PARPG - old school isometric 2d RPG looking for 3d artist
Team name:
PARPG development team.
Project name:
PARPG - post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. It's just a working title at the moment and we can reconsider it later.
Brief description:
I had plans for such a project for quite some time but it was more of a vague idea than anything else. In late January 2009 I decided to start writing down my ideas for the project at a wiki. PARPG will be an old school 2d isometric roleplaying game, inspired by genre classics such as Fallout, Arcanum or Planescape: Torment.
As the project is in early concept stage, there are not many decisions set in stone yet but the following key elements have been agreed upon:
* Singleplayer RPG. No plans for multiplayer or coop support.
* Post-apocalyptic setting. Story, setting and game mechanics details get fleshed at the moment.
* Written in Python (2.5x branch). Utilizing the FIFE game engine.
* Isometric 2d perspective instead of going for full 3d engine complexity.
* Open source code and asset licensing.
* Open development philosophy. Public development wiki and forums. Anonymous SVN checkout.
* Meaningful choices and consequences. Multiple paths to complete quests, including non-violent ways.
* Tactical, turnbased combat.
* Emphasis on well-written detailed branching tree dialogue.
More information about agreed upon setting aspects and game mechanics can be found here:
* Game mechanics draft.
* Setting draft.
Target aim:
Open source & non profit. Actual code and content licensing (which open source license to choose) will be discussed among the team.
Compensation:
Although there are no intentions to make monetary profit with the project, there are a bunch of potential reasons for developers to get involved:
* Improving your personal portfolio with the demo version of the game to land a job in the industry. The demo will be a one town / location version of the game. Creating such a demo will be an already quite challenging task and it gives us the chance to test concepts in a smaller scale undertaking first before trying to tackle a full game. A more detailed description of the demo concept can be found at the project wiki.
* Love for old school isometric 2d RPGs.
* Enthusiasm for open source game development.
* Gaining game development experience by working on a team project.
Technology:
Targeted platforms: Linux, Win32. Mac support would be a plus but judging from the project that I worked on in the past, finding a Mac maintainer can be a lot of hassle so supporting Macintosh systems is not a must.
Programming language: Python 2.5x; not all important Python libraries have been ported to Py3k yet so we'll stick to the 2.5 branch for now. Time-critical code can be written in C++. C++ <> Python bindings are supported by FIFE via SWIG.
Engine: FIFE. I was personally involved in the FIFE project for three years and although the engine is not feature-complete and development is currently going slow, it might be the best basis that is available for such a project. I'll elaborate on the whole engine question below.
IDE: No IDE preference from my side. There are a bunch of good free as well as commercial Python IDEs available. I can't see a good reason at the moment to agree on a single IDE that needs to be used by all programmers; so freedom of choice for you.
Talent needed:
Graphics artist
We're trying to find artists who would like to contribute in one of the following possible fields of work:
* 3d modeling: creating either organic or inorganic 3d models e.g. (non) player characters, items, weapons, etc. Blender would be the prefered tool of choice. A first rendering setup has been created and can be found in our SVN repository now.
* Concept art: visualizing characters or GUI concepts as 2d art.
Team structure:
barra - public relations, developer recruitment, infrastructure maintenance, project management.
eleazzaar - writer; worked on Silvertree and currently also contributes to FreeOrion.
icelus - engine & game programmer; worked on Silvertree in the past.
lamoot - graphics artists; helps with building up the graphics department of the project (defining guidelines for artists); he contributes to the settings discussion as well.
tie - game programmer; currently refactors the Rio de hola code to better suit our needs of PARPG.
zenbitz - Python programmer; besides his plans to contribute as game programmer, he currently fleshes out the mechanics of PARPG. zenbitz comes from a pen & paper RPG background.
A listing of my prior game development experience, skills and the specific tasks I'll take over in the development of PARPG can be found at my personal user page at the project wiki.
