Game Engine

I posted your query on Twitter to see if I can get a feeler on how many local devs are using Construct 2 but I didn't receive a response. I've heard of Construct 2 but I don't think I've looked any further than its homepage, so I took a little bit of time to look into the process of making games with it via some youtube tutorials.

Place objects, drag behaviours on objects (from a big list of already made behaviours which you can adjust and fine-tune yourself), then create events and actions (for game logic and getting things to happen). Done. For anyone wanting to make 2D games without programming, it seems like a great avenue to get started. If you're a lone pixel artist (or 2D artist / illustrator) wanting to make a game on your own, I'd actually go this route than, say, Unity + Playmaker.

I haven't downloaded Construct 2 to try out stuff myself, but did you encounter any limitations or cons with it? (speed, memory footprint etc)

I have not found any real limitations other than the code it spits out is "human unreadable". Well not really it is just very time consuming if you were a developer looking to make a tweak here and there. It does come with a load of reskinable templates like flappy bird and angry bird style physics. Awesome if you just want to build a game in an afternoon.

tats cool

A pretty interesting blog post up by the developers of Tap-fu on iPhone piracy. They've been looking into how many people illegitimately downloaded their app with data captured from their scoreboard feature, and the conversion of those pirates to legitimate purchases (zero percent, unfortunately).

http://smellslikedonkey.com/wordpress/?page_id=274

They also briefly describe the pirating process , and it was surprising to read that getting a game is even easier process than purchasing it on iTunes. :/

Considering the amount of data and stats that Firemint have captured with Flight Control, I'd love to hear about any stats they have on pirated copies. I'm sure that'll definitely be an eye-opener, considering Flight Control and Real Racing are much more well known games.

A pretty good solution mentioned by the developers is that micro-transactions could help solve the problem, with developers releasing the base game for free. Hopefully Apple make some precautions so that the process of copying DLC from microtransactions isn't so easy.

Don't you mean Flash CS5 and not CS4? CS4 has been out a few years already.

Shiva is named as a competitor for Unity 3D, and the main advantage it has over it so far is that it's a Windows application.

Worth checking out..
http://www.stonetrip.com/shiva/shiva-3d-game-engine.html - website
http://developer.stonetrip.com - community and support

Shiva is an 3d authoring application for Windows with a game engine : publish game on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, PDA, Smartphone, iPhone and soon video game console...

The main difference with ShiVa resides in its innovating interface and ergonomics :
Select your modules and your workspace configuration (from 1 to 6 modules in the same window), ShiVa is designed to work by ability (a level designer will have only modules he needs)

ShiVa reviews the production process and greatly improves productivity by speeding up the development:
With a lot of little tricks like drag'n'drop (models, textures, colors, meshes, AIs, ...), auto assignment, integrated animation editor and lightmap compiler... you can focus on creation and also avoid return with DCC Tools

Devmaster details:
http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=499

There is a full version for download as well, you can't publish your game however.

.. but I'd love to know if there are any local modding groups around at the moment. Is anyone doing anything with the Unreal 3 engine? :/ The thing with modding is that it takes quite a dedicated and hard working group of people these days, and I wonder if the enormous amount of work involved required has stifled some of the enthusiasm for it.

Was there any genre / kind of mod in particular that you'd be interested in helping out in?

I was hoping for either a fps or rpg. I think finding the group is more important to me right now than the actual mod itself.

Of course I would prefer to get onboard early so I can contribute to the artistic and conceptual side of things as well.... So many things to learn and so little time.

Yeah, things sure have changed from my early modding days in quake 2. We used to do a mod in a day... lots of fun things game from that when we just said "let's make something... four hours".
Beerquake, Goo, Backward firing weapon quake... those were the days. Nowadays you need a full professional level team or people don't want to play what you've made :(

Tried checking ModDB for teams needing things you can do?
Mind you, keep your wits about you... 99.999999% of the projects there are never going to happen. It's pretty sad really :/

Ive had a look over ModDB and found a few that look interesting...a farming mod for crysis in particular.

I will look closer into these if I am unable to find a local group.

The Game in a Nut Shell<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

This game is similar to games like Dungeon-Siege or Neverwinter Nights.

