Looking for associate(s) to develop an indie rpg game

[Mojo]

Okay, so I probably should be posting this at gamedev or something similar but I believe I have zero chances of finding people interested. Honestly, in every indie game developing community I've been to it's all about fps/action games( and *rarely* adventures). Not what I have in mind, wich is an old school turn-based rpg game.The type that doesn't sell to publishers and that most young people dislike. I always lurked this site and the "I want to develop an rpg game what do you think?" type of threads are a constant. Figured I might have a shot here.

I've been co-developing an rpg game with an american fellow for over an year. Our deal was good and set, I would make all the art for the game ( including the soundtrack), he would program and design the game. Our deal was for two games, on the first one I would create the content and have creative control over the setting/story, on the second that would be his right. Unfortunatelly he lost interest, we argued and we parted ways, wich left me with the option of either selling all my work and giving up making a game for once, or go into a vain and impossible quest to find a new associate(s). I decided to try the second, briefly at least.

The game setting would be a highly stylized post-apocalyptic western. A radioactive Arizona/New Mexico set in an alternative history "dirty 30's" U.S.A was our scenario. The soundtrack would be inspired by depression era blues and folk . Gameplay would be party turn-based and would take clues from games like Silent Storm. The plan was to make the combat fun and strategic and focus on rich writing and roleplaying. Our platform was C4 but since my partner took his code and his game design with him I see no problem in changing.

I have about 20% of the in-game assets done ( if you count the relevance of a reliable software pipeline, base models,textures and uv maps, than make that 1/3 of all the work done). The game setting is pretty much set because of that ( at least visually), but the main quest, storyline, game design and all else is open to frank discussion. Hence I did not take the trouble to describe what we had sorted out in depth. There are no scenes done because we were waiting for the release of C4's terrain generator. Most of what I have done is characters, items, weapons and scene props. I was just started on making the buildings ( the setting uses earth architecture, lot of adobe buildings, pueblo styled) when everything got blown to high water with my ex-associate. Our animations were going to be 3rd party. We've already hired a romanian company that did the basic animations we used to playtest my partners code. Those are his however, and went with him. 2d art was left out in the open. I could do it through renders, but our idea was that it would just be too much work for one person and that we would hire some freelancer when the game was finished. I would "skin" the interface myself.

I wanna make very clear that I'm not a "mod leader" type and I don't want nobody to work *for* me. I want people to work *with*. My preference is working with just one or two people, the most important is that my new associate(s) is an able programmer, with knowledge of game design and that sees eye to eye with me on the design level( Knowledge of animation and rigging is also welcome :wink: ). The deal is make the game, and go 50/50 on the profits ( if there are profits). Off course, if there's something like 3 or more people involved the deal must change.

I guess on something so specific it's easy to find someone that shares the design goal I described. My favorite games are the Fallouts, Torment and Darklands. Anyone who loves these games and want to follow their shiny and glorious trail is gonna get along with me just fine.

I have no problem with creating the content and writing the quests, dialogs and everything by commitee, sharing creative duties. The important thing is just to be agreed on what's the setting all about and develop the main quest togheter. The rest just goes smoothly, independently. A 2 game deal like the one I had with my ex-associate would be ideal but this is probably not desirable for most people. The thing with me and my associate is that we had been working togheter for over two years ( first on modding then on developing an indie game) and he quit his job and was at it full time.

Here are samples of my work, just to show the quality of the graphics and my work. These are quickly wipped C4 renders ( excuse, the *ehem* production quality) of some character models. Don't mind the excessive lightning ( no, I don't like bloom) and poorly adjusted specularity, that's just a problem with the C4 model viewer :

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3900/merchant1rq8.jpg

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/8504/scavenger1lq4.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/6690/merchant2mk9.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2342/scavenger2ng2.jpg


Frankly, I'm still trying to convince my associate to get back to work, but I would say 99% chance that I need to find someone to work with or get ready to sell my models in turbosquid and recoup the losses.

Excuse my english, my native language is portuguese.

 

[RGE]

Sounds like an awesome game to me, and the character art was right up my alley. I hope you find someone to work with you.

