Any budding game designers on CA?

[Jason Manley]

I am considering personally running an activity for ca related to game design. Are any of you more heavily focused in that direction that might like to participate on the gameplay design side if we did a community activity like that? I am thinking of doing something very casual in terms of gameplay which we could use as the foundation for another new activity group here on CA.

It is my opinion that concept artists must take a personal interest in game design as a whole...especially those looking to work in the field. However, I know there are a lot of game loving peeps around here and have some plans for the site which could help sharpen those skills....as well as help out CA with some new worthwhile activities.

The game design activity will be a private group until it is ready to show the community here.

Thoughts?


Jason

[s.ketch]

I have ideas for games, I want to flesh them out a bit and use them as a background for my portfolio. I think something like a community design thing would be cool if it were like a CHOW. Who doesn't have an idea for the perfect game they'd like to play?

[Aphotic Phoenix]

I generally scheme up pen and paper RPG games ideas/campaigns. Would those work as well or is this meant to be purely video game related?

[Jason Manley]

RPG is may be a first project will be actually...very casual. I wanna start small and see how the response is for the new activity as we push through it.

This will be a community project...not one where you are doing your own secret games (though that could be the next stage of this kind of a thing). I want to baby step. Keep those secret games safe (or cranked away on in your wee hours).


Jason

[Zapp!]

what kind of skill level would you need to be? I'd be interested but I don't if I'm good enough yet.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Post edit... (I'm at work, so I'm a bit distracted and not really laying my questions out very coherently)

Well it was really more a question about style of planning and areas of focus for this activity would be using. There are some similarities in creating a TT RPG and a video game RPG, which most likely won't matter but was a curiosity.

For example you can approach building an RPG in at least three ways:
1) Tool box...basically setting, and rules for character creation, weapon types and usage, etc.
2) Sandbox...above but with a bit more meta plot, and perhaps some major NPC's
3) Campaign...above but with more NPC's, specific plots points and locations.

Major differences between a TT RPG and a video game RPG is that the plot is less linear, and the players generally create the major characters. You can try to be as linear as you want, but creative roleplaying groups tend to derail the plot train, and sometimes in ways that are too interesting to pass up.

Example: You create world X, and country Y is in the midst of a civil war (meta plot because the players can't change that). Your plot is that the player characters are eventually enlisted by faction A as...spies, with an eventual objective of Z. Now, in the perfect pen and paper world your players will be content to simply be spies and complete objective Z...but sometimes they eventually conspire to hijack a submarine and become pirates (this has happened minus the being spies originally part), or become double agents, etc, en route to objective Z, and will under penalty of death (or threat of quitting) derail your plot plans in sometimes deliciously interesting ways. (That's actually what I love about TT RPG's) They'll still hit the major plot points, but in a much different way than you expected.

Thus I guess I'm just curious as to what/how many aspects of game design these activities would focus on? Game style, setting, plot, rule/system creation, etc?

[petitemistress]

I've gamedesigned/co-gamedesigned a couple of simple games, (one to be published in a couple of months actually! ) and I have a genuine interest in this field (read a lot about it and try to practice it), so I'd love to help out/or play along, depending on what this is all about.

[Jason Manley]

We've set up a new private forums...if enough people are interested we will open it up and give it a shot. it will be the foundations of a whole new world on ca and so there are many aspects which will be flushed out including story, gameplay, mechanics, etc...

To those who do wish to participate as time goes on, if you are not serious about it, then please don't ask. This is a real effort to do something good in this community. If it works, we have a whole host of directions we can go...if not...if peeps arent interested..then no worries and its back to work on the other educational stuff.

We have mods who want to help already.

It will be broken down into a few parts.

We will start with research and foundation idea development for the activity. This will help figure out how the team works together and what the dynamic is. I think it is going to be fun and I think we will all learn a lot.


