Cynder's Game

Stormy · Mar 14, 2014 5:22 PM

Personally, I've never seen any large-scale Spyro fan game get completed. Ever. That's where these doubts are coming from.

That said, I don't think it's any of our places to criticize Evilness at this point. We don't know them or their skills (using singular they because I don't know your gender), so for all we know this could be the one fan game that actually gets made. I still don't think any large Spyro fan project will ever be finished, but hey, maybe this will be the one that proves me wrong.

I know you're trying to share your personal experience, Breaking Bad, but the difference is that we on Spyrochat were only able to tell you those things because we knew you well enough to gauge what your skills really were. The same can't be said of Evilness right now.

Breaking Bad · Mar 14, 2014 8:18 PM

Well, this is my last message here.

Evilness, I hope you prove me wrong.

Spyrorocks · Mar 14, 2014 8:24 PM

Stormy wrote:

so for all we know this could be the one fan game that actually gets made. I still don't think any large Spyro fan project will ever be finished, but hey, maybe this will be the one that proves me wrong.

This one has my personal guarantee that it will never see the light of day.

Mateos · Mar 14, 2014 8:28 PM

In the beginning of the 90's few guys hard worked on a project on their free time, and then it's been a planetary success. Doom.

Now if the things are planned and the team is motivated and have a direction, there shouldn't be an issue. That's the spirit smile

Evilness · Mar 16, 2014 11:21 AM

Hey guys the basic animations are finally done! Just give me some days to implement the script with 'em and to fix some errors/bugs and we'll make the PREdemo video! The PREdemo playable file probably wont be published, im sorry for that, but i'll keep you updated, trying not to disappoint you all! big_smile

Ulfbjörn · Mar 16, 2014 5:14 PM

Flapjacks wrote:

However, if anyone is making a fangame, they're an idiot if they're not making it open source. If it's a fangame, you won't be making money on it anyway, so giving away the source code for others to modify and help you finish is definitely the way to go. Wish someone like Hoixsoft would realize that.

While that's true, perhaps you still want to keep some of your hard work for future reusability? That is my mentality when writing an engine anyway.

While I can agree that it instinctively feels unlikely that this project will come to fruition, let them try. So you tried and failed? Then try again, perhaps with slightly lowered ambitions, rather than being bitter about it and going around telling people "this is impossible", "you can never do that", etc. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Unfortunately when it comes to projects like these, lots of people will offer to "help out" with things like testing, voice acting and maybe some "generic story scripting" (which unfortunately usually is just some very brief idea and nothing resembling well thought-out game design) - face the facts; this is not the kind of aid you need to create a game. Those things come very late in the development cycle (except a proper story writer, but the more chefs the worse soup usually, so you shouldn't have half your team be writers anyway) and are mostly pointless for an indie game, especially during its startup phase.
What you mainly need are programmers, modellers, 2D artists and animators. You will eventually need some sound design and someone to write background music as well but the first thing you want is to get some crude playable demo and visuals that you can make screenshots from. This will show your project as being serious rather than just words to others and thus prevent flaming like what happened in this thread.

With that said, I figure I should set some misconceptions straight here.

First off, you don't program animations.

I understand what you mean, but you definitively can program them rather than doing it in a visual editor like everyone is these days (and someone doubtlessly programmed that editor in the first place).
On a more serious note, I'm currently working on adding animation support to my DX11 engine. This involves quite a bit of work to get to function properly, mainly you have to displace individual vertices based on influence by joints in a skeletal node ("bones") hierarchy. Without doing that you wouldn't get any animations to play. Of course if you're cheating and using a pre-made engine like Unity you can just drag and drop your animations and have the engine play them for you, but still. Someone, albeit not you, has undoubtedly done quite a deal of programming to make that possible.

GameMaker is a lot different than using a 3D Engine, unless you're as good as our fellow user here, Sheep.

