The thing is, we still haven't decided completely on storyline either. Lithium and I have thrown ideas around but nobody's shown any preference/dislike for any of them.

I'm still thinking about the story, I just haven't come to any conclusions yet.

I agree with atleast making the prototype in GM/some other engine. We need to see how the idea works out, and if our dedication is strong enough to actually realise a project like this. (Even a simple game takes a lot of work to get it polished.)

I've made some games in the past, in GML and in other languages. Unfortunatly I'm very busy with the combination of College and my own projects (AndroidGIP, Serversoftware, etc).
However, in a few months my workload will probably cool down a bit, and if this project is more than just a plan at that time I might be able to contribute some code :)

As for the gametype/story, I think depending on the story and engine we decide to go with we'd better keep it 2d. (3d in GM is hardly supported, with only a few basic functions). Something like a platformer/rpg.

Another thing to consider, is thinking up something that sets this game apart from others, even if the quality is lower than some commercial games. Some gameplay mechanic that wows the users, like the portals in Portal or the gravity in Super Mario Galaxy.

Well, in whatever way this might turn out, Happy coding/drawing/composing/etc. everyone!

P.S: I wish I had a cake generator in my house, cake tastes a lot better than the food in this place XD

I still have to stress. We can't begin to make a prototype if we haven't chosen the basic outline of a story yet. Or gameplay idea.

Herpdy derp. Bump.

Sean & company, my MSN handle is listed by my JCF profile.

I don't use MSN. :D Besides, I've already got you on Skype. My main point is that people just seem to be ignoring the primary issue that is we need to choose a theme. No real programming can get done before a theme is in place.

That's true. Consider the suggestions we have posted.

What if y'all upgraded the Jazz IOS stick shooter? Give it less blood, more Jazzy enemies, different guns and powerups, new level designs, etc.?

Personally - though I think I might be speaking for a few others here as well - I'd prefer some new material in this project. We've been working on Jazz in many different ways so long that something new would be a breath of fresh air.

And as far as upgrading it goes, I don't know if there are all that many people here with 3d experience.

Let me teach you all a basic equation:

But anyway, on the story:
I think we should choose a genre first, because that already gives a small hint in the direction of what kind of game it'll be.
For example, a race game will have a completely different kind of story than most rpg's.

I think we were mostly agreed that at its most basic level this should be a 2D platformer, simply because that's what Jazz is and that's what we're all doing here.

We've already put out ideas there *hint hint*

Well, the space-squad idea could work, if we be careful to not make the 9001th starwars(c)/space marines(tm) fan-game, like said before.
I don't know if that idea has had any progress yet, or if you're planning to go for another idea by now. Maybe I could get (read-)access that doc you're all talking about ?

About the size of sprites/tiles, I'd say keep it small. It's supposed to be a squad game, so you'll need to see your squad (AI/other players). The size Jazz2 uses might be a good size to start with. And you could always use 3d-functions for drawing the 2d-graphics, those make scaling your viewport easy so the scale could depend on the location in the lvl or the amount of players/action onscreen. (Although GMaker hates 3d)

I'm still open for PMing of Google accounts. Anonymous access is possible, but I'd rather be able to know who's accessing it at that time.

So... anyone else still interested in doing this thing?

Actually, lately I'm writing something looking like another possible idea. It's kinda time-consuming though, so I still didn't get to the some important aspects. But here, see what I've got so far:

The main character has no special abilities. He's a rather usual student, perhaps 23 years old or so. He delivers pizza and lives with parents. In free time he constructs a teleportation device. His project exploded twice already, blowing up the whole room, so no one except him and a group of Star Trek fans from neighbourhood believes it can ever start to work. However, one day, it apparently starts to really work. He manages to successfully teleport his hamster. His hamster is named Bob. It’s his third hamster in fact. The first one died when the device exploded for the first time. The other one burnt to ashes during an attempt to teleport him, a few weeks after the second explosion. They were all named Bob, even though one of them was a female. That was mainly caused by the boy’s laziness and putting little care when it comes to name choice. Later he also noticed it greatly reduces emotional pain after a loss when the new hamster wears the old one’s name. He tried the same experiment on humans, but - for reasons he couldn’t understand - his girlfriend left him immediately after calling her Bob, and he didn’t feel like it reduced his pain at all. That’s when he learnt that things which work with animals don’t always work with humans. Nonetheless, the device worked on his hamster and there was no other way to test its ability to transport humans than to use it oneself. Well, he actually managed to think of another way, which was finding someone naive enough to check out the device in his stead. Obviously, there was no simpler option than using one of those Star Trek fans hanging around. Surprisingly, the device worked really well, teleporting the whole body of a volunteer onto the other side of the town. And furthermore, he was still alive and his mind functioned flawlessly, at least to the extent it did before. The very same day, the fan decided to describe this event on his blog, widely known as spockblog46729D3. He had no idea what consequences will it bring...

