Me and some friends made a team (which keeps getting bigger) and are making a game. A survival horror game, no name for it yet.

So far we got this much about it. Takes place year 2013. In Australia, in 3 places basically, a forest outside Snowtown, Snowtown (both the forest and snowtown is one place) a small port town between Snowtown and Adelaide, and of course the city Adelaide (which is where the rest of the game will take place, and where we're hoping where the game's "spook" level gets really high).

We have thought up a main "story" so to say, which is a person who created some sort of drug, that turned everyone who used it into creature like things. In this persons attempt to take over the world, (or maybe just the western part of Australia) Although there are small resistance forces through Adelaide fighting against the creatures (which the resistance and the creatures need a name too)

We have a main character thought up already named Aaron Amori Rhiley. 16 years old, birthday is May 28, 1997 (remember game takes place 2013) 5'10, 143lbs. He's adventurous, a bit naive, and doesn't know how to give up (or he just doesn't give up?)

And another character who so far has no background info just a first name (and she's asian...Asian's are hot) Kuroki (leader of a resistance group), and her boyfriend Miyamoto.

All that plus the gun I just about finished (maybe err 70% complete) is about all we got. So umm ask your questions, or just comment.

I don't wanna say too much but that's basically all we got so far. So yeah, ask your questions, comment, offer ideas, whatever.

Woot, now its a debate over the resitance name. Either, F.R.A.S, Final Resistance Assualt Squad. Or R.A.S, Resistance Assualt Squad...you guys decide which is cooler...

um good luck?
What engine are you going to use?
Is this free?
Give or take how big?
*sighs* Just wait 'till Vagrant gets here he's better at saying these things than i am...

Havok Engine, we're hoping it to be a retail game (buyable in stores), about 2 full towns and a full city size. So fairly big.

So what company are you going to go to for it to be distributed in stores? watch for loopholes in contracts.
So let me get this right,
a city and 2 towns? Care to explain the scale of these?

Company? Umm dono yet lets make the game first and uhh. If you want scales of the cities, just type in Adelaide in google maps. You'll get the full size city. You can also type in snowtown which is a few km away from Adelaide...

your going to do the whole town/city? Like they did in GTA4?

Funny, I'm 15, 5' 10", and 140 pounds. If your main character has alot of hair, you can model him after me! LOL

im 16 6 ft. and 195 pounds lol then again i spend alot of my time in a gym.

Haha I'm 15 too, and 6'0, about 135lbs. Anyways I'm going to get some rest, really tired. Leave your comments. And yes Chris we're doing a whole city.

Well if it took a team as skilled as Rockstar to do GTA4 in 2 years. Most of it without interiors...i wonder how you guys will pull this off with towns and such. Good luck though.

Wow. A hot chick who won't end up as yours. Blasphemy. Unless you kill him at one point...

First, should probably use an actual name for the game, not something like you're planning. As is, it just sounds too much like a half-assed attempt at a F.E.A.R. clone. Come up with your own unique name, don't rip off what has already been done. Even if your actual game features something different, it is in the same genre, so will get compared. It's just be like making a FPS with the name of "Hell", even if it was based in Alaska, as some sort of spec. ops mission gone wrong, people would compare it to doom.

Second, you should refrain from using real world locations. This is more of a legal thing, and should really be taken into considderation since those towns are somewhere you could actually go to. If using your school as a basis for a fps horror game, using a real town is even worse. Even major game designers realize this... Hence San Andreas, Racoon City. Basing things around a fictional city also gives more freedom with how you can make everything look.

Third, making a game, especially a 3d game is a hell of alot of work, planning is a very, very, very small part of the process. Even though you're using an existing engine, you will still need to do almost all of the scripting and inner workings yourself. Then there is the whole visual resources part. There's a reason why the people behind Limbo of the Lost went around stealing resources, it takes an insanely huge amount of time to get even a handful of models made and looking right. As is the game took them several years, and most who've seen it would agree that it is total crap. Essentially, if even half of your team has not gone through and taken dozens of classes (individually) on game design, you could be looking at a very long and disappointing road. A bunch of kids with a budget of $0, without any professional training, cannot make a viable game. Even those piss-poor webgames were made by people who took some classes and got a certificate. I mean, I don't want to discourage you, but only a few days ago you were trying to get people together for an Oblivion mod team... Either you don't understand the sort of time requirements for something like this, or you don't have the discipline to stick to one thing at a time. These are HUGE projects you're getting involved with. I don't think you realize that there are a good many programmers who actually sleep at their computer, and work on something almost every waking minute. Even if this was all text based, you would still be looking at many months, of just work (all those hours added up), coding, even if you had 5-6 people who were experts at it, it would still take many months (in hours) of just coding. Ask Darkone how much time is spent around here just working out bugs and other issues... I'm not trying to discourage you, but I want you to understand totally that you will be doing little else but working on this sort of project for several years. I want you to understand this and considder long and hard if it is appropiate to ask anyone else to devote their life to such a project when you don't have any of the experience, training, or evidence that suggests that you can do anything like this. There is a HUGE difference between modding for a game, and making one from scratch.

