OWIFG
 

Oddworld Industrial Fan Gamemakers - OWIFG

Hey, most of you already know who I am because most of my time is spent here, I am currently making Oddworld 4 and I know that others such as bobtheguy and joshkrz are also doing the same thing.

If you gamemakers are interested in joining the OWIFG then PM me or Venks.

Donot spam the thread becasue i'll be releasing important info here.

Currently In

Scrabtrapman
Venks
Alexfili
Carnix
TimCottenham
Gretin
Lord Raisin
J_Dude
Joshkrz



From now on don't apply on the thread just PM me

I'm very much interested in a project that combines all the skills of all the Oddworld Fan Game Makers here. I highly believe in cooperative projects. Having friends to work with helps to keep you inspired and you have others to help you where you get stuck.
I'm always a fan of minds coming together to brainstorm ideas and learn from each other. If anyone else would like to join Scrabtrapman and I please post in this thread or send a pm.

You don't need any experience in anything. Simply a passion for making games. Anyone that doesn't know how to use Game Maker I'd be more then happy to show you. It's a very simple game making application that gets more complex as you learn the tools at your disposal and the scripting language GML. Though there is more to making games then just programming. You have spriting, level design, music creation, etc.

Do what you love.

I am sorry dudes, I would love to help you but as I'm currently very busy with school and of course Griever M3n's and I are busy on our own project. If I have some spare time I will definitively let you guys know, till then very good luck on this project ;)

Tim, you won't actually have to work unless you want to, it's just a group at the moment, so far no projects or ideas have been thought up.

A double post for Carnix
 

Here you are Carnix, a double post for you.

I also give Josh (not Joshkrz) allowance to put it on his abes oddysee screen thread.

Wow. Not really usable quality but that's more than I had anticipated.

heh i'm not a total fail then.

Not at all. I'm going to try experimenting with my voice a bit more. Maybe I can get some better sounding Slig voices. My main skills lie with media files (avi, jpeg, mp3, wav) so if you need any tips on those, just ask. I won't be using Game Maker, but I'll be happy to try any demos.

Great, ok I had an idea for a small company type project, is anyone interested in making an oddworld RTS? Just throwing an idea about here.

Real time strategy you say? That's some high aiming right there. You any idea where to start with that sort of thing cause I sure don't.

Well, the idea was that you can be one of two factions, industrial or native, I have no knowledge of how to make an rts and could only make sprites.

I suggest starting with something a little simpler. RTS require either multiplayer capabilities or advanced AI, both of which are very complicated.

Yeah dude, trust the other people who say it, RTS is way above any of our capabilities, try doing something like a platformer first. During that development you will learn so much that can later be applied to the RTS's development later.

I am currently in the works of making OW4 which is a platformer.

RTS is a good idea, but let's put it on the 'back-burner' for now.
Platformers are a good way to test the water.

I've actually been working on a Hand of Odd RTS project myself. I was originally doing it in Flash, but wasn't making a lot of progress. I wouldn't mind switching over to Game Maker.
I don't think it would be too difficult to make a RTS in Game Maker. Though I've never made a non-local multiplayer before so that'll be a slight adventure.
If I've learned anything from programming it's that a game is really just how you perceive it. Anything is possible with variable manipulation.

Now I'm guessing you mean for this to be like Hand of Odd where you control either a Mudokon Chieftain or Glukkon Executive. I guess the best thing to do would be to start off with just trying to create that mechanic. So we should produce a player controlled object which can get other objects to follow him and stop at its perceivable command.
After that we should try to create a AI opponent which leads its own squad. These leaders then must be able to command their followers to attack the opposing faction.

But heck before we even get all into that I ask how would we want to control this? Using the mouse like most RTS games, or should you use the arrow keys to move around the player to give him a more direct feel for the character he controls?
Lastly do you find my vision of what I think we should do favorable?

You could try both. Arrows for precise movement and mouse for direct control of objects. A Hand of Odd RTS would be a good idea, even just to see what we can do. I'd be happy to help you come up with units and brainstorm.

Btw about the sprites.. If you want usable sprite, get a screen recorder, do all the movements of abe, and cut out each picture, then make new animations out of them. Or extract them from the game itself, but I have no idea how to do that.

Believe me this method SUCKS!
The cutting out is tedious enough in that it's nearly impossible to tell what pixels are sprites and what pixels are backgrounds but even after successfully cutting, the sprites are utilised in such a way that this method needs to be refined with anti-aliasing and alpha-transparency!
I have months of experience ripping from AO and AE with this technique. The task is arduous, the process is slow, and the end-result is less than satisfactory.

Not recomended in the least.

Well that sucks..
Well... I think in order to get the real deal, you'd probably have to work with the engine itself <.< Which no one has access to.

But here was someone on this forum who sucessfully ripped the sprites. i don't remember who, and in what thread though.

