Metagame Reboot - YOUR PARTICIPATION IS REQUIRED!

[Geti]

IRC: irc.mountai.net #metagame github: http://github.com/Geti/Metagame Latest Playable: link

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PROPOSITION FOR MILESTONE ONE:
We get the player object and tile rendering system to "near-final" form
NB: all of these points will be necessary for whatever end product we decide on,
assuming it's a platformer.
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All basic movement for the robot down.
running - currently broken due to collision issues
jumping
some form of crouch
Any other player related stuff, health, power, whatever.
Tile rendering (proper edge recognition)
Inert particles - Smoke on impacts as a demo object
Level object - capable of loading a level from a data string.
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Current Participants & Roles
This will be updated whenever I remember, remind me if anything's urgent
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Heavy Activity Roles
Geti - Management, programming & art.
Matt - Lead programming, minor art.
Ignate - Lead artistic and conceptual design.
Orange - Level design, possibly music.
Roles of Unconfirmed Permenance
Yanni - Foley, sprites perhaps.
Crescor - Music - Stuff he's been composing
OneSevenNine - music.
987654321 - Creepy music, drawings and possibly sprites
SlappyMcGee - Everything and more.
Tunco - ? similar to 987654321 apparently
Techno - Foley and maybe Ambience
Squibbles - Abstract Sound
UniverseZero - Graphical whatevers
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ORIGINAL POST

It got brought up. I'm keen to get something done as part of a team for once (my current studio consists of me doing everything, a friend slowly learning to script and getting his feature creep on, and the other developers being busy or absent), so if this is an option, FUCK YES.

For nearly five SEVEN years, the Metanet Community has been growing and progressing to the point it's at today. Drawn together by a fun little, independent game for the PC, our group has representative members from all walks of life. Gamers, artists, musicians, coders, web designers, kids who just want to pitch in; we have class clowns and intellectuals, chronic underachievers and Ivy League scholars; we have people from Asia and America, Australia and Europe, all parts of each country and all over the world. (Except South America for some reason... but Kablizzy has always had a thing against Brazil.)
But if there's one thing we all have in common (and there may be only one thing), its our love for free games. Simple games, indie games, games that the players can give back to. N became famous for its community features. The highscore board, the level editor, the exchangable map and demo formats, and the user map archive. Every level is taken to the limit by highscorers. The map archive is literally brought to the breaking point every month by the traffic it garners. As diverse as we are as people, we're still rabidly brought back to the game so we can give back to it.

The Proposal

The logical next step to this fauning over N is to try to recreate its magic in our own game.
We have serious talent in this community. We have enough experts and hobbyists to pull off a project like this. Don't start thinking that you can't help out just because you're not a master of your craft. Raigan Burns, co-creator of N, once said about game programming, "You can play guitar to be a really good guitar player or you can play guitar 'cause you wanna write songs." You don't have to learn everything there is to know before you can work on a game. If your song only uses five chords but sounds really, really good, who's to say you're not a musician?
This project is open source. That includes code, images, music, anything that goes into the game. The final product will likely be offered up for free, with or without copyright. As an open source project, we're asking you to join up and contribute. Everyone is welcome, as long as you're not damaging to the project. You'll be working on a team, so you'll be expected to compromise. And of course, you'll be expected to do some work. I've seen too many game projects crash into the ground because half the team disappears at the mention of work.

Read the last sentence again, and have a chuckle with me.

In any case, I'm keen to head this up. I'm not sure as of yet what I want to make this in, but it'll definitely be cross platform (love and flash spring to mind) and likely have somewhat retro inspired graphics.

Before we get started, some notes about me:
[list][*]I'm 17. I've got a busy life; school, friends, partying, my girlfriend, all of these things eat my time. That said, I manage to find time to do a lot of other stuff on top of that (see: 3465 posts on DRLFF, producing various games (and a million ideas for games), playing guitar till my fingers bleed, all that jazz) so I should be relatively available for this.
[*]I'm used to working alone, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to play this one as a team member.
[*]I've made a lot of smaller, time waster-y games, and less big things due to their tendency to fall on their faces when I lose interest or everyone else in the project stops working on it or I get caught up in something else. However, I'd want to make this a lot bigger than a microproject, somewhere in the realm of complexity as N, the reason we're all here. Something with like 20 game verbs at most, something you can pick up for 10 minutes or 2 hours and get the same amount of fun out of. I'll elaborate in a bit.
[*]I'm fluent in Lua and less so in ActionScript3, and I've forgotten just about everything about C/++/# I knew. That makes me useful for coding things in love (love2d.org, though the site's been all over the place, they're having server issues), doing AI scripting, somewhat useful for flash development (especially anything to do with flixel) and just about useless when it comes to coding in anything else, though I'm a pretty fast learner, so that could also be a non-issue if this goes on long enough.
[*]I'm an artist of the visual and music kind, though recording music is difficult for me. You can see my visual art at http://forsakengeti.deviantart.com
[*]When it comes down to it, my main aim is quality. If something doesn't make the cut, it doesn't get released. In all other circumstances, it's high quality. That said, I've got a lot to learn...[/list]
tl;dr: I'm busy, work alone, can do art, music and coding, and want something done well.

that brings me to:

The New Proposal.