You will take control of an Avatar first choosing a race either: Human, Elf, Frostal or Gnome then choose a class: Fighter, Ranger, Sage, Cleric or a Race specific class: Monk (Human), Druid (Elf), Barbarian (Frostal) or Mage (Gnome). Each class has its own set of skills and abilities which you will be able to learn and upgrade as the game progresses.

You will also choose a <?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Crystal type for your Avatar which gives your character special magic which is used in conjunction with your normal skills creating sub classes.

Lastly you would customize the appearance of your Avatar.

Once your Avatar is created you can now start to unravel the story, fight through fantastic creatures and confront challenging bosses. Playing the single player game you will meet Companions which have their own thoughts and feelings intertwining with the storyline. If you are playing the multiplayer game, you join up with others to form teams of up to four players.

The World of Manadon is made up of many islands. Each island has its own unique map and landscape, containing towns, cities, crypts, dungeons, ruins and a stunning variety of vegetation and creatures.

It will be easy to learn and simple to play, but for people that would like to spend time customizing their characters, delving into the story and completing all the quests, there will be plenty of exciting content ready to explore, enjoy and master.

The last person I need is a Story/Dialogue writer<?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

if you know of any one that might be interested in joining the group send me a mail: dragonscalered@hotmail.com

other then that it looks like Like I have most of the people I need for the moment, if you are still interested in joining you can still give me a email and we can have a chat.

Regards

WhiteFalcon.

Man you so smooth, I'm signing up get me an application. Count me in for $500. I'll contact all the people that I have got together from my post and see if they can help. Great idea.

Thankyou Mr Dogg,
 
I also would like to note that I need animators, alot of animators, anyone involved in development will recieve a top level profit share. Please express your interests.

Although it's admirable that you're starting a business and trying to get a game and developer team going (even though people know that putting money into this will be highly risky), you definately shouldn't do it with dishonest means.

The replies to the original post are dishonest. They're dishonest because they were made with the purpose of fooling people to believe that some other party is interested in investing.

All the moderators here can see it's been posted from the same computer.

 
 
No dishonesty at all I am a close of Anonymous Dogg and when he showed me his post on this site we agreed that I set up a fund raiser with my name and we agreed that he would join with me and supply me with the contacts he has attained from his post.  
This was settled at my house and he used my computer to reply to my post.  
I am a very trustable person and so is Mr Dogg. How can you tell that he used my computer? You should be able to see that his other posts were from a different location.
Anyway we have alot of people interested and we are making calls this moment in a few days we should have some more money put up and posted here for the cause.

donza2006-09-22 03:56:14

Moderators can see the ip address of posters, and when someone is setting up funding, and another replies showing interest from the same ip address, naturally there'll be suspicions.

Thats true guys!! I'm here right know we are going over the game plans, truely awesome and fantastic!! By the way my car is up for sale and im putting up another $2,000.

Have you thought about approaching the government for funding? Depending on where you are, Brisbane and Victoria may have some opportunities for you via things like the Digital Media Fund. Approach them with your proposal. I'm sure there are better ways to get funding than depending on people to chip in a few hundred bucks here and there when the cost of making games is quite high (unless you're doing something small scaled).

I definitely will inquire, the government and publishers can help me with funding especially if I have a prototype built but I am concerned with forming an organisation with numerous members ranked by means of investment. Major contributers will play a part of the development process with their input, modification suggestions and ideas. A networked organisation of more people can only mean better tittles. I'm planning on turning dreams into reality, a full time adventure that I dont want to do on my own. Hopefully after this builds up it would be great if people like yourself, Souri, would put some cash down and be included in the projects.

Hey guys/girls.
Im also a friend of Donza. I know what he plans to build will be unlike other games on the market and just by that fact i truly believe it will have a audience of its own. I know what he proposes to do will take a lot of time and hard effort, not to mention the monetary side of things. It would be very hard to estimate a dollar value on such work.
I believe, and I have discussed it with Anthony, it would be a extremely good idea and a huge help if talanted people would give their time and offort and expertise, as this would help even greater than money. I think if you are into graphic designing and games programming or have good knowledge of marketing it would be of great assistance in this project.
As I don't really have the time to put into such a huge undertaking I would most probably be only able to help through funding this project. And I will pledge up to $2000 if enough people show interest. Also the government grants are a great idea as I know they do have huge grants for new and inspiring ideas that would help the Australian economy. Although, knowing politics all too well as we all do, unless you have a uncle in politics it's quite hard to get such funding. As well as money, if you have any other ideas in which to help Anthony with this venture please do post them. Any comment is a useful comment.
And remember that new games AREN'T about to stop being created and KIDS/ADULTS will ALWAYS want and NEED new and exciting games. And the most ORIGINAL of ideas will prevail and this is most definately a ORIGINAL idea.