Jason

[Hyskoa]

Main problem I think that we'll have too many people willing to draw stuff and nobody to program the backend. Which leaves you options like a flashgame or programs like rpgmaker2K.
Ofcourse a 2D side-scrolling flashgame would be the best option as seen in maplestory, allows room for a lot of designers while requiring minimal programming as long as you don't go online.

Or what else might be possible is have a MUD or browser based game where the graphics are animated/non animated jpg's.

[Choob]

I'm not experienced at all with programming, but like Hyskoa said, I'd be perfectly happy to draw stuff.

I got into concept art as a whole to end up doing game concept art, and there's loads of other people on the site with the same dream.

I'd love to get involved, but we'll probably end up with a bunch of artists unsure on how to get an actual game going.

Nice idea Jason.

[Dan!]

yes, I would love to participate.

[yoitisi]

For those interested, please be aware we are taking this project seriously. We are not aiming for anything too ambitious or rocket-science for this first run, and have set a few very realistic goals for this project. As Jason said, if succesful it could add a whole new dimension to our community, so that maybe in the future we might do even bigger stuff.

I will be directly involved with this project alongside Jason, as will a few other people we will select to help out with moderating and guiding the process. We are currently setting things up and we will be ready to roll soon, so stay tuned and drop a note in here if you are interested in joining in on this.

Should be fun to see where we can go with our community

[daestwen]

I'm actually a lot more comfortable with Game Design than I am with concept art. It's what I'm trained in, so I am totally down.

[hala]

I'm not very experienced with this on a proffessional level, but I would love to learn. It's a passion of mine, especially the RPG world. Would I be able to participate as well? (I don't know much about programing, only a bit of Flash knowledge , but 2d wise I'd love to help, or even the non-art parts of game planning...) Either way, it's a good idea for the community and look forward to seeing how this turns out.

[Slash]

I've co-designed a few games, casual and fps. I love game design, and its where i want to end up after i've paid my dues as a concept artists for a bunch of years. I'd love to join a game design activity here, but i'm keeping my stacks of more or less polished game ideas firmly locked away.

[George Abraham]

This could also be an opportunity for muso's, soundFX or loop heads to try and take a whack at game sound.

Having looked around at the idea this week regarding adventure games, it's too much work for one person, but I have noticed some stuff.

How do you start a game concept from scratch?

Faced with tools and a game engine made me wonder how doing such a thing should be approached.

I kind of left it at, you need to write a story first, The story should have impact other than things happening, It should have a punch line or an ending that makes the whole thing make sense, just like any movie. The story should have a message or something to leave behind as a work of art in and of itself.

How to translate that into tools and art should come second, you could try it the other way around by just starting but I don’t know it will fly quite the same way, maybe in developing the game engine but if we are working with an existing toolset then it needs to start with concepting story.

I would love to know how these companies go through a creative process in arriving with a finished product.

[Goog]

Yes, I have recently become obsessed with game design, as I am thoroughly invigorated by the prospect of being able to understand, and the consequently manipulate, human interaction. This is why I have decided to apply to (and will be attending) Ringling's Game art and Design major instead of CA's atelier, because i want to learn how to write scripts using several different engines in order to facilitate this desire. If there is anything I can do, please let me know!

[GhostValkyrie]

I'm actually working on a kid's learning game(Flash) right now for TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas. We plan to achieve distribution this fall. I've created over 20+ Illustrator based assets for the game thus far. I only wish I would have been brought on sooner so I could have done all the artwork. I'm very interested and serious.

[Jason Manley]

cool. Glad there are some interested. Ill let this thread go a few days and then we can see how many actually want to participate. We will make some choices at that point.

There are some things we can have beginners doing. You could learn along the way.

Regarding the comment about Ringling. I havent checked who they have there teaching game design but Id bet money you are better off at the art institutes in SF who has a proven program. We have hired a grip of folks from that spot over the years. Ringling....Ill believe that one when I see it. Last I heard they only had the cryengine...which is only used by about a handful video game developers out there...Unreal would have been a far better choice given its widespread usage and thus upportunity for the graduates.


