Hi guys,

i need to do some research for a development schedule for a school project. Problem is, i don't know anyone with programming experience so i thought i should ask here.

So my main question is how long would it take for a programmer (preferably with 3 years or less of experience) to do these tasks.

The game would be an free to play RPG mobile game with some base building elements.(think summoners war for the basebuilding elements)

Battles would be fought by rolling dice, you could roll the dice by swiping the screen and maybe shaking the phone.

Enemies will drop loot as in ingame currency that the play can collect by tapping on them or will be collected automatically when the battle ends.

Special attacks can be made by having certain combinations with dice. (think yahtzee rules, like 3 of a kind, small straight, etc.)

Players can have a team of up to 5 units to battle and space for holding 15-20 other units.

two kinds of ingame currency, one common and one rare.

Units can be collected through a "gacha system", where they get units randomly out of a big pool of units in exchange for a summoning items or some form of rare ingame currency.

Setting up a server.

Players have a friends list that could have up to 20 friends from which they can add and remove other people.

Players can fight eachother.

An online shop where they can exchange real currency for ingame currency and items.

An online shop where they can exchange ingame currency for different items.

Bugfixes.

I'm sorry for putting this load of questions here, but i honeslty have no idea where else i could get answers.

If you have any questions, advice, criticism or think i forgot something please tell me, i'm still leraning after all.

Thank you for your time

Usually you work with a team of people to make something worthy of being called quality within a few months. It could take a year or two if you do it on your own and you know the concepts and libraries for each component that you want. It might not be worth doing if you don't have any knowledge for any of those items.

Hi guys,

First of all, thank you for the replies and sorry that i wasn't very clear on my first post.

The project will be fictional, so i'm not making it for real. However, i'd like to be as realistic as possible with this project.

We have to picture ourselfs as a start-up company with 3-5 developers myself included as the designer.

The project time limit would be between 4-5 months, with a soft launch as end goal at the end of the time period.

I'll be aiming for the maximum amount of time (which is 5 months), with the maximum amount of developers (which is 5).

I was thinking of splitting the team into 1 designer, 2 artists, 2 programmers and then outsource the sounddesign and music.

We didn't get a budget limit, but since we have to think like a start-up company, i don't think i would be able to afford programmers that would have more than 3 years experience( I did some research about this and programmers would make between €3,500.00 - €4,000.00 here in the Netherlands). Still, since it's fictional and we didn't get a limit for our budget i might be able to squeeze that by.

@Wyrframe, thank you for telling me difference between features and tasks, i'll keep that in mind from now on. Also, i'm sorry to say that i don't know anything about programming so i don't have the slightest idea how to accurately describe the features as tasks or how long it would take to complete them.

Also i got some feedback about this concept, and the design & production teachers told me the scope would be believable. But if some things aren't feasible from a programmers view i'd like to hear it.

Again, thank you guys for your time.

Do keep in mind that a programmer costs more than his salary. You need a building with offices, desks, computers, central heating, soup & coffee, bicycle/car parking, and so on.

I think companies also pay a lot of taxes for personnel.

(I have no experience in estimating, but as a first approximation)

One way to get an estimate is to think what data you need to have available to make a feature happen. You can also look at how long such data must be available, or how many different changes have to be done on the data.

Of course, in theory, you're asking the wrong guys, we don't make estimates, we just program the tasks that you tell us to implement. :p

@Alberth Good call! i'll also ask in the production forum! Also, i already got the costs for a real office with parking, coffee desks etc. though i would like to now how much it would cost for a desktop/laptop suitable for making a game like this. Do you know anything about the hardware requirements to develop a game like this?

For a programmer, anything decent will work. A graphics artist needs a 3D capable machine, which usually ends up in the bigger machines due to larger processing requirements. Proper screen would be important, and a good keyboard/mouse.

Laptops are always more costly than desktops, since you're paying for robustness of traveling with it.

You'll need a network, and at some point a server-ish machine for testing, and perhaps centralized storage for shared data etc.

The real server is a whole different thing. For enough users, you probably want to have your own machine in a rack at the ISP. You'll have hardware costs (look at rack mounted systems), and bandwidth costs of the ISP. Probably also some backup and/or fall-over facility to stay online. You'll want something doing system administration for you, here. Setting up a server is not really what programmers do often (or at all).

Don't forget backup costs of the code / assets while developing.