..............
Now that you have read my post can I suggest something to everyone here. Instead of reading these posts which takes time and then replying to them with useless info which takes more time and sometimes arguing in these posts. Why don't we all join and work on actually designing this game and save ourselves a lot of time and money and effort.

Also I would like to note: Anthony would be more than willing to share a outline of his idea with anyone genuinely interested in helping.

"Why don't we all join and work on actually designing this game and save ourselves a lot of time and money and effort."

That's the purpose of a business proposal, to interest people to do that. So far this is not being sold even better than a half life mod. It is not a professional and reliable manner to attract interest.

"Also I would like to note: Anthony would be more than willing to share a outline of his idea with anyone genuinely interested in helping."

That's a basic and expected part of attracting interest. If this where a legitimate and well managed proposal, I would be able to get an investment portfolio and proof mailed to me in hard copy form, and I would be able to request that by a phone number and name to talk to. Not an anonymous unverified string of posts on an internet forum.

Like any rational person I have a bit of healthy skepticism -- disregarding the methods employed and sheer lack of experiance, knowledge, and basic details shown, the one distinct thing that stands out to me here is that if the funding round is funneled into development, why is time/talent being asked to be donated? You're not only asking for investors, but a volunteer workforce with investment shares? That's trouble for a start. I'll be blunt, with self determined projections of "billions", this is a very poorly executed capital/investor round.

I'm sorry but an anonymous poster with only a first name to go by, and likewise other anonymous posters to pledge for them, I see no reason for people to put their money up without any idea what it's for, besides the little and vague assurances from anonymous sources.

If you're truly wanting to do a legit business proposal and wish to raise capital, I'd first suggest to get someone with experiance doing that, and do a proper legitimate capital raising round. That means business stratagems laid out, bank gaurantees arranged and formulated, and investor relations taken seriously. That does NOT mean forum postings asking people to donate time and money with no details and near child-like. I would never expect anyone to invest in something without basic service to the investors - legal counsel, open proofing, transparent agendas and guidelines, and business stratagem open and available. These are basic things to attract investors, and without them you seem amatuer at best.

I think this stratergy has potential and Anthony is intelligent with the will to succeed, if people had faith in Anthony their dreams and their ideas can become reality. I want to invest $500 and be a part of the team.

Dear J I Styles.

Just to come in a bit of defence here on Anthony's part.
Just to clarify a few things.
This post was only meant to hopefully see if anyone is actually interested in doing something as a team and if people are interested in joining. If you ned a hard copy proposal that would be sent to you by Anthony on request and anyone else who is interested may ask. It's basically a simple attemt to see if people are interested and to see what questions are raised. You raised a few good questions I must admit. Only thing being, if youre really interested in helping, youd be asking questions no slamming the whole idea. Also if you would like hard copy of the idea hed be more than pleased to send you the whole design idea as im sure but you'd most likely have to sign a formal confidentiality agreement prior to recieving this paperwork.
As you can see he hasnt given any of the ideas in here and i admit it is a bit vague actually extremely vague in the whole idea.
But please if anyone is actually interested in designing a new game and can help please put forward your name and your pledge.

Im sorry to make my post a bit vague aswel as I am typing it up and my dinner is getting cold :)
i must go now.. thankyou..

> But please if anyone is actually interested in designing a new game
> and can help please put forward your name and your pledge.

I guess I'm not clear on what you guys hope to achieve here,
seems to me that you can't be seriously looking for anyone
other than teenagers with a bit of cash to spare.

You'll likely have these kinds of responses in this thread:

(A) Those who know Anthony
(B) Those who are willing to pledge to putting money down on
    a team with people they've never met on an unspecified
    type of game with design-by-how-much-money-you-put-in
(C) Bitingly sarcastic responses
(D) People who wonder if it is a troll or scam, but can't
    resist posting anyway in case the OP is for real

(C) did certainly have some appeal, but (D) won out for me.

Personally, if I were hiring people to a team, I'd actually
use the set of people in (B) to determine who not to hire.
Do you really want people on the team who make such rash
decisions?

