5. It doesn't need C++, just a client to run on. I know there are plenty of excellent coders on this forum; however, coding runs second to imagination (except when it comes to optimization, of course).

I'm not great at graphics, either. However, most of the work to be done when making graphics is a matter of the outline (unless it's 3D modeling we're talking about, which requires lots of contingency and adjustment). Regarding 2D sprites, what's needed are bases. I've got a few that I've made which I can share. At the moment, I'm working on a grenade thrower and a guy in big armor.

One the outlines are done, the painting can be a little painstaking, but it's not as intimidating as rendering the pose. The human body only has so many possible poses. Once you pass a critical threshold, you meet most of the demand for poses. Having poses available makes it easier to prototype graphics and animate them.

I don't like the way Open Game Art features lots of complete assets...kinda destroys the market for game art, but most artists are smart enough not to submit complete work there, anyway. Pose availability doesn't hurt anything... would-be designers tend to be lazy and as long as they are facing real work they'll chafe and pay someone else to do it.

Regarding designers, I think there are four types:
- unskilled "insiders" who try to capitalize on popular trends (lazy "cool dudes" who work their way up from beta testing to AAA status.. the "standard" way to get into the industry).
- RPG protagonist types who communicate a real vulnerability and reliance on others to get things done, and concentrate on maintaining the development team's atmosphere until their projects are completed. (most of the successful indie efforts are lead by these types)
- unserious programmers who are wholly uncommitted to their designs and just do them as a hobby (they are more interested in the act of developing the game than the actual play).
- people who have real imagination and can make good games mostly by their own ability if they have the right resources. ("modders")

In my opinion, modders represent the real potential of the industry and empowering them is the key to its growth and development. Their advantage over the programmers and the insiders is that they emphasize exploration, which is the main draw in single player gaming. Ultimately the growth of the industry is accomplished by helping them transition to the 2nd category (this is the path Miyamoto followed). However, to do this they must first prove themselves by realizing their potential. In my view, mod tools are not enough for this: they are limited by design. We must strive to make games easier to develop. The result will be greater industry participation, lower game prices, better and wider selection, and all around better games.

I think Gamestar is a starting point for making the design process easier. It's cross-platform, totally independent, and forces design clarity. You can even turn NPCs on and off at will, and edit them while the game runs. I don't know how to make it any simpler without limiting the design focus to specific genres. Which might well be worth doing.

The bottleneck is resources. Lots of design options but quality remains at a premium.

[Ninkazu]

[TheSuddenFire]

No games or anything? Also, what in the world is flow analysis? My first thought was an image of examining river currents :p
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[Ninkazu]

[TheSuddenFire]

So does this mean that you left game programming behind? Otherwise has the opportunity not been recently presented?
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Chameleon, on the floor, writhing with a blood-stained neckline. Glowing eyes stare unto this changing one.

[Ninkazu]

Game programming is not the most interesting thing to me these days, but I'd like to think I haven't left it completely behind me. The said, I am not going to pursue a game programming career after my PhD.