Website:
Blog
Forums
IRC logs
Subversion repository
Trac - task tracker
Wiki
Contact:
I prefer contact via email: martin DOT vohland AT googlemail DOT com
In case you can't get in contact with me via mail for whatever reason there may be, you can PM me here as well. However personal message notification via email does not seem to work so it could take a day or two until I spot your PM.
Previous Work by Team:
I was one of the founders of the game engine project FIFE and worked on it for three full years from 2005-2008. My main tasks were recruitment of new developers, public relations (posting news at the blog, staying in contact with the community), infrastructure maintenance (wiki, SVN, trac) as well as maintaining the FIFE Win32 compile SDK - an easy to use all-in-one package to build FIFE from source on Windows systems.
More information about FIFE can be obtained from one of the old help wanted postings I posted here at gamedev.net. Furthermore the FIFE wiki is a great starting point as well.
Additional Info:
Here are some screenshots of the FIFE techdemo "Rio de hola":
Some screenshots of Unknown Horizons - a FIFE-based realtime strategy game currently in development:
Feedback:
Any kind of feedback is appreciated. We're more than willing to learn from any mistake so shoot, we can take it :-)
PARPG development team.
Project name:
PARPG - post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. It's just a working title at the moment and we can reconsider it later.
Brief description:
I had plans for such a project for quite some time but it was more of a vague idea than anything else. In late January 2009 I decided to start writing down my ideas for the project at a wiki. PARPG will be an old school 2d isometric roleplaying game, inspired by genre classics such as Fallout, Arcanum or Planescape: Torment.
As the project is in early concept stage, there are not many decisions set in stone yet but the following key elements have been agreed upon:
* Singleplayer RPG. No plans for multiplayer or coop support.
* Post-apocalyptic setting. Story, setting and game mechanics details get fleshed at the moment.
* Written in Python (2.5x branch). Utilizing the FIFE game engine.
* Isometric 2d perspective instead of going for full 3d engine complexity.
* Open source code and asset licensing.
* Open development philosophy. Public development wiki and forums. Anonymous SVN checkout.
* Meaningful choices and consequences. Multiple paths to complete quests, including non-violent ways.
* Tactical, turnbased combat.
* Emphasis on well-written detailed branching tree dialogue.
More information about agreed upon setting aspects and game mechanics can be found here:
* Game mechanics draft.
* Setting draft.
Target aim:
Open source & non profit. Actual code and content licensing (which open source license to choose) will be discussed among the team.
Compensation:
Although there are no intentions to make monetary profit with the project, there are a bunch of potential reasons for developers to get involved:
* Improving your personal portfolio with the demo version of the game to land a job in the industry. The demo will be a one town / location version of the game. Creating such a demo will be an already quite challenging task and it gives us the chance to test concepts in a smaller scale undertaking first before trying to tackle a full game. A more detailed description of the demo concept can be found at the project wiki.
* Love for old school isometric 2d RPGs.
* Enthusiasm for open source game development.
* Gaining game development experience by working on a team project.
Technology:
Targeted platforms: Linux, Win32. Mac support would be a plus but judging from the project that I worked on in the past, finding a Mac maintainer can be a lot of hassle so supporting Macintosh systems is not a must.
Programming language: Python 2.5x; not all important Python libraries have been ported to Py3k yet so we'll stick to the 2.5 branch for now. Time-critical code can be written in C++. C++ <> Python bindings are supported by FIFE via SWIG.
Engine: FIFE. I was personally involved in the FIFE project for three years and although the engine is not feature-complete and development is currently going slow, it might be the best basis that is available for such a project. I'll elaborate on the whole engine question below.
IDE: No IDE preference from my side. There are a bunch of good free as well as commercial Python IDEs available. I can't see a good reason at the moment to agree on a single IDE that needs to be used by all programmers; so freedom of choice for you.
Talent needed:
Graphics artist
We're trying to find artists who would like to contribute in one of the following possible fields of work:
* 3d modeling: creating either organic or inorganic 3d models e.g. (non) player characters, items, weapons, etc. Blender would be the prefered tool of choice. A first rendering setup has been created and can be found in our SVN repository now.
