Sick of the bullshit (Time to fix it me thinks)

Hi Ronan,

I’m interested.
I’ve got a PgDip from Abertay in Comp Games Tech. Done some 3D contract work in Dundee and currently working on mobile stuff which i hate. Been waiting on receiving a job offer to come through for the past month and feeling pretty fed up. Sign me up!
Currently in Glasgow, but thats not going to last long cos I can’t hack it here.

Sounds interesting.
I doubt I’d be willing to quit my job just yet for it but I would be willing to help you start building your technoligy.

I have a Comp Science degree and a PG/Dip in Games.

I have wrote quite a few demos and worked with Damo at
DARE.

I have written and been involved in the development of several game engines.

At the mo I work at EA where I have just finished Harry Potter POA . My main area was with Eyetoy but I also worked on other key system components in the game (NDA)

I know.

I am getting experience in Scotland at the moment and the plan is to be back big time in Ireland to get a company off the ground.

I want at least one project on me CV first….so I um…know how to do my job :)

(me level designer btw)

[EDIT – you dont need design team though: “3 qualified programmers, 5 experienced artists and a bunch of business heads ” ;)]

I’m interested:

Game Design / Documentation
GUI’s / Usability
Art Direction

Ian

Ronan you are right, i hope more groups will form this year to start banging down doors of game publishers to pay attention to new Irish game development companies & the powers that be within Ireland itself.

Only the Irish will truely build the Irish game development industry into a strong foundation. We need this to happen.

A have doubts that a publisher is going to give deals to an unexperience team, unless they are sitting on a game of Half-life 2 quality or have an absolutely s*** hot demo…but even then its the unproven aspect that is the problem.

[EDIT – I dont want to be pessimistic but just speaking my mind, I will support and help any efforts as best I can]

I’m volunteering my services as an experienced and talented artist (texture, concept, web, UI).

Lewis Boadle
Dublin

http://www.boadle.com

Ivan has a point….look at the hiring standards that Kapooki have to adher to…but if you don’t give it a shot you’re never gonna know i guess!

Hey Ronan,

Good to see someone rabbing the bull by the horns. Just graduating this year and will be around all summer. If I can be of any help I’d love to get involved. Just coming to the end of a computer engineering degree in Trinity, and my FYP was a vehicle physics engine.

Good luck!

I have other commitments, so I am only posting out of interest.

Initially, when I read this thread, I thought of the Help Wanted forum on gamedev.net, and the way “I wanna make quake” threads are regularly posted there.

This currently seems to be a bit different, as the people invovled seem to be a lot more skilled.

Could you clarify, are you suggesting:

A) a part-time, contribute when you can, production?
Or
B) the forming of a full time development team?

I would advise consulting with someone who has games industry experience, in a production role, as to the feasibility of going for option B from scratch.

An approach closer to A might work better for a first project, and if something good is produced, it could be used as proof of a teams credentials.

I think after the scope of the enterprise has being sketched out, the first thing a serious team would need to do is solicit the opinion of those already involved in the industry, as to the feasibility of the project.

Its great to see Irish people willing to consider such a venture. I imagine people will be looking on interestedly to see what happens next.

I will help you Ronan & i am hopful more people keep adding to this topic. There is much to talk and prepare but this is in the right direction.

A publisher is the least of the concerns,initial capital and business model would be of highest concerns and maintaining a steady flow of cash without relying on a publisher. But this can be achieved by freelancing. Web Design, MIS, etc could be developed to maintain a steady income.[/quote:a06620dadb]

I happen to know that is what other companies started to do in Ireland – that is the model of “we will make mobile games initially etc, then move into consoles\pc”.

I think it is option A, no?:

A) a part-time, contribute when you can, production?
Or
B) the forming of a full time development team?

Ronan, your vision of a Far Cry world sounds great. The one thing that I ask is, have you thought out your unique selling points?
When we won Dare last year we did a RPG game with some really nice USPs. The comments that we got back were that it wasn’t marketable for a first time team because of the competition out there….who’s going to buy some random new product when they could just buy Diablo, Neverwinter Nights, ect… When you talk about Far Cry, I see FPS….breaking into the FPS market, you’re going to need something REALLY special.

I’m not trying to be disparaging, just getting the thought processes going. I vision of a world is fine, but the vision of the game is what is needed.

Have you thought this through, is this for discussion on creation of said team??

