I'll get straight too work on a story soon so you'll see one soon!

OMG. You guys have totally forgotten about me, haven't you?

http://goofans.com/forum/goofans/goofans-game/2943

I told bubblefish4 that at the moment we weren't too certain on what the story would be yet, so whatever he came up with we could consider. Do you honestly have a problem with that? If someone else came out of the blue with code that people like than mine, we would switch, wouldn't we? Anyway, they're just brainstorms. He wants to work WITH you, anyway.

*curses*

No it's also part of the learning experience in addition to your engine being quite different than I plan to make mine. (no comments ftw...)

EDIT: And MOM, I do actually have a question regarding resolutions. Google is being lame for the first time, so I ask: how can you get the resolution of the desktop? I saw a workaround by setting the resolution to 0x0 for the SDL_SetVideoMode the resolution will be that of the desktop, but even with an SDL_GetVideoInfo, integers weren't even returned! See. (my resolution is 1440x900, that is a screenshot of fullscreen top-left runtime)

I don't mind that he makes ideas too, but I thought you guys'd just forgotten about me. Also, I don't see why we have a new thread for it, mine's OK isn't it?

Anyway, I should also get to work on my story. We can compare mine and BF's later on, and merge ideas into each other.

He wanted to work with you to make a big great idea. I think he tried to contact you on Steam about it.

Stupid Steam doesn't save offline messages, which is probably why I haven't heard of it. BF can just email me, he's got my address.

I guess you're all steamed up about it, heh heh heh heh heh, heh......(every body just stares angry at Kirdneh)...never mind....
We have to agree On a name and story, that is practically the most important part. Otherwise we eon't get anywhere. That's why notwog was abandoned.

Yes, we need a storyline to follow, but whoever works on it should definitely keep in mind the kind of gameplay that would accompany it.

If you make a pun of that sort, you need to have the little "Bah-dum ksssh" sound effect after it.

And will it be 100% sidescrolling, with a side-on-view map (like Elephant Quest), or will it be like Tomba!, where the world is actually 3D but gameplay is 2D, and you kind of switch dimensions?

This is the kind of stuff that will heavily effect the gameplay. That's why my story so far is really vague. I don't really want to work on it until I can vividly imagine how it'll look.

I don't think we've got the technical know-how to shoot for a 3D-based engine, so it'll probably be flat 2D (unless Red feels up for a challenge). Though you could make a game with a tilted view, that looks 3D but has a 2D engine, like THE BEST GAME EVAR:

or an isometric view like Bastion or such, but I think we decided against that already.

Something I will mention is that I see something happening here I don't particularly like. Everyone is laying it on everyone else to do work before they'll do any, like Red asking Howitz to draw characters so he can work on the engine, and puggsoy asking Howitz to draw scenes so he can make the story... etc. Really, you can do a lot without artwork, or with placeholder artwork (Look at some Braid development videos; Jonathan Blow started with a Mario-looking character). My best suggestion for everyone is to brainstorm about what they can do, and do it, rather than wait on somebody else. Not knocking on one particular person here, just pointing out what I see happening. What if Howitz doesn't like drawing before he knows what the game is about, while puggsoy doesn't like deciding what the game is about before he knows what it'll look like? Then you're completely stuck, and the game will go absolutely nowhere.

@puggsoy: So, basically, just write an extremely in-depth novel describing the entire plot of the game that's how YOU'D like it, whether or not anybody does their part. Then, if this game doesn't take off, you can publish the novel and make your millions that way. And the story can always be revised if it goes the wrong direction. Revising is a cakewalk compared to writing.

@Red: So, basically, just program like mad and create an engine how YOU'D like it, and draw some scribbly, terrible concept art for testing it out. I've been programming on my engine for well over a year, and I didn't even start from scratch. And there's several huge, major things I still have to fix before it's worth anything. Programming is like writing. You just gotta keep going, and new features can always be added later if you design your engine to not support them now. It's not a cakewalk or anything, but it's possible as long as you design your engine to be modular enough.

@Howitz: To quote Mark Kistler: DRAW DRAW DRAW. Doesn't particularly matter what you draw and if people like it or not, but art assets will help everyone on the team.

As for a name, I shall give it the working title of "I'm a Better Caver than Your Mom". Now rather than complaining and saying it's a lame title (which I'm sure you will), create a new forum topic and brainstorm there for a better name.

Speaking of brainstorming, this is the time for brainstorming. Some of the best advice I've heard ever about brainstorming is NEVER CRITIQUE ANYTHING AND NEVER SHOOT ANYTHING DOWN. If a piece of artwork Howitz draws doesn't fit, suggest something he can draw that WILL fit, rather than critiquing what he drew. If the story is lame, suggest another possibility for a particular part of the story, rather than telling puggsoy "your story is lame, bro". Brainstorming = throwing out ideas that you have no care whatsoever will actually come to fruition or not. And you'll probably get ideas for several possible games, and then the narrowing-down phase will come later, after you've gotten enough ideas to actually make an entire game with. My two cents.

Wow, how come I can make walloftexts so easily?

-MOM4Evr out

Course, what do you think that red rectangle I made for the last build was?

Yeah, I even took a 3-week break or so, then I finally stopped being lazy and moved the code from the laptop to my main one, and now I'm working again. I removed quite a bit, truth be told, as I felt I needed to push it in a new direction. (speak for I forgot what the heck I was doing)

@MOM4Evr: I see your point. OK, I'll work on a story, assuming that the game will be how I think it will be. But it's not a big deal anyway, the story will, after all, just be the story. It's just that I'd like to make it with a map, and a map depends on the gameplay.

Also, hadn't we decided on a few titles before? Red seemed to take nicely to my idea "Beloh". It's cool, and shorter than "I'm a Better Caver than Your Mom".

By the way, I wasn't really expecting a full 3D engine, just a kind of simulation of that, while it's actually 2D.

A name I thought of was also Rising. As you climb your way back up. Or we could do something about climbing. Else Beloh works fine.

Most importantly: HAVE FUN!

I've been thinking recently about what makes games fun to play. A lot of game developers don't take this into consideration, I think. What makes World of Goo fun for me is how reactive it is. Everything you do, even if it's as simple as mousing over a Goo Ball, causes some kind of visual, auditory, or physical effect on the game, or all three. Your Doodles are Bugged is a game that seems to be a similar genre-type of game as World of Goo, but doesn't have nearly the same kind of appeal for me. I think it's sort of reactive, but not nearly to the same extent, and the gameplay mechanics are terrible. And for some reason, it feels too much like a little-kid game to me, while World of Goo does not.

All this to say that games should be fun. Serious games are cool too, and have their place, but they'll have to make up for it with good gameplay.

Also, I think that either Beloh or Rising should work fine. Perhaps Rising is too generic of a title, though.

Now I'm up to four cents.

-MOM

And remember what Kyle said about what made Sword and Sworcery good.