Ok Vagrant, we are thinking up an actual name. We are going to change names of the places, we just had to find a good location that suits how we wanted it to look. And Australia especially the western area we picked, suits how we wanted it.

Second, I still am going to make the mod.

Third, I know it's a lot of work, and not all of us are kids, and we all got budgets pretty much, me and my band, who the 17 year old member of it is also part of this team (who's scripting the website now). We might have a professional game designer join us, I know a friend who is a close friend to one.

Fourth, I have actually finished one model, and have started work on two more.

Fifth, it's not like F.E.A.R., I would know, I played that game through and through (I love it) and while it is a horror game, not all horror games are alike you know.

Sixth, We're not stealing any resources whatsoever.

Seventh, I know it's going to take an exceptional amount of time to make, and I have the patience to do it. Never give up until its over.

Your not getting my hopes down, and your definately not going to stop me from making this game. You can do anything you put your mind to. Every game company didn't start professional. And you never know if a games going to look good. Ok so what a 15 year old teen is trying to make a game. Let him, if you don't like it, you don't have to play it. I personally don't care if this game sucks worse then any game in existance. It'll prove that I can do it.

Sorry man, this is something you won't be able to stop from happening. Anyways, it was good to see your point of view. You do crash hopes a lot, but you won't crash mine.

Exactly, we actually almost got concept work of her made.

Edit: Then I can model her, and work on making her animations...

just adding to conversation, dont feel offended or anything , just asking these questions. Why are we starting our first forum thread on thenexusforums.com , sure it may be made up of intelectual people, but these forums are mostly dedicated to specific games or modding right?, and have you checked out sourceforge.net yet?. Check that please when you have time , also could i please have the windows live contact adress's to the new team members?, by the way the site is practically done, i just need resources, such as literature, images other forms of media and such , basically every thing you wanna see on site, not much for me to do until then, all i've done so far (i cant really do much more till i have resources) are navigation, forums, and basic structure of site. Also just adding to whoever it was, I've had some training, basic C++ other than that just lots of tutorials.

Haha, nice...we don't have much more members as I just told you...

The hot asian girl XD

Hasn't been decided that that's the version we're going to use...

Well as of now, this game is official...just no name for it yet. Anyways, a pistol....

Woot, new character thought up. Callum Sebastian Forsythe. Nothing is known about him yet, except for that he leads a group called ECP, Elite Crysis Power (maybe leads).

hm this is the very start, perhaps it would've been a good idea to do things before announcing it? just a thought.

Hey it's our choice not yours...

Thats true but having the material will get more people interested, other than us just saying how do you plan to do this? Though its a bit tolate i guess. I personally like the gun without the chain....

Haha as do I (the gun with chain part). We are going to have dogtags in this game though I can't give details on that...hehe classified....And meh people will get interested as this game progresses..plus we wanted people to state there ideas before we got in too far...

i guess thats fair (the thread part).
Any chance you can let me in with the dog tag idea? I can probably help you out with that.

Only if you pm me, and only if you are to contribute to this game in any way.

didnt i just say that i was going to help your keychain/dogtag idea?

I coulda sworn I said pm me!

i could swear that too in two different forms. Do you prefer promises or bad language?
Fine i'll pm you.

Bite me..

i kinda cant.

Lol, you wish you could!

mmm i havent had a person in a while.
How many of you can actually create creatures/people with full animations ect.?

So far...1 of us (me), the other is learning as we speak so 2 technically...

no.... one technically seeing as the other one is learning....and not contributing...

He is contributing, with great concept work...

Why are you spending so much time on a pistol mesh, or any other fairly complicated mesh element? It seems to me that you're working a bit backward here. First you right the basecode, using very simple models as references (when needed), then once you have some sort of working game, you start replacing those models with something a bit more complex. Not what you're doing, which is "make every model in perfect detail, then figure out how, and where you want to use it". This is for two very simple reasons, using simple models means that you can get the game working without loading alot of complicated resources (think about testing an oblivion mod, every time you need to check if a script or NPC is doing what you want, you have to spend 3-4 minutes loading the whole damn game) and it makes it so that you don't waste time (and maybe money) getting models for things which you never actually use.

Before you even begin to think about what sorts of meshes you should use, you should have a semi-playable game already put together using very blocky/basic meshes that take absolutely no time to make. Start off using cubes, cylinders, spheres, and other simple geometric objects. Heck, the engine you're using probably even came with some of these resources, or atleast something similar to the purpose that they serve.