 

[Mojo]

Thanks. Unfortunatelly I think that's very unlikely. I guess it's worth trying it at least, before selling everything and giving up game development for once.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

2d or 3d?

you have 3d models there but they could be converted to sprites easily

what features would the game have?

would it resemble a certain game?

got the story and dialogue written?

linear or free-roaming?

if free-roaming....what aspects of the game are going to be linear?

how many XP to gain a level?

what do you get for going up a level?

how do you calculate a bullet hit?

what skills are there?

how does money play a role in the game?

do monsters respawn? random battles?

all these questions have to be asked, an RPG is a big project

 

[Helton]

I hope someone here with serious programming experience steps up to help you and, afterwards, you decide to open a forum for your project here. It sounds great.

 

[Mojo]

I posted this at ITS forums also. I tried to post more information there :

I guess I will try to wright more about the game but the thing to say is there is no game now that my associate and I parted ways...just a (great, in my opinion) setting idea and a lot of art. All of the code left with my associate. I also don't think anybody would join this type of project just to follow some idea that is set in stone without having no creative input whatsoever in the game. I know this first hand. I coul easely join a project with good prospects as an artist, but what would be the point? I really don't feel like grunting for an idea that isn't mine and in wich I had no part.

I guess the offer is basiccaly for some aspiring game developer that shares the basic design idea and feels for the setting. I am totally commited and my work is good. I'm modest but I know that. I know that a great flaw with indie rpgs ( and most indie games for that matter) is poor art, and I can single handedly make good art for a whole game. Not only I can make A level graphics with style and a modicum of artistic vision, I can also record one hell of a soundtrack. I'm no Ry Cooder, but game soundtracks aren't exactly known by their quality and I'm a really good musician with good taste.

The setting is a harsh, barren post-apocalyptic desert in a world that is styled after both the old west ( taking cues from the old italian westerns) and depression era U.S.A . The idea was always that this world before the apocalypse was an alternate history universe, so we did research on unusual real history events that could have turned out differently and used them to come up with particularities of the setting, cities and visual styling.

This desert was always meant to be what is nowadays Arizona and New Mexico. The idea is that in this alternate time/history the south western was never settled until the war wich caused the apocalypse, in wich survivors from the closest "civilized" areas eventually ended up there running away from the effects of the war, such as radiation and biological weaponry. There they mingled with the native americans inhabiting the place and the oddball outcast communities that were already there to form what you find in the setting.

The game is set generations after the war. Settlements are few and far from each other, there's no law mostly anywhere and life is cheap and short. Historical knowledge was lost in oral tradition and is mostly myth by now. Adventurers take their chances travelling to the ruins of the old world to come back with riches beyond imagination and live the life of kings. Few come back. Drought and dust bowls are frequent and make the possibility of an honest living hard. Many people resort to cannibalism, banditry or a nomadic, tribal way of life.

Visually, the setting is very alien. Cities and settlements use earth architecture reminiscent of pueblos, mexican villas and midlle eastern adobe buildings ( particularly berber villages). The wildlife that survived the natural disasters caused by the war is stranged and mutated. Camels are used for transport and even meat ( we were inspired by the history of the "camel corps" during the civil war).

People dress with whatever they can find. Think "Mad Max in the 30's". The weaponry that survived and is still functional is old even for the setting timeline. Old cap and ball revolvers, percussion firearms. Catridge weapons are rare and mostly unreliable. Eeven more rare and unreliable is ammunition for them. People use what they can to fight.

The idea is to drop the player into this setting and let him do whatever he wishes. The main quest is open and non-linear and resolves around the player character searching for a cure for a mysterious disease that is killing him while the setting itself is near death by incoming war between settlements, plague and famine. Eventually his search for a cure would put him in the mist of it all.

The dialog, the roleplaying options...we were looking for games like Torment and Fallout for inspiration. We wanted to do what they did in these areas ( if it's even possible to do something that good again), not reinvent the wheel. Darklands would be an inspiration in the sense of presenting a setting. Our main innovation would be in terms of a combat system. We wanted a turn based party system that was strategic and fun like Silent storm, JA and other strategy games . Rpg games usually are boring hack fests when it comes to combat. Even most of the great ones.

That's it for basics, I really can't go into it too deeply without going on for pages. The setting was really fleshed out and there were a lot of concepts for cities, characters and quests fleshed out and ready to go.

