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What do Coders need to know?

Daniel Bishop · 2013-03-11T20:35:12

Good evening, I am designing a game, and soon I will need to begin seeking out a coder or programmer (maybe several) to bring it to life. I am very new to all of this, so what I am asking is- what would a programmer need to know in order to give a reasonable estimate of time and money they would charge to complete it (U.S dollars). Please allow me to give an outline, and let me know what more information is required. Most of the headers contain links to my website, which have mock-ups of the game screens, for a better idea of the game format. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pack for Coders Necromancer, The Fight For Life is a 2D RPG to be programmed in C++, C#, Unity or whatever software is most appropriate, using sprites for animation and simple graphics. The game can be played with mouse and keyboard and compatible with Microsoft Windows. In terms of mechanics and complexity it is almost identical to Gameboy Pokemon games, the main feature of which is monster capturing and battling. Screens- Title Screen Fade in and out company logo, fade in title screen with 4 options. New- Starts a slideshow of 5 still slides with music and voiceover, then the game begins. Load- Restores a previously saved game state. Options- Change music volume, sfx volume. Website- Opens a separate window that shows the company website. World Map Character sprite can move up, down, left and right on a tiled surface (using basic walking sprite animation). When the sprite encounters a tile with a town on it, the game screen changes to a town, there is also a “random chance” while moving of entering a battle with NPCs. On the World Map screen at any time the player can enter the options screen with a button press. Towns Character sprite can move up, down, left and right. When standing next to an NPC sprite, a button press can initiate text on the screen (the NPC speaking), occasionally there will be dialogue options (the equivalent of Yes and No options) that will affect future dialogue options, story elements, and also affect the game conclusion. There is a point in each town where the player can Save the game state and also heal all of their minions to full health points. There will be approximately 50 towns, all using the same structure, just different art. Through dialogue options the player can accept and complete quests, progressing the story and unlocking new areas on the World Map. Battles The battle screen will have 1 – 3 minion sprites controlled by the player, and 1 – 3 sprites controlled by AI. The player can choose to Run (having 50% chance of returning to the World Map), Info (which will cause anything the Pointer is on to display explanatory text) and Action, which will cause battle actions. The battles are turn based (order determined by the minion’s Speed value), each minion has the option of 4 attacks with the option of 3 targets (some high level attacks will affect all targets, and some attacks can target allies). When an attack and a target is selected, a battle animation will play (normally comprised of 4 sprites) and the next minion will be able to act. Some attacks cause a minion to lose health points, some cause a minion to increase or decrease in stats (referred to as buffs and debuffs, see below for stat details). When a minion reaches zero health points, it can no longer act in battle. When all the minions on one side have zero health points the battle is over, if the player lost, they are transported to the last town they visited, if the player was victorious they are returned to their location on the World Map. NPC minions in battle can be controlled by simple AI or simple random number generators (with 4 attacks to choose from, and 3 targets to choose from, there is a total of 12 possible actions, so maybe random battle actions would be just as effective, I have yet to learn enough about this). Minion health points can be recovered by the act of walking on the World Map. Something like 5 health points per step, or totally recovered by resting in a town (talking to a certain NPC sprite like an innkeeper). Minion Management The minion management screen displays a simple list of all the minions which the player has captured and currently owns. Each minion can be individually selected and the player can use the following options. Info- Displays a new screen with detailed minion stats. Switch- a second minion must be selected, and then those two minions switch spots in the list. The first three minions in the list are the ones which will be used in battle. Fuse- a second minion must be selected, and then both minions are deleted and a new minion is created. Only specific combinations of minions can be successfully fused, if non-compatible minions are selected then a simple “not compatible” message is displayed. Remove- Minion is permanently deleted from the list. There are 150 different minions, and the player can own multiple copies of the same minion. Minions have 10 Stats (of numerical value from 0 – 1000) Health Points- are the amount of points a minion can lose before being defeated.Strength- determines physical damage output.Constitution- lessens the amount of physical damage taken.Dexterity- increases the chance an attack will connect with its target.Finesse- increases the chance an incoming attack will miss.Speed- determines how soon the minion can act in battle.Willpower- determines magical damage output.Resistance- lessens the amount of magical damage taken.Luck- increases the potency of actions which effect the stats of minions (buffs and debuffs).Fate- decreases the potency of incoming actions which effect the stats of minions. After each successful battle, minions will gain experience points. As experience points increase, minions' values increase, making them more powerful in battles. After certain amounts of experience points, minions gain new attacks and can eventually evolve into new more powerful forms. There are 240 different attacks, each using a different calculation of stats, for example- Slice = Attacker’s Strength minus Target’s Constitution Lightning = Attacker’s Willpower minus Target’s Resistance With some involving more complicated calculations (nothing more than basic algebra) such as... Vines = Attacker’s Willpower plus Attacker’s Speed divided by 2 minus Target’s Resistance with a chance to reduce the Target’s Speed by an amount determined by a different calculation e.t.c... I have not yet settled on the exact method of acquiring new minions, I expect it will be similar to Pokemon games (reduce target to a low health, then attempt to capture). Pocket Necronomicon A simple screen containing a virtual book, pages can be turned and pages will show text information about minions (added as new minions are encountered) similarly with people and places. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for reading.

