Project Magma on iPad

[Jon God]

I will be keeping my eyes on this, and help if I can.

[Graydon]

Presumably formats and methods would change, but I reckon I've got the skills to create some maps when and if it ever gets to that point.

[carlinho]

aye, really interesting stuff

[cimota]

Presumably formats and methods would change, but I reckon I've got the skills to create some maps when and if it ever gets to that point.

Well, that's the thing. I have no useful skills other than business/money-acquisition and a hatred of bad UX. I do work best in teams so finding people with an interest who want to put in a bit of sweat equity is interesting to me - but you can't build a game like this on sweat so I'll go find the money.

I'm probably going to need mappers, modellers, modders, opinions on what to use a scripting environment. For the latter point, for instance, lua seems popular but lua scripters are think on the ground in my region. I will be meeting and working with a professional development team (responsible for Dogfighter on Steam) in the next two weeks on a different project and today I'm going recruiting undergrads at a local university.

I want something that is designed to be modded - the aim being to produce games which can make folk some money , so it all becomes sustainable. The fun I had with the wild west plug-ins and the Green Berets plugins cannot be underestimated!

[ozone]

The fun I had with the wild west plug-ins and the Green Berets plugins cannot be underestimated!

Id like to talk to you more about this project in private if thats ok. Ill send you a message with my contact info if you want. Let me know.

[cimota]

Hi @ozone,
Drop me a PM with your contact details. Going to get some sort of project page together in the next week or so.

[cimota]

Update: I've not gone away.

I've been putting together a board of advisors - mostly on the contacts and business side including a SV-based private investor, a local venture capitalist, a local monetization expert and Seattle-based techie (who I went to school with).

In addition to some of the nice people who have contacted me regarding maps, art and textures, I have a 3d artist from Havok waiting for some instructions. I'm meeting with an ex-Dion (GBA), ex-Rockstar(MMO, PS2) C++ developer this week as well. I'm well aware this is going to cost a lot of money and sweat.

What this will be:
Soulblighter-style controls and gameplay redone for touch. More likely redone completely but with a certain look and feel.
Map format looking at XML, texture map and bump map because I have an idea that maps can be about as complex as a web page. Technically feasible? You probably know more than I
New story options.
Multiple apps depicting multiple stories
Multiplayer (including one semi-persistent world)
Community platform (I'll explain this bit on my blog first)
I am looking at this being 2d sprites on a 3d plane right now.

What this won't be:
Fallen Lords
Dwarves with Molotovs
Fear & Loathing

Really happy with the business side of things. Need to work on the creative and technical side.

I'd love some opinion, encouragement, venom - whatever you have to offer.

[Jon God]

The lack of Fear and Loathing would hurt the longevity of the game, but make it a lot more technically plausible, I'd think.

Also, no Dwarves with Molotovs? tsk.


Sounds good though, with people Oz/Iron interested, you really have some quality content makers.

[cimota]

When I say "No Fear and Loathing", I just mean that the skills used with those tools may not be transferable because different tools will be used.

The aim?
Create something which has a bit more future.
License the engine to make sure other people can create stuff.
Ship each game with a story/skins/maps/scripts and the ability to load custom maps

How the maps are created?
Discussions currently around shipping texture and bump maps, in a zip file with descriptors, sounds, scripts, unit sprites and everything else needed.

The difficult bit on iOS is going to be making it so that custom skins and stories can be loaded as Apple can be funny about executable code (though I see they've let a Lua-based environment in - Coders.app)

This is colossal undertaking I recognise. Which is why it may take a couple of years. But it's all about the future.

And if someone wants to make their own "Myth" map and units and put them out there - well, you can.

[Jon God]

When I say "No Fear and Loathing", I just mean that the skills used with those tools may not be transferable because different tools will be used.

The aim?
Create something which has a bit more future.
License the engine to make sure other people can create stuff.
Ship each game with a story/skins/maps/scripts and the ability to load custom maps

How the maps are created?
Discussions currently around shipping texture and bump maps, in a zip file with descriptors, sounds, scripts, unit sprites and everything else needed.

The difficult bit on iOS is going to be making it so that custom skins and stories can be loaded as Apple can be funny about executable code (though I see they've let a Lua-based environment in - Coders.app)

This is colossal undertaking I recognise. Which is why it may take a couple of years. But it's all about the future.

And if someone wants to make their own "Myth" map and units and put them out there - well, you can.

Ah, in that case, I am completely fine with it. As long as it's a good game, people will take the time to learn to mod it.

[cimota]

I should probably create a different thread.

Update so far. Story for the 'included" game is being nailed down. My collaborators are helping me with the term sheet for the investors and also producing a lo-fi version of a level to help them visualise. Pulling together some "look and feel" content so I can hire an artist to render some screenshots.

Still mulling over engine stuff. Obviously there are heaps of engines out there and we can always build our own - and the latter is especially attractive because of the stuff we want to do with custom maps.

Things are moving, just slowly due to the day job.

[punkUser]

Yup definitely ideally start a new thread so this doesn't get buried within an irrelevant one Let me know if you want me to move any of the posts, or just feel free to requote the relevant bits in the new one.

[Jon God]

I should probably create a different thread.

Update so far. Story for the 'included" game is being nailed down. My collaborators are helping me with the term sheet for the investors and also producing a lo-fi version of a level to help them visualise. Pulling together some "look and feel" content so I can hire an artist to render some screenshots.

Still mulling over engine stuff. Obviously there are heaps of engines out there and we can always build our own - and the latter is especially attractive because of the stuff we want to do with custom maps.

Things are moving, just slowly due to the day job.

I had fobo write me out a story/background/levels for a proposed Myth clone a while back, if you are looking to make a clone of myth that retains the story feeling, look no farther than him. The Myth 3 team used his documents to write the story for Myth 3, so that'll let you know that he's not just some guy. (Though, it was their, not his fault that the story turned out how it did).

[cimota]

That's a good contact right there. The aim, at the moment, is to create an engine that will allow easy porting of things like that - for liberté or profit depending on the designer.

Frustrates me that there's so much great work here...and people can't make a living off it.