Not sure what that is supposed to mean, I'm sure a 3D engine is quite different to a 2D drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor with limited "scripting" capabilities to anyone, be they sheep, italians or giraffes.

Now, a GDD is essential to a game.

In theory maybe, but unless you're making a huge game which requires coordination among a large team it is rather overrated and just promotes using a waterfall methodology, which every other part of computer science aims to strive away from.
That said, any professional game of today uses GDD's; their prime purpose however is to pitch the project to investors. As such they are quite a lot less necessary for indie fan games.

how will you possible define the glide mechanics without doing somewhat complex math that isn't taught in seventh grade?

I don't think s/he ever said anything about being in 7:th grade? Or perhaps that was done in another thread. Anyhow, that is a pretty bad example; in what way does the glide mechanics require particularly complex math? It is basically a matter of reducing the gravity heavily (maybe to around 0.05) and applying a constant forward movement.

A Spyro fangame will never be finished

You may very well be correct, but you can never know for sure. I'm fairly confident I could make one in a year if I had the help of a decent modeller / animator and we skipped the sound effects / music. As you say though, it doesn't pay anything and since living is hardly free it isn't particularly motivating to work on such a project when you can instead work on your own game that you just might be able to sell one day if you finish it.

Finally, before people start calling me a blowhard, I did this with a (yes, one) friend as our final project in school last year. From scratch. We were told by teachers and students alike that it was way too ambitious and that we should at least use a pre-made engine like Unity instead, but we went ahead and got this far from *nothing* in about 9 months still. You'll have to excuse the wacked out view; my buddy didn't think to zoom out the camera... While it is obviously far from perfect it did allow multiple players to enter a synchronized world and battle moose; what else could you possibly desire? tongue

Last edited by Ulfbjörn (Mar 16, 2014 5:15 PM)

Breaking Bad · Mar 16, 2014 7:11 PM

Ulfbjörn wrote:

I understand what you mean, but you definitively can program them rather than doing it in a visual editor like everyone is these days (and someone doubtlessly programmed that editor in the first place).
On a more serious note, I'm currently working on adding animation support to my DX11 engine. This involves quite a bit of work to get to function properly, mainly you have to displace individual vertices based on influence by joints in a skeletal node ("bones") hierarchy. Without doing that you wouldn't get any animations to play. Of course if you're cheating and using a pre-made engine like Unity you can just drag and drop your animations and have the engine play them for you, but still. Someone, albeit not you, has undoubtedly done quite a deal of programming to make that possible.

Now what you did is very very, very impressive, but we haven't seen any indication of this person's skills, be it screenshots, gameplay demos, or even 3D Renders.

Not sure what that is supposed to mean, I'm sure a 3D engine is quite different to a 2D drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editor with limited "scripting" capabilities to anyone, be they sheep, italians or giraffes.

Sheep is a user on Spyroforum (not the animal tongue )who can do 3D in the gamemaker engine. It's quite impressive.

I don't think s/he ever said anything about being in 7:th grade? Or perhaps that was done in another thread. Anyhow, that is a pretty bad example; in what way does the glide mechanics require particularly complex math? It is basically a matter of reducing the gravity heavily (maybe to around 0.05) and applying a constant forward movement.

Might be a bad example, but, there is some complex math involved in making any game.

Finally, before people start calling me a blowhard, I did this with a (yes, one) friend as our final project in school last year. From scratch. We were told by teachers and students alike that it was way too ambitious and that we should at least use a pre-made engine like Unity instead, but we went ahead and got this far from *nothing* in about 9 months still. You'll have to excuse the wacked out view; my buddy didn't think to zoom out the camera... While it is obviously far from perfect it did allow multiple players to enter a synchronized world and battle moose; what else could you possibly desire?

You have a download? It looks soo fun!

Basically, Ulfbjörn, my point is that he could do a fan-flash game, and after learning what it takes, he/she could then branch out and work on his/her own project, and try and take that somewhere.