Hi Ronan et al,

I have been reading through these posts and I am very impressed with the responses and the skills of those responding so far. I really think that with skillful engineers and artists, an impressive demo could be created in a relatively short amount of time that could be used as part of a detailed proposal to various large publishers. I would like to register my support for this venture. I am an experienced 3D graphic artist, using apps like 3DS Max, Photoshop, Combustion, Premiere. I also have some experience with Flash.

If we can create an impressive demo, and get financial backing from a publisher, we would be well on the road to creating a fully fledged title.

I am currently working full time, but I would be more than willing to work on this in my spare time.
I worked for Codemasters a couple of years back and helped one of the guys in there create a small shoot em up game in our spare time. He did the programming, I did the models. We knocked it up in no time.
Point is, with experienced programmers and artists, anything is possible.

You can check out my website, which has some of my 3D work on it.
http://noopti.topcities.com/

Cheers
Dave

good to see you guys getting together. If there is anything the rest of us can do to support just ask…

Aphra.

One other point of note…
When you are working for a games company. I know that technically any work you do at home is your ip, unless your contract specifies otherwise. People should check up on this before committing themselves to this project.
New contract on the way to me, hence I thought of it…

Not a tech head at all, but I’m 3/4 of the way through my marketing degree, a year to go in college, graduating in Summer 2004, but currently working for demonWare.

There are a few assumptions that have been made on the business end of things from the posts I have been reading, but I’d be interested in at least lending a hand if there was any needed, and considering that the tech side would be dominant for the first few months, I might be able to help later on in the process.

Also, just a more topical note, if everyone’s finished, or wrapping up college at the moment, might do no harm to get together and have a pint while you discuss ideas, get people to meet face-to-face makes it all that more real.

Jamie

I could make yis coffee, I know Ronny would give me a glowing reference….;)

I’m employed full time at the mo, haven’t got time to help out on the art side, but if I can be of any help with advice etc. don’t hesitate to ask.

Milk and sugar??

Working full time at the mo, between teaching game design in Ballyfermot and Mobile Games product managment stuff for an aggregator, but very interested in R&D phase of project if it’s once a week…

Did Ludo course and CS diploma myself, very good sound editing and composition skills, and BIG interest in AI, scripting, steering, behaviours, etc.

Check out Qube Engine for ideas http://www.qubesoft.com, the Pc license is free, soo are Maya Max exporters, they have a very nice editing interface and good user feedback via a mail_list.
I use it for one of the courses in college…

I also have a few games designs; taking the stakes a step further: One of them is a MMO world based on the movie Warriors, rings a bell?

count me in,

Sergio

watch the comma on the link above

http://www.qubesoft.com

Ogre3D might be worth a look too. Has a physics interface aswell as far as I know.

http://www.ogre3d.org

Is there any thoughts of looking a little bit closer to home for a 3D Engine as in Torc’s Instinct engine?
Any thoughts from Torc regarding their licence to new Irish startups?
Just a thought. :)

Hi everyone,

The energy in this thread is very encouraging, I must say. I know you’re only putting out feelers at the moment, Ronan, but until there’s a more solid picture of what your business goals are, I can’t commit to anything, but let me just say for now that I’m interested. I would like to be able to contribute something however.

I coordinate the Game Design HND course in Ballyfermot, mentioned above by Sergio (ManE) and am one one of the original founders of Kapooki. My background is in 3D and all the art-related trappings that go with it, but as years go by, I’m slowly morphing towards the scripting/interactivity side of things.

If the most I can offer is advice, I’d still very much like to be involved with whatever projects emerge.

Take a look at quest3d. It’s an extremely high-level 3D authoring tool, intended for silulations and architecture vis, but is moving more and more towards games. It looks like Virtools at first glance , but unlike Virtools it:

1. Is laid out in a logical manner
2. Works properly

Oddly, it doesn’t have an undo, but I’d put up with that for all the stuff it does well. The visual nature of the program would suit a project for the emerging group in this thread I think because people working in different areas from engineering — graphics, sound, design, whatever, would be able to understand their roles and rate the project’s progress simply by looking at screengrabs posted to a website. (I don’t know if you’d really call it “programming” in the traditional sense of having lines of code — it strings schematic diagrams of building blocks together instead). It’s pretty robust, though probably wouldn’t do an epic strategy game with thousands of 3D characters. It could feasibly be used to reproduce the equivalent of a 10-player counterstrike, I would think, though I have to confess I haven’t finished anything in it yet — just used it for testing various ideas. There are plenty of demos you can see from the site though.

