Indie game development.

Hey,

Recently i've been seriously looking for a full blown project to do, and i was talking to sinbad the other week about game development etc.

Well, i really want to start an indie game development "company" (i didn't want to use that word as such because it wouldn't exactly be a company) but basically if 2D boy (http://2dboy.com/) can create something, if metanet software (http://www.metanetsoftware.com/) can make stuff, i can make stuff too, and there is nothing stopping me, other than the fact im about as creative with ideas as a slice of carrot.

So basically. Here's my plan thus far:
The game will be a 2D game, therefore artwork is easy, programming is relatively easy, and flexibility and gameplay oriented development is top of the list. I've got a half developed engine written in C# using XNA as it is by far the easiest way for indie developers to break onto the scene, particularly XBOX games, and Windows phone 7 games. (But i mainly want to focus on systems with a tactile response such as the gamepad and keyboards we all know). Now, here's the good part we can do practically ANYTHING you think of as the engine is completely built from the ground up to a kind of plug in able specification. I've tried to design it so that it can do pretty much anything i want it to do.

All i need is ideas. In the next few weeks i'm going to set up a domain name, and a forum/website a subversion repository and i'll get the ball rolling, for now however, post any ideas you might like to see and what you think makes a good indie game. or even what makes a good game for that matter.

The project will require a minimum toolset, if you'll be interested in helping out you can start acquiring these:
http://www.microsoft.com/express/Downloads/#2010-Visual-CS/ Visual Studio 2010 (minimum express) C#.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/netframework/aa569263 .NET 4 redist.
http://create.msdn.com/en-us/resources/downloads XNA Game Studio 4 (recommend acquiring this at the same time as getting the windows phone development kit. also get some knowledge using XACT3 if you can)
http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.html TortoiseSVN (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion for more information)

Photoshop is going to be essential if you want to create artwork for the game but i can't advise on how you acquire this (really you need to have paid): however gimp is free and NEARLY as good. http://www.gimp.org

The engine itself is still under development, trying to get the collision detection down to a realistic simulation is pretty hard. But im getting there. I'll post some videos or something soon so you can see it in action.

What type of thing are you going for here?

I'd like a genre before I start brainstorming. Also, Sam Kehoe would be a magnificent addition to this process.

Artwork = his playtime. I highly recommend you contact him about this.

Ahh screw it. I really wanna get some more experience using C++ therefore i'm gonna look at a source mod.

Post here: what makes a truly original and thought provoking game?

Definitely down for this. Will edit this post later on when I have more time but for now just letting you know this sounds awesome.

awesome. Gonna put up a webserver when i get home tommorow and start playing around with the code. If anyone is interested in helping i suggest checking out the Valve hammer editor. == and blender for artwork an modelling. Think of some ideas. Think of some story lines think of something off the wall, maybe something that isn't a conventional source mod. Im so up for this i'm going to devote my final project for the year to part of this and i know some people at dmu game art design who will definitely be down for doing some artwork if they have the time. Will post details relatively soon,

I'm not good at coding/pc shizzle at all really But I could come up with ideas/ things that make a game fun. I'll post here with my suggestions later Looking forward to seeing this game and it's concepts/ art ect though

As you probably know - I can't help at all besides dishing out some concepts and ideas.

Hope this goes somewhere though, would be pretty sweet.

Concept and ideas is what we need .

just gonna set up a web server

http://hippo.servegame.com

get the ideas rolling.

aPhRo_ wrote:http://hippo.servegame.com

get the ideas rolling.

Sweet, I'll just sign up now.

Alright yeah - I've signed up. Will try to contribute in the form of just straight-up ideas and concepts when I get the chance.

Nice.

sweet,

the server is down at the moment, trying to upgrade the http server to use the latest versions of everything so i can install a wiki for the group work I got at uni.

bump

back online

Sweet, I have got a few ideas of a game, probably keeping up with the thriller type of game. I'll post them on the forum if you want? Or are you set with the idea you posted at first ? I don't mind either way, the scene you described opens up a lot of potential plots.

Randle wrote:Sweet, I have got a few ideas of a game, probably keeping up with the thriller type of game. I'll post them on the forum if you want? Or are you set with the idea you posted at first ? I don't mind either way, the scene you described opens up a lot of potential plots.

the more ideas the better mate that was just an initial idea as it was the only thing i could think of to start with,

bump back online after downtimr