Team name: PARPG development team. Project name: PARPG - post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. It's just a working title at the moment and we can reconsider it later. Brief description: I had plans for such a project for quite some time but it was more of a vague idea than anything else. In late January 2009 I started to flesh out the concept at our project wiki. PARPG will be an old school 2d isometric roleplaying game, inspired by genre classics such as Fallout, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment. As the project is in early production stage; the team has agreed upon the following key elements: * Singleplayer RPG. No plans for multiplayer or coop support * Post-apocalyptic setting. Story and game mechanics details are still getting fleshed at the moment * Written in Python (2.5.x / 2.6.x branch). Utilizing the FIFE game engine * Isometric 2d perspective instead of going for full 3d engine complexity * Open source code and asset licensing * Open development philosophy. Public development wiki and forums. Anonymous SVN checkout * Meaningful choices and consequences. Multiple paths to complete quests, including non-violent ways * Tactical, turnbased combat * Emphasis on well-written detailed branching tree dialogue More information about agreed upon setting aspects as well as about the story and the game mechanics can be found here: * Game mechanics draft. * Setting draft. * Writing department drafts. Target aim: Open source & non profit. GPL 3.0 for code, GPL 3.0 & CC 3.0 BY-SA dual licensing for media assets (audio, graphics, text). Compensation: Although there are no intentions to make monetary profit with the project, there are a bunch of potential reasons for developers to get involved: * Improving your personal portfolio with the demo version of the game to land a job in the industry. The demo will be a one town / location version of the game. Creating such a demo will be an already quite challenging task and it gives us the chance to test concepts in a smaller scale undertaking first before trying to tackle a full game. A more detailed description of the demo concept can be found at the project wiki. * Love for old school isometric 2d RPGs. * Enthusiasm for open source game development. * Gaining game development experience by working on a team project. Technology: Targeted platforms: Linux, Win32. Mac OS X support would be a plus but it all depends on if we'll find a Mac developer for maintaining the PARPG version for this platform. Programming language: Python 2.5.x & 2.6.x; not all important Python libraries have been ported to Py3k yet so we'll stick to the 2.5 & 2.6 branches for now. Time-critical code can be written in C++. C++ <> Python bindings are supported by FIFE via SWIG. Engine: FIFE. I was personally involved in the FIFE project for three years and although the engine is not feature-complete and development is currently going slow, it turned out to be the best basis for a project like PARPG. IDE: No IDE preference from my side. There are a bunch of good free as well as commercial Python IDEs available. I can't see a good reason at the moment to agree on a single IDE that needs to be used by all programmers; so freedom of choice for you. Talent needed: Programmers can work in a bunch of potential fields: Python game programmer Implementing game features in Python. C++ / Python tools programmer Tools development. Creating / improving all kind of asset creation tools, e.g. a map editor. An example map editor tool comes with FIFE so this can be used as a basis. C++ engine programmer Engine-related development. Extending / modifying / debugging the FIFE engine core for our purposes. As we've already agreed to go for isometric 2d graphics and agreed to write the game code in Python, the number of potential engines for such a game is rather limited. FIFE turned out to be the best choice in the end despite some limits and quirks here and there. It's certainly much easier than to start from scratch and create a new engine for PARPG. There is already quite some code in our SVN repository. A guide how to download and run the latest version of PARPG can be found at our development wiki: PARPG download guide Story writer Note: Position currently filled! No need for additional contributors at this point Wanted: Evil Minds that Plot Destruction. We're looking for a talented writer, preferably an English native speaker. Interest in post-apocalyptic fiction is the most important and only real requirement besides that. If you always wanted to get involved in the development of a game that aims to feature a sophisticated story and you like to work with other dedicated people who enjoy non-cliche RPGs, here is your chance :-) We are also looking for people with experience writing for dialog trees and those familiar with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and other areas near the Baltic Sea. Graphics artist We're trying to find artists who would like to contribute in one of the following possible fields of work: * 3d modeling: creating either organic or inorganic 3d models e.g. (non) player characters, items, weapons, etc. No preference concerning the modeling package to use. At the moment we got artists involved who use Blender, 3dsMax & XSI Softimage. A rendering setup for Blender can be found in our SVN repository * Concept art: visualizing characters or GUI concepts as 2d art * GUI art: creating 2d graphics for the user interface of PARPG Composer / sound effects engineer We would like to fill the following audio-related positions as well: * Composer: creating ambient music for the soundtrack of the game. * Audio effects engineer: creating various audio effects e.g. weapons, noises as well as sounds that will be used for the graphical user interface. Team structure: barra - public relations, developer recruitment, infrastructure maintenance, project management bretzel - programmer Dave Matney - composer & writer kaydeth - programmer meggie - programmer MeinMartinity - composer NineOfHearts - writer qubodup - on and off contributor in a bunch of different fields (e.g. legal advice concerning licenses) Sirren - 3d artist tZee - programmer zeli - concept artist zenbitz - game mechanics designer & writer A listing of my prior game development experience, skills and the specific tasks I'll take over in the development of PARPG can be found at my personal user page at the project wiki. Website: Blog Forums IRC logs Subversion repository Trac - task tracker Wiki Contact: The way of getting in contact with each other is to post a little introduction about yourself at the Introduce yourself board of our forums. Post some bits and pieces about yourself (age, location, occupation, something along these lines) and in which department you would like to work. Providing examples of previous work / projects would be a great plus; post some screenshots or a link to the website of a project that you've contributed to. Our developers will get back to you there and provide some pointers how you can contribute to the project and how to get started. We offered the option to contact the project management via email and personal message in the past but this resulted in a lot of extra work for one specific developer as he was the only one who had the chance to reply to these messages. Therefore please DO NOT contact me via personal message or email anymore! I know it sucks to register at forums to get involved in a volunteer project but it turned out that the other contact options created even more problems and stress for the developers of PARPG. Thanks for your understanding. Previous Work by Team: I was one of the founders of the game engine project FIFE and worked on it for three full years from 2005-2008. My main tasks were recruitment of new developers, public relations (posting news at the blog, staying in contact with the community), infrastructure maintenance (wiki, SVN, trac) as well as maintaining the FIFE Win32 compile SDK - an easy to use all-in-one package to build FIFE from source on Windows systems. More information about FIFE can be obtained from one of the old help wanted postings I posted here at gamedev.net. Furthermore the FIFE wiki is a great starting point as well. Additional Info: Here are some pieces of concept art and work in progress models that our artists have created over the course of the last weeks: Concept art by Gaspard: Raider sketches by JustinOperable: Female raider colorized sketch by JustinOperable: Work in progress female raider model by Sirren: Improvised weapons by Zeli: Icy cavern by Kingston: Furthermore some screenshots of Unknown Horizons - a FIFE-based realtime strategy game currently in development that should illustrate what the engine is capable of doing in the visual department: Feedback: Any kind of feedback is appreciated. We're more than willing to learn from any mistake so shoot, we can take it :-) [Edited by - mvBarracuda on November 17, 2009 8:55:40 AM]