Stormy · Mar 16, 2014 7:15 PM

You're right: we haven't seen evidence. So there's no point in criticizing until we have. I thought we agreed on this before, and you told me you weren't going to argue about it anymore? tongue

Mateos · Mar 16, 2014 7:17 PM

I hope you know what is Unity and its purpose (aka why it is overused these days): ease the game development process smile

You don't need advanced maths to make a it; And you don't need advanced maths to make a 3D engine (but the performances will be low). I have a friend who's not that good at maths but made a 3D engine (10 FPS on a i7 without big graphical effects, and you can walk on walls like on floor tongue ).

Oh also you pointed that there's no screens or else to prove it is well going, but it isn't because there's no visuals yet that something bad is going on.

Last edited by Mateos (Mar 16, 2014 7:18 PM)

Flapjacks · Mar 16, 2014 10:26 PM

Mateos wrote:

I hope you know what is Unity and its purpose (aka why it is overused these days): ease the game development process

Unity is overused for a reason. It's an easy-to-use engine that can still be used to make triple-a title games.

▼Hidden text

This is Guns of Icarus Online; it was made using Unity. Unity is just passed off as a crappy engine because the most popular games made for it (Surgeon Simulator) didn't show off what the engine can really do.

▼Hidden text

Rust, a game in alpha, looks pretty good, especially for an alpha

▼Hidden text

Wasteland 2, also in alpha, plans to be sold for $60 at release.

Last edited by Flapjacks (Mar 16, 2014 10:27 PM)

NeoReaper · Mar 16, 2014 11:41 PM

I might have a more in-depth look into Unity, it couldn't be any harder to learn then UDK 3 now can it? What about HAMMER editor too? (Source Engine)

o-danny-o · Mar 17, 2014 5:52 AM

GUNS OF ICARUS!

If you make the game half as good as guns of Icarus it's good enough for me.

Mateos · Mar 17, 2014 9:00 AM

Oh, did not know Wasteland 2 was made in Unity...

Hammer is really easy to use (when you're used to GtkRadiant supporting iD Tech engine games, GoldSrc and Source being a fork from iD Tech II), I touched a bit the UDK (2.5 with Killing Floor), a bit harder depending on which tuts you follow; Since anyone can make a game out of Unity, it is well documented, so it should't be hard to learn it smile

Evilness · Mar 17, 2014 12:30 PM

In fact, the graphic interface of unity is really user-friendly and this ease the work. Obviously, you can use the easier game engine you want, but making a good game isnt so simple wink

-thinking on adding the Egg Thiefes in my game, to psycologically destroy the new generations xD-

Mateos · Mar 17, 2014 6:13 PM

Just be sure to have a first playable (maybe release candidate? :3) before adding extras which aren't required for the game to be played through smile Just a friendly advice o/

Ideas are nice to be noted and available to the whole team anytime (Rust guys use Trello website for that) smile

Evilness · Mar 17, 2014 6:34 PM

We already use Trello and we have a private developing forum, yeah, that was just an idea, we know what to do first wink
Now that we have animations, we all are a bit more motivated, but we're still trying to implement them in the movements/attack scripts. After that, we'll have to fix a problem in the fire rotation and then...the video wink

36IStillLikeSpyro36 · Mar 18, 2014 2:37 AM

your English is really good.

also, i'd just like to point out that i have a good feeling about your ability to complete this, and if you guys keep working at it, i think you could actually pull it off.

Last edited by 36IStillLikeSpyro36 (Mar 18, 2014 2:46 AM)

Evilness · Mar 19, 2014 4:06 PM

Hey guys i've done the Cynder's Project Website! Link: http://cynderproject.webs.com/
Here you'll be constantly updated on the project developing!

All the basic animations have been set up and synchronized with all the movement scripts. Just modifing something to make them more fluid and fixing soe little problems.
Watch our forum to know more!