We make a game. We actually sit down and make a game together over the next week/month/year, whatever it takes. We get it done, and we do it as a community.

That's it.

Discuss.

FOOTNOTE: The old topic has some interesting game ideas, currently I'm wanting to work on something node based, be it a platformer or a space shooter or whatever else, I'd like there to be some customisation but for it to be on an incidental level. If you haven't, go play Captain Forever. Also, go waste an hour or 5 on Arne Jansson's site. Apologies for the massive wall of text, I'm off to study for a trig paper so this entire post was kind of spammed out in fast forward. Any help with management and support would be appreciated. I'll be free of pressure for a few days after thursday (I'm GMT+12 for those that don't know)

[LittleViking]

Metagame robot? I'd love to build a Metagame robot.

[fawk]

I'd like a Meatgame robot. That might be tasty.

[Vyacheslav]

I'm in, I could compose some creepy, noisy music and do some drawings and possibly sprites if necessary.

[Spawn of Yanni]

You know I'm in. I'm really busy all of June, which sucks, but it's not like I can do nothing at all. I'm still down for the foley like I was before, and I wouldn't mind helping out with the art; examples of which you can see in mine and Kwiftee's game. Did we release that? We didn't release that. Examples of which you could have seen in that game but are unlikely to, then.

[SlappyMcGee]

As the most talented member of the forums, I am in.

[Tunco]

I'm in, I could compose some creepy, noisy music and do some drawings and possibly sprites if necessary.

Exactly, I'm in. I'm literally free for the following next two months and willing to help in everyway I can to this project. You better make a participants list to the first post. Things might get a little untidy here.

[Geti]

Done! I'll maintain it until we either start working on assembla or whatever, but we should probably decide what we want to do first.
What am I doing online I need to get to my exam oh god-

[T3chno]

I can do some sound effects. I'll try to make some ambience if ya need.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Didn't the original game also have, like, thirty artists but only two or three experienced coders?

[squibbles]

Aha, yes it did. And on that note, I can add some abstract music, if you need it. :D

[Geti]

Didn't the original game also have, like, thirty artists but only two or three experienced coders?

Yes, it did. I'm assuming this is going to end up the same way, but hopefully it'll come together. You only need two or three experienced coders in any case, I usually get by with 1 person so working as part of a team should be refreshing in any case. Are you interested in coding for this, and if so what would you like to do it in?

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Are you interested in coding for this, and if so what would you like to do it in?

Nah, I have Important Things to worry about. But I will pop in every now and again to make snide remarks.

[Geti]

Fair enough, your call.

I'm off school for four days starting tomorrow night, so I'm going to get some sleep, kick tomorrows papers in the face and party :P I'll be online tomorrow night, I'm keen for some IRC jammings if we can get enough people together, but I'll be mostly inaccessible for at least 48 hours starting ~10PM friday, GMC+12. I'm keen to get an idea together this weekend and maybe some prototyping done.

So yeah, start spamming ideas down if you have them, sketches are good, fleshy game designs are even better if they're well thought out, but try to keep it simple.
Oh, also: a rant about , some pixel art by someone on DRLFF that could be fleshed out, though it's unlikely to lead anywhere..

it's a nuclear powered pogo mecha. make the armour less smooth, put a cockpit in the middle. The animate it and put it into a game where the pilot/protagonist is a slightly unhinged veteran of the old wars with eyes that gently beat up and down with the motion of the pogo, the reticle burned into his cornea, his neural implants failing, his trust for the military shattered by their betrayal, his family killed, slowly turning into a part of his pogo tank, becoming part of the machine.

Basically a ridiculously dramatic story for an arcade-y game. I was always kinda disappointed that there was little-to-no story behind N (there was that bar scene game over screen), but that was kind of it's beauty I suppose. It helps to at least have a story in your head when you're designing something, even if you don't show the player, though. In any case, something to mull over, more ideas needed!

[Universezero]

I'm in. I can do graphical stuff. I'm good with text, logos, etc.