It also uses the standard .X format, which of course means that artists aren’t limited to one program, or indeed expensive software (milkshape uses .X). So a nice modding culture could feasibly come out of this if the design wasn’t set up with an iron fist, even though you wouldn’t be modding in the hobbyist/fanboy sense of working from someone else’s game as a starting point.

3D Game Studio also uses .X and .MAP files for more FPS-style games and is pretty easy to use, but nowhere near as simple as Quest3D.

Both of these only do PCs but you have to walk before you can run.

One more point that strikes me having looked at the forum — don’t leave sound as an afterthought. Sound people need to be involved from the start.

Best of luck,

Shane

All a publisher would want to see is potential for a return and the minimum cost to them.

Sorry to dampen the ardour, but publishers want to see the potential for one hell of a return, massive enough to pay for all the investments that they’ll make and end up going down the toilet.

Minimum cost, yes. They would love you to have the game 50% developed, but that’s not realistic.

How do I know? Started the games company, got investment, got publishers, hired talent, sold some product and went belly-up. Best time of my life, in good company with many others who lost money.

Conor O’Nolan, age 45, grey hair and lots of t-shirts.

Hi,
Has anyone any knowledge of http://www.renderware.com/
Looks like the best middleware you can get!

free all next week till friday!
keep me posted on a meeting, will defo be there!

Would be good if people brought examples of there work!

free all next week till friday!
keep me posted on a meeting, will defo be there!

Would be good if people brought examples of there work! [/quote:d7366c4221]

How? – I’d have to make a level out of paper mache! (bad joke – sorry)

Hope the meeting goes well – I suggest you lot go meet in a pub, it just seems right to give birth to an Irish game project in a pub….and the booze will fuel your creativity :D

Am probably back in Ireland next friday night or early the following week, and then I’ll be down south anyways….
The hassels of being a culchie!

Fearg,

Renderware probably is the best you can get at the moment from the point of view of creating peace of mind for a publisher, as it works with the three main consoles as well as PC. It’s expensive though and I’d be wary of it as an entry-level tool, but I’m not a programmer so definitely get another opinion. To the best of my knowledge, it has no high-level scripting, but it does have viewers and particle makers and so on. Someone from Kapooki can shed more light, I’m sure.

Quest isn’t a bad prototyping tool because you can do pretty much anything that DirectX 8 allows, even if you only wanted to use it to drum up interest among publishers with a prototype and then finish the project in a “proper” engine (paid for by the publisher) — though I’d say that would be a dicey strategy in most cases. Much of your engine choice will probably depend on the game design, though they all do pretty much the same thing with different levels of ease/reliability.

I’d like to come along on Tuesday, but I don’t think I can make it.

Good luck,

Shane

I will be able to meet up on Tuesday, as long as I’m not working overtime in work(which has been a lot lately!).

But I would give a provisional yes to meeting on Tuesday.

I’ll be there.

Interview with Scott Miller…

Q: You have been in the gaming industry longer than most, how has the game development industry changed over the years?

A: It’s 100 times more competitive overall. And it’s much more difficult for new studios to start up.

http://www.gamingeye.com/english/artiklar/artikel.eye?type=interview&id=2580&PHPSESSID=84760c18debea

So, are we meeting up tomorrow? It would be good to dicuss this in person…

I think everyone gets the point at this stage that starting up a games development company in Ireland is not the easiest thing in the world, but once you know what the situation is, it’s the working hard and the going for your dreams that matters.

Cool. I’m 80% sure I will be able to make it, but I won’t know for sure until this evening if I will have to work late.

Sorry I wasn’t able to make it in the end. Ended up working till all hours last night. How did it go?

There were five of us. Myself, Fearg, Ian, Ronan and Sergio.

Of course the first meeting was an introductions and general bouncing of ideas session.

We agreed that as a unit we possessed a wide variety of skills and a good degree of experience in our relevant areas, and that we needed to come up with a concept / genre / approach which would

– Maximise our advantages (small, flexible team, with minumum overheads) to minimise our disadvantages (little industry experience, no huge development team, stiff competition)

– Potentially tap the vast Irish audience

– Do something a little different

The next step now is to have a brainstorm and see what we can come up with.

If the enthusasiasm and the desire to see this through was anything to go by, watch this space.

Lewis

What scale of production did you discuss – part time / full time / downloadable content / full boxed game, or is it too early for that?

Dave

Haven’t posted here in a while but it’s good to see some stuff getting underway. My background is in Commerce (in that I have a degree in it) but for the last two to three years I’ve been working as a programmer (Visual Basic but I have a rudimentary knowledge of C++).

