Team Competition - Project Leader Nov. 04th - Nov. 12th

Started by Meowster, Tue 04/11/2003 22:32:40

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Meowster

Okay, here’s the deal.

There are three competitions: Project Leader, Artists and Musicians, Animators and Script Writers. They are held for one week before the submitted material is reviewed by the Project Leader (Or if it’s the project leader, by me. You can forward bribes to PO box 12, Ballyfermot, Dublin 4). The Project Leader and Competition Organizer (In this case, me) will choose the winners for the other competitions.

Once a team is built, work on the game will begin. We will have four weeks to complete the project entirely. The clock starts when the last competition is run.

The team will be compiled as follows:

Project Leader   1
Animators      4   (1 Lead Animator will also be chosen)
Artists         4   (1 Lead Background Artist will also be chosen)
Musicians      2   
Dialogue      2




And now for the first competition....

- Project Leader
The first competition in every new ‘season’. All people that want to enter the competition are invited to submit their storyline/plot ideas. It’s a good idea to include a concise description of your idea, and your characters. It doesn’t need to be rock solid, just interesting and original. No sequels! Unless they’re really awesome sequels. You may submit concept artwork or music or even concept dialogue to emphasise your idea.

Remember, what you want is to get people interested and excited about this. It doesn’t have to be goofy or hilarious; it could be serious either. Don’t ramble on for ages either. Think of these headings as guidelines:

1. Brief introduction to your idea (Two or three paragraphs)
2. Sources of inspiration
3. Concept Material (optional)


You can add more or less information as required, but try stick with them.

The Job of the Project Leader:
The Project Leader will oversee the game production and may contribute to various other areas. S/he will ensure that the artists and other team members realize his/her vision. If people are slacking, the Project Leader has to drag them back on track. If deadlines need to be met, the Project Leader will have to make sure that they are. The game will finally be submitted under his/her name.

So get... writing! You have until Wednesday 12th to get your idea in, so take your time and put some research into something interesting.

And as this is the first time I’ve held a competition, excuse me if it lacks you know, finesse.


Evil

First off, shouldn't this be 5 weeks rather then 4? Next maybe the artists should come first then the animators. Just some ideas... Hope this works out :)

Meowster

Cha cha cha!

I like that idea very much.

But I have to point out two things to you.

Firstly, the deadline of four weeks only begins when the last competition is run, so that's effectively seven weeks in total.

Secondly, the artists and animators.. surely it doesn't matter what way around they go?

LucasFan

Maybe it's not the right place to ask this question, but what’s the purpose of that so called team competition? I think I understood that you want people to make different games within a short time and that afterwards somebody decides that one game is "better" or "worse" than another, but… heh, please don’t laugh… I don’t get it. Maybe I'm too old-fashioned but that all sounds so… childish.  :-\

Meowster

First we have to try the competition and see how it runs. The only aim of the comp this time is to compete for a place in teh final team.

Perhaps next year, we'll start a challenge, where there are six comps in total, six teams, and the winner at the end of the year gets... kudos, or something.


We'll see how it works out before making any long term decisions.

remixor

Well, and this is just my two cents, but I really don't think that coming up with a good plot and story details is any indication of whether someone can manage an entire team.  Your competition sounds like Minimi's AGS-OQ, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure it qualifies someone to be a project leader.  Maybe a writer, or a storyboarder or something, but other than that I don't know.
Writer, Idle Thumbs!! - "We're probably all about video games!"
News Editor, Adventure Gamers

Evil

Ah, ok, I didn't understand the time limits. As for the animators artists thing, lets say you have an amazing surrealist, or chose a amazing surrealist as your artist. Now lets say you picked a great sprite animator first that cant animate surrealism. Understand? Its like you are trying to count your chickens even before you have chickens to lay the eggs. As of now I'm thinking it may be best to have you do it yufster, have you be the leader so we can get the jyst to get us started.

Meowster

Okay.. okay...

To clear something up...

Whoever is running the comp, IE me for now, will be the leader. The project leader is trying to get his or her idea across. My job is to make sure it stays RUNNING. The project leader makes sure everybody stays working to his or her deadlines. I make sure it runs to competition deadlines. Otherwise it's like throwing people into the sea with no... arm floats.

