Who wants to work on a 3D demo?

[Meowster]

Moderators, feel free to move this thread if it's in the wrong forum or something… I realize you're not supposed to start threads asking for help, but this is a very kind of specific thing so… er… yeah…

As some of you may know, I'm lucky enough to work in the games industry. Myself and a group of close friends (fellow games industry folk) have decided to try our hand at creating a small 3D demo or episode of a game, doing everything from scratch â€" design, art, music, coding etc.

One of my friends is a programmer for Konami and is going to have a shot at making a 3D engine. We also have a 3D artist who's been doing animation for the games industry for 9 years now who says he can help, and if all goes well, the sound guy in the office ten feet away from me can be convinced to help...

It's not going to be an entire game, it's going to be a demo or episode that will showcase the individual talents of each person who contributed, and if it all goes swimmingly then we may decide to make it into a full-length game. Another close friend of mine at Sega has a job which includes basically talent-scouting â€" he says if we make something vaguely decent, he can provide some amount of industry recognition for it etc etc blah blah I'm boring myself.

I don't want the team to be massive, but I don't think we should get started until we know we're not just wasting each others time. That's why I'd like if some talented 3D artists, concept artists, programmers or musicians could come forward to help.

This won't be for profit at all… in fact, the main reason we're all doing this is to put on our CVs, to talk about at job interviews, etc. I work in the games industry and you wouldn't believe the amount of things that get recognized that you'd think big games industry folk wouldn't notice… I've seen people at work playing Fountain of Youth and absolutely loving it. I've seen one of the head guys at a major MMO publisher playing it, even. If Mark or any of that team applied for a job in the games industry with FoY under their belt, man, that is such a great thing to have.

So, if anybody is interested then let me know. And I'm afraid that you'll have to be very talented… no 12 year olds who are kinda good at sprite animations who want to help. This is a serious project that a bunch of people want to end up being awesome and kickass so we can get game industry jobs and in ten years, maybe I'll be able to afford a mortgage in Brighton. Hah! How I make myself laugh.

I understand that truly talented people don't want to waste their time on the many failed or half-ass attempts at games out there. Truly talented people usually have jobs and lives and don't want to spend their free time making artwork/programming for lazy people who do nothing with their work. So if you want to just talk about the project and know a little more about it, that's great, I would love to tell you more about it. I don't want people on the team who are going to only contribute a little bit and then disappear, either. So let's talk and discuss and everything. It could be totally awesome

So PM me if you're interested, or ask questions in this thread, and for those that want to help or think they might want to, I can give you my IM details and we can talk more there.

[Da_Elf]

id join in if i wasnt too busy with my film

[Traveler]

I'd love to join, too, but real life won't let me do it - I have massive amounts of work.   

[Erenan]

Do you already have ideas concerning what this demo or episode will be like (basic tone/feel, serious/comedic, play style/genre, etc.)? Could you provide examples of games that are similar to what you're planning to do? I'm curious about what kinds of art and music you might need. Or would just about anything be appropriate?

[m0ds]

Beyond Reality 3D

[Meowster]

Do you already have ideas concerning what this demo or episode will be like (basic tone/feel, serious/comedic, play style/genre, etc.)? Could you provide examples of games that are similar to what you're planning to do? I'm curious about what kinds of art and music you might need. Or would just about anything be appropriate?

So far, the game is going to be something like Beyond Good & Evil as regards control, interface, etc… that's the closest example I can think of. I don't want to try and do anything too remarkable or amazing for the first (and maybe only), small demo/episode… I don't want to aim too high and then we all end up being disappointed by the end result. I think it would make far more sense to aim for something fun, achievable, and not worry about it sporting some amazing new never-seen-in-a-game-before features or technology or something.... which is a completely unrealistic goal anyway, considering the size and experience of our team

But when we have a team that we feel we're ready to move forward with, then we'll obviously all discuss together what we feel we can achieve, using our various areas of expertise to judge what is and isn't possible.

One thing I'm certain of is that I want the game to be whimsical, magical and for it not to sport realistically proportioned human characters. I've chosen cartoony, exaggerated graphics for two reasons: firstly, it's unlikely that the team will consist of the worlds most amazing animators and coders and animating realistic humans is a massive challenge which we really don't need because (and secondly), the game has a very cartoonish, fantasy story, and so would be better suited to a more cartoonish style.

The story is based in a world where the light of the moon drives people insane, so you'll never see a house in the middle of nowhere, without any shade. Instead, one group of people for instance, have built a village in amongst the trees of a great magical forest (something along the scale of a massive redwood forest), where they're safe in the shade of the trees at night. So there are pubs and shops and houses carved out of the inside of trees, and knotted up in the great roots of this awesome forest, and wooden bridges leading from great tree to great tree.

This should give you some idea of how the game will “feel”.


(I have some reference material for that forest actually, http://blueforest.com/ ...  take a look, it's some impressive stuff )