General and Gameplay Programming Programming Unity

Started by Got_Rhythm March 03, 2013 03:29 AM

13 comments, last by Got_Rhythm 11 years, 1 month ago

blueshogun96

2,267

March 05, 2013 07:02 AM

I'm going to recommend a book for you. http://www.amazon.com/Business-Legal-Primer-Game-Development/dp/1584504927

I learned quite a bit from reading this book, and it also gives you some realistic expectations on the gaming biz. It even has a few articles from veteran devs like Ralph Baer talking about things they wish they would have known ahead of time. If you don't have the cash for lawyer off hand, this book can save you a bit of trouble (depending on how far you want to go).

Tbh, I don't remember the book being so pricey. I got it for about $50 USD (IIRC).

Also, are you a programmer of any sort?

Shogun.

Got_Rhythm

559

Author

March 05, 2013 08:19 AM

Wow that book is crazy expensive, but yes I will need something like that soon, thank you.

Shogun, I am not a programmer at all, I am teaching myself all the relevant game development skills as I go (my only pre-existing skill was writing).

However so far in 4 months I have managed to teach myself enough art and design to create everything you can see on my website (just updated the Towns and Cities mock-up art to reflect the eventual tile structure). And I taught myself enough HTML to set up and code the website from scratch, no 'helper' software involved.

So my current internal debate is whether to teach myself enough about coding to create a prototype, or ask someone to do it for me. I would love to learn to do it myself, but I already have rather a lot on my plate around my silly full-time job and doing the writing/structure/artwork for the game. At the very least I would like to learn enough about programming so that I can be a good project manager and leader and communicate properly with programmers- hence the reason for my original post.

frob

46,221

March 05, 2013 03:58 PM

In that case your next step is to build a game design document (GDD).

It describes the game in full detail. You should be able to hand the GDD to any reasonably intelligent stranger, ask them to read it, then ask them to act out or describe exactly how they would play a section of the game. It doesn't need every detail, but it should be detailed enough that a lay person could understand exactly how every system interacts and is presented to the user.

Stroppy Katamari

1,416

March 05, 2013 08:28 PM

So my current internal debate is whether to teach myself enough about coding to create a prototype, or ask someone to do it for me. I would love to learn to do it myself, but I already have rather a lot on my plate around my silly full-time job and doing the writing/structure/artwork for the game. At the very least I would like to learn enough about programming so that I can be a good project manager and leader and communicate properly with programmers- hence the reason for my original post.

Prototypes can be useful without modeling the whole game. For instance, to iterate on battle mechanics it might be sufficient to have a prototype that just models a single battle with one screen, fixed enemies, no AI, you play both the character and the enemy actions, etc.

Again, check out RPG Maker (or equivalent) and just start messing around in it. I haven't used it myself but reportedly it is very friendly to beginners.

Just a spreadsheet program can be enough for some things, like modeling the damage output of a character with given abilities/equipment and the probability of winning against a certain type of enemy.