* Concept art: visualizing characters or GUI concepts as 2d art.
Team structure:
barra - public relations, developer recruitment, infrastructure maintenance, project management.
eleazzaar - writer; worked on Silvertree and currently also contributes to FreeOrion.
icelus - engine & game programmer; worked on Silvertree in the past.
lamoot - graphics artists; helps with building up the graphics department of the project (defining guidelines for artists); he contributes to the settings discussion as well.
tie - game programmer; currently refactors the Rio de hola code to better suit our needs of PARPG.
zenbitz - Python programmer; besides his plans to contribute as game programmer, he currently fleshes out the mechanics of PARPG. zenbitz comes from a pen & paper RPG background.
A listing of my prior game development experience, skills and the specific tasks I'll take over in the development of PARPG can be found at my personal user page at the project wiki.
Website:
Blog
Forums
IRC logs
Subversion repository
Trac - task tracker
Wiki
Contact:
I prefer contact via email: martin DOT vohland AT googlemail DOT com
In case you can't get in contact with me via mail for whatever reason there may be, you can PM me here as well. However personal message notification via email does not seem to work so it could take a day or two until I spot your PM.
Previous Work by Team:
I was one of the founders of the game engine project FIFE and worked on it for three full years from 2005-2008. My main tasks were recruitment of new developers, public relations (posting news at the blog, staying in contact with the community), infrastructure maintenance (wiki, SVN, trac) as well as maintaining the FIFE Win32 compile SDK - an easy to use all-in-one package to build FIFE from source on Windows systems.
More information about FIFE can be obtained from one of the old help wanted postings I posted here at gamedev.net. Furthermore the FIFE wiki is a great starting point as well.
Additional Info:
Here are some screenshots of the FIFE techdemo "Rio de hola":
Some screenshots of Unknown Horizons - a FIFE-based realtime strategy game currently in development:
Feedback:
Any kind of feedback is appreciated. We're more than willing to learn from any mistake so shoot, we can take it :-)
Replies
Well, there are a lot of things I like about your project though. I just comleted an isometric adventure game for school and come from a PnP background. I'm allso from the geografical setting you have chosen for the game, so thats awesome to!
Well, anyway - if there is any cool updates feel more than free to give me a PM or something.
There are some drafts of concept art at our forums, check out this thread:
http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=125.0
We're planning to update the blog today. We haven't done so for over 3 weeks as I've been abroad and sick when I got back. Finally feeling better now :-)
This time there are a couple of good things to report but we've also encountered setbacks. Our lead programmer icelus decided to step down from his position; therefore the plans for the rather sophisticated story engine / AI system are on ice for the time being. Fortunately a new programmer decided to get involved in the project and is now actively working on PARPG.
One of our graphics artists came up with some first concept art and the programmers continued to explore FIFE and took a couple of testing screenshots while doing so. Zenbitz wrote down his ideas about encumbrance, inventory and clothing and I've made a personal promise :-)
You can read about all details at the PARPG development blog: http://blog.parpg.net/2009/04/dont-look-back-into-the-sun
Here's a little teaser:
(an old-school isometric rpg would be an awesome break from 1st and 3rd person shooters:poly114b:))
I can make a few models for you if you want to get a grasp of what my abilities are. I am currently a student, but still have a good amount of free time to work on a project. Any questions just email me at cg3deli@gmail.com
Ps: Here is a small portfolio I made for you
An important advantage of blog updates on a weekly basis is that the number of topics to cover can be usually kept rather low. This time well take a look into the latest map tests and present Zenbitzs thoughts how combat could work in PARPG. Last but not least well show you how a piece of concept art evolves from a mere black and white sketch to a colorized version of it and finally into an actual (work in progress) 3d model.
You can check out all the details at the PARPG development blog!
And here's a little teaser for you to get you excited. The other visuals can be found at the blog :-)
You can check out the whole update at the PARPG development blog.
And as special feature for this week's update: a mistery teaser :-) Want to find out what PARPG has to do with crates? Check out the full update at the blog!
