I’ve been curious for a long time on what makes FLOSS games fail in the areas of User Experience/Interface (UX, UI) and graphics, visual coherency, why they push second-hand gfx next to ace grade gfx. In my search for an answer I decided to start a project of my own to gather some first hand experience.

The aim for this project will be to collect as much content as possible for a small and simple game, at the same time; avoid neglecting any UI or UX related issue. No need for ace grade gfx just visual coherency. To be able to finish this project in a reasonable time frame, I first decided on what type of game and which kind of theme it would have. My decision are based on personal preferences what kind of “simple” game would I enjoy? It fell down to a Tactical Role-Playing Game in a fantasy setting, like Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis, Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. Mind you, I’m only gathering content for it no code what so ever, that is for a willing developer to do if he or she find the time and will to do so.

Here I’ll give to you the mockup game;

Realp - Book of Tiny Bits

In my estimation I already got enough game content to be able to make a game mechanics test. And this in a very short time span. The question now is what do lead developers and project leaders miss when they do the same job. My answers at this moment would be; Time to communicate (beside the obvious; connections)  here are some questions I find important:

• How does your contributor work?
• What does he or she need, to do the things you want done?
• Are the contributor able to work independently or does he/she need continuous guidance?
  • If so how could you remedy that?

Don’t mind the 2D, it will be in 3D as might be seen in the SVN. The 2D images everywhere, is my way of communication with contributors, in this case tidbit the 3D modeller.

How did/do I go about this project?

Well to know what content you need you must decide on a couple of things, some of them I already told you about (What kind of game). To list some of these decisions, here are some of the features I have in mind;

• Procedural map generation
• Movement by points of interest
• In-game scripting of unit behaviours

These help me understand what is needed; Without them I would miss much of the small things. So I actually think of this ‘media pack’ as a full game, that way I hope it will be easier to adapt the media to other projects too.

For those who want a preview you can head over to the SVN and look at some odds and oddities pasted there. In short I’m going for a “full” media pack, doing all content that would be needed for a game

More to come soon.

Game developing with m64

m64 aka the inside man, is writing a very interesting blog, he talks at large about most things that is interesting in my opinion.  In this post he talks at large about one very interesting topic “shared worlds”,  and in a way it go along similar lines that I have previously explored. I have long been thinking about why the Open Source Gaming Scene have not come up with anything like Firefox and Open Office. And just like m64 writes it’s about projects aiming at big commercial style games that needs loads of assets from 3D models to music. And with that the painful realization that there are not enough good artists around the FOSS scene.

I also think he have hit the nail on this one too, creating a universe/world that many games can use. The trick here is to make project leaders and developers understand that you can tweak the shared objects individually to archive the glorious ‘unique’-stamp that they all seem to stick too. If you are interested in this please by all mean head over to m64’s blog and read up.

Sindwiller – the space captain or space simulator man, on how to make a (space-sim) game fun.

Another interesting blog that recently surfaced from the FGD-forum is Sindwillers rgame blog, if you want to make a space-sim game that will be fun and not like the other ones already around, I think you better have to read some of what he have to say about these kind of games. Or better up head over to the IRC channel #freegamer at freenode and hit him hard.

Timong – Dev turned composer, money raiser

Here is a real gem, Pal Zoltan Illes (sounds like a composer right?) have released his second jcrpg soundtrack. Which to my ears sounds truly fantastic in a game like jcrpg. If he manage to get the donations in he will even drop the nc part in the creative commons license which will turn this cool soundtrack very free.

Head over and donate or just listen to the fine tunes.