And second, well if the styles clash, that's tough. The competition will  state that say, if the project leader has a sci fi, The Dig type idea, right? Well then, the Project Leader has to describe a scene in his or her mind that the artists / animators must design. The Project Leader is the main person that's gonna be pick n mixing, if you catch my drift. It's also his or her job to try and match styles. Although I would have a say in this too, because I'm a control freak.

If it doesn't work out, then definitely it should be revised but I think this way everybody gets max enjoyment out of it, and hopefully a lot of people get to try new styles and most importantly, we'll be learning maybe that working in a team is a lot more productive and successful. Or perhaps the complete opposite. I guess it depends on the team. Some teams may not work, some teams will.


Evil


Ginny

Hmm, this sounds interesting,but I'm wondering as to the length that the games are expected to have. Is it supposed to short or epic, or just in the middle? Now I might think of something or write one of my ideas here, but I'm so good at project management. Maybe you should have the Writers job include not just dialogs but help with plot, puzzles, etc?

Anyways, good luck :)
Try Not to Breathe - coming sooner or later!

We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later, we push up flowers. - Membrillo, Grim Fandango coroner

Quintaros

Okay I'm submitting an entry for the project leader position.  Over the past four months I've worked diligently on a single game without allowing myself to pursue other ideas that arise and this might be an opportunity to make a quick and dirty game out of one of those ideas without getting too distracted from my main project.

Brief Description:

The player character (all characters are as yet unnamed) is a university student in his last year of studies.  He is smart and likable and seems to have everything going for him and so his future looks wide open.  However his world is rocked when seemingly out of the blue his roommate/best friend commits suicide.  This friend also happens to be his identical twin brother. His other friends are merely there for the good times and are too shallow to help him with something as serious as this.  His ex-girlfriend would have been there for him except their 3+ year relationship ended recently. His parents and sister want to help him and each other by sharing their grief but he believes his status as the twin gives him some kind of proprietary right to grief that they could not possibly share.  His quest becomes to ascertain what motives drove his brother to suicide but as he delves into it he may learn that that is not the road to healing.

I'm not at all certain how gamers would receive such a game.  Would anyone want to play something serious and somber?  Would anyone want to join a team to make it?

My concept for the look of the game is to go for relatively realistic looking characters and backgrounds.  No cartoony characters or funky curved walls and skewed doors.  Stylization should come from how the backgrounds are lit.  The game will require <10 rooms and about 6-9 characters.  The game will be very conversation based but will include some additional puzzles.  I foresee the game providing about 30 to 60 minutes of play.

remixor

Quintaros:  The only thing, I think, is that making such a game (and making it well) would be rather more difficult than making your "average" AGS game.  That being said, I think your concept has a ton of potential if done right, and I'd love to see a game that tackles such serious themes as the ones you propose.  Good luck.
Writer, Idle Thumbs!! - "We're probably all about video games!"
News Editor, Adventure Gamers

CMonkey

Sounds cool, i'll probably apply for the dialog part, but doesn't the Project Leader usually do that, as they create the story and the characters?

I've got a game designed that could use artists, animators and musicians, but unfortunately it's a sequel, plus it's already designed, and you're looking for an original idea are you not?

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, i'm not sure i'd like to manage any more than 4 people if i had the choice.
Andrew

Mr_Frisby

I like this Idea of a team comp. It sort of puts a different slant on the game making side of things.
I would like to see what people can do given a deadline instead of working in thier own time on their own stuff.
Also, something I didn't quite get (maybe I didn't read it all properly but) What if you have an idea for a game but don't want to be team leader. If your story idea gets up, do you nominate a director/project leader?
I would like to submit ideas or even help write but would be useless organizing and following up ect.

(also would love to design chars and animate them hint hint hint...)
Hey! All my awesome trophies dissapeared in the year since I was here last. CONSARN_IT! with an underscore!!! I earned dem tings!! Oh well. Hope your Monkey floats.

Mr_Frisby

This is an idea of for a comic book I'm trying to figure out how to write. I thort it may make an interesting game?

COLD,BAD,BUTTON.

(The one about the paracitic brain function)

Steve wakes up one morning to find that everyone in the world has had thier brains removed but him.

* It seems that eons ago his race was really stupid and didn't do much. People kept on bumping into each other and drooling alot.

* A passing spaceship carrying a species of paracite aliens  thought that the stupid creatures would be perfect hosts so they latched a few thousand of thier species on to the stupidoids for the duration.
 
