Ringo Staging Area...

[pjcast]

I have not uploaded any information yet.. But, feel free to post ideas as nothing has been finalized yet, except some rough concepts - which I will soon upload, when I have a free moment.

[mysterycoder]

Just curious, are you planning on making this a 3D or a 2D game?

[pjcast]

Defintely 3D

[mysterycoder]

Sweet , I call not-doing-art  :wink:

[pjcast]

Haha...

I will be doing some hand drawings soon, and scan them.. hopefully they don't look too crappy

[FuSiON]

I have an artist who needs something to do . We both (I'm the programmer) tried to make a game before but decided to join another game instead of doing our own wich seems to be a better idea to get something *real* done. And since WGE looks very interesting we want to help with Ringo and WGE development as much as possible.

So my question is how far are drawings and the rough concepts? Maybe we could refine them together until we are fine with it and can start developing some graphics.

[pjcast]

Well, the drawings are some rough scketches from me.. Though, I am not a very good artist (occasionally I have some inspiration). It would be sweet to pick up some more team members.

I have to go to school in a bit, but, I will post later tonite, or tomorrow about my ideas. Perhaps, your artists could generate some ideas off those. In anycase, I only have the main character picked out, not much else done yet, so am open to any type of characters, ideas.

[OvermindDL1]

How about a Battlezone 2'ish game.  3D, people, tracked tanks, hover tanks, aircraft, water units, etc...  Maybe throw in space craft as well.  It is a first-person strategy, about the only one ever done well

[FuSiON]

We should think about the scope of the game. Battlezone 2 was a game made by a big studio with propably a huge team behind it and  this propably took them over a year or two to make that game. Maybe the programming side of that game isn't that hard to complete, the artistic side is much much more complex. In a game like this you can't get away with cartoony textures and unrealistic looking characters/vehicles.

I think a jump and run game like Super Mario or something similar is much more doable. We can have a cartoony environment, we don't need to draw realistic textures make the best looking animations and the best special effects, it just needs to fit the theme. This is because I think we won't find that many artists to tackle a battlezone kind of game and it takes alot of time to do all graphics. This is a test we made with a space station for the game we originaly tried to do. The model was not the problem but doing the textures takes alot of time since we both are self taught and still are learning.  

[pjcast]

I can't run that demo right now, I am on linux, but will try later.

As for the game, yes, something of Battlezone sounds much to large at this point. I am definitely looking at doing something like SMB and Sonic the hedgehodge type of action/platform/cartoony games. Something like, an SMB world map, where you walk around to pick the level you want to enter, and then a cross between Sonic and mario But, with the main character a "ring" - hence ringo

Basically, my sister and brother-n-law's company makes a lawn game: www.prowashers.com. And, the chracter of "Ringo" is based off of an 'washer' come to life.. I was thinking something like legs made out of springs, attached to the washer, which would make him kinda bouncy.. But, he could do acrobatic flips, and movements through the air.. And, he would venture around (mainly) a giganic lawn type of setting (as, he is just a small washer). Some views of the plain washers: http://stores.prowashers.com/default.htm (I like the yellow ones)...

Of course, there would be enemies and goals, and at the end of each level, I was thinking a big washer bucket (as part of the lawn game) where you would do some big jump, and try to land in the center..

Anyway, my idea may sound a bit silly, and I am really open to ideas. But, I would like to incorportae the washer element into it somehow.. As, I am trying to help spread the word a bit more about here lawn game, for perhaps more sells - currently, it is limited mostly to the US midwest. However, i don't want to sacrifice the playability and fun factor.. if the idea is undoable, I wouldn't want to do it.. but, i think it could be fun.

[OvermindDL1]

Don't bother with BZ2's demo, it is not indicitive of the actual game.  Your concept sounds nice for a start game though, BZ2 does have a good bit of art and it's code is simple in comparison to the amount of art.  I need to take a look at that washer's game, sounds interesting.

[pjcast]

I finally managed to check out that space statin. Pretty cool style, though a little dark, and kind of hard to see.

[FuSiON]

Thanks We intended actually to use more bright Backgrounds but I couldn't find any better at that time. And bumping up the ambient light made the scene feel less "spacy" than it is now.

[FuSiON]

I talked a bit with my artist about we couldn't really imagine how the character should look like so I've drawn a little picture how we think he could look like.

http://www.malwasandres.de/ringo.jpg (don't laugh to hard )

Ignore the colors they are just to make the parts look a little different.
We should talk about what types of enemies we will have and the ways to bring them down .

Now, about the levels. How will they be constructed? A good way in my oppinion is just to divide the world into different layers. We could have a main layer where all the gameplay belongs and behind that layer a few decoration layers. The world could be layed out on a grid and build out of different blocks with a standard size so that they fit well together.

[pjcast]

I'm not too sure what you mean by layers. Are you talking artisticallym or for the programming side?

Even though Ringo will have elements of Mario Series, I don't think it should have lot;s of blocks like it did Instead, more colorful, with greenery like sonic.. Of course, sonic did have layers (paralax background scrolling) which is cool.

I have some rough ideas about some of the enemies, very rough, nothing for sure. Since you posted an idea (I'm not laughing, not any better then mine ) I post some work here in a bot too. So far, you washer guy looks a lot like mine, except, I envision springs for the legs.