Futuristic FPS under way at Syel-Group (IMAGE INTENSIVE)

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I’ve finally gotten around to posting this topic for our game dev.

First, an introduction: We at Syel-Group are a small team of free time game developers with big goals. We are currently in the design, planning, and pre production stage of our first game [Name yet to be determined, suggestions welcome]. Our team consists of five continuous members, and a couple of project by project members:

Alex: Graphic Designer/3D artist from Holland, currently working for Grafipoint, a graphic design company that does vehicles, signs, and websites (Grafipoint)

Jasper: Composer/modeler/texturer/rigger/animator from Northern California, currently freelancing for us. (site)

Gray: Concept artist/Co-project lead/3D artist from Marin, California. Co-Founded Syel with me a year ago. Site

Me (Dakota): Concept artist/Unity Developer/3D artist/level designer from Marin, California. Co-Founded Syel with Gray a year ago.

Gabe: Programmer/(soon to be determined Unity developer) from Marin, California. I’ve known him since I lived in L.A. years and years ago.

Colin: 3D Artist/storyboard from Lutherville, Maryland. Currently finishing college. He models our weapons. )Site

Jonathan: Concept artist/storyboard from Marin, California.

(Plot removed, and out of mind, to keep us from getting distracted from gameplay. Can now be found on our website, to be updated.)

Here’s some concept sketches (I’ll be updating this a lot, UPDATED, UPDATED, UPDATED):

Here’s the In game H.U.D concept:

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Here’s the character Hardsuit sketch:

Here’s the CATT (Compact Armed Tactical Transport) sketches:

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Idea quickly rendered in SketchUp. To be finalized in Blender.

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The CATT is our game’s Warthog equivalent. There are three versions: one with mounted machine gun, one transport (shown), and one pickup truck type (with a pickup truck type bed in the back, instead of being covered). High speed, high maneuverability, and large obstacle crossing abilities were the driving factor behind the use of independently sprung tracks.

The suit is a little weird shaped because it was based on a really lame human figure. We also have sketches for a couple of vehicles (the ATT (Armed Tactical Transport) and the CATT (Compact Armed Tactical Transport), and are working on getting the 5,000 foot long interstellar hyperspace jumpship laid out (it’s a refitted tin can transport vessel).

Terrain Pre Alpha demo available! [Click to play!]

I hope to get more information, pictures of models, and sketches available to you soon!

Check out our Blog for more updates on Plot, music, and design! Blog

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Oh, UPDATED!

What do you think of the CATT?

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Ummmm… it’s really hard to comment, it’s not exactly a game is it? Maybe you should wait a bit aye?

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Okay - I’ll rise…

The Good: You got organized and got people working together on a project. Excellent. It’s one of the hardest things to do and you did it!

The Bad: The game concept is very Deja Vu. I’ve seen this type of game, setting, character a million times and of course it’s going to draw comparisons with Halo, so I’m going to go all EA on you and ask one question.

Why?

The Ugly: William Burroughs once wrote, “People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people”. Here’s mine - not just to you, but to everyone. Scope your first projects to attainable goals. You will not make a Halo/GTA/Mario killer first time out with a few people.

Example. A good friend of mine runs Q Games out in Tokyo. They’ve been up and running for a long time and with great people. I talked to him a few years ago about what they were doing and the goals were ambitious. Cut a few years later they are now respected worldwide for creating unique games with small teams. This is a one guy with coming on 20 years industry experience in a team of other similarly experienced people.

What’s great about the current gaming climate is that there is a huge and wide market out there. For every GTA there is Peggle. I personally get just as much fun playing a casual game as playing the latest console releases. We now have platforms like iPhone that have opened up to indie developers and given them a great distribution channel.

Like I say - you got organised. There are a million people with ‘the best game ever’ inside their head that never get organised and commit themselves to making it. You guys did that - just please think about what you as a team have the capacity to create as a first project.

The moral is that you have to build on experience. If you go out to kill a giant first time out, you will get crushed.

Wishing you the best of luck.

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Yeah, I know. I’ve been given this advice before. It’s not new.

The thing is, we’re not in this for the money, per say. We’re in it for the experience, and getting out ideas from paper to playable game, not just for the “we’re here to make the most awesome game ever”, but that would be good.

We’re here for fun. For the adventure of trying to make a AAA quality title game with a few people.

We’re making this for fun. If it is a huge success (we hope it will be), we’ll be happy, and a bit surprised.

Once we get a plauyable alpha (aiming for the end of this month, but unlikely), we’ll be able to say “Great. We made a simple FPS multiplayer game, with a couple weapons and a map. Now lets move on.” With a loose time frame, and no office or employee expenses, we aren’t committing lots of money to something that’s probably doomed to fail.

So, basicly, we’re making this for fun, and if it flops, we have it set up so that we’re not out more than hobby dollars (everyone here is working on this as if it were a personal hoby project, so we only pay them if we make anything off it. They’re here for fun, not profit), and if it’s a success, we have a solution for that, too.

Thanks for the advice, I hope to get more comments here when I post more picutres of sketches and models, and videos of animations.

Thanks!

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I still think you should’ve waited a bit so you made more impact, but thats jsut my opinion :wink:

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I agree. Working with groups is hard. But if you’re dead set on doing this, I think you can, but discard the story for now. Just work hard on getting stunning gameplay, because I can see from your sketches your graphics will not blow people away (no offense). Gotta float before you can swim.

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Okey dokey! Thanks!

Actually, the plot is somewhat irrelevant for the time being.

Hmm… Can’t we have our graphics our way? We’re making this for fun, to make it how we want it, not specifically as a for profit venture (although profit would be nice). Anyhow, none of these were done by real artists, just sketches by Gray. The end result will be awesome (check Colin’s site, better than that quality)!

