Please see the updated game credits here.
Scripts Used (With Permission given for use with commercial projects):
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Selatria Development Team Credits
Please see the updated game credits here.
Scripts Used (With Permission given for use with commercial projects):
Monday, June 18, 2012
Selatria: Development Team Open Positions
Samples of art/pictures submitted by current team members:
Character Face Art: Jonathan Flynn
Spell Icons: Gyreck
Full-Body Character/Monster Art: Erik Boismier/Jonathan Flynn
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Development on Chapter 1 is coming to a close soon, a trailer is coming this week, and open testing/demo is coming next week!
I wanted to update what I'm looking for in the team. While I got a lot of requests of people who are interested in joining, I am really only looking for the following positions, and serious ones at that. We move at a really fast pace on the project and a lot of us spend our free time working late nights on actually developing the project and giving each other suggestions on how to improve the game.
That being said, we're looking for very passionate people, and if you don't quite fit the spots available and think you have some ideas that may be great, please join! We'd love to have your input.
Synopsis:
Selatria is a game largely developed as a collaborative effort between game designers, artists, musicians, actors, and other talented individuals. As such, it is a for-profit using mostly original-created resources.
All development team members get a share of ownership in the project!
Team members who submit resources to the project will get a share in ownership of the entire game. (Percentages will not be determined until completion of the project and will be agreed upon by the group.)
***Prospective development team members must look over and agree to our development team agreement.***
Regarding those interested in joining the project on a commission basis:
Unfortunately, I'm not looking for people who are willing to submit resources to the game via commission-based pay at this time. If any revenue comes into the game project, it will be split proportionally to all of us passionate people in the team currently who have been working not just for money, but to see a big project to completion.
If the project gets enough revenue in the future to give back to all of us currently in the team who have been here working on the project, then I will open up commission-based payment for new members in the future. Current team members are a clear priority, though.
Goals for the game project:
- Creating a fun and enjoyable gaming RPG for the player that mixes retro 2D concepts with elements adapted from newer games. (Voice acting, achievements, and the like.) This is undoubtedly the most important point.
- Redoing all of the environments to give the game a unique look and atmosphere that matches our game vision.
- Creating a game that the team can use as a stepping stone or a resume/work sample to obtain employment in a related industry.
- To be able to see a giant six-chapter game project to completion. For some reason or another, projects get canceled mid-development and it ends up being a giant waste of time for all involved.
- To be able to learn the SphereDev open-source RPG engine to be able to port the project to other platforms.
Open Positions:
*Indicates a new position that has opened.
Position -- Priority
Art Team:
-Environmental Tile Artist (Buildings, tiles, grass, bizarre environments) -- VERY HIGH
-Animation Artist (for Spells/Abilities) -- HIGH
-Concept Artist (Weapons/Armor)-- HIGH
-Digital Artist -- HIGH
-Icon Designer (Weapons) -- HIGH
-Dedicated Unique Sprite Artist (Monsters) -- MEDIUM
Programmers/Game Designers:
-JavaScript Programmers for new RPG Engine -- HIGH
-Ruby Script Programmers -- MEDIUM
-Event Planner -- MEDIUM
-RPG Maker VX Event Planner -- MEDIUM*
-Webpage Designer -- MEDIUM*
Acting:
-Voice Actors -- Audition Basis: Please talk to Jabari Smith or myself if you want to audition for a role.
Testers:
-Game Tester (Intentionally tries to break the game on a weekly basis leaving detailed notes of bugs) -- MEDIUM*
-Storyline Fact Checker (Intentionally looks for discontinuities in the story, checks to make sure things make sense leaving detailed notes of story concepts that are not well explained or thought out.) -- MEDIUM*
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Selatria Group Agreement
The purpose of this agreement is to ensure the advancement of the "Codename: EPIC" project and or related project names this may go under in the future. This contract is not meant to be a hindrance, nor is it meant to trick anyone in the group into agreeing to anything that is unreasonable, unfair, or consequential to the development of the project.
Members will be subject to agree to -all- of these rules:
1/ Resources that are submitted by an individual in a team will be required to credit their contributions that they submit to the project. (Definition of resource: Any art, musical piece, character design, windowskin, tileset, lines of code, voice acting submission, sprite etc. This does not include ideas or suggestions) The more submissions that are credited, the more we have documented on how to split up shares of sales once the game goes live so everyone gets a fair percentage for their work on the project.
2/ All resource submissions that are used in the actual project from team members become property of the Development Team as a whole (and not any specific individual) after 30 days (starting the date the resource was placed into the Dropbox folder) has passed. [This does not apply to works in progress, musical demos, or ideas to be considered. This only applies to resources that have been finalized for the project.] If a resource is being used and has been in the dropbox for 30 days or longer, the person will be unable to retroactively take their resource out of the project. Furthermore, the person will be credited and receive a percentage via said contribution to the project no matter what.
*Resources in the dropbox already are subject to the 30 day rule starting with the date of April 8th, 2011.
