Rolf und Joachim - A World War II Adventure (12/13/03 - Updated)

Started by ScottDoom, Wed 12/11/2003 02:37:51

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ScottDoom



The game forum is now up: Go here and click the logo to visit the forum.

My friend and I designed a unique game that is set in World War II, and the player takes the role of two Germans known as Rolf and Joachim (R&J). R&J are secretly working for the Americans to help sabotage various things that the Nazis construct.

We chose this theme for two main reasons. First, we both think that most of the original adventure titles created by LucasArts and Sierra were fun, engaging, and creative (puzzles, storyline, etc.). Second, we are both interested in the technology, music, and clothing of the 1940s and of World War II.

Originally the game was planned to be created in a 3D environment, but that proved to be rather difficult. We are now creating the game in 2D in a 800x600 (or possibly 640x480) resolution. We are looking for artists who can draw backrounds. The artist in question should be interested in creating a freeware adventure game, should be somewhat interested in World War II, and should have adequate freetime (at least 45 minutes of hard work put into the game every day).

You can contact me if you want to see our current puzzle designs, dialogue concepts, or anything of that sort.

If you are seriously interested, please show me example work and if it fits what we are searching for we can conduct an interview and then you can join the team.

Contacts:

E-mail: b_koontz26@yahoo.com
AIM: ScottDoom1944
MSN: scott_doom@hotmail.com

New news: My old friend, a good artist, has joined the team but we still need more. He will be doing the background images for now, so we need someone who is able to draw and animate characters.

Added 11/24/03: My friend Wesley finished the first background, and then found that his scanner was broke. So therefore we now need a background artist.

However, Wesley has now taken the place of character artist.



PureGhostGR

would you like to share some more more details with us?

The project sounds very interesting but the artwork that should be done is something that needs an experienced illustrator.
(namely I am thinking about the costume research, furniture design, architectural design.. etc).

How many rooms, locations and characters are we talking about?

:)

Emm.. also, some sketches or preliminary screenshots would be an excellent addition to your post. :)


ScottDoom

#2
For costume, furniture, and architecture design my friend and I have done/can do most of the research required and we can relay the information to the artists.

There will be basically three "locations." As in, areas that hold similar textures in them. The game is divided into these three different stages, with each stage consisting of 5 levels for a total of 15 levels. Each level is made up of about 5-10 screens (just an estimate). Each level is held in a different area, and R&J must perform a certain task in each level. To complete these task, R&J must solve several interesting and unique puzzles.

I am the puzzle designer, level designer, and dialogue writer because that is what I am good at. So far I have only designed the first 5 levels, because as I mentioned the project was previously dropped when it was attempted to be made in 3D.

My friend is the programmer. When we were making it in 3D, he programmed. Now that we are doing it with AGS, even I can program. So we will be programming together, while I also design things.

Our attempt at 3D failed because we could not model in 3D. So we are now trying it in 2D, even though neither of us can draw.

Mats Berglinn

Sounds cool. When will this game be released?

ScottDoom

#4
As of right now, I think we will be able to get out a small demo very soon if we can get some character artists. Possibly a nice demo for December.

The rest of the game will take about one month to plan out, and then from there we can build it and, as I said at first, it depends on how fast we can produce graphics. My friend will most likely be able to program the first demo so that I can devote my time to planning the rest of the game, so that fulll-scale production can begin in about a month rather than about two.

Also, I suppose I should introduce the current team:

Byron K. (me) - Development leader, puzzle designer, dialogue writer, and programmer. (Hawaii.)

Andy G. -  Programmer, and also the guy who keeps everyone running. Heh heh. (California.)

Wesley ?. - Background Character artist. (Texas.)

pardonmemrthree

I'm Andy G. (as mentioned in the above post). This project is actually coming along quite smoothly and it's looking great. Hopefully, like Byron said, we'll have something small out by at least December to show everyone here, but that's if everything goes as planned. If you have any questions about it, just reply here and Byron and I will be happy to answer.

ScottDoom

As of now, all we need is a good background artist. We need the style to be slightly cartoon and realistic (see above character art).

Most of the background art will be fairly simple to draw. Walls, doors, radios, antennas, bunk beds, desks, tables, kitchen appliances, MG-42s (mounted machine guns), and things of that sort. The most difficult objects would probably be the Maybach Zeppelin DS8 (a luxury car found in a garage in a certain level), the Kubelwagens, and the Hanomag Sdkfz.251s (German troop-transport vehicles).

Fizz


ScottDoom

Wesley drew the other character (see first post). The tall one is Rolf, and the small one is Joachim. Sorry for the long wait, but Wesley had troubles.