No matter how clear your vision for this game may be, there are always things which end up getting changed because either the engine doesn't allow it, you can't code it that way, or it just plays poorly. By setting things up with what is readily available, you reduce the time wasted when these things change. This is the sort of stuff people pay money for to learn from a professor... Almost every 3d/2d game has evidence that it has followed a similar plan.

And concept work, however useful for getting an idea across, isn't actually a step toward getting something done, it's more of talking about where to start than where you want things to end up. It's called "concept art" for a reason. Often, even if it looks good, there are limitations to what can actually be done.

Vagrant...our scripters aren't on we can't do anything but work on meshes until they come on...

And your right, we are underprofessional. That's why we got you to learn from!

Vagrant, good advice and everything but seriously dude, you are depressing....
Chris, there is more than 1 person here XD Im just very busy with concept art and doing stuff in 3dsmax9

And we're actually scripting everything...so yeah, could take a while (and a long time learning c++ for me)

And Vagrant, do you actually make it your business to ruin ppls hopes,dreams and aspirations? You really could be a bit less negative when it comes to like,erm, everything you say. Do you know what being nice is?

Ross, it's not his intention...just how he ends up making it turn out...

Meh, same sorta thing

I bet that after every post he thinks "Another hope demolished, job well done!"

Ugh, when's oz coming on?

Not a clue

I seem depressing because I raise points that havn't been addressed, and bring up very real issues that you will at some point have to deal with. It's really all in your head. There's no discouraging word in my last post, it was geared entirely into making you get on the right track.

As for the scripting part. I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but you personally should probably be familiar enough with the scripting language to get some of the basic components out of the way. This is primarily due to the fact that scripting accounts for more than half the time spent for any project. If you, and a few others can work out the more basic parts of the code, then your scripters can focus on more complicated parts of the code. It also allows you, as probably the one who will be compiling and linking everything, the ability to make those corrections right away, rather than wait a few weeks for one of your scripters to get your e-mail about it. Project leaders, by definition, need to understand every part of the project and how it can get done. When they don't, they become entirely dependant on the whims and demands of those working on the project. This is true in both a small scale operation as well as in a professional company. This doesn't mean that you can't count on others, it just means that you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Sh*t happens. Even if you know these people in real life, and meet with them every day, face to face, they can hold what work you need them to do hostage to get what they want, or just procrastinate. It's human nature, when at an advantage over a situation, you tend to abuse that advantage, especially among friends. Essentially, by knowing how to do some scripting yourself, although they'll still get their way, you can bargain with them and get better results. You also aren't forced to wait on their cooperation for every little thing that comes up.

As mentioned, scripting is one of the first things that needs to be started before anything else can be used, it serves as the skeleton which the rest of your game is based around. Meshes and other resources can be made, purchased, or found later, once you know what you need. If you aren't learning the scripting for yourself, you should be spending your time finalizing the story, actually write it out, thinking about specific game mechanics you want to use, and figuring out exactly what the engine you're using allows for. That way, once the scripters can become available, they have a very clean and concise plan to work from, and don't have to confer with you about everything that comes up.

It would also help if you have other games made with the engine that you can look at, although you can't use any of the coding, resources, or anything that didn't come with the basic engine package, it can provide an example about what sorts of physics, animation systems, and scripting that the engine can handle. Otherwise, you should probably make plans to create test environments before anything unusual gets decided upon. Just like how every game makes use of simplified graphics durring alpha or pre-alpha, they also make use of test environments to make sure some aspect is working. The most accessible evidence of this to you would probably be the testinghall in oblivion, or some of the test cells. They're mini arrangements which exist just to get the mechanics involved working. They may not look like much compared to the finished game, but many hours were probably spent loading up and using those cells just to get the AI to have limited function. Again, this is a time issue. It takes less time to setup, and load a plain room with something you want to test in it than it does the actual environment that you want to use that thing in. Once you have it working, you can just insert it in, or connect it to where it needs to be.

*Only my views on humanity are negative, it is not saying anything about your project. Need to stop reading into it.

A couple things. You did ask me to put in my 2 cents and you did make me a sword soooo.

1. I like the gun without tags.
2. PLzzzz put the gun in Oblivion! Its soooo good! Just package it in what you're packaging the swords in I guess if you're not putting it in Jaysus' hands. (you shouldn't. he IS the mighty jaysus and all but its your stuff.)
3. Sounds cool. Just dn't make the monsters zombies and don't model this off of other horror games.
4. This is alot of work and responsibility for a 15/16 year old to be working on but i think you can do it pretty well. I mean 7th graders crank out flash games like in 5 days. if you take a year on this you can definitely do that!
5. Make it PC because if you make it for a console without permission you're gonna get sued so i'd say PC. (I don't know anything about the legalities im just speculating)

So yeah. Thats my 2 errr 5 cents