* Then the paracites continued on their spiritual journey to find god where they got pretty lost.

* After a fairly long while the paracites found god and he told them to stop infecting hosts and to start behaving like good little paracites.

* The paracites one by one collected all of thier species from varoius planets around the cosmos so they could return home for a bit of a knees up and a bit of R&R.

* They where in the process of retrieving their people from Steves planet and in the process returning everyone to normal (dribbling idiots) when steves brain got wind of it and woke steve up to escape.

Steves brain is quite partial to steve and so doesn't want to part from him + he likes the planet and subsiquently has a kickass job.

Anyway it's mainly about Steves brain educating him on the fact that he is really just a puppet - and the two of them becoming freinds and saving the world and 'scaping from aliens n' stuff(theres more to it than that but I don't want to give too much away).


Quick 16c Steve
Hey! All my awesome trophies dissapeared in the year since I was here last. CONSARN_IT! with an underscore!!! I earned dem tings!! Oh well. Hope your Monkey floats.

SSH

Here's my idea for a game:

Elementals

Deep in the highlands of Scotland a young girl, Aille, lives in a castle with her parents. Her father is the ruler of the area. Aille loves horses and loves to go for long walks. One day she finds some wild horses while walking by the loch. She finds them friendly and gets up on one to ride. As it gallops along, she feels like she is flying. Then she realises, she is flying. The horse has wings and is flying through the sky. Frightened, she screams, but the horse talks to her as a voice in her head, reassuring her that he will not let her fall. He is the Air Elemental, lord of the skies.

He has made contact with her because she has been seen to be a good person (TM). He tells her of awful events unfolding: fires set and people destroying the natural balance of the elements. He takes her to meet the Earth elemental: the unicorn. He tells that he has not been able to find the Fire and Water elementals for a council and suspects that the fires being set are the work of the Fire elemental who may have captive the Water elemental, who is the one who can stop the fires most easily. Aille asks why she is chosen. The elementals tell her that not all can see them: only thos eehwo truly believe in magical things. Aille has wnated all her life to see unicorns and dragons and is glad to help.

She returns to her father's castle, her mind whirling, and thinking about what has happened. But no sooner has she stepped outside agian than some evil witches, working for the bad Elemental, kidnap her and take her off to a foul-smelling pool high in the mountains, ready to sacrifice her to....

So, Aille discovers what is going on and saves the area from the evil. Sea monsters, dragons, magic and conspiracy. Aille not just saves her village, but the whole world ecosystem... woot!!!!  ;D

Sources of inspiration:
I have written a few chapters of a novella for some of this story
Fantasy creatures, witches, etc. from LOTR, Anne McCaffrey, Tanith Lee, etc. Also, some tie-ins with the Loch Ness legends.
12

Czar

great thing, if you are a good p. leader, you could make a good game even with ppl with little talent... You should control them max. step by step, every day they should do a small step lets say a char, or a part of a bg, or even an object, until the p.lead. likes it.
Anyway, for the thing i wanted to say...
There could be also made Team MAGS??
you get my vision?
Roses are #FF0000
Violets are #0000FF
All my base
are belong to you

PureGhostGR

#17
I can see it.. Good one at that.

Some sort of a tournament in MAGS with members devided into teams. ( each team having members in music, art and programming)..

SMAGS (special-mags)

each team submits a game and then we have a big voting.

3 nominations, one for each category.. with special designed icons for the winners..

I like.


scotch

That sounds very similar to the last team competition, just with a shorter time to make the game.  I don't think it'd work.

DragonRose

Aww... I'd sort of like to enter (I like writing plots) but I've had experience with being a project leader, and I do NOT want to EVER do that again.  Eeeeevil.
Sssshhhh!!! No sex please, we're British!!- Pumaman

Ginny

Quintaros: Just reading that idea made my mind flow. I forsee perhaps a very dark endong? Or an entirely different direction.

As I see I'm not the only one who feels leading the project would be difficult, perhaps there should also be an option for whoever has their idea chosen to choose at the end, someone else from the team to be the leader, and co-write? Though writing and leading does come together pretty much, it's a matter of vision after all. Leading the project tends to go by the persons vision Well, maybe a writers category then, or expanding the dialogs? Like writing puzzles and filling in and such.

