#169182 - Don83 - Mon Jun 22, 2009 9:28 pm
Hello community,
we are a team of three students or better said, soon to be ex-students.
-1 Professional-Artist (2D)
-1 Artist (3D/game art) /Designer / ((With scripting skills))
-1 Programmer / Designer
We planed an (epic) story driven RPG and we really believe that we have created a cool world with cool and deep characters. So, the story and the basic design already exists.
We would have the oportunity to work 1 year (fulltime) with payment on a project. Well, making an AAA console or PC title with such a small team is pretty unrealistic, or better said, after 1 year getting a publisher for your first title is pretty unrealistic. But how about Nintendo DS?
Could you maybe give us some insights about team sizes of successfull RPGs, about production time and about average selling numbers? This would be great.
Ok, beside of that, the most important part:
Our programmer, (in my opinion very skilled!) raised some doubts.
Althought, like said before, even though he is very skilled, he is afraid, that programming for DS might be a bit hard to learn. He is an expert in java, c++ and in other common languages and has experience with game engines, but well... still, there are doubts about the development environment of DS.
So, i would really appreciate if you could give us some hints about the needed tools and how much effort is needed to switch to DS programming if you were used to work with standard APIs and languages.
Are there already free engines or APIs and of course, is there good documentation?
Last but not least, how big would you evaluate the chance, that a publisher might publish your game considering the game is completly done and finished but that you are completly new, meaning that this is your first title.
Well guys, i hope those questions and my bad english are not disturbing and i would love to receive some answers.
Cheers,
Don
#169189 - Dwedit - Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:36 am
If I had a dollar for every new team who was starting their first big RPG project, I'd be rich. Everyone always want to make a big RPG, then it invariably falls apart after a while.
Go for it! Defeat the naysayers! Show the world that it really can be done!
Start smaller. Make a preview version first. For example, no more than two towns and two dungeons.
Once you got THAT done, you're good to go on the epic version.
_________________
"We are merely sprites that dance at the beck and call of our button pressing overlord."
#169194 - gauauu - Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:08 am
| Don83 wrote: |
Could you maybe give us some insights about team sizes of successfull RPGs, about production time and about average selling numbers? This would be great. |
You're asking the wrong community. This forum is full of mostly hobbiest and homebrew DS developers. I'm not sure there has ever been a finished homebrew RPG for GBA or DS. I'm sure you could probably do some googling and other market research relating to development teams and sales of commercial games.
| Quote: |
Our programmer, (in my opinion very skilled!) raised some doubts.
Althought, like said before, even though he is very skilled, he is afraid, that programming for DS might be a bit hard to learn. He is an expert in java, c++ and in other common languages and has experience with game engines, but well... still, there are doubts about the development environment of DS. |
Short answer: DS programming isn't all that hard. I'm a relatively average programmer and I didn't have too much trouble with it.
Programming is like professional sports, music, and starcraft -- there is a HUGE range of talent. If he's actually an "expert" and "very skilled" then the DS should be no problem. But unlike sports, and like music, it can be rather hard to judge your own talent honestly, and to judge someone else's talent if you aren't an expert yourself. So I'd say point him to TONC and Gbatek. If the material there seems over his head or scary, then yeah, he may have trouble. If not, he should be fine.
| Quote: |
So, i would really appreciate if you could give us some hints about the needed tools and how much effort is needed to switch to DS programming if you were used to work with standard APIs and languages.
Are there already free engines or APIs and of course, is there good documentation? |
Get the devkitPro toolchain and libraries. Read TONC and GBATEK. Not sure about free engines (you'll want to write your own anyway). The documentation is generally excellent (although not quite as good as the GBA documentation, but there's enough overlap that the GBA documentation is helpful), and there's a great community here that is really helpful. Like I said, any decent programmer shouldn't find it too difficult. Especially if said programmer already knows C or C++.
| Quote: |
| Last but not least, how big would you evaluate the chance, that a publisher might publish your game considering the game is completly done and finished but that you are completly new, meaning that this is your first title. |
Somewhere just marginally above 0%. Maybe it happens and we never hear about it, but I've never heard of it happening.
| Quote: |
| ... my bad english ... |
If you think your English is bad, you must be new on the internet ;-)
#169198 - sgeos - Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:31 am
| gauauu wrote: |
| You're asking the wrong community. This forum is full of mostly hobbiest and homebrew DS developers. |
The "mostly hobbiest" part is true, but there are people here with professional experience who can shed some light on these questions.
| Don83 wrote: |
| Could you maybe give us some insights about team sizes of successfull RPGs, |
For a modern commercial RPG targeted at the DS, figure 10 developers.