Jason

[Pezz]

I would love to contribute to something like this... however I have only my 2D artwork. I would very much love to learn other aspects of the creative process though, and gain experience in many aspects. Hopefully I can contribute properly to this and not be inhibited by my inexperience as a lowly fine arts major he he.

[Jason Rainville]

I am interested in game design, but mostly tabletop rpg kinda stuff. For critiques on that I usually head to rpgnet for critiques, but I suppose I could always post here too.

EDIT: never mind, I misunderstood the activity.

[Shmaba]

This would be awesome. I'm not much of a programmer though (still trying to wrap my head around that stuff ) but I've done some homemade tabletop games.
I'm currently a Game Art & Design Major in Ringling and we are using the newest version of the Unreal Engine now.

[Goog]

Regarding the comment about Ringling. I havent checked who they have there teaching game design but Id bet money you are better off at the art institutes in SF who has a proven program. We have hired a grip of folks from that spot over the years. Ringling....Ill believe that one when I see it. Last I heard they only had the cryengine...which is only used by about a handful video game developers out there...Unreal would have been a far better choice given its widespread usage and thus upportunity for the graduates.


Jason

Well, it would actually be less expensive for me to attend Ringling, as I have both full Bright Futures (state scholarship, I live about an hour away from ringling), and I received the Presidential scholarship (which I must thank you for, wouldn't have gotten it if it wasn't for CA) as well as several grants. Also, I have seen several of the portfolios of second year students, and the majority of the scripting was done using Unreal. I do realize that it is a new program, and I am sure there are still several kinks for them to work out. However I am confident that those issues are nothing hard work on my part can't solve.

[Moai]

I have no programming experience, but in years past I've spent a lot of time playing with the various RPGMaker programs, so I've designed a few monsters and dungeons and whatnot. One of my ongoing projects at the moment is actually digging up those old games of mine and doing some concept art for them, as a sort of portfolio-building exercise. I'm very interested in this new activity, and would be happy to provide art and possibly some design ideas.

[Hyskoa]

It's settled, it'll be a development team with 4000 conceptartists, 2000 3D modellers and half a programmer.

[Meloncov]

I'd participate as a modeler.

[Darjan Jurincic]

i would love to give something back to this community.
so count me in if u need any concept art (characters/creatures).
this is awesome!

[Sorknes]

Hello.

I'm not sure which elements of game design you're looking for, but over the years I've worked with content. As in everything from dialouge to what to find in chests and how often, potion making, helping out with storymaking, characters/races, checking out damage and modifiers, etc. And concept art, obviously.

There is no room left on my plate for programming (I was going to start learning that... like years ago... and then found out that there simply isn't enough time for me to delve properly into this), so in that area I would be of no use.

My husband and I actually kind of met over this kind of work, and over the years we've worked on tributes/mods, our own ideas and also been in very early testing stages for games modified, coming out or been put on the shelves, mostly in a volunteer capacity.

[Jason Manley]

nice..glad to see Ringling made a better decision. Then I hope to see great things coming from that program.

as far as the rest...

Gameplay areas we would focus on.

A. Idea Development and Research
B. Gameplay and Story

1. Systems and Mechanics
2. Character/Class upgrade trees
3. Item Trees
4. Ability Trees
5. In Game Economy and Loot
6. Story and Narrative
7. Dialogue and NPC creation
8. Tools
9. Competitive Analysis
10. Puzzles
11. Look Listen Feel and Play Balancing
etc...

We could use help on all levels actually...research could be done by anyone with an interest and will be done by all. That is the first steps in making new worlds and we will be taking an in depth look at what has been done in the past as well as what is happening now.

I have invited a few of the professional game designers I know to participate as moderators. I will see what they say and let you all know.

[Jason Manley]

It's settled, it'll be a development team with 4000 conceptartists, 2000 3D modellers and half a programmer.

With the system that I've been working on for CA, that team would totally kicks ass.