It's time for a little news update :-)

We've boiled down possible setting and game mechanics aspects in the last week. So far we've agreed on a nuclear winter setting; furthermore the game will take place in Northern Europe / Scandinavia. In case you're interested about the details, feel free to check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. In the course of the last week we've agreed on a bunch of setting-related aspects as well as game mechanics: branching tree dialogue, real isometric projection, rivaling factions, crafting use cases and post-game slides that show the consequences of your actions.

We're currently searching for interested Python and C++ programmers who would like to help us with engine evaluation for PARPG. Furthermore we're looking for a writer with passion for post-apocalyptic settings for the story department.

Zenbitz and qubodup started to compile lists of engine requirements and Lamoot collected information how other isometric games implement graphics-related features. Last but not least qubodup overworked the look of our blog, wiki and forums.

If you would like to know more about it, feel free to check out the full news update at the PARPG blog.

Thanks for the encouragement visage! That was really appreciated.

One note concerning getting some playable: we had a brainstorming session at IRC last night and decided to start engine evaluation by using the FIFE techdemo Rio de hola as basis for PARPG. We can modify it step by step and turn it into a custom game in the long run.

This way we can give the programmers a starting point while not pressuring the art department as we can use the Rio de hola assets for engine evaluation until they get replaced with our assets later.

Anyway, at the moment it's simply a renamed version of Rio de hola, but we'll hopefully see some changes to it soon. You can grab the latest copy of PARPG from our Subversion repository. A detailed guide how to do so on Linux and Win32 can be found at our wiki: PARPG download guide.

Just updated the initial posting. We're now looking for a talented writer, preferably a native speaker. Interest in post-apocalyptic fiction is the most important and only real requirement besides that. If you always wanted to get involved in the development of a game that aims to feature a sophisticated story and you like to work with other dedicated people who enjoy non-cliche RPGs, here is your chance :-)

We are also looking for people with experience writing for dialog trees and those familiar with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and other areas near the Baltic Sea.

[Edited by - mvBarracuda on February 28, 2009 8:13:15 AM]

by native speaker do you mean German?

Nope, the project is run in English as I'm the only German on the team. So we're looking for an English native speaker! Thanks for the pointer, it was not really clear.

[Edited by - mvBarracuda on February 27, 2009 6:44:08 PM]

Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG update! This time we’ll cover a bunch of interesting topics: progress in the fields of writing, mechanics and programming, efforts to find a lead writer for the project as well as some general remarks about the future of the technical framework that we’re currently evaluating.

If you would like to know more, check out the full news update at the PARPG development blog.

Just updated the initial posting with new information:
* new TLD: parpg.net
* Updated list of developers
* New Unknown Horizons (formerly known as OpenAnno) screenshots

I can hopefully post another news update at the blog today as well, not sure about it yet.

EDIT: news update is online.

Heya and welcome to your weekly dose of post-apocalyptic development news. Looks like we are picking up quite some speed lately - at least the number of topics to cover in each news update is growing and growing. I'll keep things short this time and you simply click through the various links if you find a topic of interest.

We got covered at the freegamer blog some days ago and agreed upon a first license for the assets we'll create. PARPG got it's own top level domain now and zenbitz was on a game design spree last week again.

Icelus came up with a proposal for a story format and suddenly a lot of writers popped up and filled up the writing board of the forums.

Last but not least we're currently discussing how the game can be challenging while avoiding universal frustration. Feel free to jump into the permadeath thread at the forums right away.

Interested in all the details? Check out the full news update at the PARPG blog (now featuring subdomain candy!).

[Edited by - mvBarracuda on March 9, 2009 11:04:29 AM]