There are so many teams around that people don't have to
pay to join, and they only have very unrealistic goals
(to make an MMORPG) rather than extremely unrealistic
goals (to make billions of dollars from games).

Why is your idea different? You really need to sell it
to people, otherwise they'll just write the whole thing
off as a couple of kids trying to test where the edges of
reality are.

Anyway, best of luck with your venture, but I encourage
you to put some more information up (even a vauge
description of what the gameplay or business model
is that seems such a groundbreaking idea)

I have numerous "ground breaking" ideas that I have been working on for years, all with making money and the costs involved in mind. And I'm sure anyone else who wishes to be involved may also have something in mind or be able to help design a killer tittle. Thats a main purpose of team work, like they say two heads are better than one. Everyone will have a say before any work begins. But the most valuable idea that I have planned, my favourite plan to generate big income with most less difficulty, is what I am sure everyone will agree to start with. I have the skill and talent to perfect the project and any other projects we work on. To me and the people I have explained my idea to it is understandable of how much potential the idea has and not to mention how exciting and fun. The tittle needs to be built as I am 100% positive it will have a huge impact on the gaiming world and provide the planet with a new form of video game entertainment unlike anything ever imaginable.

I really am expecting responses from people who want to make some money and be involved in the establishment of a company and the development process itself. It is a dream for me to be involved in building video game so I am making this available to investors.

If you get any more "friends" to sign up to this forum just to say how great you are, I will lock this thread - so stop it. If you just continue to say how great your idea is, I will also lock this thread. You have been given valuable information so far, if you continue to just ignore it there's not point to this thread other than begging for money, and sumea isn't here for that.

And other than voice their skepticism, and by all means they should be, no one has "slammed" the idea. No one is going to give you money unless you can prove that they at least have a chance of getting it back. Unless you can do that, it's best you stop asking and go work on your plans until you can.

Look Anthony,
I think everyone is quite right in what they say.
I think you should write up a brief description of your idea, without giving specifics. It might help people to make a informed decision.
To me you sould like you are very excited about your ideas for games, and you have huge amount of faith in them, I think it is now a good idea to explain them and let people make their own decision on how exciting it really is and if they think it will succeed.

I give this thread a 3/10 while it held my attention span for its duration, it didn?t deliver nearly as well as any of the dribble I could look up on the World of Warcraft forums. However you do have the lvl 1 alts posting in support of the main person so a 3 it is.

If you do post a the brief description one of the people suggested I might perhaps consider upping that rating to perhaps a 4 or if its a good description a 5.

Donza an I have agreed to reveal some info on one of our tittles, this is not our main billion dollar maker but you have to admit it does have a kick to it. Neffy I've posted some truely fascinating info I constructed from the help of an encyclopedia to compete with the dribble on the World of Warcraft forums, maybe you can up my rating to about 6 for now.

Cyberspace, a metaphoric abstraction used in philosophy and computing, is a (virtual) reality which represents the Noosphere/Popperian Cosmology both "inside" computers and "on" computer networks.

Origins of the word
The word "cyberspace" (a portmanteau of cybernetics and space) was coined by William Gibson, the Canadian/American science fiction writer who defined its cyberpunk sub-genre, in 1982 in his novelette "Burning Chrome" in Omni magazine. It was only through its use in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, however, that the term Cyberspace gained enough recognition to became a de facto synonym for the World Wide Web during the 1990s, especially in academic circles. The portion of Neuromancer cited in this respect is usually the following:

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.
Gibson also coined the phrase Meatspace to define the state which is the opposite of Cyberspace.

Cyberspace as an Internet metaphor
While cyberspace should not be confused with the real Internet, the term is often used simply to refer to objects and identities that exist largely within the communication network itself, so that a web site, for example, might be metaphorically said to "exist in cyberspace." According to this interpretation, events taking place on the Internet are not therefore happening in the countries where the participants or the servers are physically located, but "in cyberspace". As Bruce Sterling explains:

