Can we make our own game?

[Juce734]

Re: Can we make our own game?

GREAT post Juce!!! Business/Marketing major??

1st item on my checklist would be to find someone who is able to code, make a disc, has special type of PS, (i'm guessing to make a PS3 game?), I mean that is the foundation right, producing that prototype disc?

2nd item would be to find a graphics person, especially with your idea of making a presentation CGI trailer.

Those are the two people I would build my team around. Concepts, I know what we're looking for, I just need the people that can actually make it happen. To use my major as an analogy, I'm the Director/Writer, but I need the DP(programmer) and actor(graphics) to get the vision on film

Anyone interested?

You know, I am serious, I mean companies have more unique origin stories than this! Look no further than Jobs/Wozinak

Yeah Business Management major. Plus I work in an office where I do our labor quotes so I look over numbers often to determine costs.

Video games will have a price range that should fall between $20-$60 no matter how much your other costs are or nobody will want to purchase them.

Wish I knew how to program but I don't. It is something I almost went to a specialized school out of high school for.

You DON'T need to create the game on 360 or PS3 to begin. Make it on PC for the first few years. Let the community improve it by their own mods. If you do it right the first time no one will want to mod it, but that is highly unlikely.

(Note: Developing console games is very expensive... around $3M to $6M, PC games would more than likely cost less)

Then after it has made somewhat of a name for itself you can put out a console version. This would only involve compiling the code to the format required for whichever console. Honestly I wouldn't buy a console version of any indie football game because it would lack the depth that I want in a football game and I highly doubt would be capable of multiple league dynasties. (I.E. NFL, FBS, and FCS all in the same game at a bare minimum.) Also it would be very tedious to create a bunch of teams on a console so to get people to even use it you would need to have a PC interface to create the teams, but in a PC version of the game you could just have this built into the game.

Either by accident or on purpose EA got this somewhat right with the Sims franchise. There is such a large community for Sims mods and I think any game that is going to compete with EA Sports without the NFL or NCAA license needs to be designed with modding and customization in mind because most people are going to want to replicate real life football leagues accurately.

Also if you produce it on console only you will be competing with Madden and NCAA. Not very good odds to make any money. If you produce it on PC you will be competing with the Black College Football Experience and Madden 08... much better odds of succeeding!!

I agree make it for computer first. This would be the easiest and cheapest way to do it plus you don't have to sacrifice any quality to do so. Once it works great on computer and you turn a profit you can reinvest into putting the game out on consoles then. Whether you do another kickstarter fund.

By the time this project is done we may be into our next generation of consoles so trying to shoot for a PS3 or XBox360 release may not pay off at all.

So in my opinion your best bet would be to go the PC route for initial release.

[Cryolemon]

Re: Can we make our own game?

GREAT post Juce!!! Business/Marketing major??

1st item on my checklist would be to find someone who is able to code, make a disc, has special type of PS, (i'm guessing to make a PS3 game?), I mean that is the foundation right, producing that prototype disc?

It's easy enough to develop for the 360 (XNA is so easy to use it's unreal). PS3 is a lot of hassle to develop for by all accounts.

I majored in Games Computing at college, so I can code a fair bit. Mostly in C# / XNA, which is obviously a 360 or PC thing.

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

It's easy enough to develop for the 360 (XNA is so easy to use it's unreal). PS3 is a lot of hassle to develop for by all accounts.

I majored in Games Computing at college, so I can code a fair bit. Mostly in C# / XNA, which is obviously a 360 or PC thing.

Really? so could you like make a bunch of Xs and Os busy about on a football field? I'm really curious to know what it would take to build a "sim" engine as I suppose that is what we'd have to do right? And yes, I suppose we will develop for PC at least to get a prototype. Dream would be we put in a few years and just sell the prototype to EA or someone else so we can just play

[Cryolemon]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Really? so could you like make a bunch of Xs and Os busy about on a football field? I'm really curious to know what it would take to build a "sim" engine as I suppose that is what we'd have to do right? And yes, I suppose we will develop for PC at least to get a prototype. Dream would be we put in a few years and just sell the prototype to EA or someone else so we can just play

It would probably be relatively easy to get a system where it plays a pre-determined animation for each play outcome. Of course making enough animated outcomes so it didn't get stale quick would take time.*

As I said, a sim engine that generates stats on a game by game basis is pretty simple if you have enough data (NFL, CFL and Arena League stats and averages are probably easy enough to find).

A play by play engine (think OOTP style) is a different matter altogether, and in fact would probably need to be more complex than that because there are less variables about a play outcome in baseball than in football. The very fact that each team calls a play, which need to be compared to each other, while also factoring in player ratings and random chance, makes it very daunting.

*Basically, it would work like this:

1 - Choose the plays (either by the AI or user input as appropriate)
2 - work out the outcome of the play (this is the complex part, see above)
3 - choose an animation based on the outcome
4 - play the animation and display the outcome.

Obviously this is for a "text based game" (although one that would use animations...). Anything more complex than that would vary according to what engine you want to use. Developing one from scratch would be monumentally time consuming.

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

My respect for Rockstar is growing by leaps and bounds at the moment, and I already considered them the best at making engines...what was it the Havoc engine back in the day with Half Life? I know that wasn't Rockstar but that is the first time I can remember hearing about an engine. Has anyone tried to make a football engine? I don't think so, probably just always been a mathematical paradigm, which I think is fine, especially for a game that isn't user-controlled, but...

