A shmup community project? (looking for contributors)

[nimitz]

In the past years, I've heard the idea of a potential shmups forum community project a few times and I think this could be a really interesting and doable project. I've been talking with trap15 in the past few days, he has a basic shmup engine in C which would work pretty well for the project (it still needs work, but it's a good starting point) and he's willing to help out as a coder. The engine choice is not set in stone, if someone has a C# (xna) shmup engine already written this could be another interesting choice.


This thread is mostly a way to gauge interest in such a project here on the forum and to find potential contributors.


As of now, I would act as the project "coordinator" and would work on the code with trap15, two coders should be enough for the actual engine side code.

You could help if you can:

Code: Select all

-Make art for the game (background tiles, sprites, menus, title screen, bitmap fonts, even concept art) 
-Make music for the game
-Make sound effects for the game
-Help with Mixing/Mastering of all the sounds in the game
-Make stage backgrounds using pre-made tiles
-Act as a game designer (this will also probably be done in a thread specifically for that)
-Act as a stage/pattern/behavior designer*
-Help with the coordination/management of the project
-Playtest the game (will come later)
-Help find people that could potentially fill above positions
-Show interest (moral support)

*The engine will be made to use external files for most of the design code. Bullet patterns designed in a way similar to BulletML (or maybe actually using BulletML), enemy and boss behavior would also be in external files and perhaps most importantly stage design would all be in external files so that anyone can help design the game without actually having to go through the trouble of compiling from sources.

Here's an example of what a stage file would look like:

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1:19:30 spawnEnemy(params)
1:25:10 spawnEnemy(params),spawnEnemy(params)
1:30:60 spawnItem(params)
2:20:00 spawnBoss1(params)

Parameters would include: type, spawn location, behavior for enemies (and the behavior would in turn specify bullet patterns)

So if you can help with any of the things mentioned above just say so in this thread, the more people we have the better and most of these tasks can be split in such a way that a single person with little free time can still contribute to the project.

We are currently debating whether the final product should be sold ($5 or less) or free. The main advantages of selling it is that it would show that what was made has actual value and hopefully giving some extra incentive to contribute since the game would be free to all contributors. On the other hand, free would make this project a real gift to the shmup community from the forum.

[Hagane]

I wanted to do something with trap too but having to use tiles held me back as I suck at that. If you are using full sprites instead I could do that (though I'm not that good at coloring) and character designs. I have game design ideas too which I could post if anyone is interested (probably not, since most are Raizing / Psikyo inspired).

Hope this goes well!

[emphatic]

I'd like to contribute music.

[n0rtygames]

Just FYI, something I've been keeping quiet - when Chronoblast goes out the door - I'll be putting all of the sprites used up on a website for people to use for prototyping games as I found that art has always been one of the bigger bottlenecks to getting a game delivered and I'd like to help others create shmups with a more rapid turnaround than I've been able to. It's always a lot easier to visualise where your game is going when you have decent graphics to work with too.

They'll be going up on a non commercial attribution based basis however...

The engine choice is not set in stone, if someone has a C# (xna) shmup engine already written this could be another interesting choice.

If only we knew someone who had been pulling their hair out for the last god-knows-how-long and had tailored a C# engine to work on Xbox 360, PC and support online leaderboards, tate, 2 player and so on..... >.>

It's certainly not without its drawbacks though and there's extra work I'd like to put in to it after release. Just saying though..

[ciox]

-Act as a game designer (this will also probably be done in a thread specifically for that)
-Act as a stage/pattern/behavior designer*

I can help with these, already practicing both for a UDK shmup, it all depends on what the tools are like, like hopefully you aren't defining level backgrounds by hand in a text file.

[moh]

I'D LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE LOVE AND HUGS.

[KAI]

I'd like to contribute with my shitty drawing skills and moral support. No hugs.

[wuuds]

I'd love to contribute with support!, music, shitty concept art and any kind of writing that may make it into the final product.

This is a great idea!

*Oh and I can do some basic sprite stuff but I'm not great. All I know is from messing around with some PK hacking in Earthbound.

[t0yrobo]

Hmmm, I could do some art bits here and there. I'm not crazy about sprites so no help there, but concept work, menus, title screen, backgrounds etc for sure. Or at least as much as I'm able to.

[mrsmiley381]

I keep having design ideas for shmups, but I wouldn't want to force any ideas without knowing what everyone else wants to do. Compile style bizarre ranking shit? CAVE-esque ridiculous scoring systems and giant bullets with tiny hitboxes? Personally, I'd love to design a ridiculous Yagawa style game. Something I could understand and go crazy with and then not actually be able to beat it. I mean, I am six months away from a game design degree. I could use something cool on a resume and I suppose I could use this opportunity to see if I could design something more than two might like to play. Same general thing goes for enemy behavior, it just depends on what people want the game to be like.

I also know a musical artist. I'll see if he's interested/free/not too busy selling beats to dubstep artists for good money.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I can contribute honesty and tell you when your game sucks apart from that I can maybe make a music track or two, heavily depends on what musical style the team wants for the game.

[TheSoundofRed]

I'd be interested in contributing for any art/design related items. I'd also be able to build 3D models if that route is taken at some point, even if just for 2D rendered images.

