Might have bitten off more than I can chew

News & General Discussion
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Hello everyone, longtime lurker, first time poster… I think… if not first poster than at least very infrequent poster. I’ve been wanting to build games since I was eight years old and discovered a tile scrolling engine for QBasic on DOS 5.0. Well, I finally got the kick in the pants to get started. A co-worker and I were talking about hobbies, and I suggested he take up building a game. He said it was way too hard, and that he couldn’t make good graphics. I told him for a small hobbyist game using pre-built assets would make it easier, as he would just have to develop his scripts and import the assets and then a bit more elbow grease to get a minimally viable product.

Well he turned the tables on me and bet me lunch that I couldn’t produce a minimally viable product in 6 weeks. The goal is a single level of a larger RPG that is Diablo styled (top down view, point and click movement, etc…). I’ve been listening to YouTube tutorials, and it doesn’t seem like it would be too bad to create a 30 - 60 minute demo level. I have 6 weeks to pull this off and the biggest question I have is whether or not it can be done.

The minimum requirements are: combat, inventory system, particle effects / animation, pathing mobs, and NPCs with dialogue. I’d like to create some scripts to implement quests as well. If possible, I’d like this demo to be my first learning project that I then can use to develop a fully featured game with about 15-25 hours of playable content.

How crazy am I?

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https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/31419

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On a scale from 1 to crazy, you are leaning closer to the crazy side.

Lets just say I hope you didn’t bet a lot of money or anything embarassing on this one.

That being said, it’s not impossible, just improbable given your skill level. Being crazy is the first step to being a designer

What is your experience level programming wise? This will go more easily depending on how much skill you are starting with.

Your best bet would be to “sketch” out the idea, either on paper, or on most designer’s here’s favorite weapon, a whiteboard, and figure out what your pieces are, and how to design each piece to work the way you want it to

Heh, thats a good plan too, as long as his friend doesn’t know the Asset store exists.

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Holy smokes… $30 and I have the basic framework already developed? It seems too good to be true, but I think I will pick this up and check it out.

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I’m a BI Developer by day, so I am pretty familiar with C# and T-SQL, as well as databases and such. The only bet is lunch, so $10 total. I’ve dabbled in Unity before and followed along with some of the video demos for Unity 4. I’ll be doing sketches of things such as the layout of the level, the different GUI screens I want to include, but mainly, the whole goal is to get some assets from the asset store, code the mechanics, and come up with a minimally viable product (ie, a user can start it up, play for 20 minutes, kill some baddies, get some loot, and experience some story).

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OK, I gotcha now, you got some skills

But I find the idea of buying like 30 bucks in assets to avoid buying lunch kinda funny. I feel like maybe you should set your budget to be less than the cost of lunch, so at least if he does end up buying you lunch, you break even, and if he doesn’t you aren’t out a ton of money, and the cost of lunch, ha ha

That being said, I’m sure there are some decent cheap or free assets on the asset store that could help you on your quest.

Well, In your sketch up process, I’d say in addition to sketching out the shapes of levels, you figure out what all the discreet moving parts you’ll need to make are and how they’ll work, so for example, if you are doing an RPG, perhaps you’ll want to know what screens you want to have, so say a menu screen and a gameplay screen. If you are going the diablo route, that means the gameplay and fighting happen on the same screen, and if I remember correctly, the status screen in that game was real time, so you’ll want to figure out how to do that.

One tip I can give you that will save you from spending 6 weeks on one thing alone, don’t bother with trying to do a Diablo style inventory. TRUST ME. it is a bigger pain in the ass than it’s worth. Just save yourself some time and go with a more traditional inventory system. That is something you are really gonna have to keep in the back of your head with this short of a development cycle, cutting down scope in the name of getting something playable that demonstrates your core mechanics.

And then you’ll want to figure out just the general design stuff, like what stats are you gonna use, and how are they gonna interact. This part requires a ton of math. Of course, I think in terms of the more traditional turn based RPG and don’t know how Diablo does it, but I still suspect that they probably use dirived stats and such. These are the parts of the design that some people overlook.

Regardless of what happens, I’d be interested in seeing how this bet turns out

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It is possible to implement a prototype for something like this in 2 weeks from scratch (low poly 3d graphics)

3…4 weeks.

If you want to make everything yourself, then the odds are strongly in favor of your coworker. You need at least a month to get used to the engine + experience with 3d modling, drawing, etc + programming skills. Oh, right, and you’ll need to work on that full day, every day, including weekends. Spare time after work won’t be enough.

However, if you don’t want to make everything yourself, then you can buy several frameworks from asset store and base your project off them. In that case, making what you wanted is plausible.

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@jseymour84 I know the feeling (of bitting more than you can chew)… After all, I’ve spent over a year building a level editor with Quake/Doom style triggers for my upcoming 3d platformer so players can make their own levels as well.

Anyway, this isn’t too crazy. If you could do it full-time (8-10 h/day), it’d be probably done in two or three weeks even if you started from scratch. Though since you probably have a day job, you’d need to use asset store framework to kickstart your project (pun unintended). Good news is that hack’n’slash is a popular genre so finding a nice framework would be easy. Though the most time consuming thing is always making content. Not talking about art here (though it pertains to it as well), but level building.

Given the fact that you probably will do it on the weekends/after work and the fact you’d use a framework (by the way, the one suggested by @Martin_H is a very good one - haven’t used it, but I have a friend who did), I’d say it’ll take 5-5.5 weeks where most you’ll spent making a cool level and skills (unless you want to go with built-in skills).

Of course if you were to actually release it, better find some artist and make him or her replace all the graphics with custom ones so for potential Greenlight voters it wouldn’t be so obvious (code assets are far less noticeable than audio or graphics ones).

