Idea: Community-Made CRPG

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So, I've been playing a lot of Planescape: Torment, lately, and it's got me thinking: What if some of us creative-types with an interest in programming and game art got together and tried our hand at putting together an oldschool CRPG, like Torment or Baldur's Gate? There's already a free, open-source project out there that has effectively reverse-engineered the Infinity engine, called GemRB, so we wouldn't have to build one from scratch; just have people with programming knowledge familiarize themselves with it enough to be able to work with it effectively.

I think it'd be really cool if we could get some people together and create even a small game (maybe a few hours, at most) successfully. Doesn't necessarily have to be a fantasy RPG, but the GemRB/Infinity engine
is designed to operate on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset.

So, for starters, I know we'd need people for the following departments:

Writing (Plot, characters, dialogue, descriptions, etc.)
Programming
Sprites (characters, items, visual effects, animations, etc.)
Pre-Rendered Backgrounds
Sound Effects
User Interface/HUD
Voice Cast (optional)
Play-Testing (shared among entire team?)

I know in reality that it's genuinely a huge freaking project to put together even a small game, especially for a collection of people working together over the internet; but if we could pull it off, it'd be a huge testament to what those of us on the autistic spectrum can achieve, even when separated by distance, when we put our heads together over a shared passion. Plus, it'd just be fun to create, play, share with others, and be able to say: "I helped make this!"

So, I take the silence as proof that I'm crazy for even suggesting something like this?

Well, I'd love to join as a programmer. I have a full-time job, though, and it drains most of my energy so I could probably only work on it during weekends.

Also RPG require a lot of work and organization. Storyline, game art, concept etc... I think it would be easier to make just an arcade game that does not need a lot of story or art. Like Donkey Kong, Pacman etc. Might not be as interesting as an RPG, but it will still be a lot of fun to make.

I love working on plot and dialogue and stuff like that. And I could try to make a couple concept sketches (no promises that they'll be great). Plus I've dabbled with game development in the past. But I've always been limited to the tabletops.

Welp, I'm an artist, writer, and I can do voice acting. I can't promise anything, but I could potentially be of use to this project, if it ever gets off the ground.

Good to see at least a few people are interested, anyway...

I've been mucking around with a lot of old-school CRPG-related stuff recently: teaching myself pixel art, researching GemRB and the Infinity Engine and its modding tools, and constructing isometric backgrounds in SketchUp. I've also been tossing around a number of story and character ideas in my head for a while now, too. The only thing I don't really dare to touch (mostly because I know I don't have the patience for it) is the actual programming itself.

Well, what job would you like? Are you a designer, perhaps?

Yeah, seems like the hard part of stuff like this is getting a decent programmer (or several) on board.

I would like to help but my talent doesn't belong here or at least i think so. Another thing to consider is balancing, direction of the story, how many would be willing to work on this from the available pool here, you might even have to draw resources from other forums where aspiring game designers and programers lurk. play testers must be not be from the developer group, you need opinions that are outside the team and won't be bias towards this project. The testers must have more time to mess with your current build to find bugs so you can devote more time to brainstorming and building upon mistakes or improving the game. Guess being on a FIRST robotics rookie team that won rookie of the year award didn't really help me.

Last edited by Proxy_Trump on 22 Feb 2013, 9:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Me? Well, I fancy myself a pretty good storyteller, so I'd certainly like to do at least part of the story for it; get input and bounce ideas off of other people, and have some help with creating supporting/minor characters and stories for any side-quests there might be. I'm still shaky as a pixel artist (but quite a bit stronger as a 3D artist with sketchUp) so I could contribute to backgrounds, but that's not where my talent lies strongest.

I don't think that's a problem at all, there's lots of programmers on here. Including me =P

So, I've been working on the concept for an RPG Maker VX Ace game, which I think would translate well over to the GemRB/Infinty Engine, and could even benefit greatly from it, actually. I'd like it to be a significantly darker, bleaker and more realistic-looking game than RPGMVXA is capable of creating without a metric shit-ton of custom assets and code; a lot of which wouldn't fit within the engine's format and style, either. Basically, to realize the concept's full potential and aesthetics, it would be better to start from scratch on the GemRB/Infinity Engine than to try to make extensive fundamental modifications to the RPG Maker engine, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, the idea draws inspiration from a couple of different major sources: Planescape: Torment, and a few of the concepts from Sergei Lukyanenko's Watchers series, in particular; as well as a collection of my own random ideas I've fabricated from various obscure influences I've come into contact with over the years, but can't remember of the top of my head.

One major thing I think would make for a cool ending is one particular concept from the Watchers series that I've been playing with, where using that, the player's choices throughout the game decide whether the game ends with the world dominated by either good or evil, but that doesn't become clear until the very end.

Are you wanting a morality system in place, then? I'm not really a fan of them personally.

If you do end up doing it, please make sure not to make the good and bad choices incredibly obvious.

My talents are more related to table-top RPGs, but if I can help, please let me know.

The way I have it laid out in my mid, the choices won't be immediately obvious which ones meant to be the 'good' choices or the 'evil' choices, or even which ones are meant to be neutral. One that may seem neutral may cause an NPC to take offense, based on how they're written, perhaps. What may seem like a contrary response may cause an NPC to agree with a certain point you made, and maybe become a little less hostile or defiant towards you. Some conversation choices may depend on how you interacted with the character previously, which results in how they react to you currently. Killing a seemingly 'innocent' character may not be classified as an evil deed, if they turn out to be an amoral criminal, or something; or dispatching a seemingly amoral criminal may not be a good deed, if they were acting with good intentions for a beneficial cause to others.

The idea is, that the player character is a Mirror: a being with unlimited potential, created for the sole purpose of restoring the balance between Light and Darkness/Good and Evil in the world. The choices they make throughout the game determine whether or not the balance tips in favor of Light or Darkness by the end of the game. The tip in the scales at the end of the game isn't permanent, though, as theoretically, the outcome the player creates will eventually be reversed by a mirror of the opposite alignment. It's basically a perpetual see-saw effect of the influence of Light and Darkness over the world.

I might be interested. I have a two-year degree in game design and I'm finally trying to use it. I have a couple of my own ideas though(i actually came here to make a topic on one), and that would be my priority.