 

[Mojo]

2d or 3d?

you have 3d models there but they could be converted to sprites easily

what features would the game have?

would it resemble a certain game?

got the story and dialogue written?

linear or free-roaming?

if free-roaming....what aspects of the game are going to be linear?

how many XP to gain a level?

what do you get for going up a level?

how do you calculate a bullet hit?

what skills are there?

how does money play a role in the game?

do monsters respawn? random battles?

all these questions have to be asked, an RPG is a big project

Like I said, most of these are left out in the open now that me and my associate parted ways. Wich means most of them can be changed depending on the influence of anyone who designs the game with me. But originally I had the following :

full 3d. Quite a few 2d renders for portraits, loading screens and the interface but that's it.

I would name the features from the top of my head : Strategic party turn-based combat, lot's of exploration, rich dialog and roleplaying, an indepth interesting setting, real characters.

In terms of dialog, character development and roleplaying I guess fallout. Camera and combat think Silent Storm.

The setting and main quest are really fleshed out, but many things will probably change. The main quest is really non linear and begins with the player character searching for a cure for the disease that's killing him.

As for the other questions ( monster respawn? bullet hits, etc), we were really not that far and that was left out in the open.

 

[J1M]

I don't have the time to help you right now, but I can tell you that if you were to show more than just some character models more people might be interested. They look good enough for the project, but characters that look a lot like that aren't hard to make out of poser/premade objects. You should post some buildings and some concept art for your first town or something.

 

[Mojo]

There's no concept art. There was never any need for it, being that I was the only artist involved. We were waiting for C4 terrain generator to get started on the scenes. There's none done.

And I'm sorry, but the poser comment was pretty stupid. Not only it's very difficult ( or should I say impossible) to sucessfully export poser models to a usable software, but their polygon counts make them totally unusable on any 3d game. And they suck.

I'm very modest but my character models are of professional quality. I guess I posted them to show that I have skills on my field.

 

[Carrie Underwood]

Join American Hare.

It's a semi-futuristic (takes place in the 22nd century) RPG that covers Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Arizona, and Nevada.

 

[Mojo]

I'm sorry, but I'm not interested.Your concept sounds pretty original though. Good luck.

 

[sportforredneck]

Burn.

 

[Helton]

Chefe is trying to turn his vaporware into blackholeware. It has already swallowed cardtrick.

 

[sportforredneck]

Chefe is trying to turn his vaporware into blackholeware. It has already swallowed cardtrick.

He's doing the lord's work.

 

[Carrie Underwood]

I'm sorry, but I'm not interested.Your concept sounds pretty original though. Good luck.

You're quite picky for someone who doesn't have much beyond a few renders.

It sounds like you have a few assests, and a general idea, but what someone else to do all the writing, design, balancing, etc. for you. Essentially, you want someone else to make your game, like 90% of the internet.

 

[J1M]

There's no concept art. There was never any need for it, being that I was the only artist involved. We were waiting for C4 terrain generator to get started on the scenes. There's none done.

And I'm sorry, but the poser comment was pretty stupid. Not only it's very difficult ( or should I say impossible) to sucessfully export poser models to a usable software, but their polygon counts make them totally unusable on any 3d game. And they suck.

I'm very modest but my character models are of professional quality. I guess I posted them to show that I have skills on my field.

I could write a long post about what I disagree with.

Instead I will say that I agree Poser models have a high poly count... and assume you know how to subtract.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

Do you have some sort of a design document put together? Parts of what you've posted could conceivably be included in one, although what I've seen so far is pretty high level, and not at all what I would consider even near complete (most design docs of a good-size RPG will easily run over 75-100 pages).

I've been co-developing an rpg game with an american fellow for over an year. Our deal was good and set, I would make all the art for the game ( including the soundtrack), he would program and design the game. Our deal was for two games, on the first one I would create the content and have creative control over the setting/story, on the second that would be his right. Unfortunatelly he lost interest, we argued and we parted ways, wich left me with the option of either selling all my work and giving up making a game for once, or go into a vain and impossible quest to find a new associate(s). I decided to try the second, briefly at least.

