Will there be more open projects? Approximately how long until the current project is finished?

Hi all!
I’d like to contribute to an open project but I wouldn’t want to spend time understanding the codebase if the project gets finished soon, because I’d have very little time to contribute. Are there any estimates how long until the current one is finished? Can I look forward to more open projects in the future?

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Hey @erdostamasa !

Regarding the end date for this project, I can’t say with absolute certainty (we have a lot of variables on the project) but I can tell you we are aiming for roughly creating a version we can call 1.0 at some point in April.

Then, we might still make some adjustments or small additions, after which we will put the project in “maintenance” mode and not accept new contributions, except fixes to existing bugs. You will be able to of course take it and mod it to your liking, since the code will stay online.

As if there will be more Open Projects… maybe. Probably. But not right now. We might put a few months in between this and another one.

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Thank you for the answer, @cirocontinisio ! In this case I will look into the project, maybe I can contribute something in the remaining months.

Regarding the Open Projects: I think this is a great idea and I’d love to see another project in the future:)

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Yes, definitely there is still time to go, don’t worry!
And thanks!!

@cirocontinisio We could start a forum for the second project around march. That way everyone can brainstorm better and draft a solid IP during the hiatus.

@aby_gamemaker there definitely should be a long good break after this one finishes. I wonder why you say that though. Do you feel there was not enough time to brainstorm or have a say on things? Cause I never felt more free/creative to explore “my thing” in a project before (hopefully without stepping on other people’s toes, which is my only concern on this “open” aspect). I don’t think brainstorming before the next project starts would benefit much, because this would exclude other people from the process once the project officially starts and a lot of things are always subject to change (the whole story of this project changed for example after it launched, due to community concerns). What I am enjoying more about this experience is that a lot of things take shape as we progress and have not been defined beforehand, even if people might find this confusing, this is why this project is called open: it leaves room for more contributions, in every game aspect. And there is still a lot of room for brainstorming on this one to be discussing about the next one!

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My point of view was to give room to teen enthusiasts from day one and let them get a taste of all stages of development. So instead of having dead forums for months we could keep the ideas coming and let whatever development is happening happen.
Official tag threads can resume when Unity is ready for next round of live streams.
Also we could also build libraries and tools with the whole initiative in mind in the time being.
Using the break period can make all freshers confident and maybe this way we could make a full scope title, even if rather small few years down the line.

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Why not… whoever contributes must be aware that not all of his or her contributions will make it to the game… I bet our next game’s hero soon has 20 swords but no clothes…(preliminary title: the naked junk dealer). But whatever ideas are there might be spark other ideas. Some ideas might go well with other ideas and suddenly there might be concept that Unity can’t resist making…

Yet I think it would not be clever to open up the next project before we have released this. If contributors have limited time to spend the new is always more attractive - which will make it difficult to get contributions to finish this one.

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Hahahaha this made me laugh way more than it should, :smile: thanks @Smurjo !

I understand the point of view, and I also like when beginner devs go in with a lot of enthusiasm, but in this context I think it’s a bit risky, and it might lead to a lot of burnt egos because we would never be able to accommodate all ideas.

I know on this project we are a bit tight on the concept/story/gameplay side. It’s on purpose. We are doing it because it’s already tough to coordinate like this, imagine if the whole thing was completely “designed by committee”, as they say.

One more thought: I carefully planned this project around a lot of technical requirements.
The toon shading, lowpoly, use of URP, are to lower the barrier of entry for 3D modelers.
The project is in 3D because it’s slightly easier to put together two lowpoly 3D models made by different people, than two 2D illustrations (they’d have to have the same drawing style!).
The characters use a simplified skeleton (they’re not humanoid) to simplify the animation phase for everyone.
The project is also thought with the packages that are verified as of 2019.4 in mind.
So plenty of considerations ahead of time, before even thinking of who the character is.

Aanyway, let’s finish this one first! There will be stuff to do even after we wrap a version 1.0, don’t worry!

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