'Twas a guy called Paul.
Went mysteriously inactive half way through his work.
Never released how he got into those BAN files and I just can't figure it out.
The internet knows nothing on the subject.

Maybe he was assasinated by evil agents from OWI for being close to discovering the terrible secrets D=

That would explain why he stopped replying to his emails at the same time he disappeared... :dodgy:

You know Paul's back, don't you? Take a look at the .lvl files thread - he made an epic return but unfortunately he's said that doing further work on extracting from the game is giving him major headaches so I don't know if there'll be much hope in that.

Anyway, I think I might join in here. I have a lot of experience with Game Maker (I've even created a strategy game - turn based, though, not real time - which worked pretty well until I ran into problems with the speed of GML execution), but I don't know if I'd want to do much for this as I find I just get tired of programming.

However I can also create DLL files and extensions for game maker, for example more powerful file management, complex calculations done quicker etc, so I'd be happy to do some of that.

But as Venks pointed out, do what you love, and what I really love doing is music composition. I've done quite a few different styles over the years and I can do it in multiple formats - midi files (quickest to make, lowest file size but also low quality), mp3/wave files (moderate speed to make, highest file size especially for wave files, but highest quality again especially for wave files), and module files (longest to make, moderate file size and moderate quality). I haven't tried making any Oddworld style music before, but I'm sure I could give it a go.

And also, just so you all know, my mp3 files are done through a proper synthethiser keyboard, not some midi to mp3 converter software! I might add a sample later.

Please do. I might try getting back into those music makers like GarageBand and eJay, because some of those songs were actually pretty good.

Gretin your added to the list, we are only accepting 3 more members so I might get Joshkrz in leaving 2, if you want in Ask me or Venks.
___________
1ST PROJECT

Any one interested in hand off odd RTS? Get back tome with some brainstorming ideas and if I get enough participants i'll create a new thread.
___________
2ND PROJECT

I need someone to make my backgrounds please PM me

Why would you take a 'set' number of people in? i thought this was for people who want to make oddworld-based games in general.

Also, in a project where no one gets paid, I thought the more the better.

I think you shouldn't set a limit on how many people can get accepted, but that's just my suggestion. I don't know what your plans are with this.

I also believe there shouldn't be a restriction on the number of people who join this group. Anyone who wants to learn the aspects of game making should feel free to participate.

I'm gonna try throwing a prototype of something together by tonight. Just objects following the main object at its command.

Ok I have been outvoted and agree but I think to many cooks spoil the broth if you no what I mean.

Honestly... You're lucky that this many people want to be part of your group and help you. You've managed to present your group in such a way that people want to join. But as an aspiring game-maker, any amount of people would do.

For real games, there can be as much as 40 or much more than that working on game, and it would takes years still.

I know that for small games it doesn't seem like a high number of people is necessary. But you'd be surprised. If you want to make a full-fledged quality RTS game, you will need all the support you can get from all departments... Concept, art, graphics, programming.

It can be very burdening for one person to program a whole game. One of or 2 people helping out would make such a difference, and it would cut the time from start of project till the release date.

You could have one person prgramming one element of a game, while the other works on another part.

It's the same with graphics. For only one person to work on all the little graphics and details on a game is really tedious and tough in the end. Say, you could have a concept artist do the concepts, and then have maybe 3 ot 4 people working on bringing to life.

As I said, the more the better. It's untill when you've started up a successful gamin company with plenty of people that you can start topping people off. And also, I'm pretty sure those companies would LOVE any chance to get a voluntary worker(as long as his skills were up to par of course).

Anyway, this is my reasoning why you shouldn't reject anyone.

Also, even if you have too many people, doesn't mean they ALL have to work on the same project.

Okay... if there are any places available, sign me up. After all, when I'm older I do hope to be a game's designer. I have no experience, and this would be a nice time to start playing around with things... I don't know what I could help with, small things if possible, but I would like to help out. If however people with more experience come along, by all means give them a place instead of me.

An excellent point! (well, the whole post had some very good points, but I wanted to comment especially one this one)
The beauty of having a big team working on several projects is also that the different projects should be able to borrow things from each other, meaning the progress on EACH one will be sped up (in theory).

But one thing I notice is that everyone on the list so far seems to be a programmer (although some may have other skills), so I wonder if you really need more people dedicated to other fields, graphics in particular. Because if I'm going to be contributing to this I think I speak for most of us here when I say I'd like the quality to be as top notch as possible.

Another thing I'm wondering is, how will the group best communicate? MSN and such are options, but that would cause problems with the different time zones etc. Maybe it would be a good idea to set up a dedicated forum for this group on invisionfree or something?


