I am taking on my first major project for a known, best selling IP and Im treading unknown waters here. I am a certified developer and have experience making/coding the usual suspects like FPS and Sidescrollers large in part because of pre-made asset implementation. However, making something like this:
…there is little to no purchasable assets or tutorials online to kickstart the workflow.
My question is this: does anyone have any suggestions on where to start building the framework for a game like this? I have art, a polished GDD with all game elements and controls schemes mapped out etc. A link to a tutorial or the like would be an amazing help. Thanks so much for your time, community!
J
PS if anyone is interested in helping out, Id be happy to share some details.
You took a contract without having the knowledge to deliver? I would honestly suggest getting out of the job now before things go badly. What you are asking is no small task, and you will be hard pressed to find a tutorial that covers the scope. Also, if you are asking people to “help out”, I would assume you mean that you would be hiring them correct? Asking people to help for free on a contract you have would be pretty unethical.
I’m not aware of any tutorials that would even remotely come close. At a glance though it’s basically just an animated board with a card system. Moving objects along those dashed lines would be pretty easy with a spline tool but there isn’t much on the asset store that would truly help with this that I recall seeing.
Uh, dude, if you’re certified with experience, you’re supposed to be able to write (a prototype for) this from scratch in your sleep. Why’d you take the contract if you weren’t certain that you can deliver it?
Take design document, break it down into pieces, implement classes for everything. Most likely you can reduce project to multiple “layers” (gui layer, art layer, board layer), and reduce interactions at “nodes” of the game to “play music/display art/show dialogue” actions. Once you have “building blocks” construct the game out of them, and create more blocks as necessary.
So, make the board displayable, then start implementing micro-objects for every displayable effect, like town lightning up, like position marker moving across the road, etc. It should be fairly similar to making a highly customized gui applicaiton in something like Qt.
Why is it that fellow game devs often assume the worst in those asking for help?
@zombiegorilla I never said there was a contract. I would have been more detailed on my personal affairs had I known that was needed to ask a question on a forum. I know the Author and he loves the game that I have been designing for almost a year now. Its ready for prototyping. I make games and produce music professionally so I want to try and make this. That simple.
@neginfinity thanks so much for the detailed response. I have been creating game assets like the world map and cards etc but my hurdle is wiring it all together. If this were a basic FPS I could “build this in my sleep.” I have 20 years in music and Im signed to a major publishing house and I still run into things I cant do in my sleep. For me, that is a sign of growth, not something I should be ashamed of.
To you both, yes there’s a budget but not from the author. That would come after a prototype. I would love to meet someone that feels they can HELP with this and I can pay them as we go. I say HELP because I’m not just an “idea man.”
Either way, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate any guidance I can find.
Almost always leading with something like “best selling known IP” would indicate a that it was contract/paid work or at least a serious commercial venture. With no other description of the nature of the project, you can understand why people would draw that conclusion. Whether intentional to garner interest, or simply on oversight, it is misleading. When asking for help, be clear on the nature of what you are asking for.
That said, requests for collaboration or seeking staff go in either the collaboration or job offering sub-forums.