While a couple of new graphics artists joined the project lately, there is still a lot of room for additional contributors. We're currently especially searching for talented artists who would like to help us with creating ground tiles for the game.
Check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
And if you want to know what all of this has to do with an upswing, here's a little pointer for you:
Read the full news update (with lots of pretty images :-)) at the PARPG development blog.
And to address the ongoing rumours: no, I haven't been struck down with one of these improvised weapons - that our new concept artist zeli created - and have been in coma for the last three weeks. I was simply busy :-)
To coordinate our efforts in the following weeks, we furthermore decided to arrange a first official developer meeting at our IRC channel. Of course community participation is appreciated as well :-)
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
On a related note: FIFE developer Cheesesucker recently rewrote major parts of the map editor tool that comes with the engine. I've personally tested it over the last couple of days and I'm truly impressed by the improved workflow and new easiness of map creation. To applaud his efforts, we've fired up the editor, loaded our PARPG test map into it and took a screenshot :-) Enjoy:
This week we're proud to report that the first audio track found its way into the game. New programmer on the team meggie implemented random NPC movement as well as switching between different maps. Maximinus was hardworking again as well, annotated the existing code in place via Epydoc, proposed a list of features for an first official release of the game and created a first simple build interieur map.
3d artist Zimble slightly updated the tile creation tutorial for users who would like to use an alternative sampling method and we're still looking for 2d & 3d artists who would like to contribute as the vast majority of our artists is currently rather occupied with real life commitments. Last but not least we finally agreed upon a date for the for the first official PARPG developer meeting: Monday, 22nd of June, 5-7PM GMT.
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
And here's your visual teaser: I wonder what might be inside this building? You can actually find out by either taking a peek at the news update or simply grab the latest version from our SVN repository and try yourself :-)
One main advantage is that we can give the community an idea where the project is hopefully moving to; on the other side there is the risk of promising but not being able to deliver later. So take the plans outlined today with a grain of salt :-) But enough of the disclaimer stuff, let's get to actual news reporting!
Due the meeting there's are a truckload of things to report. The audio department is currently working on a more Falloutesque remix of the current ingame audio track while the programmers are making their plans for a first public release of PARPG, hopefully at the end of August. Furthermore there is the need to refine the workflow of the department to the forunate recent influx of a couple of new contributors as far as programming is concerned.
Zimble wrote a tutorial how to build your own (tiled) walls of Jericho, we're trying to discover structural problems in the graphics department that hinder their efforts and the separate game mechanics testbed has been scrapped in favour of an ingame testing solution. A first promising looking story draft is in the making and we can finally offer auto-generated code documentation.
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
And what does a really cool RPG need? You're right on the spot: walls, of course! There you go:
The programming department has been busy discussing the future structure of the code and we're currently thinking about ways to utilize the Trac ticket system to cope with the influx of fresh blood lately. Furthermore we're planning to have a first programming department IRC meeting at Monday, 13th of July, 3-5PM GMT.
The graphics artists have been hardworking again and we're glad that we can show you three different nice pieces of art this time: a 3d weapon render, a death splash screen and a drawing of frozen snowy rooftops :-) Furthermore all 3d renders can be found in our extended gallery now: PARPG concept art & 3d render gallery
We're currently searching for a climatologist (amateur or professional) to find holes in our storyline proposals (how did nuclear winter happen, what kind of climate is somewhat realistic?). The writers started to moved the most important story and NPC-related pieces to the wiki so they can be reviewed there and there's also a first writing department meeting in the pipeline, scheduled for Friday, 10th of July, 4PM GMT.
We have hopefully finally fixed the Trac ticket creation issues for anonymous users and there's news to report concerning our Sourceforge registration. Yes these are actually two neverending stories :-/
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
And now enjoy the snowy rooftops of PARPG!
