Well, since the forum is on a bit of a gamemaking spree lately, I decided I might as well post my stuff here.
Basically, it's a platformer engine for a lil' game I'm planning to do. Very very unpolished/unfinished yet, so far you can only jump and run, without any graphics other than a happy face and black squares (though they would be rather simple to implement - if I could sprite at all) and a bit stuttery collisions.
However, I am pretty satisfied with it, since, for once, it's made on pure GML, and has very flexible a movement state calculation system, that would also be easy to expand. I actually plan the game to be quite a bit more complex than most 'formers, and also have quite a complex plot, but I just thought it would be best to just get the basics up and running.

Have a screenie: (For the pre-alpha demo, scroll down)

Yeah, the collisions are a bit off at the moment, but it's definitely a nice start.
I'll be interested to see what direction you're going in as far as gameplay. Have you got any thoughts on that yet?

Thoughts?

The design doc is nearly ten pages long by now, good fellow (c wat I dit thar?). I basically can't think out a feature without writing a big rant about it. The outline is actually rather simple:

-Movement is entirely handled through the arrow keys. Character can crouch, but not crouchwalk.

-Actions are based off 3 buttons: fire, melee and a general "use/activate".

-Player can carry up to 4 weapons, one of each kind (sidearm, automatic, short range, explosive).

-It is possible to fire while jumping, but not while crouching.

-Character always haves 100 max hp. It is possible to reduce damage taken with armor upgrades, though.

-Parts of the character's power armor are upgradeable, but it is not possible to max out all of them on a normal playthrough. So you'll have to choose between, say, a good defense stat or higher running speed.

-Complex, but straightforward levels: the player just needs to go from point A to Point B, occasionally fighting a boss when he gets there. Several branching paths and optional/secret areas appear on each one, but it is not necessary to explore them all (though rewards come for those who do).

-Enemies are able to follow the player around, to a certain degree, and keep track of where they’ve last seen him.

-Ammo can be obtained from defeating enemies, but not the weapons themselves: they must be found around the level;

-Each enemy is a potential threat: they will not usually come in large numbers, but even the weaker ones can defeat the player if engaged recklessly.

-Several objects can be interacted with: logbooks can be picked up and read, data terminals can be activated to add items to the “extras” menu, and many other apparently meaningless items can influence the plot in ways that are not immediately apparent to the player;




...Ok, forget what I said about it being simple, even the tl;dr version is quite a rant.

This bit is most immediately interesting to me!
When you said you were planning for it to be complex, I assumed you meant in gameplay, but a more plot orientated game would be most excellent.

I'd also love to see the full design doc, if you fancy showing it off for us.

That's exactly what it is. You see, I have not the programming expertise or resources to make a snazzy physics-based game, nor am I able to come up with some brand new awesome gameplay mechanic to revolutionize everything.
I am, however, not too shabby at writing, and have thought up a plot I'm rather satisfied with. "Story-driven" is the keyword for what I'm planning.




>.>
<.<

I figure there's no reason not to do so. Just be warned that it is downright amazingly confusing, due to my slightly extremely haphazard/nonlinear way of coming up with ideas. PM'ing it now.

What about aesthetics?

I'm sure these things will come in time.
It seems to me that both lonely devs and players should read up on how quick beginnings work.

It's good to see so many people sharing their projects here!
Rather inspiring, I must say.
If I can, I'm hoping to have a pre-prototype of an idea I've been cooking up within the next week.

Condensed the quadruple post into this:

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A few excerpts from the design doc:




As to the technical aspects, well, I'm no artist, so I'm not too confident on deciding things such as color palettes (though, as I said, I'm aiming for a bit of dark undertone) or sprite size (though I wanted it not to be too small, so more details can be shown on each character). Currently, I'm using a 32x64 rectangle to define the size of a human, but I'm not sure if that's the ideal option.

...............................................................................


And then, by using a bit of formatting magic, I managed to transform a preposterous triple post into a mere slightly outrageous double. Cheers.

Maybe some of you will like to know that I fixed the stuttery collisions. It was quite a noobish error, I was using point-to-point position checking whereas rectangles were much more efficient. But anyways.

As promised, the rant:

I am, in some ways, quite obsessed with gaming. Over the years, by playing games over and over again (my current record being Bioshock, with seven complete playthroughs), I noticed a few patterns. Some games, independent of genre, felt similar to each other, while others, maybe even if made by the same studio, seemed to need to be placed on wholly different categories. This led me, after some time of thinking while sitting on a green beanbag, to conclude that what defines a game is not so much its genre or postproduction/finishing work, but the idea from which it originates.