Honestly, I can't blame the guy. Personally, this looks like a terrible deal. A game of this sort could take well over two years to complete. Would you really enjoy working on a project, without pay and one you probably have little interest in (since he has little to no creative control), for that long? All this with the vague hope that the next game, IF that were to ever happen, he would have complete creative control.

 

[Mojo]

Instead I will say that I agree Poser models have a high poly count... and assume you know how to subtract.

Right, try subtracting a 50.000 polygon model in a 5.000 one. Good luck. I suppose you mean to use those automatic polygon reduction tools for max or whatever, but everyone knows that they don't work too well for such things and that polygon cutting and LOD has to be done by hand to be decent. I'm not sure, but I believe Poser doesn't have exporting tools as well. Besides, poser standard models are pretty bland.

If you want the easy way buy facegen or other tools that companies like Bethesda use. At least the results will be decent. But honestly, quality takes work. Always.

You're quite picky for someone who doesn't have much beyond a few renders.

I've got 20% of the artistic assets for a game done, I've a concept, and I have skills and knowledge. Everyone has ideas, the problem is turning them into something. Look around, tell me how many low budget indie rpgs have decent art? I can make decent art. I didn't mean no offense when I declined your offer, but what do you have besides an idea? your offer was basiccaly "join, yes or no?". If you want to make something more formal send me a pm and tell me what exactly would be my hypothetical role in this project of yours.

 

[Mojo]

Do you have some sort of a design document put together? Parts of what you've posted could conceivably be included in one, although what I've seen so far is pretty high level, and not at all what I would consider even near complete (most design docs of a good-size RPG will easily run over 75-100 pages).

I've been co-developing an rpg game with an american fellow for over an year. Our deal was good and set, I would make all the art for the game ( including the soundtrack), he would program and design the game. Our deal was for two games, on the first one I would create the content and have creative control over the setting/story, on the second that would be his right. Unfortunatelly he lost interest, we argued and we parted ways, wich left me with the option of either selling all my work and giving up making a game for once, or go into a vain and impossible quest to find a new associate(s). I decided to try the second, briefly at least.

Honestly, I can't blame the guy. Personally, this looks like a terrible deal. A game of this sort could take well over two years to complete. Would you really enjoy working on a project, without pay and one you probably have little interest in (since he has little to no creative control), for that long? All this with the vague hope that the next game, IF that were to ever happen, he would have complete creative control.

I could put togheter a design document, yes, but obviously there is none right now. The very nature of the work with my former associate was so that concept art and design documents would just be a big waste of time. All the content and ideas for the game is inside my head and crammed up in my e-mail box.

The game engine would be the same used for his game. All my control was resumed to the setting and main quest, all else was done by commitee. Besides, he didn't quit because the deal was bad, he was just having a hard time getting the job done because of personal problems.

By your flawed logic all the people developing AOD for instance, would be suckers, being that only VDWeller has creative control on the game. Designing eveything by commitee is just too hard most of the times. Anyone who has actually worked with a team, developing a game or mod will tell you that. My associate liked my idea for a setting, and I liked his. We both agreed on the game design that both games would use and that's it. If anything, he was probably on top being that his game would deffinately be better done being that we would be more experienced and would actually have a budget from selling the first game by the time we started developing it.

The hardest thing in developing an indie game without money to pay for work is to actually find someone commited and with the skills needed. Our deal was one that suited us both and gave us exactly what we wanted, on due time .

 

[sportforredneck]

I didn't mean no offense when I declined your offer, but what do you have besides an idea?

I believe that dear Chefe has been doing a lot of writing for the game. So basically he's plowing through pre-production, he also I believe enlisted cardtrick to make an engine for his game. So he actually is working in more than ideas, he's getting the things together.

 

[J1M]

Instead I will say that I agree Poser models have a high poly count... and assume you know how to subtract.

Right, try subtracting a 50.000 polygon model in a 5.000 one. Good luck. I suppose you mean to use those automatic polygon reduction tools for max or whatever, but everyone knows that they don't work too well for such things and that polygon cutting and LOD has to be done by hand to be decent. I'm not sure, but I believe Poser doesn't have exporting tools as well. Besides, poser standard models are pretty bland.