3/ By accepting this agreement, members will be unable to communicate to any proprietary company about specific details about this project. (Including characters, areas, and concepts in development.) You are free to talk about this project to friends, relatives, significant others, and the like. However, agreeing to this contract means that you are not allowed to sell or transfer these ideas to a company for personal or financial gain. (Excluding resumes.)
4/ For resignation: Members will be required to give a one (1) week advance notice before official departure from the group. If doing a short notice resignation of less than one week, then we (the development team) have one week to remove anything submitted by the person leaving that has not passed the 30 days needed to become group ownership.
Addendum: 2/26/2012
5/ The head(s) of the project (Director, Producer) reserve the right to, if there have been no significant contributions at all to the project over a long period of time, to remove that individual from the team. ("Long period of time" means 3-6 months with no significant contributions made at all to the group.) This does not apply to members of the group who have made significant contributions at one time, but because of what ever reason had to take a break from the project. This rule is more reserved for the people who have been in the team for an extended period of time and have nothing or only one or two ideas/concepts to show for it and does not provide any input or reasoning for their long absence. Removed members under this addendum will have their rightful contributions to the project removed, and their credits deleted from the team.
Addendum: 8/2/2012
6/ As well as part-ownership of the game, those who have submitted resources, voice acted files, art, music, or related visual-sound effects will retain ownership over their contributed resources and are free to share their contributions on their own if they choose.
The Selatria project will have an unlimited license to use these submitted resources if they are put into the project and have passed the time limit that was previously specified.
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Friday, June 15, 2012
Game Design Philosophy: Reserved Point System + Team Attack/Trigger System
Game Design Philosophy:
I consider myself a traditionalist when it comes to my game design philosophy. I like to take the simple classic concepts that made the fun of the games of the genre what they were, and expand (or put additional twists) to it.
Rather than continually try to do things different from well-respected games, I want to look into what made them fun, use this as a basis, and expand on it.
Reserved Point System:
In recent years, RPGs (and MMORPGs for that matter) made it way too easy to be able to restore HP and Mana. I wanted to take the easiness of that out, and mix it from the old way of playing through RPGs where the player had to know to conserve their health and magic to be able to make it to the end.
The amount of Reserved Points is shown in the menu. It accumulates over time during regular gaming.
I hate the concept of grinding, I am more of a "fight as you progress" kind of guy. As long as you don't escape every single battle on the journey, you'll be able to get through the basic story. (Though, that's not to say you may not make it if you try to rush through things!)
Anyway, the Reserved Points system is designed to try to curb against excessive grinding against save points, by having points that regenerate to a cap, and they can be spent at any save point. The points are capped depending on the chapter the player is on, for the chapter 1 demo that will be released soon, the cap will be 300.
As mentioned above, the Reserved Points can be spent at any save point, and the points built up will transfer into given hit points and ability points for party members.
The only way I see use for abuse is that the player will sit idly waiting outside the save point for reserved points to fill up. I'm not sure whether I should keep finding ways to force that not to happen, it seems grossly inefficient and kills the fun aspect. On the other hand, I don't want it to become so mindlessly easy that they kill enemies for experience points, run right back to the save point and abuse that as a grinding point. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to lay them on me!
Team Attack System:
Selatria uses a modified traditional turn-based system in which I like to call the Augmented Team Attack System.
The game starts off like a traditional turn-based RPG battle system. Player inputs commands for the party members in a sequential order, and the moves execute via the priority of the action mixed with the speed of the characters and the enemies.
The twist to this is the addition of Trigger abilities, which four characters get to use. In the example video I posted below, Melanie is what is called a "trigger character". Trigger characters have abilities (appropriately called Triggers) which can cause chains among those in the party.
Example:
Melanie casts trigger ability "Heal Blade" (heals herself and adds Regeneration)
Mage (if in the party) chains with ability "Recover" (heals all party members)
Example:
Mage uses standard ability "Fire" - costs 6 AP.
Mage chains off Melanie's "Fire Blade" ability with a "Team Attack: Fire" - costs 3 AP.
Mage chains off Melanie's "Fire Blade" ability with a "Team Attack: Fire" - costs 3 AP.
As the game progresses, Trigger abilities and Team Attacks will be the primary mode of fighting. The combos and compatibility between members who can execute chains off of each other will not be explicitly stated in-game. It will be up to the player to discover what abilities chain off of which, and how to execute the best chains possible. There are 8 different characters in the game when it will be completed, and the entire game will contain at least 64 different chaining combinations.
There will only be a few in Chapter 1, but you can take a look at a preview of the system. If I can find additional artist in the future, I may add a Chain graphic when more than one person goes off of the ability. We'll see!
Additional Screenshots:
Credits:
Character Faces: Jonathan Flynn
Music: Luke Simpson
Status Effect Icons: Gyreck
Monster Art: Erik Boismier/Jonathan Flynn
Sound Effects: Donald Brown
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