Heaven knows this is probably just going to jinks things but I might as well put it out there and see who bites.

I have these weird delusions that comes with being a programmer so bear with me and feel free to use a mallet to put me back on track.

I've gotten back into my Game Programming mode - you may thank the people who work hard at hacking WoW on the revival. Ohh the humanity ... the deleted characters... the gold ... the actions... they weren't even level 60 yet... killed in the prime of life. That and WoW doesn't work very well using Wine on Linux with my current hardware. Ohh well on to video games.

This wouldn't be my first Game Programming binge. My first functional game was Yahtzee back in HS. It's always fun doing the classics like Asteroids. But I have one small problem.

About the time I get to the point of needing graphics, sound or a coherent story my inspiration to program gets snuffed out. It's hard because I know I need a team to accomplish the end goal or I end up doing something so simple using stolen graphics and what not. If anyone knows me they'll know I get a little uncomfortable stealing hence the DVD collection. Plus it hurts the genuineness of the project.

So here is the Proposal.
I am making a sweet easy to manipulation 2d game engine. Not 3d since 3d Animation artists are hard to find, and harder to program since the only file format I can use right now is Lightwave if I remember correctly.

I will be building several game engines to utilize this 2d engine. One of which is the Dating Sim engine. Really it's just a story board engine but Dating Sim gives it a genre that all Otaku should be aware of.

This will take some and could be fairly extensive for any one individual. If I do this myself It's going to end up being a tech demo of stick figures and I'm not sure if that can get me though the tough development tool programming that will be needed. After all I think a writer would kill me if I forced them to write the scripts using xml or html. I'm fine with it but a writer wants to focus on the story not on code... it's not their job.

Since it would be a dating sim several people could be writers for it and even multiple artists.

I was thinking it could be a Sim about AO and the conversion of an Otaku to their first Con. I think it could be a lot of opportunities for everyone in the club to participate.

What do you think?

err what ?..................................................... i did programming back in the day, i think our teacher took our assembled efforts and sold them to the airline industry as he asked us as a group to develop a booking system to book passengers onto flights, yeah it was text based, and this was like 1981. i think the code once compiled took up something like 19 kilobytes, and we all got diplomas, but i think the bastard teacher retired offshore, and i swear seeing something awfully similar at an airport check in desk a few years later.....................^_^...........but honestly, never did game dev.....

Wow, that is quite a bit of text, however I must say that that has been one of my own dreams for quite some time. Actually, I think that any project that we can ge the club to work together for is definitely worth discussing! So next meeting, I will bring it up and we will see how people feel! If you can, please try and make it to this week's Wednesday meeting

I am now interested as well. Perhaps I will make a special effort to be at club this week.

Alright, since there was a good amount of positive feedback for this project I say we start a list up of volunteers who can/want to help out. Remember that we do need to make sure that you can put some serious time and effort into this because this will be one of our first "big" projects of the new school year. Either way, I am unsure exactly what we will be needing position-wise, but here is a beta list of jobs needed:

Project Director - helps assist everyone else and gives direction to the project as a whole, experience in a little bit of everything is good

Artists - drawing characters, helping with character concepts, creating the backgrounds; WARNING, you must be willing to take harsh criticism as well as taking direction and being able to adjust to demands without losing their artistic integrity

Musician/Sound Tech - basically skilled in music and sound, who is also willing to adjust their sound depending on the needs of the rest of the team and project, also being able to digitize their music is a huge plus

Writers - we will be needing several very dedicated people who are willing to both give and receive harsh criticism on their work; we will be needing plot, character bios, dialogue, and remember that there are going to be alternative plot lines

Voice Actors - which we actually won't need until the project takes off, but we will be needing a decent amount of VAs depending on the character count and how many voices we want in the project

I think that's what we are looking for, but I think we should further the actual project discussions in person. For now though please post which job you would like to do in this thread, keep in mind that taking multiple jobs will be tough but most likely the only way to complete this operation~!

