The BoM's Hypothetical Game

Remove all ads!

Not really considering how fun volunteers can be... and ulcers actually.

 

Marceror - your enthusiasm is invigorating.

Gaear - what kind of sound? Composing? Foley? Voice recording? Mixing?

And this is one project where we definitely need some ideas men. Please, generate some ideas! Comment on other people's ideas! A hypothetical game development team is less interesting than a hypothetical game, although both are of course necessary for this project to succeed.

 

All sound - there's usually just one such guy on a team.

I had this idea that the player could be the son of a god, only he's got an evil brother who wants him dead. He starts out as a humble farmer/page/student of a secretly knowing overseer ...

 

How about we throw in a library where the knowledge of such secrets lays buried. But this won't be just any library. This library will be a mighty fortress! There should also be prophets in our PC's hometown, who cryptically tell of the future of these god-spawned characters, saying things like "Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps."

Also, once a larger party is formed in the game, and they travel somewhere... they won't just travel, they will venture forth! See the difference?

The ideas are really beginning to flow!

 

I actually have quite some ideas for a game floating in my mind. Unfortunately, I lack any other skills to be useful to the company. Can I be an intern or something?

 

I vote for Faye as team leader / idea woman. Having pondered it a bit, somehow I just don't think Marceror's and my ideas would ever fly in a CRPG. I mean, a fortess -slash- library is just silly.

I do think though that if this project is successful and BIL wants to hire us for a sequal, part 2 should start in a prison dungeon with the player party perilously held captive. We can make that the weakest part of the game so that you get that "it only gets better from here" feeling.

 

Yeah, last night I had thought I was coming up with some pretty original stuff, but in retrospect, I was just reading my user profile here on BoM. Funny, that.

Faye, we really don't have a creative lead yet, so don't sell yourself short with that intern crap. Step up and take some creative initiative.

My latest idea... and admittedly, it's still rough, is this:

The Gates of Baldor: 3 Hamsters Rage (upon the Coast of Blades)

Tagline: The age of Humans, (and Dwarves, and Elves, and Gnomes, etc) is over. The time of the Hamster has come.

This would be one of the few games that encourages you to play from what will likely be seen as an evil perspective. You begin with a party of 3 elite hamsters, but can meet other party members along the way, up to 6. Not all of your party members necessarily need to be hamsters, but remember, citizens of the Coast of Blades have minds of their own. If they don't agree with your actions, they are likely to let you know.

Anyhow, your party has been sent from a distant planet to take revenge for a great evil that befell one of your greatest ancestors... like 13 - 17 years ago (the lifetime of many hamsters). Your ancestor was enslaved by a lunatic human, and no one came to his defense. This is a crime that can no longer be overlooked!

Now the governing body of hamsters (GBoH) has decided to send a small team of seasoned hamster adventurers (it must be a small party in order not to attract too much attention, you see) to slowly dominate the area. Help your hamster kin to colonize a new world, where Hamsters rule, and all others live as servants and slaves to the GBoH!

Your density awaits!

 

I like it. We could get the scriptors to script responses like

Code:

if (party_reputation_has(a-hole)):
          npc_dialog.popup(100, pc)
return

where line 100 is

Code:

{100}{Hey! I don't agree with your actions!}{}{}{}{}{}

Our scriptors could then script it so that either the NPC says this repeatedly every time you click on him if you have the reputation, (which will give you the distinct impression that he really, really disagrees with you) or he cleverly says it only once, if that's annoying (so that once he's had his say, you're okay with him again). e.g. -

1. Hey, I don't agree with your actions!

2. How may I help you?


We should also create and trademark an original IP setting for The Gates of Baldor: 3 Hamsters Rage (upon the Coast of Blades) called The Unremembered Empires Game World.® Good stuff.

[edit]

Can the main player character still start as a humble farmer/page/student hamster?

 

I guess it would be something of a tragedy to have your "main" character start as a hero. How about hamster 1 (the MAIN PC) is a direct descendent of that great Hamster, who we can call... oh, I don't know, Bew. He has no fighting ability and sure, we can say he was just a simple farmer before the GBoH summoned him, but he can innately sense the places where Bew was wronged, so he can lead the party to key targets of Hamster revenge. Along the way, this Hamster will become a great hero among Hamsters, and will change the face of Hamsterdom.

The other Hamsters in the party are, perhaps, a husband and wife duo. The husband is a great fighter. The wife is a warrior priestess. They start the game a few levels higher than the PC, but the PC will eventually pass them up due to quest xp.
The main PC can choose his/her class as they wish.

@Gaear

Those scripting ideas are exactly the kind of thing I had in mind. Way to bring my humble, unfocused ideas to life!

 

That degree of open-endedness might be a bit overwhelming for our writers and coders though. Maybe we should instead just force the player down a linear pre-defined path and call him 'Hawke.'

I do like the other party members ... they seem fresh and vibrant. Will we be able to have an affair with the warrior priestess? I'm assuming she'll just happen to be gorgeous - astonishingly well-proportioned and passionately lustful - and that she'll be inexplicably enthralled with humble farmers and more than willing to have relations after only a small amount of effort on the part of the PC, just like in real life.