All just suggestions of course :)

Anyway, I'll just add to the pool of ideas (so far all are interesting):

The main character (I, too, tend to have trouble with naming) is a lone traveler, who on one of her trips climbs a peaceful mountain area. Once she finishes setting up the camp, she takes out a notebook and takes some notes of what she sees around her. She is actually a reporter for a nature magazine, and so she begins to write her article. All of a sudden, as is common in that area, an earthquake occurs, and shedrops the book, grabbing on to a branch, but she can't hold on and she rolls down the mountain and falls into an ancient cave. There she finds an old book/diary (yet undecided) and begins to read. And the more she reads, the more the book draws her in, literally. On a break to find a way out, she is already dizzy in reality, and barely phones her friend, who is, incidentally, an archeologist, and a co-worker of hers. She asks for him to send rescue, and also tells him that she has found an interesting book/diary that she thinks he might be interested in. She reads on the meantime, and by the end she is so absorbed in the book she cannot exist outside of it, and she becomes part of the story, trapped inside the book in a new reality (not neccessarilly bad). She has already disappeared when her friend the archelogist arrives.

Side-note: Possibly there are two player characters, the traveler and someone from the book.

Just in case I decide to make this game someday - (c)
Try Not to Breathe - coming sooner or later!

We may have years, we may have hours, but sooner or later, we push up flowers. - Membrillo, Grim Fandango coroner

|Alky|

#21
Okay, I was wondering whether I should post this or not, because it's just a random idea I had and not just one I've thought about for more than a couple of minutes.

Synopsis : A town, somewhere in the west in the present day. The beginning situation is simple, and purposefully so - you are an employee of a huge corporation which, while not particularly malevolant, is totally faceless and mysterious. It becomes painfully clear from the first act that your character is going nowhere, both professionally and socially, as he is almost completely ignored by his co-workers.

His boss finally notices him, but only as he is looking for people to fire. In a Kafka-esque way, you character is fired for no reason, and must pack up and leave. In the process of doing so, he meets the major secondary characters, Alyssa and Raissa. Both have very seperate jobs, but they are equally unwilling to make the protagonist's departure pleasant. As the company's employees start to leave the building, he is asked to perform a task by both of them (this sounds stupid, but I seriously only thought of this idea 15 mins ago, and therefore I don't actually have all the details laid down yet...) involving industrial sabotage, and the game is designed so that if he refuses one's request, he is forced to agreeing to do it for the other.

And so after a number of challenges, which are mainly based around dialog, the character retrieves the documents and heads for the meeting place, the cafeteria. But the person whom the main character either refused to help or did not talk to is present instead, and armed. Just as the main character is being forced to hand over the item, the other NPC appears, and the character has to negotiate or risk being shot in the crossfire.

Finally, he defuses the situation, but realises the argument has alerted the building to their presence. He is forced to get out of the room, with the documents still in his posession, and with two semi-hostile NPCs trailing. In order to survive, the worker has to escape the building, and in an adventure game this means solve a series of puzzles. But in this game, an extra dimension is added - instead of using his inventory, for 100% of the puzzles, he must rely on the people trailing him. But if he relies on them too much, he may end up dead, since they both care little for him. There are also different ways to solve each puzzle, depending on whether you cooperate with none, one or both of the NPCs, and at least two different endings upon reaching the finale.

Characters:
Primary
Prontaganist - Mysterious and never named. Knows nothing.
Seconday (Both women around the same age - late 20s)
Alyssa - An accountant in the firm, she is wracked by jealousy of her superiors, and is determined that she will not be beaten by them when she is so much more intelligent. Cool and calculating, she avoids killing the P.C. out of necessity.
Raissa - Her job is mysterious, and she seems to know very little about it. However, she has been working in the company for many years, and it has crushed her spirit and made her want to break free from it.
Tertiary(only those important to the main plot are shown)
Boss - Creepy, has an office at odds architecturally with the rest of the building...
Head of Security - Keeps appearing; Seems to have some sort of past with both secondary characters..
Rayneman - The Janitor, who also appears often and mysteriously. He doesn't have any personal link with any of the characters, but delights in scaring the hell outta them. He also helps them, but only occasionally.

About
The game is loosely based around the idea of 'consciences', but instead of having one urging you to be good and one urging you to be bad, you have one trying to convince you to be logical, and one trying to make you think 'outside the box'. Neither is more 'evil' than the other, and it is left open as to whether in fact they are doing wrong and not the corporation. In a way, it's meant to kinda represent the human brain, with the creative side trying to make you out do yourself and destroy reason, while the logical side tries to secure and strengthen it.