I'd be interested in working with the music, but pencil me in...I need to see if I have time for it! Also, I'm not sure how to digitize music...so I'll work on that! That is all.

if you need a genuine Scottish voice.............^_^, i can also speak Gaelic, French, and that's about it, but i'm willing to lend all that, free, gratis, for nothing.....^_^

I'm glad to see there is interest.

I guess I should cover the basics first on what will be done and what will need to be done.

The Programming is actually 3 parts
The First Part is the Core 2D Game Engine. It'll be coded using Java and It's my primary responsibility.
The Second is Related but is the Dating Sim Game Engine. This will be written on top of the Game Engine and will probably remain as my responsibility.
The Third part is the Game Script. This is what ties the Script, Graphics, Sound and any other hidden goodies into the Game. This will be in XML which will make it easy for any programmer to jump in. However writing xml can be boring and tedious so any interested programmers who want to hit it before I get to it an XML configure tool would make this go quickly and make it the funniest part of it as it will be were the game comes to life.

Writing will actually support a number of people at the same time. Think of it as multiple choose your own adventure books that are tied together by an overall outline. However the lead writer/writers will need to create the overall outline first. Also so that writers and artists can work in tandem there will have to be a method to the madness. This is also so the the programmers wrting the Game Script don't go crazy because a writer didn't want to keep a consistent style to their writing. It's kinda like writing a highly detailed movie script.

Game Art will be the most diverse group. I believe most of the artists in the club are traditional paper and pensil types. This is good but all the artwork will have to be digitized, inked, and colored. Anyone who can do strait digital artwork would be great but I'm not betting on a digital artist who can do all of what would be needed on their own.

Game Music can be done at any point once they writers have determined the moods they want to have in the music.

Voice Acting..... This anyone can participate in but there is one catch. It cant be done until last. If it's done early then Voice Acting ends up dictating timing. I'm sure everyone knows that it's easier to get multiple takes then it is to redraw or rewrite the entire script. This isn't needed to make a functional game. It's just the fun part.

I'll probably take the Lead Developer spot so that everything can be tied together properly. Unless anyone has an objection.

I don't object. It's good to have someone sitting on top of the whole scheme. I know a little bit of Java, but I'm not sure how much help it will be...I am quite rusty!

Either way, the whole thing sounds like fun!~

Status Update

Well I'm currently trying to hash out how I'm going to implement the 2d menu system. Since I want this to look like a real game and not an ametures game I have to stay away from the Built in GUI tools a bit. Most real games have their Menus Drawn in game and don't use the Windows GUI that much.

I think at this point we should break out two teams. The Writing Team and the Artist Team. Maybe at the next meeting we can talk briefly about on the overall goals. Such as how animated will the project be, what is the overall scope of the project, and when do we want to be completed.

I mentioned to a few people about maybe having a completion date near or before AO so that we can demo it there.

What does everyone think.

Yes, we should talk in detail at the next meeting for those interested in the project. Also, I think that the AO deadline is a good idea, but we ought to figure out who all is going to be on these teams first.

whooo! This sounded awesome at club and I'm looking forward to it! :3

I know how to make basic 3D characters, but I only know how to do it in one program (Maya, if you know anything about 3d programs) and my skillz are majorly lacking...as well as I'm not willing to dish out a ton of money to get it. 2D sounds better anyway...

I'd be willing to help with the art. If someone else is better at drawing, I could try my hand at doing the layout. I do draw a little digitally, but my tablet sucks and doesn't work well with vista.

Worst case is, I could help with the voice acting. I don't exactly have the best voice though...>.>;;

I am quite a failure at anything involving programing, but I've been asked by several people why I've never tried out for voice acting. If you need a voice actor down the line, I will most certainly be interested.

As i mentioned at the meeting, I'm game to do some character/story development ^_____^
Could be a lot of fun!!!!

I'm willing to do voice acting, and I love designing anime style clothes for characters, so I can do that too!