If you do need help with the business end of things when you have a more concrete idea of what you’re doing I’d be happy to help in any way I could.

Hi Dave / Earthhorse
A single polished demo-level, part-time and a bit too early to say on the rest. You interested?

Help from C++ / marketing people would I’m sure be welcome and a big help!

Anyone?

Am back in Ireland this weekend for a month’s holidays before coming back to the uk, so I could probably help out on the C++ side if you interested.

does this mean we’ll finally get you along to a Shindig, Damian?!

Thanks for the update Lewis! :)

The biggest thing in my mind is to be original. The only way to make a big splash with a small team is to throw something new and exciting into the mix.

An orginal, exceptional game concept is key.

does this mean we’ll finally get you along to a Shindig[/quote:42b06498fd]
Well that would depend….when is the next one, and does anyone feel like going to it via wexford ;)

The biggest thing in my mind is to be original. The only way to make a big splash with a small team is to throw something new and exciting into the mix. [/quote:42b06498fd]

If you go too original and too new, publishers would think this is something too big for a new team to do right for a full game…maybe with an experienced team it could work. Its a tough mix and an even tougher sell.

Ian,

I’d certainly be interested. Should point out though that it’d be more the business side I’d imagine myself helping on because when I say rudimentary knowledge of C++, I mean rudimentary!

I’ll keep an eye on this thread to see how things develop and pop along to the next meet up if I can.

Hi Earthhorse,
We’ll be meeting next Tuesday at 8, same place. The marketing input would be very helpful! Hope to see you there.

Cheers,
Ian

Ok, I will definitely be going to the next meeting. I have told my boss in advance that I can’t work late next Tuesday. :)

I have 3 differant game concepts that I have been thinking about for a long while now. However, they are quite complex and might not be ideal for a first project. I will type up some docs on them though and being them along anyway.

There is no concept art or anything like that at this stage, it is basically 3 differant, and original gameplay ideas from which to build a game around. I think that they are unique ideas that would be a good selling point for any possible future gaming project.
It will be good to get all our ideas out there and then decide on something that is orginal, and which could be accomplished(a working demo at least) by us. We can also mix and match gameplay concepts too if need be.

Looking forward to meeting you all next Tuesday.

On a side note, I started trying to model Gollum yesterday, and he turning out more like some weird monkey man! :confused: Check it out:

Well, that’s what happens when you only pop by erratically, you miss things entirely… 8 o’clock at St Pats? I’ll call by, but, in the interests of simplicity, I will say my experience is relatively limited as regards games. I’m a 2d artist with very basic 3d knowledge, Graphic Design grad currently freelancing in comics and I can write – I’ve been working as writing lead for the past year on a similar project that bit off a bit too much more than it could chew.

Just a thought to the more experienced forum members – all the established genres have their big names that most people will buy, so how do games that fall somewhere in between fare? Stuff like System Shock 2- is it a shooter, an RPG, or a stealth game? Do they fall between the cracks or do they stand out as being different?

I think those types of games confuse the masses, as they don’t know how to label a game like System Shock 2 – the mention of RPG elements to a the average first person shooter fan will glaze eyes over.

I think there is a great deal of potential to expanding FPS’s, but making sure that you get the word out about why people need to play your different and cool FPS is very important.

Thats a scary game…you can feel there will eventually be a sequel (Its EA though…..they could give it to Free Radical – that would be nice :) )

Going in the middle is dangerous ground….look at Battlefield Aquila. A mech game that tries to be arcade too.
The mech side of the game alienated anyone who wasn’t in mechs, the arcade side of the game alienated the mech fans cos its not a real mech game…result = failure.

Deus Ex was also a FPS crossed with a RPG and that was a major success.
In the end you are trying to come up with a cool interactive experience that people can pick up and enjoy. Classifying it into genres is really only a secondary concern.

Yeah, I thought it could turn out that way unless you have a solid rep or a liscensed property that effectively demands the inclusion of different genre styles.

Isn’t Spector trying to get System Shock 3?

Genre is useful to critics, AFTER a product has been done.

Did castle Wolfenstein “create” the term First Person Shooter?

The modes of interaction between man and game have certanly not been exhausted…

while taking inspiration from what’s out there, we can’t afford to get into static categorizations.

How would you explain Hip-Hop, Nu-Metal and the like otherwise…:confused:

So basically…forget about cross genre and come up with something thats cool….its can be genre classified/cross classifed after the cool idea is in place.

