Great observations, that’s one of the reason I’m holding back for a little longer on creating a system around this.
2 Likes
I have just started out and am currently making the block breaker game. I am full time employed so i can only spare an hour or two each day. But when im further into the course and feel like i can do something without instructions i very excited to do some collaborations! 
great idea!
3 Likes
I´ve just started developing my own game and creating assets/artworks to have something to present, before recruiting => Tried once, didn`t worked out well. So I´ll be back with a working prototype in a few months and hopefully I get a few interested ppl … who would like to participate =)
Just learning Modelling after realizing, that graphics make ppl believe =>
1 Like
I think you’ve got a good suggestion here. Maybe something like a gamejam, we vote on what theme we should go for and people get paired up or shall we let people choose to be paired? I think it might work better to get people to know one another by making the grouping random to see what could come out of it.
For example, if the team were purely art focused, they can use that as their major strength where as those who are programmers can put more effort into interesting mechanics and give people a taste of working in a team and what they can accomplish.
Maybe have a poll for what the theme should be…
2 Likes
I Like those ideas Aron, Random teams would be very nice to have. I think that a monthly gamejam would be the ideal
1 Like
Willing to colab any day. My skills so far is this.
@Aron_Marczylo, I must say that I think the idea is excellent, perhaps make a vote on a community theme/type game and then have assets created as challenges to the blender group as a whole?
I do think that a month is a very short period of time for this short of thing. Maybe, a quarterly projection is better.
Perhaps implementing a sort of community SCRUM board a to mange the whole thing, like a boss.
1 Like
I would love to work in the collaborative development of a game. With a good idea and a good manager, certainly we could develop something like Minecraft, for example.
1 Like
I agree with it, we should test the first monthly challenge and see how it goes, what do you guys think?
I’m not sure if I understood correctly this monthly challenges idea … It would be something like Ludum Dare? If so, I would say that monthly is way too often for most of us.
1 Like
Perhaps aiming to get something done by 2017 would be a good first goal? After all, it doesn’t have to be a blockbuster. A team could probably at least get a prototype up and running by New Years.
1 Like
@McFuzz and @coradesque,
I agree, perhaps monthly would be too often, the first one could run until New Year just like McFuzz said , by the way, “New Year” would be a good theme too xD but don’t know if those challenges should have a theme like this, what do you guys suggest?
I thought about this already. I think the terms should be broader, such as “Money” or “Adventure”, something that allows interpretation and group discussion. Perhaps even a genre pick, like “Jan - Feb is shooter, Mar - Apr is RPG, etc etc”, heh. Just a couple ideas though.
1 Like
Perhaps, keeping it simple for the first lean run. Like a 2d small puzzle game like frozen bubble.
Making software with more than one person has unique challanges. One whould need source controll like github.
You should think about the platform, first.
And a havent seen anyone mention a game design document, yet.
So the first vote imo should be platform and type of game.
1 Like
The GitHub gamejam Game Off kicks off on November 1st - why not put together groups of up to 5-7 people and see if someone could manage to submit anything at all? New of this year is that the limitations on platform/engine will be lifted, so all the Unreal guys could join in as well.
edit: Might as well put a link to GitHub’s announcement: https://github.com/blog/2262-github-s-game-jam-game-off-returns-next-month
2 Likes
One risk of extending your deadline to achieve something could be that motivation slows and potentially stops. You may also run the risk of trying to create something too big for the first collaborative effort and if progress doesnt go well over that time period again motivation may reduce.
An alternative approach may be to have the monthly goals , but, taking the larger game idea and breaking down into small features, these then become the monthly goal whilst you still have the over-arcing longer time frame for the fully completed game.
The monthly deliverables would however need to be complete, or, grabbing a scrum term, “done”. At the end of the month code should buikd, the game should run, even if at the end of the first month all you have is a menu etc.
You may even find that over time you are able to deliver even more each month, you could then always bring your monthly goals to to fortnightly goals.
Just throwing this out that for consideration.
2 Likes
From one side I think that one month for the first challenge would be too short, but I also agree that the best would be to keep those challenges as casual as possible, to incentive people who dont have prior experiences with collaborating with other people to participate. While I do think that github has a lot to offer as a version control system where one or more people could work together, I think that the majority of the members here don’t know how to use it, this is the reason why we should keep those challenges inside the forum rather in the github community (which don’t mean that if one group want to use it, they couldnt do that), every group should use the tools that they are comfortable with so we can reach as many members as possible.
Regarding the themes, I think that they shouldn’t narrow too much what type of games we should create, rather than themes such as FPS, RTS, platformer 2d and so on, we could use themes such as Shooters, Strategy, horror and etc. such as @McFuzz said ; or perhaps we could just use mechanics as the challenges themes instead of game type, such as games with the slow time mechanic, replay mechanic, inventory/itens and so on, this way one team could help the other in the process.
I agree with @Rob regarding the motivational problem if we increase the deadline too much, I do like the idea of setting goals instead of delivering the game as the deadlines, but I don’t know if this would increase the lifespan of the projects to a point where those games stop being simple and make it harder to new people to join in.