I'd recommend first focusing on the base design of the project, and generate a Visual Center to help guide any designers that'd be contributing to the project. Having a strong aesthetic base is helpful when having multiple people involved. Just having basic information on location/time/setting would be awesome early on.

Also just want to say that this is a pretty rad idea!

[BPzeBanshee]

Count me in for testing. I've got at least three different-enough machines to try and break the engine with (5 including virtual). Programming, maybe, if the pseudocode for external bullet scripts gets in I could try and learn although I have no actual C++ experience.

As for sound effects, a bit of mucking around with sfxr and Audacity goes bounds for the average joe. Most of mine in GMOSSE use it. I also know of a tool for adding effects to existing Windows system fonts and then saving a sprite strip, and a sprite artist who's done fontsets in the past.

[mice]

I can "-Show interest (moral support)" as long as the lead designer manages to generate any.
Ouya should be the platform!

[trap15]

Ouya should be the platform!

Nope.

[emphatic]

Ouya should be the platform!

Nope.

Nope.

[mice]

Ouya should be the platform!

Nope.

Nope.

Why not?

[ciox]

Probably because most people working on it aren't planning to get an Ouya in the first place.

[matrigs]

i'd be happy to help with anything sound / music related. production and post-production also.

on an organisational side: i would highly recommend using google spreadsheets for this, even for the early stages like choosing contributors.

i actually made a small example below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 3dvNkYySUE

the great thing with google spreadsheets is that it allows to be edited by multiple people at once in real time. i've seen it used quite a lot
with translation projects.

i'm no google employee or stuff - just know that this works pretty well.

[mice]

So xblig over ouya?

[matrigs]

So xblig over ouya?

lol. there isn't even one sprite done and you are thinking about where to release it ?

[mice]

So xblig over ouya?

lol. there isn't even one sprite done and you are thinking about where to release it ?

It's hard to code a line and draw a sprite if you don't know what platform to work against.
And the OP asked for C#/xna so that platform (WP7/xblig) seems to be thought about.

[chempop]

I'm no programer but I might be able to help with some things on the visual end.
Possibly backgrounds, menus, logos, etc.

[CptRansom]

I can show interest and playtest.

[n0rtygames]

So xblig over ouya?

lol. there isn't even one sprite done and you are thinking about where to release it ?

It's hard to code a line and draw a sprite if you don't know what platform to work against.
And the OP asked for C#/xna so that platform (WP7/xblig) seems to be thought about.

^ This.

Coding for the xbox or a phone poses extremely different limitations to coding for the PC. Conversely, coding for a "fragmented platform" (meaning we can't guarantee what hardware it'll run on) also causes some design considerations to be taken in to account.

[wuuds]

I'm a bit far away but man I'd love to be involved in making a little video about this all somehow!

[emphatic]

Limitations aren't a bad thing. Looks at how CAVE struggle with their hardware and still create great games, slowdowns and all.

[n0rtygames]

slowdowns and all.

>.>

I might be guilty of applying some of this to capture precisely that feel in my xbox build.... if the framerate drops due to some of the xna frameworks behaviour, we get enforced slowdown so it doesn't jump and there's hard limits on specific game entities to match what we're "used to"...

[trap15]

To be entirely honest, I think limitations are a good thing. Look at Yagawa:

I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go

He likes working with limited hardware because it makes him try to push the boundaries of what it can do, and so he ends up doing all sorts of madness just to show that it could be done. Recca, anybody?

[n0rtygames]

To be entirely honest, I think limitations are a good thing. Look at Yagawa:

I like the challenge of "doing the impossible" with older hardware, and pushing it as far as it can go

He likes working with limited hardware because it makes him try to push the boundaries of what it can do, and so he ends up doing all sorts of madness just to show that it could be done. Recca, anybody?

Absolutely dude. Something you're well aware of with your PCB hacking I'm sure!

With XNA for a fairly intense shmup experience you've actually got more to contend with than people might realise at first. I *think* in terms of perceived on screen action I'm actually pushing things the farthest at this point in time... I hope it encourages people to 1up me with future STGs and just increase the amount of action the players experience... that'd be a glorious thing...

The limitation on draw calls in a single sprite batch can hinder things at times - then there's the periodic garbage collection that goes on with the .net framework that can cause an occasional stutter which is VERY noticable to the seasoned shmup player..

Then, multi-threading your bullets is another world of hell entirely and I've found can lead to interestingly unpredictable results at the best of times with XNAs fixed timestep shinnanigans going on.. even if you're waiting on the threads to complete before proceeding to the rest of your game logic. (CB now runs single threaded because to be honest, I'd rather take the option of slowing the game down in intense segments - which is something we're used to - over risking unpredictable behaviour)

That sort of stuff lead me to actually implementing hard limits on things and emulating pcb style slowdown in certain situations just to cater for the fact that while XNA is a glorious way to gain access to the 360 as a development platform in a legitimate way (i.e without modding/chipping/otherwise hacking the kit) -- it does have some drawbacks.

Of course, the big companies with decent budgets who can apply for XBLA licenses and actually write their games in C++ don't face THESE drawbacks and challenges specifically.... they just have an entirely different set of challenges to face..