Crowd sourced of an open-sourced AGS example game collaboration

[newwaveburritos]

There was some chatter on the Discord and since I think there's some people on the forum who aren't there I thought I would make a post to discuss it.  I think it's a really good idea since I think a lot of people here and probably people we don't even know about could really benefit from something like that.  I think making a list of features we would want to include would be a good place to start.  That is, what do we think needs a working example game to showcase?  Some of the discussion on the Discord inlcuded custom dialog options are a custom .Say function.  What else comes to mind?

[Crimson Wizard]

I mentioned this on Discord too, in my opinion there may be a need for two demo games:
1) One that uses default AGS mechanics, based on one of the existing templates, for instance. As this may be useful for the beginners.
2) One that has everything custom, and include non-conventional mechanics and puzzles. This may be useful for advanced AGS devs, and generally illustrating that you do not have to rely on standard features.

[newwaveburritos]

Yeah, thanks for putting that in here because I agree.  I think it's a great idea to do both.  Is there anyway to determine which template is the most popular?  That is, it seems like using the most popular template might be the best one to use for an example game.  Anecdotally, just from being around the forums and Discord though I don't think that I could actually pick out one that people talk about or ask about over another one.  They honestly seem pretty even to me.

[cat]

I think having two different demo games, one simple and one advanced is a good idea.

I think the simple game should focus on basic adventure game features. It would be great if it also has a "story", with a proper start and beginning. Nothing special, just a way to show people how to do a menu screen, game play, puzzles and end credits.

* Walkable ares with walk-behinds (both, objects with specific z-order and real walk-behinds)
* Inventory
   * Picking up
   * Looking at
   * Combining items
* Dialogs
* Animations
* Default responses
* Menu screen
* Credits
* Music
* Sound
* Scrolling backgrounds
* Translations

The advanced game could include more fancy stuff like custom dialog GUIs, timed puzzles, custom drawn backgrounds, voice acting,...

[Ponch]

This is a great idea. AGS used to have a demo/tutorial game that showed off a lot of the engine's features. It was very helpful to me.

[eri0o]

The story of the first game could have some meta elements, like the main character could be a person that wants to be a game developer with a released game, and they struggle with scope, design, ...

[newwaveburritos]

Having a puzzle where you can only fit three of the six ideas into your game project would be amusing.

[Pax Animo]

Sounds like a great idea.

With the new forums/main page updates possibly new users shall come aboard and with that they may look for up-to-date info from experienced users showing off the basics of AGS and the possibilities of more advanced projects.

[lorenzo]

It could be cool to have a game that is both a learning tool for developers and a fun game to play. This way it could be enjoyed even by people who have no intention of making their own games but enjoy a good adventure.

[cat]

The story of the first game could have some meta elements, like the main character could be a person that wants to be a game developer with a released game, and they struggle with scope, design, ...

That's a really cool idea. I can also imagine the first puzzles that shows off dialog trees: Convince your older brother that he will let you use the computer to make a game. You have to prove that you are worthy of it:
"What do you do when you don't know how to use a specific function?"
- "You search the manual and the forum."
- "You ask your brother."
- "You make a forum post titled 'HELP!!1!'."

[lorenzo]

Maybe the player is trying to assemble a team to make a game. With puzzles about finding an artist, musician, and so on.

[Crimson Wizard]

Unless there's a secret development going on right now, this idea seems to have been stalling (again).

When it comes to "crowd sourced" things like these, it's essential to have a "project manager", that is a person who would have a clear vision of what the project needs, posts a list of tasks, recruit people and delegate tasks to them. Without such person the project will never move anywhere.

For example, the previous "crowd sources" project I've seen, known as "Byte of the Draculator II", involved many peoples work, but was managed by @Baron, who coordinated them.

In my opinion, since the goal of the project is to demo AGS, the planning should begin with a list of features to be demonstrated, and later with the story and exact gameplay which implement these features, as these are secondary here.

The list of features could be divided into following parts:
1. General UI and gameplay. How the game is controlled, what actions can player do, how the actions, inventory, etc is represented by gui, and so forth.
2. The distinct game parts: what kind of "screens" beside the game itself should the game include: main menu, game menu, credits screen, cutscene screens, and so on.
3. Specific rooms and kinds of puzzles: what kind of stuff would we like to demonstrate in this game, from the technical perspective (ignoring the story wrapping these puzzles for now).

After having an outline of these features, it will be a time to script a technical prototype and invent a story.
After having a roughly playable story you may look for artists to create a final look.