Now, onto the topic of an RTS, just some practical ideas from a programming perspective:

• Pathfinding - this is one of the big challenges in an RTS game - because everything has to happen quickly and you may have dozens of units trying to find paths at the same time, you can't really use things like the A* algorithm, as it would just be too slow. But you don't want to have the frustrating pathfinding of early RTS games such as the original Age of Empires where they just try to make a beeline to the destination and get stuck if that doesn't work. I could probably create a DLL that could do a rough calculation for pathfinding at a much faster speed than GML, but in order to do this there should be some file that both Game Maker and the DLL can read that has the necessary information. Which leads me onto my next point.
• File management - I personally don't like having all the levels and everything hard-coded into the game, so I think ideally we should have a special file format that will contain the level data. Again I could create a function in the DLL to read this into GM, or even just a GML script. This would provide the common file that the pathfinding function could use to read the level information and work out obstacles to plot around etc. Also this means it's a lot easier to make minor changes without having to recompile the entire game. My own turn based strategy actually used a similar system to the original Command & Conquer games how unit information, levels, etc were all stored in human-readable ini files, and it worked perfectly.

Also, from a gameplay perspective, while I like the idea of controlling one main character and directly commanding the others, we'd have to think it out thoroughly of how to work this in game - for instance, is it going to be a base building strategy game? If so, how would we implement things like managing your base while also leading an attack on the enemy? One option would be to go for a very realistic approach, where maybe you could have other mudokon chiefs who are under the player controlled one, who you could assign the duty of overseeing construction of given buildings or leading an assault, but this would require some heavy AI scripting and also it might not be terribly great for fun gameplay purposes. Just throwing some ideas out there.

As for music, I quickly threw together a midi file last night, but I'll do a high quality recording of it this evening and maybe attach it then if I don't get distracted by other things.

If you still have a spot. I'll join, i make side scrolling games in class all the time. i plan on making a mini oddworld game myself but yeah ill help with anything i can. voice/sprites/little code w/e you need.

Sign me up to if its a group :p So I've heard of forum groups, but what can you do with them?

Right, here's a little sample of what I can do in the way of music - I did the composition yesterday and the recording/mixing/editing tonight, so it's nothing fancy.

http://www.filehosting.org/file/deta...test_music.mp3

Composed and recorded by me, don't use without permission - though I wouldn't recommend using it anyway as it's VERY repetitive at the moment :p

Wow!
You have so much potential!
I shall remember your name for future reference and/or contact.

I wonder, do your abilities go to the extent of composing something like the music in the first Resident Evil film?
I'm talking about something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehjtt...eature=related
The music I'm talking about starts somewhere around 4 minutes 30 seconds and ends at 6 minutes 30 seconds.
You'll have to excuse the poor quality, it's YouTube after all. I have the DVD it's obviously much better quality sound on that and this part of the soundtrack sticks out to me. I really like it and think stuff like this would work good for Bosses and stuff in games.

Our own forum might not be a bad idea, but I wouldn't mind if we used something for instant messaging as well. Not that we'll all be on at the same time, but it would heighten communication for those who are on at the time. I'm quite partial to Skype myself, but anything works really.

@ Gretin: Also do you still have this project you worked on? I would love to take a gander at it. Oh and btw I love that thing you threw together. It sounds magical.

The game definitely has to have base building strategy. I vastly enjoy it myself. I figure we can try multiple things and see what ends up being the most fun. I think the most important thing is to give the game an Odd feel, but not at the expense of fun. I'm totally open for new ideas.

I'd love a base building game with Sligs. Maybe even Tower Defense? We can just post our projects in this topic.

Guys i'm very excited about this group it has huge potential!

Riasin ure in, Cottenha myour already in and I love the reisdnet evil film its awesoem innit! =) INNIT hahaah I sound so chavy.

Is anyone interested in making and RTS or helping me make backgrounds PLEASE PM ME or Venks

Do you have any other skills you can contribute? As T-nex and Venks have pointed out, there's no reason to limit the amount of people joining and I'm sure most of us will be happy to help you get started in small things game design wise, but as I pointed out, there seems to be a lot of programmers currently and not many people to do other tasks, so if you could contribute in other ways as well that'd be fantastic :D

I'll have to have a listen to it later, but I'm assuming you're meaning in terms of style? I can do quite a few styles, but I'll have to listen to it before I can answer that.

Also, does anyone have any comments on the sound quality itself? The biggest problem I have is getting the song to be a decent volume without clipping, I did some minor editing on that one to get the volume up a bit, but I don't know how good it turned out. I've been doing music for years, but I'm still fairly new to the recording and editing field of it so feedback is good :D

The only problem I could see with instant messaging was if several members discussed things and made some executive decisions without talking about it with the people who aren't able to be on at the same time, who may not necessarily agree. But yes, using both a forum and instant messenger could work. We could use the forum for important discussions and a place to store ideas and such, but being able to instantly communicate with things like programming issues would be very useful.

I think I do have some back ups of that project, but I might give you an older (less complete) one if you don't mind, because there's an important gameplay mechanic that was implemented in the later versions that I want to keep under wraps for the time being :p I'll track it down and either upload it here or send a PM later.

I think we all know by now that you'd love ANYTHING with sligs :p