If you want the easy way buy facegen or other tools that companies like Bethesda use. At least the results will be decent. But honestly, quality takes work. Always.

FFS, as in I disagreed with the rest of your post. That's not even what a 3D subtraction tool does.

Look man, I don't want to get in a big argument with you or trash your recruitment post, but you really should consider removing that stuff where you said you have been working on this project for over a year and don't have a firm design document.

I have been involved in projects before and even a serious one that got completed, and I would never consider going past a technology prototype without a solid design document.

 

[Mojo]

Instead I will say that I agree Poser models have a high poly count... and assume you know how to subtract.

Right, try subtracting a 50.000 polygon model in a 5.000 one. Good luck. I suppose you mean to use those automatic polygon reduction tools for max or whatever, but everyone knows that they don't work too well for such things and that polygon cutting and LOD has to be done by hand to be decent. I'm not sure, but I believe Poser doesn't have exporting tools as well. Besides, poser standard models are pretty bland.

If you want the easy way buy facegen or other tools that companies like Bethesda use. At least the results will be decent. But honestly, quality takes work. Always.

FFS, as in I disagreed with the rest of your post. That's not even what a 3D subtraction tool does.

Look man, I don't want to get in a big argument with you or trash your recruitment post, but you really should consider removing that stuff where you said you have been working on this project for over a year and don't have a firm design document.

I have been involved in projects before and even a serious one that got completed, and I would never consider going past a technology prototype without a solid design document.

Indeed, no point arguing. Just show me a real time 3d game that sucessfully used poser models and we will be done. Just the idea of recycling poser models for a game that's supposed to be professional is ridiculous enough AFAIK.

For practical matters, I can say there is something like a design document, just not an organized one. Like I said, it's all spread around my e-mail box, conversations with my former associate and really well developed design ideas.

There was nothing integrated in our work yet. We had the basic design fleshed out, he was making the engine, and I was making the art.

 

[Jedi_Learner]

Join American Hare.

I thought you gave up, declaring that the state of the modern RPG genre is appalling and that you wanted nothing to do with it, and that you aren't a programmer?

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

By your flawed logic all the people developing AOD for instance, would be suckers, being that only VDWeller has creative control on the game. Designing eveything by commitee is just too hard most of the times. Anyone who has actually worked with a team, developing a game or mod will tell you that. My associate liked my idea for a setting, and I liked his. We both agreed on the game design that both games would use and that's it. If anything, he was probably on top being that his game would deffinately be better done being that we would be more experienced and would actually have a budget from selling the first game by the time we started developing it.

Its always interesting to hear the perceptions of people who haven't worked much, if any, in software development (based on your comments, I would guess you fit into this category). I can't say I've worked at a significant number of software companies, but I've worked at a few. I was the lead programmer for a product for the company I last worked for. I would say a lot (a ***HELL*** of a lot) of decisions went through various stages, committees and reviews. The team generally consisted of about 8-10 people (mid- to large-size by indie standards, I suppose) and we spent a great deal of time in meetings just for these sort of things.

You seem to be privy to more information than I am concerning the inner-workings of the AoD team. However, considering VDWeller seems to post fairly regularly on their forums requesting suggestions, recommendations and comments, I would doubt that he has complete creative control over the game. Wouldn't it make more sense to go to your team, who has access to much, much more information than the rest of us, for these ideas? I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get some of that sort of thing from your customers, or that control is shared equally, but that just seems odd to me.

 

[J1M]

Indeed, no point arguing. Just show me a real time 3d game that sucessfully used poser models and we will be done. Just the idea of recycling poser models for a game that's supposed to be professional is ridiculous enough AFAIK.

For practical matters, I can say there is something like a design document, just not an organized one. Like I said, it's all spread around my e-mail box, conversations with my former associate and really well developed design ideas.

There was nothing integrated in our work yet. We had the basic design fleshed out, he was making the engine, and I was making the art.

You know I agree with you about using Poser models for a game... all I said was that you should present more stuff so it didn't look like that's what you had used. Show some animals, a building, etc. You said you have 20% of a game done, why restrict yourself to showing only male characters?

Having a mess of files might work for you, but someone new is going to want things in one place in a logical format. Remember, this isn't about showing you are good at art, it's about attracting a programmer to help you.