I agree with Spring -- we seem to be experiencing a bit of scope gallop.
(I just made that term up.)
On the other hand, this is the brainstorming phase, so it's fine... let's dream big and let the ideas flow freely, as long as we understand we're going to have to then cut away most of them to get a nice little project of reasonable scope. Tom, it'll be up to you to figure out what's at the core of the fun, and focus us on that.
Personally I'm not too worried about what makes us different from previous Worms games... if it turns out to be pretty much a tribute fangame, that's OK. It'll still be cool. OTOH if we come up with a fresh idea that makes us really different, and it's not going to take a full-time team of 6 two years to make it, then I'm all for it!
No worries. We're all volunteers; nobody can expect us to put in more than we're able.
But also feel free to recruit more artists to help, if you think that would be useful. :)
Communication is key, so just to further be clear about things...
I will probably create an itch.io page early on, and update a WebGL build there whenever there are major changes
I'll probably also create a GitHub repo, where those who want can access the source code & assets
Tom can decide what he wants to use for design documents (my suggestion would be Google Docs, because of its handy commenting features)
still TBD is whether we attempt to include online multiplayer; that adds to the complexity a fair bit, but might not be TOO bad if we plan ahead for it
All this is just my current thinking though. Feel free to share your own thoughts (everyone)!
Any of those programs would work for me, but like I said, I don't know about starting right at this very moment ^^
Doh! I just now realized that you are the user formerly known as FloffleWaffle FlooferWoofer! When you first said you weren't sure you could start now, I was thinking "well have all our roles covered now and I never saw you actually volunteer to do anything anyway, so..." :P
But yeah, now I see we have a problem. Can't do the game without an art lead. Hmm.
When could you start? Note that I'm not expecting game-jam levels of time investment. I'm taking 2 classes, doing 2 research projects, and maintaining an (almost) full-time job, so I'm spread pretty thin too. A handful of hours a week for a few months is sort of the pace I was imagining.
So, is that something you think you could commit to?
OK, we have a game designer! His name is Tom W, and I expect he'll be introducing himself soon. A couple of assistant game designers may be helping out too, and for that matter we can all contribute ideas, but ultimately the buck stops with Tom.
I'd like to set up some real-time communication. So, a quick poll: what do you guys prefer?
Slack
Discord
something else?
I slightly prefer Slack because it does threading, but I'm on both Slack and Discord all day, it really doesn't matter that much to me.
I think the Annelids idea preceded the "brought to life" jam theme. In fact it was just the first idea in an idea-brainstorming thread that began as Xom Adept wrote:
Hello everybody. I create this topic for people who have interesting game ideas, but know that they will never have the time / motivation to program the game they think about.
If you want, you can give your ideas here to other programmers so they can make the game themselves.
I am starting with this one :
a "Worms" clone, with retro graphics, using this image from OGA.
I even thought about a name for this game : "Annelids".
So there you go. He put this idea out there in hopes that somebody would pick it up and make it. Nothing to do with game jams in particular.
I'm not sure how I really feel about making the game from a mishmash of stylistically different assets, I guess it can work though.... let's just see about it, I guess.
Absolutely agree. It's the job of the art lead (@FF) to take the initial mishmash and create a unified, sensible set of art for the game. Hopefully there's some stuff in that collection we can use with only minor tweaking; the rest can be just inspiration.
so that means you want to make this now? not for the game jam? then I've misunderstood something=´?
Oh yes, definitely not for the game jam! I was proposing to make it just to make it. Rather than the short death-march typical of game jams, I'd much prefer a slow burn for maybe 3-4 months.
But maybe I'm the one who's misunderstood something. What do you all think about it?
I've got a lead on a game designer who may be able to join us. We should know within the next day or two. (But if somebody else reads this and wants to step into the role, please speak up!)
@FloffleWaffle FlooferWoofer, as art lead, do you want to start roughing out some ideas for the worms? I know we're looking at this pack for inspiration, but we'll need worms moving around, worms grimacing menacingly, etc. (I'm actually a little vague on all the things the worms in Worms do, but as the stars of the show I imagine there's quite a bit of variety to it.)