Oh and let me ask you this, even though it may be a bit outside your scope...what about audio inputs rather than keypad inputs? What does that add?

I have a really neat foundation for the game, which I'm not quite ready to share yet, in public, and it probably isn't revolutionary, I'm sure someone has thought of it before, but vocal input/reading would definitely be a part of it. (think coach on a head set, which I'm sure EA is probably already working on but in any great invention in history, it's not who does it first, it is who does it better )

[Cryolemon]

Re: Can we make our own game?

My respect for Rockstar is growing by leaps and bounds at the moment, and I already considered them the best at making engines...what was it the Havoc engine back in the day with Half Life? I know that wasn't Rockstar but that is the first time I can remember hearing about an engine. Has anyone tried to make a football engine? I don't think so, probably just always been a mathematical paradigm, which I think is fine, especially for a game that isn't user-controlled, but...

Backbreaker tried to use a physics engine for a football game, that's probably the closest. It worked pretty well, considering. I know the licenses for their physics engine cost something like $100,000 though (we had a Q&A with one of their guys while I was at college and someone asked lol). IIRC The engine Rockstar used in GTA IV was a version of the Natural Motion one that Backbreaker used.

Oh and let me ask you this, even though it may be a bit outside your scope...what about audio inputs rather than keypad inputs? What does that add?

It's certainly an interesting idea. In a coach sim (where you don't control the players directly) it would probably work pretty well, as long as the voice recognition could be calibrated properly. Voice recognition is still a bit of crap-shoot though.

I have a really neat foundation for the game, which I'm not quite ready to share yet, in public, and it probably isn't revolutionary, I'm sure someone has thought of it before, but vocal input/reading would definitely be a part of it. (think coach on a head set, which I'm sure EA is probably already working on but in any great invention in history, it's not who does it first, it is who does it better )

I personally think that if a game is going to be developed by independent developers (i/e us!) then it needs to be a text sim with graphic representation of the play outcomes (unless someone wants o give us enough money to license 2k Sports animation engine from APF, which is unlikely at best lol). Over multiple versions that representation can be improved of course.

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Backbreaker tried to use a physics engine for a football game, that's probably the closest. It worked pretty well, considering. I know the licenses for their physics engine cost something like $100,000 though (we had a Q&A with one of their guys while I was at college and someone asked lol). IIRC The engine Rockstar used in GTA IV was a version of the Natural Motion one that Backbreaker used.



It's certainly an interesting idea. In a coach sim (where you don't control the players directly) it would probably work pretty well, as long as the voice recognition could be calibrated properly. Voice recognition is still a bit of crap-shoot though.



I personally think that if a game is going to be developed by independent developers (i/e us!) then it needs to be a text sim with graphic representation of the play outcomes (unless someone wants o give us enough money to license 2k Sports animation engine from APF, which is unlikely at best lol). Over multiple versions that representation can be improved of course.

yeah, the voice control is for coach mode. I'd like to have a player mode eventually also but not with voice control. that'd be stick control like Madden.

Agree on the text sim with animations on top. I think if focussed on, the animations can be great, in fact, should be easier to make it more immersive. I guess that is where our first constraint would occur though, memory vs how many different animations we can have.

[Juce734]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Text game with outcome animations would be great. That would be a great game and would be more about strategy than stick skills. This is a game I would want to play.

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Did you guys play Head Coach? Don't know if I ever asked.

[thegipper]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Text game with outcome animations would be great. That would be a great game and would be more about strategy than stick skills. This is a game I would want to play.

Right, some graphics and sounds users could customize just like Second and Ten. A game with a realistic game play. I like eyecandy but my dream is to have a game where preparing your plays and gameplan for your next game were as exciting as playing the game. Kind of a realistic football-chess game where calling crossing routes against man to man would make sense and where calling a draw versus zone coverages wouldn't usually give you any gain.

[Juce734]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Did you guys play Head Coach? Don't know if I ever asked.

I haven't played Head Coach. I'm more into the GM aspects than coaching of a team. I'd be happy not even doing anything in game and only seeing the highlights, and box score from the game. I enjoy text only games though myself.

Right, some graphics and sounds users could customize just like Second and Ten. A game with a realistic game play. I like eyecandy but my dream is to have a game where preparing your plays and gameplan for your next game were as exciting as playing the game. Kind of a realistic football-chess game where calling crossing routes against man to man would make sense and where calling a draw versus zone coverages wouldn't usually give you any gain.

This would be cool.

I am down for any type of football game pretty much but I want a lot of depth and customizability.

[huskerwr38]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Here you go. An android based console, it's open source too.


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Here you go. An android based console, it's open source too.


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...o-game-console

okay, that seems interesting/doable...now is there someone out there that can take my vision and made a playable game out of it?

[thegipper]

Re: Can we make our own game?

Today I found this:
www.truesportsgames.com
I hope these two guys are able to make a decent product.

[SloeyEZ]

Re: Can we make our own game?

These other sites so far are not the same as the game I'm envisioning. Of course that may be because my vision isn't possible. But the "feel" of the game would be completely different than that truesims one above. that just looks too analytical/formulaic too me.

I'm really just beginning to think this idea in my head is just far too big