If someone wants to help us, especially programmers, modellers, graphics and animators please contact me! We need YOUR help! big_smile

NeoReaper · Mar 19, 2014 5:41 PM

Subscribe button does not work sad
Btw, if I was to help, I cannot put any qualifications in yet since I have not got them yet... =p

Last edited by NeoReaper (Mar 19, 2014 5:42 PM)

Evilness · Mar 19, 2014 5:44 PM

Thank you for the information, fixing it right now tongue for qualifications i meant the work you'd like to do, i'm changing that form right now wink

EDIT: Now the subscribe button works, i've changed the contact form and i've added some things in the Home Page...Better, now big_smile

Last edited by Evilness (Mar 19, 2014 5:52 PM)

Mateos · Mar 19, 2014 6:28 PM

Be sure to precise that role: by level designer, do you mean a simple level designer or someone who can do both game and level design?

A game designer is a person who thinks and draw the layout of the maps, while the level designer is the one building it in a SDK; Usually in fan project you have the same person doing both parts, but who knows smile

I'm learning programming at the college (will start engineering next year), but never worked on anything out of it, so I'll see after my first internship if I can work fine in a team; I know Java, C and C++ for now, and I can understand UML and Pert graphs. I'm also mapping in GtkRadiant (iD Tech games), touched Hammer (iD Tech II -> GoldSrc -> Source, thus I recognized most entities and shader stuff) and UDK a bit with Killing Floor (UDK 2.5). I use a bit GIMP too, but not for texturing yet ^^' Touched Blender. Yeah I touch too much xD So few time out of college to explore all that possibilities sadly.

Good luck anyway o/

Breaking Bad · Mar 20, 2014 6:20 PM

Well, looks like ya have some screenshots, good work!

Evilness · Mar 26, 2014 4:13 PM

Guys sorry if for some days i haven't written anything, but i was improving some things! And sorry if i haven't published the PREDemo video yet, but i promise: tomorrow or friday at least i'll make it. I just had some very nice ideas and i wanted to add 'em all to the game! I'll write here when i've published the video!

Evilness · Mar 27, 2014 3:10 PM

The PREDemo is finally out! We decided not to make a video (also because of some problems, don't ask) so we published it! Just go to our website in the Blog section, read all and download it! Obviously, it's free.

Link to our website: cynderproject.webs.com

Let me know what you think! Maybe it's not so much? It's a PREDemo! I cannot let you see ALL... wink

Gekoncze · Mar 27, 2014 8:31 PM

It's great big_smile but I guess you might want to play with the camera a bit. Keep it up!

#26 Mar 14, 2014 5:22 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#27 Mar 14, 2014 8:18 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#28 Mar 14, 2014 8:24 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#29 Mar 14, 2014 8:28 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#30 Mar 16, 2014 11:21 AM

Re: Cynder's Game

#31 Mar 16, 2014 5:14 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#32 Mar 16, 2014 7:11 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#33 Mar 16, 2014 7:15 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#34 Mar 16, 2014 7:17 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#35 Mar 16, 2014 10:26 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#36 Mar 16, 2014 11:41 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#37 Mar 17, 2014 5:52 AM

Re: Cynder's Game

#38 Mar 17, 2014 9:00 AM

Re: Cynder's Game

#39 Mar 17, 2014 12:30 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#40 Mar 17, 2014 6:13 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#41 Mar 17, 2014 6:34 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#42 Mar 18, 2014 2:37 AM

Re: Cynder's Game

#43 Mar 19, 2014 4:06 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#44 Mar 19, 2014 5:41 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#45 Mar 19, 2014 5:44 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#46 Mar 19, 2014 6:28 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#47 Mar 20, 2014 6:20 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#48 Mar 26, 2014 4:13 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#49 Mar 27, 2014 3:10 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

#50 Mar 27, 2014 8:31 PM

Re: Cynder's Game

Board footer