I agree with Spring -- we seem to be experiencing a bit of scope gallop.
(I just made that term up.)
On the other hand, this is the brainstorming phase, so it's fine... let's dream big and let the ideas flow freely, as long as we understand we're going to have to then cut away most of them to get a nice little project of reasonable scope. Tom, it'll be up to you to figure out what's at the core of the fun, and focus us on that.
Personally I'm not too worried about what makes us different from previous Worms games... if it turns out to be pretty much a tribute fangame, that's OK. It'll still be cool. OTOH if we come up with a fresh idea that makes us really different, and it's not going to take a full-time team of 6 two years to make it, then I'm all for it!
Nothing so coherent as an elevator pitch yet. Here are comments collected from the other thread:
Annelida using the cute colourful worms would be awesome. I imagine a bright game world and maybe cuter weapons also to match.
1. A rainbow that shoots out over a certain distance like in rainbow islands.
2. "sun" grenades.
3. Star rockets that shoot straight.
4. You can aim for a cloud that is moving back and forwards. When hit it rains on / lightning bolts multiple worms.
The music would be bubble bobble style :) https://opengameart.org/content/mushroom-dance
...Hmm, it seemed like more before I gathered it all together. :)
So we should start brainstorming! ZomBCool and Tom, any preference on Slack vs. Discord vs. other?
No worries. We're all volunteers; nobody can expect us to put in more than we're able.
But also feel free to recruit more artists to help, if you think that would be useful. :)
Communication is key, so just to further be clear about things...
All this is just my current thinking though. Feel free to share your own thoughts (everyone)!
Spring wrote:
Doh! I just now realized that you are the user formerly known as FloffleWaffle FlooferWoofer! When you first said you weren't sure you could start now, I was thinking "well have all our roles covered now and I never saw you actually volunteer to do anything anyway, so..." :P
But yeah, now I see we have a problem. Can't do the game without an art lead. Hmm.
When could you start? Note that I'm not expecting game-jam levels of time investment. I'm taking 2 classes, doing 2 research projects, and maintaining an (almost) full-time job, so I'm spread pretty thin too. A handful of hours a week for a few months is sort of the pace I was imagining.
So, is that something you think you could commit to?
OK, we have a game designer! His name is Tom W, and I expect he'll be introducing himself soon. A couple of assistant game designers may be helping out too, and for that matter we can all contribute ideas, but ultimately the buck stops with Tom.
I'd like to set up some real-time communication. So, a quick poll: what do you guys prefer?
I slightly prefer Slack because it does threading, but I'm on both Slack and Discord all day, it really doesn't matter that much to me.
I think the Annelids idea preceded the "brought to life" jam theme. In fact it was just the first idea in an idea-brainstorming thread that began as Xom Adept wrote:
So there you go. He put this idea out there in hopes that somebody would pick it up and make it. Nothing to do with game jams in particular.
Now, some of us are doing exactly that!
Spring wrote:
Absolutely agree. It's the job of the art lead (@FF) to take the initial mishmash and create a unified, sensible set of art for the game. Hopefully there's some stuff in that collection we can use with only minor tweaking; the rest can be just inspiration.
Oh yes, definitely not for the game jam! I was proposing to make it just to make it. Rather than the short death-march typical of game jams, I'd much prefer a slow burn for maybe 3-4 months.
But maybe I'm the one who's misunderstood something. What do you all think about it?
I've got a lead on a game designer who may be able to join us. We should know within the next day or two. (But if somebody else reads this and wants to step into the role, please speak up!)
@FloffleWaffle FlooferWoofer, as art lead, do you want to start roughing out some ideas for the worms? I know we're looking at this pack for inspiration, but we'll need worms moving around, worms grimacing menacingly, etc. (I'm actually a little vague on all the things the worms in Worms do, but as the stars of the show I imagine there's quite a bit of variety to it.)
We should probably point out (since I'm now directing people to this thread) the collection of potential assets that Xom Adept has started.
It may require patience. But enthusiasm is a valuable asset! Once we get going I know you guys will be making valuable contributions.
So let's keep looking for that designer. Somebody will step up, I'm sure!
Pages