Allow me to elaborate:

A game begins on a simple idea. Depending on what such idea is, the game may develop into a myriad of different genres and settings. In my experience, there are three possible concepts a game might be born from:

-A story. Such games are highly plot-dependant, and rely heavily on having believable characters and a setting that makes sense. Normally, they have few or no revolutionary gameplay additions, but the immersion and the curiosity as to how the plot will develop keep the audience interested. This kind of game is, in a sense, closer to a book or movie than a toy. Notable examples include Bioshock, Half-Life, and so on.

-A mechanic. These games originate from an innovative concept, and develop into it. They are the closest ones to interactive toys, as their main guideline is exploring the different possibilities of usage of the said mechanic. These are games such as Portal, Mario Galaxy, and our very own CC.

-A genre. A game with this origin focuses not so much on showing something that has never been seen before, but rather focuses on a kind of gameplay (FPS, fighting, etc) and polishes it as much as possible. Most of them do not have a particularly strong story or anything really innovative, but the solid gameplay elements and/or artwork of the game make it popular. These are ones like Gears of War and Starcraft.


But what am I getting at with all that ranting? Well, it's, quite simply, my own choice as to which kind I am going to make. A game based on a mechanic requires a lot of creativity and high technical expertise, so as to translate the said mechanic into code (and even come up with it in the first place!). A game based on a genre requires a strong team of both coders and artists, to polish each and every aspect of gameplay. A story-based one, however, requires only the imagination to come up with a neat story, and the linguistic ability to write it down! Storytelling is something natural to the human mind, and, as such, considerably more consistent to do once you sit down and think about it a bit. So you can guess my choice of origin, can't you?


^Golly this was ranty and most likely unnecessary. But I spent half an hour writing it and hell if I'm not going to post it.


Oh, and today's mah birthday. I'd go eat some cake, but apparently-
<.<
>.>
It's a lie.




Oh, and here is the original post, just in case:


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So, gentlemen, I am in need of a spriter. Most of the game's basics have been set up, therefore art is what I'm looking into now.

And I ask you, good fellows of the DRFF, is anyone here up to the task? 'tis not an easy one, be warned, as I plan on making this rather a big project with lots of content. As in, LOTS of content.

So, either submit your curriculum vitae or just PM me or post here saying "I wanna be in your project", and we'll see how the thing carries on.


tl;dr: I need a spriter. Anyone here wants the job?

This is why I hate being busy- no opportunity to get into an awesome game project.
*sigh*

Anyway, I'd love to see how this turns out!
I hope this game still has a good plot; most games with "nonlinear" plot can't have anything but a lame old backstory since the world is so malleable; nothing else works out!

If you want someone to help you you might want to talk about palettes, sprite sizes, animations, time frames, or any other limitations or expectations.

If you don't need a good or reliable spriter, I might have time during winter break- and I would most certainly enjoy having a chance to work with you.

Totally agree with you on that. However, I spent quite some time working on the cohesion of the whole thing (though I still have to put quite a lot of the details on paper) as well as dealing with all the loose ends I could find, so I think it's not too shabby a story right now.




Thanks a lot for the offer, I think our styles might jive. I'll send you some of the particulars so you can get a look at which kind of mess you're getting yourself into.






Ah yes, the technical details. Very well, let's see if I can cover the subject without ranting again...

- The world tileset will be made of 32x32 squares, with 32x64 being about the size of a human.

- I'm aiming for a slightly cartoonish style, as in detailed characters and environments, but slightly bigger faces so as to better portray expression, and so on. Prom's concept art proportions, in a way.

- Game Maker, thankfully, works with 32-bit graphics, so there's no need to follow too strict a palette. However, it might be worth mentioning that the game is somewhat dark, with most of the levels taking place at either dawn or twilight, or inside artificially-lit bunkers.

- Animations... well, this is where things start to get complicated. Pretty much all enemies in the game (and there are at least 10) have at least the basic movement positions (idle, walk, jump, shoot etc), and the bosses I thought up present quite a big variety of stances and actions, so the sheer amount of images needed might be a bit absurd.

- As to the timeframe, well, I've just entered summer break, so I'll have two free months to waste on this. After that, development might slow down a bit, but I'm really compromised to take the project to the end.

Same here. I can help out if you want, with two spriters the work would be finished quicker, although you might need to coordinate styles and such.

Yeah, keeping styles coherent within a team is something I think would be a bit too much for my social management skills. I'm trying to keep things simple here.

Fair enough, good luck.