Cyberspace is the "place" where a telephone conversation appears to occur. Not inside your actual phone, the plastic device on your desk. Not inside the other person's phone, in some other city. The place between the phones. ...in the past twenty years, this electrical "space," which was once thin and dark and one-dimensional -- little more than a narrow speaking-tube, stretching from phone to phone -- has flung itself open like a gigantic jack-inthe- box. Light has flooded upon it, the eerie light of the glowing computer screen. This dark electric netherworld has become a vast flowering electronic landscape. Since the 1960s, the world of the telephone has cross-bred itself with computers and television, and though there is still no substance to cyberspace, nothing you can handle, it has a strange kind of physicality now. It makes good sense today to talk of cyberspace as a place all its own. (introduction to The Hacker Crackdown )
The "space" in cyberspace has more in common with the abstract, mathematical meanings of the term than physical space. It doesn't have the duality of positive and negative volume (while in physical space for example a room has the negative volume of usable space delineated by positive volume of walls, Internet users cannot enter the screen and explore the unknown part of the Net as an extension of the space they're in), but spatial meaning can be attributed to the relationship between different pages (of books as well as webservers), considering the unturned pages to be somewhere "out there." The concept of cyberspace therefore refers not to the content being presented to the surfer, but rather to the possibility of surfing among different sites, with feedback loops between the user and the rest of the system creating the potential to always encounter something unknown or unexpected.

Videogames differ from text-based communication in that on-screen images are meant to be figures that actually occupy a space and the animation shows the movement of those figures. Images are supposed to form the positive volume that delineates the empty space. A game adopts the cyberspace metaphor by engaging more players in the game, and then figuratively representing them on the screen as avatars. Games don?t have to stop at the avatar-player level, but current implementations aiming for more immersive playing space (i.e. Laser tag) take the form of augmented reality rather than cyberspace, fully immersive virtual realities remaining impractical.

Although the more radical consequences of the global communication network predicted by some cyberspace proponents failed to materialize and the word lost some of its novelty appeal, it remains current as of 2006. Some virtual communities explicitly refer to the concept of cyberspace, e.g. Linden Lab calling their customers "residents" of Second Life, while all such communities can be positioned "in cyberspace" for explanatory and comparative purposes (as Sterling did in The Hacker Crackdown and many journalists afterwards), integrating the metaphor into a wider cyber-culture.

Well guys there you have it truely mind blowing, I always wanted to build the dimention CYBERSPACE, a place where you can jump into your computer and go on a movie like online adventure in the near future where anything can happen. I can tell you is that it consists of a totaly new and unique base unlike no other.

Anonymous Dogg2006-09-24 02:15:57

was that supposed to be a description of your game? because   it sounds remarkably similar (read copy and paste) to a wikipedia entry; see link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberspace

[QUOTE=Anonymous Dogg] This is not our main billion dollar maker but you have to admit it does have a kick to it. Neffy I've posted some truely fascinating info I constructed from the help of an encyclopedia to compete with the dribble on the World of Warcraft forums, maybe you can up my rating to about 6 for now.

[/QUOTE]

Yeah it is, like I said, thats my intro the breif description is at the lower part of the post. I also would like to mention this tittle may feature a fully simulated, automated talking skycar. AWESOME! Anonymous Dogg2006-09-24 04:28:15

ROFL

The length and complexity of your description made my eyes go blurry and i found my self-skipping alot of the text. You idea became lost in a blur of long brain hurting words the only one consistently catching my eye was cyber .. (hey the internet is for pron right) unfortunately I?m going to have to decrease your rating to a 1/10 after reading that.

However a talking animated skycare WHY was this brilliance not mentioned earlier in the long winded huge paragraph luckily for you I?ve decided to increase your rating up to 5/10 now.

If I keep seeing improvement you may one day reach 10 keep at it guys the power is yours !

[QUOTE=Neffy] I give this thread a 3/10 while it held my attention span for its duration, it didn?t deliver nearly as well as any of the dribble I could look up on the World of Warcraft forums. However you do have the lvl 1 alts posting in support of the main person so a 3 it is.

If you do post a the brief description one of the people suggested I might perhaps consider upping that rating to perhaps a 4 or if its a good description a 5.[/QUOTE]

rofl! Neffy delivers! this thread improves...slightly

To my 3000GT skycar I'm going to rip off the boot and install a hefty rocket engine to launch it up in orbit and also remove the rear bumper and setup a nuclear powered hyperdrive unit to get my a ass a few light years to mars avoid customs and smuggle in some illegal technoly and weapons so I can infiltrate the power station and cause some havoc. Maybe even find me a sexy outerplanet female student. Post my acheivements on an in game forum and be known as the cyberkid of cyberspace.

I hope the petrol spacestations accept eftpos.