Which reminds me - we'll also need a movie guy to do the lovemaking cutscene interludes.

~

Where is our fearless (team) leader? We need direction!

 

Woah, woah, woah... let's not get ahead of ourselves on the romances. Your enthusiasm is admirable, but ya gots to simmer down.

Remember, our warrior priestess is married, so we don't want her for the love interest... yet. What I mean by yet, is that in a sequel, she maybe we will kill off the husband, and set her up as a potential love interest. And yes, she will be Hawwwt! We can certainly introduce some love interests from Coast of Blades, and of course, a few steamy love scenes are pretty much obligatory at this point. We don't want to be the one dumb game developer that forgets to add a bit of steamy passion to our games.

For the main PC, we can limit class choices to 3, to minimize the possibilities, and the associated player stress. Mage, Rogue, or Warrior seem like a good variety of classes.

 

I can't help but read this topic and despair

If you *actually* want to hypothesise a game instead of taking the piss out of BG and DA there are better ways to get the process in writing

 

If you have some better ideas, let's hear them sister. I think mine are pretty darn good, but I'm not married to them. If nothing else we're getting the creative juices flowing here. To my knowledge, there has never been a game where you play as a party of hamsters and take over the world, so it's the originality that I'm attracted to with the current concept.

And did you happen to notice Gaear's mad coding skills? Those are really going to propel us forward... and he's just our sound guy!

 

Fair enough. Will she at least have enormous boobs?

8 is right - we need a wider variety of input, so I'll just open my ears and stand by. Maybe I can start working on armor clanks or monster grunts or something in the meantime ...

 

Ever seen the movie Weird Science? We're talking the knee shooters here, my friend! Of course, appropriately and tactfully adapted for a hamster.

Additional input is certainly desirable. I think Geaer and I have fleshed out some good possibilities. I'll take a breather on this as well and see what else folks come up with. Maybe I'll start working on a project plan, or something. First entry on project plan will be:

Task Name: Create armor clanks and monster grunts; Resource: Gaear; Start: 2011.02.28

 

What are the bones of the game going to be? A premade set of mechanics or engine or will there be the need to create an engine and define the game mechanics before it's started?

If it's not going to be borrowing off another rules system then a good portion of time will be having to develop that and ensure it is scaleable to the games length. You discussed NPCs having archtypes or classes that were unavailable to the player, how would that work?

If a premade engine is being used then what has been made on it before? What features are over or under used on it. If it's been used for party based games previously how successful were they in the market? If it's only been used for single player in the past then will it need to be adapted for party play? Would the view be open isometric or centred on a protagonist at all times? Will it be 2D or 3D? Aik has commented he can model in 3D

Is a group of hamsters going to be the USP or are we going to aim to pioneer a particular aspect of coding such as reviving story based games or intelligent systems?

Exploration was pointed out as a feature to be included, this means there is unknown territory - is it unknown because it is percieved as dangerous? Was a previous civilisation settled there and the exploration is to recover artifacts? Is the mission a peaceful exploration to greet neighbouring territories or a more militant scouting expedition?

 

Some great questions 8. Here are some of my responses. Please ensure that this discussion is kept completely confidential. This is a private forum we’re in, right? Well, anyway, details, details….

The engine is one of my biggest concerns, since we have only 1 year to create our game. If we have to create an engine from scratch, it seems that this is going to eat up a major chunk of our year. Same goes for game mechanics. Since this is all hypothetical, and our venture capital firm is called Bad Investments, I say we should steal as much as humanly possible and pretend that it’s our own (ensuring that we are, indeed, a bad investment).

I say let’s revamp the Infinity Engine and call it something fancy like Eternity Adventurim. We can mix and match rules from BG2, Dragon Age, and any other game we like, with a few of our own additions. We can call it something like the Sorcerer 1.0 gaming system. We’ll need a good programmer to bastardize the Infinity engine. We’ll also need a good resource to put together our rules system. Any takers on these jobs?

When we figure out who our Executive Producer will be, he/she may override this idea, or perhaps the existing members have other ideas. What I share is just one possible way we can go.

If we don’t “borrow,” we’re probably screwed, so my vote is borrow. A skilled programmer probably has some deeper insights into what this will take, so I will certainly defer to those who know better.

As far as offering only certain classes to the player, I guess this would work similarly to PS:T. In that game you can play as a Fighter, Thief or Mage. You cannot play as a priest, but certain NPCs in the game are priests. You simply offer only the classes at game start up that you want your PC to have available.

I have a list of things I’d like to see, and a list of things I do not want to see, but I’ll let someone else take the lead on this discussion for the time being. I will say that Isometric with 2D backgrounds seems appropriate for BoM. 3D models for our characters, spells, lighting and certain other effects can help to bring those 2D backgrounds to life.

USP? My thought with respect to hamsters, if we stick with this, is that these are giant space hamsters, without the “miniature” aspect. This way they will not be tiny compared to Humans. If it saves a lot of time, we can make them bi-pedal hamsters that look a lot like humans, except with furry, hamster-like faces.