Isn’t Spector trying to get System Shock 3? [/quote:6a3a24a8a2]

I’ve heard nay a peep about any rumours at all….

So is the meeting still on today at St Pats @ 8:30?

Cool, I’ll send you an e-mail now…

I must say that I admire the spirit here, while I’m nowhere near as qualified as you guys, if I were I would be with you ina shot. best of luck

Hi all,
Can the new people from last night if still interested send their email to myself at this address:

ian@slowrocket.com

Cheers,
Ian

So what are the latest developments on this after last night? :)

Any updates lads?

Hi All
We have begun development of several smaller scale projects that will build into one large project, all adding to our portfolios.

Simply put we should have lots of small demos, all building to one large comprehensive game demo when complete.

We will soon need more people with experience in (or a desire to gain experience in) concept art, texturing, 3D modelling, level design, animation, sound design or C++ Programming.

Please post here if you would like to get involved.

Thanks for the interest!
Ian

HI guy’s well sounds like these are starting to roll out, as regards to 2d artists i am a Qualified Graphic Designer and am experienced in both PhotoShop and Illustrator aswell as Indesign, although I won’t be back in Dublin until August I would be happy to do some “concept art”(I am a skilled draughtsman aslo/anime,ect) for ye, just drop me a line via E-Mail or PM describing what you would like done, be it In game concept art or character sketches. Oh and If you want a preview of my work mail me and i’ll get onto you.

cheers

*edit*
I would be willing to put in 2-3 hours a day also to this project, regardless of what I would be doing, I’m excited to see where this will lead???

Keep up the good work lads, this is definitely a great way to get the bones of a future Irish game development company together… if I wasn’t up to my elbows in various different projects, I’d lend a coding / design hand as well.

For any Dublin game devs reading this and not putting their name forward, if you have the enthusiasm and some game-related skill, go along to one of the gatherings… eg if you can draw comic book sketches, that could be ideal for putting together a character bible for one of the games.

A lot of the time ( if an existing engine exists ) could potentially be spent putting content into the game engine, based on a game design document somewhere, so this is a good way of gaining skills in an area that is fairly easy to get into ( it’s not quite as difficult as coding etc ).

Regards, and I look forward to hearing of your future plans…
Mal

Stage 1: Use free engines (garage games etc..) for demo stuff
Stage 2: Instinct Engine for final product
Stage 3: Sleep on pile of money

easy!

There is a team in Germany (not crytek) that are using the German developed Crytek engine ( http://www.tnturtles.net) – mnakes sense to me.

Just as a matter of interest when do you guys think you’ll be meeting again?

I would like to be able to attend the next discussion.

cheers

Meeting places may change so can people interested in coming along please drop me a PM here or email Ronan at: edge@fallenarmies.com

Thanks,
Ian

Every Tuesday @ 8 in Delaney’s Pub, Aungier St. Dublin. [/quote:0e143939ad]

Well I can’t travel to Dublun every week, but I presume these meetings will still be goning in sep.

Hopefully! ;) I’m sure they will!

We can work by the magic of the Interweb for now if that suits you? Fire off those samples and we’ll take it from there.

Cheers,
Ian

can’t promise i can make delany’s next week..

maybe..

but.. let me know if you need any help with soundtracks and sound design :D

Just a thought guy’s, but some of you have mentioned making a new original game concept, while this is optimistic it’s maybe not so practical when considering our situation, albiet our forseeable situation.

A great observation is one of the fact that many top developers never pull off totally original ideas, or more the public doesn’t buy into it ‘johnny casual’, so (and I hate to be the one to say it) maybe it’s best if we stick with a successful formula, ie kill everything on site type of game, afterall we have to remember that althought creativity is the common goal, for us just putting together a good demo would suffice..hmmm the market is a harsh place.

I hope no one takes this post the wrong way, it’s not meant to be pesimistic, but someone has to say it.

http://www.rainfallstudios.com/Articles/CanIMakeMoneyasanindie/summary.aspx

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20040721/carless_01.shtml

http://www.rainfallstudios.com/Articles/BirthOfTheIndieGamesMovement/summary.aspx

Some interesting links on indie game development (effectively what you guys are doing). (I imagine you may well all have read this stuff before)

Good to hear this:

>We have begun development of several smaller scale projects that will build into one large project, all adding to our portfolios.

I think that makes a lot of sense, rather than trying to build an over ambitious game.

Thanks for the info Feral! I’ve passed the links on to the rest of the group! How’s the new job going for you?

Cheers,
Ian