2 Programmers (battle and field; also need menu, sound, etc)
2 Scripters (rpgs have a lot of scripts)
1 Scenario Writer (rpgs have a lot of text)
1 Battle / Item Data Planner (rpgs have a lot of monsters, items, etc)
4 Artists (field tiles, field sprites, battle sprites, battle bgs, menus, etc.)
On top of that, you will want testers. By the time your RPG's engine is more or less feature complete (~halfway done) you will want to have about five full time testers. You can do with less testers before that.
| Don83 wrote: |
| production time |
Figure 18 months by the time you finish testing, if you are not working on something ambitious. For ambitious projects, figure 36 to 60 months with the above team size.
Team size and schedule are can be scaled to the scope of your project. With three people, you have an excellent chance of pulling off a professional level puzzle game if you know what you are doing.
| Don83 wrote: |
| about average selling numbers? |
No clue. It is your job to know who your sales target is, how many of them there are, how many of them you expect to buy your game and why. Figure that you will probably working for relatively low wages for the duration of the project, if you can get a green light at all.
| gauauu wrote: |
| Don83 wrote: | | Last but not least, how big would you evaluate the chance, that a publisher might publish your game considering the game is completly done and finished but that you are completly new, meaning that this is your first title. |
Somewhere just marginally above 0%. Maybe it happens and we never hear about it, but I've never heard of it happening. |
I think gauauu gave the short answer, so I'm going to give my take on the long one. I believe that anything can be negotiated, so it really depends on what exactly you bring to the table. If your game matches a publisher's portfolio and is developed with official tools, I think there is a good chance you can get it published, but you may need to rework aspects of your game.
Without using official tools, things become more complicated; this is actually a catch 22. If the game is worth publishing and you can reprogram it with official tools, I think the right publisher will be willing to work with you. This is not actually saying a lot.
If you want to ship a game, I recommend making a demo and go shopping for a publisher. Keep in mind that you are not entitled to any sort of deal and that the publisher holds all the cards. Even if you can get it published, will you get a good deal? No, in general you give the first one away, so you will probably be gouged.
The last bit of advice for dealing with publishers, is that you need to know what you offering and are asking for. What are you making? Who is your sales target? How large is your sales target? What is your sales point? How long will it take you to finish? How much money do you want to get to complete your project? If you can't succinctly answer those questions without being able to support your answers if asked, save everyone the time and trouble and don't shop around until you can. If you can answer them succinctly, it should be fairly easy for the publisher to decide if they want to work with you or not. =)
#169200 - Don83 - Tue Jun 23, 2009 8:22 am
Ok, thanks a lot for your answers. Yesterday i spent some time looking into the homebrew documentation -
I am not our programmer (but can script and programm too) but the programming looks easy.
Now I am a bit confused. Well rather said, i am a bit disapointed. Basically to get the official tools, you need to have published something before(?).
Or is there any other way to get the official tools. Like said before, we have somewhat proffessional ambitions - we have the oportunity to work 1 year fulltime (with payment - university would pay - not much, but enough).
In addition i am a bit confused about the team sice issue:
| Quote: |
For a modern commercial RPG targeted at the DS, figure 10 developers.
2 Programmers (battle and field; also need menu, sound, etc)
2 Scripters (rpgs have a lot of scripts)
1 Scenario Writer (rpgs have a lot of text)
1 Battle / Item Data Planner (rpgs have a lot of monsters, items, etc)
4 Artists (field tiles, field sprites, battle sprites, battle bgs, menus, etc.) |
So 10 content contributers?! (producers etc. missing), This is somewhat the teamsice of successfull AAA-console titles.
Idea was to paint the backgrounds and model the characters in 3D. So i thought content creation wouldn't be a big deal at all with skilled people, but of course, we have no experience at all.
0.0000% Chance of getting published is not really high :/. Well, i think i need to talk with my team - we of course would like to use that year for something more or less successfull, meaning at least 3000-4000 copy sales so that we can expand.
But anyways thanks a lot for your feedback and the reality check.
Cheers,
Don
#169201 - sgeos - Tue Jun 23, 2009 9:32 am
| Don83 wrote: |
Basically to get the official tools, you need to have published something before(?).
