RPGDX > Forums > Design and programming > Collaboration to finish a simple project.

DeveloperX

Project Title: Froggy Escape
Genre: 2D Arcade Platformer (Fr0gger Clone)
Platform: any Allegro-supported platform
Programming Language: C/C++ mix using Allegro
Status: Concept - very little code implemented

Anyone have some free time to help me get this project done, and outta my 'todo' folder?

I estimate 2 to 4 weeks for completion due to my schedule.

What I'm looking for:

C/C++ Programmer familiar with writing Allegro code to help with the development of the game's main engine and content-creation tools.

MIDI Composer to develop the background music consisting of up to 8 tracks per midi file.

Sound Designer to develop sound effects in CD-quality WAV

Beta testers willing to devote time and energy to find every bug as fast as possible.

This project is a commercial project, and the final game will be released for $7.95 USD per download, and $11.75 for a CD-R version to be shipped.

There will be a free demo version consisting of half of the game's levels.

The source will be closed-source.
Licensing of the source will be available at my discretion.

You can expect a high level of coordination and professionalism from this project.
If you are interested, please send an email to ccpsceo@gmail.com

You will be paid an equal share of the monthly profits gained from the sale of the game.
If there are 6 people involved, the profits are split equally to all 6 people.
Each person involved will recieve a free copy of the full game.

Thanks in advance for supporting CCPS Solutions.
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janus · Mage Joined: 29 Jun 2002 Posts: 464 Location: Issaquah, WA

Uh.

4 weeks to develop and test a commercial product? Simultaneously? Forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.

'fraid I wouldn't have time to devote 4 weeks to slamming a project like that together for only the promise of mystical, ethereal shareware profits.

Your technical constraints are kind of confusing and arbitrary, too. MIDI music with an 8 track limit, and WAV sound effects? What is this, 1998? If you're aiming for download distribution, one would think you'd at least compress the sound effects.

Are there art assets already made and waiting to be integrated? Do you already have an artist that could potentially hold up development?

Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

I'm interested, perhaps foolishly so. Tho id prolly make way too many demands.

A big part of selling an indie game is the graphics and eye candy so i'd have to push for something that can do alpha blending deciently, but also support software rendering. Pop Cap frame work or sdl perhaps?

I hope this dosen't hurt anyone's feelings but the graphics i've seen from your group is sub par. It's highly likely that you'd need to contract out art, who would pay for that?

Breakout clones sell for $19.95, i'm sure a frogger clone could match that. Given enough polish.

The demo seems very giving. Considering most indie games have about 40+ levels. Tho frogger is more of an incremental difficulty than a set level kinda game.
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janus · Mage Joined: 29 Jun 2002 Posts: 464 Location: Issaquah, WA

Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

I thought it was the other way round. I was speaking more about preformance than features. Does Allegro have hardware acceleration?

By the way, shoudn't this thread be in off topic?
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DrunkenCoder · Demon Hunter Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 559

DeveloperX · Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject:

I've got a near-steady 9 to 6 job, so I don't have much time each day to work on this.

The art would be done by me, unless another artist wants in on this...*looks at J.Tobin ;)* And, WHY exactly do you think that the gfx that CCPS has done are bad? Hmm?

Better take a look at my art gallery:
http://www.nodtveidt.net/developerx/frozenteam/developerx/gallery.php

Also, about the levels:

Each level will be a different scenario.
For instance, a few ideas that my friends have had were...

1. avoiding cartoonish bullets in a shooting range
2. crossing a bridge over a river, where each plank collapses over time.
3. climbing up the side of an office building, where you avoid things that are being tossed out the windows.
etc...

The estimated time is just a off-the-top-of-my-head estimate.
I hadn't done any scheduling calculations.

If I get at least 4 people to help me with this project, we can start immediately.

Let me know by email.
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Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

Your art is better than i previously saw, but it's still not enough for an indie game in my mind. When i say it's sub par, this is par:
http://reflexive.com/index.php?SORT=Sales

I suspect that if you wanted to push the whole pixel art angle the sprites would need to be bigger then the ones i saw perhaps 640*480 native? ie:
http://www.freelunchdesign.com/screenshots/tower13_04.gif.html
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janus · Mage Joined: 29 Jun 2002 Posts: 464 Location: Issaquah, WA

Yeah, at best that art is passable beginner pixel art. It's nothing to write home about, and definitely not anything I'd expect to see in a game that costs money (especially not in what is effectively a frogger clone - if I really want to play frogger, I definitely don't need to pay you $8 to do it.) If you're really serious about making money off it, hire a real artist and stick to coding/'designing'.

DeveloperX · Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2005 1:58 pm Post subject:

Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

My advice is to forget about selling it for any sum of money. We're not in the golden shareware age where an indie developper can sell a pong clone for $15 anymore; people will go for free alternatives when they can.

You should consider creating a few freeware games and building yourself a reputation. Start a website to showcase a few "classic arcade" type games (I can't think of many people who'd want to pay for a rehash of Pong, pacman, frogger, tetris, or whatnot, really). When you have a few games out there to show people you've got some coding skills and talent, and are capable of quality material worth paying for, release more complex games and charge for those.

What I'm doing with my project is making it freeware. And, in all honesty, it may not be half-life 2 or doom 3, but the 8+ years of dev experience I have weren't exactly put to waste making it. ;) Despite that, who'd want to buy it if I sold it for, say, $20? There are good AAA games on the market for slightly more than twice that, and those aren't made by some unknown indie developper whose game could be full of bugs or just a big let-down. Not very advantageous to me now, is it? ;) On the other hand, making it free means people aren't losing anything but the time required to download it. And if it turns out good, then hey, they'll keep an eye on my next project.

If you're hurting for money, get a (better) job. The truth is, you're not going to make enough money to support yourself selling your first game. Not by a long shot. It should be your ticket to recognition, not the financial ace up your sleeve. Life plays a mean game of poker. ;)

Just my 2 cents.
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Nodtveidt · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:02 am Post subject:

Wise words, RuneLancer. That's the strategy I have adopted for Frozen Utopia...get some freeware out there so people can see how good we are (or aren't, hehehe), and then drop the bombshells and charge for them. :) Although it IS a niche scene and there's already people willing to pay good money for releases we produce, we're just not going there until we have a few titles out there so people can get a taste of things to come. Only then do I personally feel justified in selling anything, and most of the group agrees. We have three titles at the moment which will be released as freeware.
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DeveloperX · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:17 am Post subject:

Nodtveidt · Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 4:56 am Post subject:

If you want to make serious money in game development in a relatively short amount of time...look into adult game development. It tends to have an initial cost higher than "normal" games, but it's a total niche market and customers have NO problem forking over the cash for the latest title as long as it's good. You have to be on top of your game (no pun intended) as a developer though.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace