Metanet Forums

Ok, you'll probably notice that this forum is now public so here's a quick history of the group, our aims and why the forum is now public. The group of us started a while back (About 2 years ago) designing a game that has gone through a few names but more on that later. What we did was mostly concept (Thinking up characters, drawing concept art, thinking of game play etc.) up until around about May 2008 when most of us left college and weren't in much contact, we all mostly went our separate ways and did our own thing pertaining to this game (Me and FireDevil stayed in contact and that's where most of this has come from). During all this we kept all our stuff on paper and had no real place to store anything so I though about a forum but rather than make a forum for only a few people I decided to ask to have a hidden sub-forum on here (Also in case of this happening).

Now about this game or should I say games? As far as I know it started out with us not being content with the current RPG games on offer so started designing our own, as time went on it got more ambitious and got split in to multiple games (At least 3) with the story spanning multiple worlds and styles of play (As of now it's sorted in to 3 types of battle: Small scale RPG battles, medium scale action battles and large scale RTS battles). As you can see it's very ambitious and I'm only touching on the basics of it, I'm not even going to go in to the story on this topic (Partially due to it still being written, re-written and re-re-written).

Either way as time went on I thought about it more seriously, saw how ambitious this was and how much of a bad idea it is to have this as a first game so I decided to try and get another project to be developed as a first game instead (This would be the RE: First game topic). It was decided to have it about a ninja infiltrating some evil corporation building to get to the top and kill the boss or something like that with upgrades and extra items a long the way but as I thought about it more I realised that this too was too ambitious so I put it on the back burner for now. So we decided to think of a basic game play idea and something to make it interesting and we came up with the next idea (First game remix topic) with a working title of time arena, A simple beat em up where after winning each subsequent section you'll be warped through time and space to another battle field (starting out some time around Ancient Rome and ending with the future) this game I don't believe is too ambitious (Just get a beat em up style going, some sparkly effects between areas and different sprites and weapons for each area, nothing too complex) so I guess it's what is going to be under active development.

Now for the reason the forum is now public is because between me and FireDevil we decided that we needed more input and most definitely a coder (Me and FireDevil have next to no experience in coding (We both did VisualBasic at college but it truly sucks balls as a language for making games.) and we have decided and learning C++ if we can find a course to teach it rather than learning it from a book or web page) and there simply wasn't enough people in the group. So we got the forum made public to ask for the help of the entire forum. Now what I think the current intentions should be is to put everything on the back burner (Including the epic RPG FireDevil, there's no point in talking about the story, characters and gameplay mechanic if we can't do anything about it) and focus all efforts on Time Arena so we can actually have experience in making a game first.

If you don't want to help that's fine but if you do thank you for your support. Any questions?

As for some of you who wanted an explanation as to why there have been pink nicks (aside from the Youth and Beauty Brigade), this forum is the reason why we had those pink nicks in the first place (i.e. me and Firedevil and a few others). It's not a great big conspiratorial plot to overthrow the forums (as I may have said and/or messed with people who may have PM'd me asking why my nick is pink in the first place). Just wanted to point it out.

Well, we did start metagame, but that hasn't had serious activity for ages.

I think the important thing for any (free, internet-developed) game development effort is that the crux of the actual implementation is the programming. You can have a game without music or a story (and anyone can write a basic story), you can use simple or ripped graphics, and ideas and mechanics are cheap. But you're not going to get anything playable until you have a coder.

There are many, many people out on the internet with "ideas" but who need to find coders. I have personally seen many metroid fangames die, and this forum has seen animator's community game idea unfortunately die. Programming a game of the complexity you probably want is not an easy task, and why should you expect someone capable, to work under you rather than making their own game?

The free, independent, internet-developed games that stay "alive" that I can think of are
* metroid sr388 -- led by a coder
* another metroid 2 remake -- led by a coder
* hurrican -- led by a coder
* knytt/WADF (nifflas) -- led by a musician, but who did the "coding" himself, making do with the inferior environment of Multimedia Fusion.
* of course, N.

The point I'm trying to make is that the leader of this kind of project, or at least someone very dedicated and close to the leader, needs to be able to make the game on their own in theory, and everyone else is just sort of helping to make it a better game. Otherwise nothing gets done.

Of course, I'd be happy if I was proven wrong and someone qualified steps up (hey, more games is always a good thing), but I think realistically, you're going to have to learn to make games, even if only in game maker (death worm was awesome and in game maker)

as for me, i'd be willing to help as a coder, or with graphics so long as I'm helping with individual components and stuff people may have problems with, and not actually being THE coder.

I love secrets.

I completely agree with mattk210 and I'd also like to submit my application for the position of The Coder with one caveat: this game sounds simple enough that it could be web-based so I would recommend Flash or Java. If I can convince you to go the Java route, consider the following to be my application.

• 1. I've written many IRC game bots in Java using the PircBot API. These bots included RPSBot (Rock, Paper, Scissors ladder game with recorded statistics), RapMastaB (a rap-battle bot) and WumpusBot (a bot that played Hunt the Wumpus with you).
  2. I implemented a simple (i.e. incomplete) port of the LittleViking Level Generator in Java and wrote an applet for it. http://the.t.dawg.googlepages.com/lvlg
  3. I've recently written an applet to replay chat logs given the timestamp is included. http://the.t.dawg.googlepages.com/chatreplay

I've been looking for another project to work since I finished the Chat Replay. I'm not really interested in learning C++ for this project but I hope you'll still consider me. I'll hold off on starting any other projects until you make your decision.

i love secrets
(and making art)
ill be an artist since metagame has been inactive.

I see your point about it being simple enough to be a web based game. Main reason I wanted to do C++ was so I could learn by making something simple but Java would work too.

To be honest I'd be focusing on learning a language more if I wasn't doing my computer courses right now (I'm really bad with learning different things at the same time hence school going horribly for me :P)

ooh!
im learning c++ right now.
might be able to help in a few months

Yeah, I can do music for you guys...just tell me what you need, and I can do it.

i can also do art.

I'm getting bored... it is never a good thing when I get bored.

Right time to check out some C++ and see what it offers.

from zero to making-a-serious-game stage in C++ is a big gap. Something user friendly like gamemaker is what you want unless you have a real programmer. If tanner is willing to help you, take the opportunity and get him to do it in java.

I can help with the art and design side of things if you need it. Just let me know.

Luminaflare wrote:I see your point about it being simple enough to be a web based game. Main reason I wanted to do C++ was so I could learn by making something simple but Java would work too.

If you choose to use Java, I could probably help a bit (I'm been learning Java for the past few months now), though I'm not exactly the best programmer for this, since I have next to no experience in working with graphics.

i can't do much coding or music making or drawing but i can spew off random ideas for people to shoot down or use

I can do all your sleeping for you...
I would love to help, with artwork or some such, but... I can't... Last time I tried to help make a game, i got really busy, and at the moment I'm even busyer than I was then...
so... sorry but... I have alreay got myself in too far, like promising people handrawn sigs...
and my Multimedia course, and my homework, and my job and my N-art and my N playing...
So I'll just watch and maybe buy your game when it comes.