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Frameworks are great for this. However in order to use a framework you need to have a solid understanding of how the engine works.

If the OP was a veteran I would say go for it. For a first game learning the engine my money is on the friend.

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I am certainly not planning on releasing this project. More just looking to learn the process behind the game development mystery so using frameworks is not out of the question. If I enjoy the process and I win the bet, I probably will put more effort into learning and maybe a year or two from now release something. Given my work life schedule I can reasonably put in about 15-20 hours a week, so that would be 90 to 120 hours of effort.

If I can produce something playable then that’s a win, even if it is just 30 minutes of content. If not, well, I learned that I am not cut out to be a game developer. There is a lot of great advice in this thread, and some great resources. If you all don’t mind, I’d like to keep updating this thread with my progress and such (unless that would run me afoul of the rules).

Well now, off to read tutorials. For inventory, I was planning on a very simple inventory system: a head slot, a chest slot, a leg slot, a main hand and an offhand slot, and 6 “pack” slots that can hold any item. Would that be too much considering the scope or better yet, is there a framework I can borrow for a simple inventory system?

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https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/51078 a free option, no comment on the quality.

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Well I mean, if you just made a “character” class that included those slots, as well as all the other stuff you need for your character like stats and related assets like character model and such, then made an item class for stuff in your inventory, then just have an enum in the item class for different stuff like armor, weapons, consumables, I feel like maybe from that you could build the type of thing you are trying to do, at least, thats how I would do it off the top of my head

I was just saying do the more simple Final Fantasy style inventory instead of doing the like, complex Diablo inventory where size and weight and all that comes into play. Just a list of items you have that you can select stuff from, much easier, ha ha

I don’t know if you’ll get 30 minutes of content in 6 weeks, but I bet you could at least have a playable prototype. I built a final project game over an entire semester in college and that was me and 3 other people, and that had MAYBE 15 minutes of gameplay.

But a good portion of it worked, and it serves as a nice prototype for our idea.

Instead of focusing on how many minutes of gameplay, focus on how many of the core mechanics you can get working, and make different rooms to test different ideas or something, then design something once you’ve got the core components working

Perhaps you should have bet him that you could make a 2D platformer, that would have been an easy lunch, ha ha

Also, don’t put all your chickens in one basket over a hairbrained bet, even if you lose this bet, which the odds are not in your favor, maybe you might still have something to offer to the game design world. Just take it one step at a time and see what you think. I’d definitely like to hear who wins

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Look, answer would remain the same. If you know the engine, 2…4 weeks… meaning 112…420 hours - you can do that from scratch. The whole thing.

If you don’t know the engine, your coworker is more likely to win, unless you get lucky and find the right framework straightaway.

There’s probably a framework, if you want to do that yourself, you’ll need a crash course into unity ui system, unity component system, canvas components, and the like. I would start with walking/interaction mechanics and leave UI for later. Also decide whether you want 2d or 3d.

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If you use any asset store items or pre-made frameworks/assets then I would say you’ve cheated in the bet. As you can pretty much buy everything you need in the asset store (obviously you need to put things together, but still).

I would say that MVP can be achieved if you’re reasonably experienced in Unity Development, can be a jack-of-all-trades (basic graphics only since its an MVP), and have a good amount of time set aside each week. If you were brand new to game development I would say it’s quite unlikely to be achieved without any cheating.

Then again, the judgement of “Minimum Viable Product” really differs from person to person.

If I were to bet though I’d bet against you, unless you’re very quick at learning and also very dedicated (which not many people are).

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This reads to me like the whole point of the bet was to prove that the assetstore fills the gaps for solo indies:

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Doable, especially when you’ve got a good foundation of real-world C# knowledge. Also disappointed there wasn’t anything embarrassing on the line.

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Not being able to produce something like this in 6 weeks, especially from scratch with little prior experience, does not mean you’re not cut out to be a game developer. It just means you need some time to practice. So even if you lose the bet it costs nothing but time to stay on the path for awhile and see what you can do.

And it’s good to see a fellow BI developer - don’t run across too many of us in this world.

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MVP for RPG doesn’t have a time quota. So MVP = minimum viable product. Yeah - I’m betting on the other guy also, unless you use an asset - which I don’t think is cheating.
But since this is a learning experience more than anything - the bet is just a motivator - I would think mvp for the rpg doesn’t involve any graphics at all - meaning only cubes and spheres and planes.
@Gigiwoo is resident mvp expert, so maybe he can input some knowledge for this rpg mvp.

Of the items listed here I think some can be reduced in scope detail and others scratched completely for mvp.
Combat - basically 2-3 animations and two types of characters - cube is player character, sphere is enemy.
Animations - idle, walk/run, melee attack. On death disappear.
Inventory system - ? over my head :sweat_smile: however I think being able to switch out one item for another would classify as mvp for an inventory system.
Scratch particles - not needed for mvp
pathing mobs ? - not mvp
For mvp 1 npc that can have one conversation with the player character.
For mvp 1 quest - retrieve the cup from the bushes.

Isn’t this really how it should be done for scoping a mvp?
However - with the frameworks mentioned above - they really already have systems in place that go beyond mvp.
Sounds fun!

So - yes please keep us updated. :wink:

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If you want to code it all yourself, here is a tutorial series that will get you started. You’ll probably have to downgrade to an older version of Unity since it’s a few years out-of-date.

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In 6 weeks…?

If perchance you want my advice, save yourself now. (Unless you’re ok with this game taking longer than you expect)

This has classic 1st game mistake written all over it, underestimate production time.

Inventory system, fighting, dialogue. These encompass a lot of different subjects. The real problem here, are the bugs & glitches, that’s what will slow you down, because it’s the first time you’ll be dealing with this, is it not? … if so, expect problems! :B

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