I will also try to compose some music for the game, and post it.

Isegrim

There's one thing that just came to my mind:
If you have any German language (eg. on signs or documents), please do it right, ok?

I still have to laugh everytime I play "day of defeat" and see documents labelled "Oberes Geheimnis"!
This post was generated automatically and therefore bears no signature.

ScottDoom

Ja... Mein Freund und ich sprechen Deutsche, aber er ist besser. Wenn er kommt hier, er kann zeigen dich.

We won't have much German though. We were thinking of making the GUI in German and certain parts of the dialogue will be in German, but that's it. My friend wanted to make the entire thing in German...

InCreator

Excellent characters!
Do they look same in the game?
And if so, are you really able to animate them?

Isegrim

I understand that you would like me to proof read the text or something. If this is the case, I will gladly do so!  ;D
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pardonmemrthree

Hehe Danke, aber ich kann Deutsch sprechen. ;)

The game's coming along pretty well so far, but we do still need a background artist. So any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again! We'll keep you updated.

Interference

Quote from: InCreator on Wed 10/12/2003 15:12:35
Excellent characters!
Do they look same in the game?
And if so, are you really able to animate them?

One would assume so.

I wouldn't have thought it would be too hard to animate them. Only when you have blurred / unsharp lines on a sprite is it hard to animate consistently.

The simple technique of marquee selecting parts of the sprite, moving it, filling in the gaps and tweaking to suit the relevant animation makes life so much easier, especially with speech animations.

Blinding work, by the way. I might be able to help you guys a little (drawing individual parts of scenes, eg. German cars) but I can't devote a HUGE amount of time to it, what with uni course work. And I just aquired a Gamecube: time seems to be suddenly flying past. Erk.
-- Interference

"Wasting people's valuable time since 1984"


ScottDoom

I told Wesley to draw the characters as best as he could, but to make sure that he would still be able to animate them. After I described what I wanted and he showed me them, I asked him if he would be able to animate them, because I too had some doubts. He said it would be easy, and hopefully we'll have some animations soon (this weekend, perhaps).

InCreator, if you'd like to help out with background objects that'd be great, or maybe even inventory object icons. Right now I'm attempting to draw a background, but I don't know how it'll turn out. I'll also be making the GUI later. We're doing 800x600 resolution because that's the only resolution the characters will fit in. So if you have some free time, I'd like to see what you can do.

We're not a very fast-paced group. Although we have a lot of free time, we like to devote it to other things. Well, for me, I don't play video games or watch TV. I'd rather make video games, than play them. However, my two companions like to occupy their time with other things. So therefore we don't need the background art to be produced at a very fast rate.

InCreator

Actually, it was Interference, who offered help, but what the hell, I can give a hand too, if needed. Just tell what do you need... and parameters (image attributes and color depth).

I'm a WW2 fan, as long as human being can be a fan of a such as terrible thing as war is. It's just my favourite history subject. So --

I've tried to fo WWII game too, a year ago or so, it was about conspiracy to aquire ...erm how is it in english?... this hard or heavy water used for making nuclear bombs and so. And main character (Allies spy) was involved into stopping it, infiltrating nazi camp. Well, at some point I stopped it, because my drawing skill boosted up and I started to use 3ds max 3-d scenes in my games.

ScottDoom

Hah hah. You're right, it was Interference. The first part of his message said "Quote from InCreator," so that's why I said you rather than him.

I wouldn't want to drag you into our project, but if you really want to help then I won't refuse. Heh heh.

I'll tell both of you exactly what we'll we need first, but right now I have to go to work so I'll give you the information later.

Interference

Quote from: ScottDoom on Fri 12/12/2003 01:27:20
Hah hah. You're right, it was Interference. The first part of his message said "Quote from InCreator," so that's why I said you rather than him.

I wouldn't want to drag you into our project, but if you really want to help then I won't refuse. Heh heh.

I'll tell both of you exactly what we'll we need first, but right now I have to go to work so I'll give you the information later.

Well, *that* was confusing.

Yeah, ok. I'll give this a try. I don't have 'net access in my student house so I doubt you'll want to wait until Tuesday to see what I can do so I'm downloading some pictures of the vehicles you mentioned and I'll have a shot at drawing them in PSP over the weekend and I'll post 'em here on Monday, unless you'd prefer them in the Critic's Lounge or something.
-- Interference

"Wasting people's valuable time since 1984"


ScottDoom

Actually, I set up a forum for the game. http://raj.fragism.com/ If you go there and register, I'll add you to the Developers group so you can post whatever you do there. I have also posted more information there that you might need.

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