The programming departments' IRC meeting has been postponed but the writing and gameplay department meeting fortunately took place last Friday. We've discussed if you should be allowed to kill children in PARPG and if drugs should play a role in the game. Our artists have been incredibly busy over the course of the last week so can find a couple of new 3d renders as well as concept art drawings in our gallery now!
Proposals concerning the state of the game world as well as the what kind of characters stats should be featured in PARPG have been made. We'll have to decide between two different storyline proposals and mvBarracuda found out that pursuing a degree in modern history is not that useless!
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
And we're glad that Seothen, a new concept artist on the team, took his time to portray the reaction of the common community member when he hears about PARPG for the first time and smiles in excitement and confidence in the project (this is for you, you know who you are):
A bunch of problems popped up in the programming department but we can hopefully cope with all of them in the long run nevertheless. The graphics department has been really hardworking lately and new concept art and renders have found their way into our wiki gallery.
The writing department will flesh out their storyline proposal until the end of August and we'll decide upon one proposal within one week after that. Last but not least PARPG can be finally found at sourceforge now as well: http://sourceforge.net/projects/parpg/
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
If you wonder about the lack of news updates lately: I felt a bit like looked into a really icy cavern. Like that one:
For the ones who wondered: our SVN directory structure recently changed a bit, so if you got problems checking out the latest files, head over the blog and read about the details. The new programmers on the team are making good progress when it comes to cleaning up the code base and we've agreed upon establishing a so called board of programmers. The three members of the board will decide about the future direction of the department and act as mediators in cases where we can't agree upon a certain approach.
In the graphics department there are a bunch of new 3d models and pieces of concept art to take a look at. We've got an animated player character now (idle & walk animations), others have designed Soviet soldiers and improvised crossbows. Furthermore one of the concept artists created a first GUI mockup while another one created a bunch of props that could be pretty useful when it's cold outside.
Zenbitz came up with proposals for levelless character progression, ways how to play the game as well a state of the world setting.
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
So having at least a solid idea of the next steps to tackle, I can only say: forward march!
We were holding an IRC meeting of the entire development team recently to discuss the plans for our first public release. This update is mainly a rephrased extended version of the meeting notes. If you're interested in all the small details, check out the full meeting log!
One of the new programmers on the team, or1andov, started to work on the dialog engine of PARPG and you can already see some first results of his work in our SVN repository. Caution: beware of his funny dialog humour despite still missing API documentation and general code annotations :-)
Furthermore we'll agreed upon the code-related features that we would like to implement for techdemo 1 as well about the graphics assets that we would like to show. The graphics assets will mainly depend on the writing of the two quests that are planned for this first official PARPG release. If you're interested in the details, check out the threads about these quests at the writing board of the forums!
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
That's all for today. Next news update scheduled for Monday, 19th of October. See you then :-) And now: animation gallore by Sirren.
Caution: the rendered outlines just look odd in the GIF version. The ingame version looks way better.
Forums are at http://forums.parpg.net/
Btw, I can see mvBarracuda posting quite a lot here.
It would be nice if you guys can give a little feedback or hints. Finding programmers is quite easy compared to finding artists. Any hints or tips are really appreciated!
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. Two weeks have passed since the last regular one and I have to say that they were rather eventful for the development team. Let's jump into the news update right away.
Our first press release has been a success and the project got featured in the news section of old school Fallout fansite NMA.
Our programmers finally managed to customize the FIFE map editor for our purposes and a first map editor tutorial is in the making. Zenbitz and shevegen stepped up in the meanwhile and have started to flesh out the quests that are planned for our first techdemo release.
A fellow Russian Flash programmer created a web application to test Sirren's rendered characters and Fallout modding veteran Continuum modeled a junkhouse residing on a fundament of barrels. In the meanwhile Sirren created his first building for the upcoming techdemo as well: a guard tower.
Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog.
That's all for today. Next news update scheduled for Monday, 2nd of November. See you then :-)
And here's your visual teaser for today's update. A quite nice looking guard character portrait created by concept artist JustinOperable:
You'll generate a lot more interest if you post in an area that will be seen by a lot more of our members.
Post more
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=66954