I got tired of waiting to make an announcement. Too much waiting.

We’ll have more sketches and some pics of models here soon, so just be patient yo!

About our graphics: What’s wrong with 'em? It’s a style we like, and they’re only sketches for crying out loud! We won’t have revolutionary graphics (because we can’t afford what multi billion dollar corporations can),or probably even a revolutionary plot. We already knew this when we started. What we will have is an interesting project to work on (and maybe something different in the way of story gameplay and style).

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Nothings “wrong” with them. Sketches are just sketches… especially if their main intent was some form of a visual guide for your team and not specifically for public interest, which is what I’m assuming.

I won’t sit here and tell you to make something simpler. It sounds like your team’s goals wouldn’t be served by doing that anyway. The best way to fail at a project besides shooting to high, is setting the project up on something no one on the team is even slightly interested in making. Just be realistic on what you can achieve, and take your time. You may not finish the game, but you will gain valuable experiences during the process.

Good Luck!

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No offense, but I really hope you’re not the “official PR person” you come across as rude and obnoxious, it’s no wonder why you’re not getting the comments you’re seeking. The good folks here tried to voice some opinions on what little you have and you castigate them for doing so. Good luck in the project man.

For future reference, it shouldn’t take 10megs to show 2 grayscale images, there’s a function in Photoshop called “save for web” use it.

P.S A Large part of the game industry is based on patience, you release info when there’s ‘enough’ to show, so you can gain interest and momentum. Promising ‘more’ rarely intrigues.

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About that, I get really irritated when people on forums don’t even bother to say something as simple as “Nice idea.”, it’s a little pet peeve.

Thanks for the comments, folks! I really appreciate the suggestions.

I’ll be posting some new stuff here soon, and fixing the images. Sorry about those. I just put them quickly on my FTP at the resolution I scanned them at (I had to send them to someone, and I wanted high quality, so that it could be an accurate replica of the original, and not lose any quality.).

I’ve been experiencing slowdowns recently, and really neded to get something out there, anything out there. It was getting too stuffy, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, this project is one for fun (I’ve said it before, right?), but we will be able to finish it, at least as a limited multiplayer FPS. It’s like my dad not letting me make a drivable 2/5 scale tank, I could make it, but he doesn’t want me to fail and be dissappointed.

Thanks!

– Dakota (“The crappiest PR operson ever!” :wink: )

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Don’t know if there’s really more needs for comments and so on at this point, but I thought “whatever”. Instead of focusing on singular qualities or the “lack of them” (story, concept art, whatnot…) I think people in general, and much more so in game development, have to step back a bit and THINK. From this new, less intrusive viewpoint I at least see a community that is growing really fast and trying to match up with the old legends and old ideals that have been set in the industry/medium. Everyone’s so edgy they’re tip-toe’ing around these issues. In my humble opinion it’s great to see individuals hooking up, working together to first of all break the barrier between established professionals and amateurs with all the tools necessary to shift the balance even for the tiniest bit. As the concept has been outlined by Dakta I don’t think it’s competing on the mainstream-retail market. Yes, it has been done, and yes, you need pseudo-fascist connections to get out on the store shelves, and yes you need shitloads of experience to hype up your product. However, by the growing number of capable amateurs and their EXPOSED work (however bad, however good) we as a community will gain a vital influence on the coming generation of games, especially in those areas where indie games have a much stronger foothold than 50€ mass-marketed ones. Digital distribution, economical recession and tighter budgets in general all favor small indie teams, and consumers are also opening their eyes toward different and new ideas in the medium. Indies have the upper hand in the battle today so we should all play the cards right. When the economy turns back to “normal” the corporations will once again have market control in a way that they are now losing grip of.
So, to summarize my thoughts, we need people like Dakta who say “Hey EA, screw you! We can do Dead Space too!” (or similar) as much as we need interesting gameplay ideas that are completely, or mostly, unrelated to the traditional video game canon. Just my thought, mind you. Good luck, Dakta. Keep working and read less what others say, although they of course often have valuable input.

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Thanks! I think you’re one of the few people here who actually gets me and my team! It’s nice to know that somebody does. Also, well put. While EA has the money/time/experience to pull amazing games out their ass in minimum times, with maximum graphics, we’re going the long, slow, crazy way about it. Hopefully in the end, we’ll have a moderately fun (if not innovative, compelling, graphically amazing, or otherwise different/better) game, and we’ll be able to say “I made that!” Thanks!

Hopefully this weekend I’ll have the other vehicle sketches out to you folks, and by the next weekend maybe a playable vehicle demo! Around this time (weekend), I will also have weapon sketches, most likely a handgun and an assault rifle.

Dunno 'bout you, but I’m going to have to agree that I put this out there without much to show, although the harsh words of “promising more rarely intrigues”, however true, aren’t very encouraging.

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Well, I really hope you will be able to finish your project.

Your project seems to be long to complete.

So I have a suggestion: keep the morale of your team high creating many project milestones.
This way you divide your project by several small sub-projects.

Delivering these sub-projects will give your team a great satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

Good luck

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Yep. That’s what we’ll be doing.

I’ve updated some stuff, so check it out. Maybe I’ll have a simple demo up soon too.

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Bump bump bump!

Updated!

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Well, the drawings are pretty cool! :smile:

Good luck on your project.

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But wait! I have a webplayer now…

I don’t currently have time to incorporate the example model of the CATT into the scene, but I will have it in there fairly soon…

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I think there is too much fog, it’s hard to see anything.

Also, I couldn’t tried that much as I fell off the island and I didn’t respawn.

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Nice stuffs.

But hope that it can realised into 3D more…