Perhaps a two-month deadline or even 45 days to delivery the game would be the ideal.
But hey, I’m just throwing ideas here, I think that we should create an pool after we come up with a good number of good ideas
2 Likes
Perhaps learning the basics of github could be one of the first features? You would want a show of hands from your mini group’s participants to know that they are ok using it and on the plus side this would give everyone who hasn’t used it before a new skill. As long as the basics are achievable that’s all that is needed initially.
I hadn’t used git before, but had used svn, so the concepts were familiar. I spent a day on a free course on Udemy for git (it was aimed at github but didn’t limit to only this). First thing I wanted was a GUI, as I didn’t want to have to type commands in all the time - but knowing how to do this can be beneficial also. The basics I think can be learnt in a day or two.
I’d say there is a strong argument for that, but also as a lot of members here (due to the courses Ben has been producing) will maybe be fairly new to it all, potentially a lot of tools will be unfamiliar, some additional experiencing gaining will be a necessity I think, but if things are kept fairly straight forward (like the git item above) I don’t think that would be a hurdle for you all.
Depending on the number of people you have interested in collaborating they don’t necessarily have to join in on the same project. Not sure what a good size would be, but lets say for arguments sake a decision is made for 4 or 5 people. They make a start on a project and off they go, pinging their progress back to the collab community here for all to see. When there’s enough people for another group of 4 or 5 people, you create a second squad and they start a project, they could potentially use the same theme. The likelihood of both squads approaching things exactly the same way is unlikely, so you could get some very interesting variations on approaches and outcomes - but above all you have now two squads of people who can learn from each other also.
Another thing I would suggest (I may have already in a previous post, so ignore if I have), is that you will have a number of additional considerations working together with other people that you all did when following the course(s) Ben put together, initially, limiting the amount of complexity would probably be beneficial. For anyone who has started the Unity course for example, chances are they will have all completed Text101, or Laser Defender - so, perhaps instead of starting by asking everyone what type of theme/game are you all going to make, you could simply start with the first game from the course, then all make a list of enhancements you’d like to see added to it. From this, vote on the enhancements, define a set of features that are part of the project. Get a clean copy of the finished game from the course and use that as a starting place, get that committed to source control, and build upon it.
What you then have is focus on people bring ideas to the table and working together on them from the outset with something that you are all familiar with. Sure, maybe Text101 won’t be the huge money making success that you all want to achieve, but it gives you experience working together with something that is commonly understood.
As an example, not having an in-code approach to the story for Text101 would be a good feature - maybe this is read in from a source.
Adding an inventory system could be useful (pick up item, drop item, use item etc)
Hazards and beasties perhaps, so then some form of health / experience / skill system followed by a combat system.
Potentially there are enough features above for a 4 person squad to have one each, with overlap ensuring that communication between participants is necessary.
Whilst the output may still all be very textual, you actually have some strong grounds there for an interesting game (consider perhaps the book adventure games where you turn to specific pages for the next part of the story etc - Fighting Fantasy and the like).
After all of your identified features are complete, you can show case your game to the community, ask for feedback and suggestions - perhaps there is still more you can do, or, perhaps, now it’s time to lay Text101 to rest and move on to Block Breaker - as a collab effort, or laser defender. In each case you will grow stronger as a team and gain experience working with, lets face it, strangers you’ve not yet met. As time goes on the working together aspect I believe will mature and become second nature - and perhaps that’s then the moment where you collectively decide on the theme of the next game and step aside from the course ideas, as you will no longer need to have that as a platform to start from.
Again, my 2 cents only, but with an approach like that it may just simplify some of the process of collaboration - and saves spending 3 months trying to think of a theme, or a title etc
Motivation I believe will be less of a problematic factor if you can all see frequent progress and obstacles being over-come through the shared experiences and support.
1 Like
In my opinion two months is a good deadline.
That is a good point, I don’t know a good GitHub course in order to recommend, perhaps we could choose a free and practical course and make it a requirement to have knowledge in git to participate.
humm… in my point of view, this would be a complete different approach to making a time-based challenge with deadlines, in terms of productivity it would be very beneficial to the members of the group, but I’m afraid that if we use this kind of approach the groups won’t vary and we won’t get to know and to work with as many people as we would if the teams shuffled every two months or three, which increases our networking and allow us to do cross-engine challenges. Also in my opinion is easier to organize a structure that has a lifespan, which makes easier to new members to hop in (since they are going to give their name in order to participate other than look for members to create a new team). Although it would be a nice idea to have some games that we learned to do during our classes as the first themes, as long as we pick from both the unreal and unity courses (we would have to explain the game and the mechanics to the students from the other course if the chosen theme was from your course).
It would be awesome to see a Text101 game with graphics and scenes made by the blender students =D some sort of point and click story games!
I think that we should create a new topic with all those discussed ideas, there are many good ideas here.
1 Like