[Geti]

Sorry for the atrocious quality of the thumbs, I'm in a rush

some ideas related to the pogomech idea. I think the nodal thing could be scrapped, but I kind of like how the grenade is either an awesome free kill or a pass through a door, but the shield lets you happily bounce past a volley of bullets unscathed, putting some choice into what you take into an episode. Ammo counts could be carried over through episodes to prevent abuse of the support things.
Either way, I'd like this game to have an element of multiple choices. In N, you can take a multitude of approaches to getting over an obstacle, and I'd like that to be carried over. I'd also like to keep the level naming conventions and one screen levels, so if that could be a part of anyone's ideas, that would be rad.

[Universezero]

Those turrets top left look amazing. I vote for this game to be hand-drawn by you.

[Geti]

They're just roughs, but hmm, a hand-drawn feel could be interesting.. Can anyone else draw in that style? I'd definitely appreciate some help, in that regard.

Not sure weather angles are worth it. makes level design more interesting, causes coding headaches.

square tiles are supported natively by flixel, anything else would have to be coded ourselves (assuming we're developing in flash and using flixel, as we don't have any coders and that's what I'd do this in)
just doing some more looking at this in sketch form. Problem is, I have no idea how weapons would work, I think mouse + wasd would be out of place..
In any case, I'm only so hot on this idea, I like the movement being less generic but I don't so much like having to deal with player weapons and whatnot. So I've moved towards a generic N-inspired platformer. Other novel concepts to work with would be nice.

alternative concept: rubbish bin robots!

Just playing with this idea, having 5 unarmed remote controlled robots at the start of each episode, having to get them to the end. it would be a pain to have to get all of them through though, maybe if one finishes the level is considered complete. It's probably more of an interactive activity than anything for the NPCs (soldiers, tanks etc that can't be killed by the player but maybe disabled) so maybe they just lose if the robots get to the objective and fall back to the next level. just playing around

[Geti]

some more doodling, windows is about to reset itself..

hooray, enemy ideas!

I'd like to keep it simple, mostly about skilfully avoiding mines and bullets and such. soldiers would fire on where you were ~.4 seconds ago so you can outrun their sweeps if they're above you. tanks could fire 4 ballistic grenades at the same velocity, giving them a maximum range, but they'd have robotic automatic superfast reflexes, making them very hard to avoid at close range.
Walljumping could happen, but with no arms these robots wouldn't be able to hold onto the walls so they'd just bounce around. maybe both types of rubbish bin could be brought in, with the bendy leg ones being faster at running but taking more fall damage and being worse at jumping, and the stiff leg ones being slower at running but taking less fall damage (assuming they're landing on their feet, both would take high fall damage on their sides/top) and jumping higher. Something to think about.

I love your hand drawing it is so fresh. Epic rubbish bins.

Cheers man :D

[Geti]

some ideas

do we want specialised robots for this idea or not?

[Izzy]

This is hawt.

:Q

[crescor]

Wouldn't it be more natural if the soldiers had fast reflexes (but, for example, very low accuracy at far distance, like spreading bullets and stuff) and the tanks lower reflexes but very high accuracy (and perhaps an impact area of the ballistic grenades)?

[Spawn of Yanni]

So where are we at with level concepts? From what I can see so far you're leaning towards a very N-like system (not a complaint, just an easy way to describe it). Do we want to try larger levels + scrolling?

I think if we're paying homage to N and doing the episode thing, a nice little quirk would be to have exits for one level in the same position as the entrance for the next level, and do a sweet transitioning thing. Or, thinking about that more, they don't even need to be in the same position - you reach the exit of one level and the screen changes in some neat way (if it sounds like I have a concept in mind, I do, but I want to leave it open) so that the player is now at the entrance of the next level.

That's discussing things way down the line, mind. Primarily we need to decide what the level design is going to be like and work from there. Also, sounds like we've already got a robot theme in mind - is that the case? 'cause if so we can start mass-drafting protagonist designs and such.

[heatwave]

Do we want to try larger levels + scrolling?

I say yes. Very yes. We need to separate this a bit more from n.

...a nice little quirk would be to have exits for one level in the same position as the entrance for the next level, and do a sweet transitioning thing.

When the player reaches the exit, the camera centers on the exit. Everything else fades to white/black, and then the next level fades in.

I think it would be cool if the player's mech could morph from a biped to a tracked tank sort of thing. It could be a really smooth transition.

Say you're moving around in biped form. You jump into the air, hit the morph key, and you land as a tank and zoom off. Each form would have a very simple advantage over the other, i.e. the tank has a high speed but can't jump, and the biped can jump pretty high (perhaps via rocket boots?) but travels at a normal pace. Or, the biped form has access to more weapons than the tank.

[AlliedEnvy]

I'll say something similar to what I said when this first started. There's lots more to say, but this is important.

N is minimalist for a reason.

Start small.

No, even smaller than what you're thinking.