We need a creative lead to flesh out our game world. I don’t have the answers to your questions right now. We should probably do at least something that isn’t a direct rip off of other games (what the hell, right? Aim for the stars, and all that! ). Maybe the game world can actually be, you know, unique. This will *somewhat* lessen the probability of IP lawsuits. I wouldn’t cry if it looked a lot like the Baldur’s Gate world, with some splashes of DA thrown in. Hell, at the end of the day I really just want to play Baldur’s Gate 3 (in case that has not become painfully apparent yet?).

 

With only one year to do this, I'm pretty sure we're absolutely going to have to use an existing engine and ruleset. Just building a custom world and putting a story in there will be tough enough ... if we estimate something will take x amount of time to complete, we can safely triple that estimate, at least. So if we budget 4 months for the art department to create, let's say, 50 original maps, that will actually take all twelve months. Guaranteed. And again, this is using a pre-existing engine/ruleset. If we have to build an engine, it will take us 10 times as long as we 'figure' it might off the top of our heads.

So, I vote that we use Infinity and make it a D&D game. (We can deal with Bioware and WotC later. Do we have a lawyer on staff?)

I do think we should let go of the hamster idea (sorry Marceror), if for no other reason than giant hamster boobs will probably make players (and me) feel ... conflicted. And I think giant boobs are the one thing we can all unanimously get behind with this project. Seriously though, I think people pretty much want to RP people.

 

Okay guys. Time to buckle down a little. Here's a quick sanity check on where we are at, and what we have to do. Please provide your feedback by COB today at the latest! Okay, forget about the COB today thing , but any feedback is appreciated:

The Team So Far
• Creative Director/Producer - Marceror (acting)
• Project Manager – Marceror
• Project Manager (secondary) - Taluntain
• Programmer & sucky 3D Modeling (his words) - Aik
• Programmer (no gaming experience) – BTA
• Design and Mechanics – 8people
• Concept Artist (not a very good one - his words) – Cap’n CJ
• 3d programming/software arc – Morgoth
• Sound Design - Gaear
• Faye – Creative contributor, writer (exact role TBD)
• Quality Assurance – CJ
• Documentation – 8people
• Financials – Harbourboy
• Smiley Poster Boy (coffee maker? Lunch picker upper) –Rotku

Other roles not filled:
• Writers, writers and more writers. People to write the story, item descriptions, and anything/everything else that requires writing.
• Technology Infrastructure (implement and support infrastructure used to develop game)
• UAT – We may not have time for this, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to create some ties with our (non-existent) fan-base to obtain feedback throughout our development efforts
• Public relations
• Advertising
• Legal and contracts

Who else are we missing that we need to get this done?

Key Tasks
• Decide on game concepts, including:

o Type of game – (e.g. RPG, party based, etc)
o Visual style – (2D, 3D, Isometric, etc?)
o Art Style
o Story​

• Create/Adapt Game Engine
• Create/Adapt Game World and Lore
• Create/Adapt Character types/classes
• Create/Adapt character special abilities/spells/etc.
• Create/Adapt ambient sounds, character voices, musical score, etc.
• Software Tools – What tools will be required to create the game. What programming language(s) will we use?
• Infrastructure – What sort of technology infrastructure will be required to support our development efforts?
• Verson mgmt/Code Repository – Git

What other key tasks am I leaving out? Also, Aik, what's our budget on this sucker?

This is starting to feel like work!

---------- Added 0 hours, 25 minutes and 24 seconds later... ----------

Lawyer... yes, we're going to need one of those I would say. I'll add this to my list!

Right, the Hamster idea was just a goof. My vote is something D&Dish... A rolepalying game that is party based. All standard D&D classes would be nice. A low level game, levels 1 - 8 roughly. The world should resemble Faerun (since that's a known quantity) but we should take creative license... well, on anything and everything. We'll make the world, the story, the engine, etc. work for our purposes. Whatever we do, let's keep it simple, so that we don't get bogged down in the details.

While this might not be what everyone wants, I think it's perhaps one of the more appropriate approaches being that this is a Boards of Magic game. These are the gaming concepts that this site was founded upon.

---------- Added 0 hours, 9 minutes and 27 seconds later... ----------

In terms of technology infrastructure, I really don't know what our needs will be. I suggest we look at creating some sort of shared development environment in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). We can bring up as many (or as few) servers as we need. We can scale with the demands of our project, and it's a shared environment that we can all access from our homes around the world (let's face it, we're not going to have a central office where we all head in to work together). The best part about Amazon is that there are absolutely no up front capital costs. We simply pay for what we use on a monthly basis.

We should consider using a tool like WebEx to conduct virtual conference calls. We're going to need to meet regularly during this project. Some travel expenses may need to be incurred, as it's highly likely that we'll want to have certain key team members working side by side during critical moments... but we can play that one by ear.

 

I can do writing and documentation too

We have several SP lawyers and CJ is a tester by trade too!