The device consists of two separate components: the transmitter and the receiver. The first of them looks like a typical belt and, as such, is wearable, although might feel a bit heavy. It’s teleported along with its user. The receiver is shaped like a bowling ball, but is a bit lighter than one so it can be thrown on long distances. The mechanism can be referred to as the Bowling Ball, abbreviated to BoB. The game-play should mostly concentrate on various uses of the device, the simplest of which would be just throwing the ball onto otherwise unreachable platforms or through thin holes, but also possibly dropping it from above to stun guards or using it to make noise in some place while sneaking elsewhere. Naturally, there have to be more possibilities to keep a player interested. Also there should be sections where a player doesn’t have the Bowling Ball at all.

It's a good story. Why don't we all together pick a leader, who will lead in this project, make decisions, and who will be a Director of this game?

It's definitely an interesting gameplay concept, but will we be exploring the consequences of this device more or are we delving into the lack of emotional pain he will start to feel? And to explore this concept, are we going to have the game narrated or will there be dialog? Are we going to have a discussion as to what these consequences will be? Government or private company? Stuff like that.

Anyway, added to the doc. It's not like it stopped existing or anything.

No one here seems to be interest in leading the project. Your plan really mostly hinged on Violet helping out. I'd offer myself as a leader, but hell I know anything about project leadership.

Hi
...
I'm a month late aren't I :(

Not really. We haven't started on anything, so as long as you join in now you'll be early, so to speak.

So. Another bump. If necessary I will vote myself as the leader unless someone comes and usurps me. I also call for the creation of some private group where we discuss the actual creation of the game. That is, if anyone is still interested. People seem to just be dying down on this.

I can understand. Everyone in this thread has lots of other things they'd like to do. Like their own games.

Or a single player episode.

:|

Either way, while I'm getting ahead of myself, I support SE's idea as the best so far and I'm going to push that one. Who else is here?

The concept seems fine, as far as I'm concerned, as long as SE is comfortable programming it. I'm still in for when you guys need tiles.
I'm wondering what we're doing for sprites, on the other hand. All my attempts at animation turn out pretty horrible, so I'm not confident I'd be able to provide anything with quality to it. There's always the possibility of finding a base to work from, I suppose. Does anybody here have experience with animating sprites?

If I try hard enough I'll be able to provide sprites. If we're going into hair detail like flowing and stuff I'm less sure. But otherwise I'm fine.

Anti-aliased backgrounds are also my sort of thing.

I'm fine with you being the leader, but then again, I don't think I can provide much if SE has already got the story and gameplay planned.

Also I liked the space marines theme more :(

We haven't exactly written the whole story. If everyone agrees on this theme we can get started on the actual full script. Of course you'll still be able to contribute to the script.

^I agree.

Then does anyone have any suggestion for a game name for SE's idea?

I've been writing some songs that this game could use; that's not a lot of progress now

Great then, if no one voices any objections to the theme then SE's theme is in effect. I'd like to hear some of those songs, KRSplat, and also we should come up with a main theme.

I've started to write notation on Noteflight - Online Music Notation Software.

Okay, do let me know when you're finished. I might also collaborate on the main theme with you.

I've got no problem with SE's theme, the teleportation ball gimmick sounds like it could work well. Is there any particular area we'd want in the game so I could do a few tiles? Also, what size should the tiles be? I'm obviously more accustomed to 32x32, but I could probably do larger.

I think 24x24 would be a good tile size. And also, let's do something like New York for a setting for the main character's house and pizza company. Easy enough to find reference photos.

Why are you guys sticking to tiles? It's not exactly the most flexible solution around. File size isn't much of an issue nowadays, so you could as well go with having your whole level stored as one giant datafile (bitmap, if that's the most convenient).

Of course the editor could still be tile-based to an extent.

We're sticking to tiles mostly because I'm the only one who has volunteered for level art so far, and I suck at other art.

Uh, that sounds kind of weird to me... can you only work in square grids? Even if your own art is tile-based, having the engine allow for pixel-precise positioning allows for more variety and gives greater control over how your game looks.

I could do stuff other than just tiles if I wanted to, I guess. Game Maker can use tilesets, but it can do pixel-precise stuff too. I'm just used to tiles, that's all.

I have begun writing the complete script for the game. Seeing as to the nature of the Google Doc, anyone can add in parts as they please which will be promptly removed and replaced by stuff I like left in if nobody disagrees and probably removed if enough people disagree. Go nuts.