Func_Msgboard: So I Have To Make A Game In 9 Weeks...

Posted by starbuck on 2008/02/13 16:21:06

Here's the story. There's a competition this summer called Dare to be Digital. The idea is that teams of 5 students without much industry experience pitch an idea and a dev plan for a new game. Then if the organisers like it and think you can actually make it, they fund your accommodation and pay you a fair bit to go to sunny Dundee, Scotland and work on it full time for 9 weeks.

I've got a team together and we're wondering what game to make. I think they're looking for original ideas, unique gameplay, and a realistic scope of project. I don't think they're really interested in a generic shooter, even if it was very well executed.

One previous winner was Ragnarok, a 3rd person game where you control a character using a guitar hero controller, and when you encounter monsters you have to beat them by copying the notes they play and out-soloing them. Very cool. Another winner was a game called Climbactic, a 2-player cell shaded game where you control characters trying to climb up terrain with cliffs and boulders blocking their path. You have a rope and have to use physics effectively to get up, it's a very clean simple idea.

I've got a few questions:

1. We're looking into affordable engine licenses for whatever game we decide to make. The budget is only �200, so we can't use the Unreal 3 engine. Does anyone have experience with the open-source/cheap engines such as Instinct Studio (actually a complete dev platform), Torque, or Ogre, and if so what would you recommend?

2. For those in the know, what would be your advice on pitching a game in a presentation? Should we, say, focus 50% of the time on the game itself, 25% on the marketability, and 25% on the schedule and plan to develop it? What will the game execs listening to our presentation be looking for?

3. Any general tips for when you're trying to develop and decide on game ideas? It's a little messy at the moment. It seems like everyone and their dad has a "killer game idea" they've always wanted to make, but it's usually either completely unfeasible in the time, or just plain bad. Any tips for inspiration? I'm thinking mainly gameplay/game ideas here, the plot/style is secondary I think.

Finally, if anyone has any gameplay ideas they'd like to share, I'd love to hear them. I especially like games that use time/physics/gravity in a way that hasn't been done before. Thanks!

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#35 posted by metlslime on 2017/07/10 06:37:15

that was a weird one. It was clearly spam, but it was advertising a pretty good flash game from about ten years ago that i probably posted about in the browser games thread, (or the pc games thread before it was called that.)

#36 posted by [Kona] on 2017/07/10 23:44:16

It could have been an alternate dimension metlslime that never gave up on promoting that good little flash game.

3 posts not shown on this page because they were spam

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