The setting is really nothing new, but I think it could be made very atmospheric by art and music people - the art that I visialise would be something 3 parts FOA and 1 part Picasso, so that while the scenes are given flair they are not made surreal. The music would have to switch between exciting and creepy fast, and possibly change in style as the story progresses . And dialog would be very important, especially with the S.C.s - this game needs loads of short witty snaps from Alyssa and passionate rambles from Raissa in order to work really well. It would probably also need a new GUI, and some linearity coding/design, but I think it could be done.

Influences
-The movies Cypher (Creepy industrial sabotage, the idea of open judgement),  Le Placard(In french, not sure of the title, but its about a guy who is rarely noticed in the beginning. It's a comedy, but the beginning has something to do with it.)
-The books The Trial- Franz Kafka(Strange Organizations, e.t.c) 1984 - Orwell (Big Brother, security cameras e.t.c)
-Scrubs/The Simpsons (The janitor - he's not really necessary to the game, though and could be removed)

I'd put more, but I'm outta time ^_^

EDIT : Crap, I just realized my clock was slow. Well, whatever. Stick to the deadline and disqualify me, or be like the cool people m0ds and ignore them...

EDIT: Oh yeah, thanks to Flippy for helping with this...
Alex 'Alkaline' Cline

We're going back to the tick tock to get the boo-boo. Send for backup. - Baby's Day Out

Quintaros

Ginny: I'm glad my story idea stimulated you.  I have a few scenarios in mind for multiple endings.  Only one is really dark, although the others aren't falsely happy either.

Alky: I like your central theme. My thoughts though are that conscience and logic are resources that a mind relies on.  Alyssa and Raissa strike me as antagonists that are not reliable so that decision making becomes the choice between 2 evils.  Perhaps thats your point.

Meowster

I’m a little late, but there was bad traffic, I swear.

Anyway,

That was a seriously tough call and I have to say you all showed extremely vibrant imaginations and quite frankly, I think all those games should be made. But the losers had to be hand picked and laughed at and here are those people that we can now ridicule cruelly:

The People who did NOT win
Quintaros, I didn’t choose you because I think although your story could be excellent, it’s very sombre and mightn’t be the most fun project to work on.

Mr Frisby... I didn’t choose yours because although the idea is quite funny, it’s a little too cliché, you know? Aliens have been done a lot. But I loved the art of the main character!

Ginny, again I love this idea. I once read a book called the Never-ending Story. I would imagine your story to be somewhat like this.

Alky, your idea is obviously well planned and thought out. I don’t mind that you didn’t stick to the deadline.

Now here’s the person we can pretend not to ridicule, but really we’ll just laugh at him behind his back and make snide comments about how the competition was fixed, and he’s a power freak and stole his idea from a book by that guy who wrote that awful book about the girl with the Zelda-Style fairy and the bears on the mountain in Alaska with the armour.

The Winner, dude!
The winner is SSH, and not just because he’s my assistant programmer! His idea could be made into a long or short game as seen fit, and contains enough magical elements for some really interesting and colourful backgrounds. The idea is not all that original but it’s a proven formula. Let’s see if he can make it work :)

If you want, you can choose a person from the list of runners up as a co-designer, or you can simply stick on your own.

So Far...
SSH, you should start developing your story a bit more. The next competition is for Artists and Musicians, and so you can pick a suitable style for your game. Or, three. Or however many.

Now you can all laugh and snigger and make snide remarks about me for rigging the competition and making bland comments. Do this while I’m setting up the next competition, so you don’t inadvertently hurt my feelings, okay?




SSH

Woot!

I ARES TEH 1337 PROWJEKT MANHANDLER!

All will bow at my feet and quiver in fear at my prowess!


Meanwhile, can someone get Yufster her medication?
12

Mr_Frisby

Congrats SSH - Good story.
Here is my take on the main character for the anim contest (I know I didn't wait long but I couldn't resist)



As you see, she isn't appropriately attired for the hot, dry, desert-like plains of northern Scottland. I hope that won't go against her.
Hey! All my awesome trophies dissapeared in the year since I was here last. CONSARN_IT! with an underscore!!! I earned dem tings!! Oh well. Hope your Monkey floats.

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