Or is there any other way to get the official tools. Like said before, we have somewhat proffessional ambitions - we have the oportunity to work 1 year fulltime (with payment - university would pay - not much, but enough). |
Have your university contact Nintendo. They might be able to purchase the development tools and let you use them. The tools are not cheap. There is a good chance you will be turned down, but I think it is worth a shot. Keep in mind that you are expected to know how to put games together before you start using professional development hardware. The DS is not a platform to learn on.
| Quote: |
| So 10 content contributers?! (producers etc. missing) |
For a commerical level RPG, yes. This is why starting with an RPG as your first project is a bad idea. The producer is a publisher side person, so you do not have to account for them. One of the listed content contributers will also need to act as the director, and this will take up much of their time. I think the writer/director combo makes the most sense, but you need to work with your team. I'm operating under the assumption music and sound will be outsourced.
Actually, now that I think about it, I have heard that all of the Marvelous Entertainment games are done in a year or less. It was years ago that I heard this though. Marvelous is known as being very budget conscious. They do a fair amount of fantasy stuff.
| Quote: |
| This is somewhat the teamsice of successfull AAA-console titles. |
AAA titles go through rigorous QA and have a lot of content.
| Quote: |
| Idea was to paint the backgrounds and model the characters in 3D. |
How many "characters" do you plan to have? 100 sounds about right to me, after all the NPCs are thrown in. Character status pictures? Maybe 20. Monsters? Say 500, altough some will probably share models. Battle backgrounds? Say 25. Maps? Say 500, although some of them will be small. What is the scope of your project?
| Quote: |
| So i thought content creation wouldn't be a big deal at all with skilled people, but of course, we have no experience at all. |
Anyone can make a few models. Commercial art is about producing models that meet spec in the time available, in other words, quickly. Not only do you need to make all the models, they need to be animated. Nothing in an RPG is hard. It is all simple stuff, but there is a lot of stuff to do. So much, in fact, that it needs to be split up between a bunch of people if you want to finish in a reasonable amount of time. I suppose managing all of those assets might not be so easy.
| Quote: |
| Well, i think i need to talk with my team - we of course would like to use that year for something more or less successfull, meaning at least 3000-4000 copy sales so that we can expand. |
I suspect most publishers are not interested in a title that is not even aiming to break 5,000 units. DSi download software may be different, but even 20,000 copies is a failure for a DS cart release. My opinion is that if you are not aiming for at least 100,000 units, you should consider another platform.
#169202 - zeruda - Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:21 am
Well, if you've got a team with 2 dedicated artists you're in a relatively good position. But you can forget about a complete rpg within a year. Still, you can scale back and just make a demo. Your 3D artist can probably do a 30-50 character models and then a couple of environments(one or two towns and dungeons and maybe inbetween area) if he works solidly through the year with the other artist doing textures.
The problem though is the programming. Although you can scale back art and just make less assets, you can't really scale back and have half a game engine. Although you say your programmer is skilled, you also say student which says to me inexperienced, and he hasn't worked on DS. So he's gonna spend a month or two working out the basics like drawing on the screen and so forth. Then he has to make a proper game engine.
You have to be able to load your 3D models, load your textures, then manage their loading in and out of memory. You gotta create a 3D rendering engine, camera, collision detection, animation, you have to draw and manage all your 2D assets, then your actual game and managing items, text etc, oh and let's not forget AI. Each of these alone could easily take weeks or even months.
Finishing in a year will be tough. If you give yourself 2 years I think you could do something pretty decent, but one year, if you do finish it'll probably be rough around the edges. Most likely you'll have to forego proper 3D movement, that way you simplify camera, collision detection etc making it more manageable. Oh and I suppose maybe make it turn based so you don't have to really worry about real time AI and character collision. Other than that, you could get an extra programmer or two to speed things up.
#169213 - Don83 - Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:05 pm
Well, maybe my first post sounded a bit like we are completly clueless and new in all aspects... but we have worked with the ogre engine and were part of an indy open source project. We once won the second price at the dusmania which is one of the bigger german indy game meetings.
Then we started with university and the project ...well .... so to say...died.
But to handle a project on "hobby" status is another thing then handling a project with proffessional ambitions. (meaning fulltime and paid)
I am our 3D guy+ designer (dialogs+scripting). I was thinking to finish the design before we request for the money.
So all dialogues would be written etc. In fact story is pretty much progressed. Of course else of that we have nothing.
No models etc.
But i wonder why you would for instance need 500 chars? Seems a bit much for me since you can reuse many models. Think 100-200 is more realistic, and i think a character with such a low amount of polies might take a maximum of 1 day to finish(including UVMap dn Texture).
I had more worries with the engine and after i read about those commercial tools and about the struggles to get those tools i am a bit desillusionated :/.
Well after option A(PC), this was option B...and now i think we have to go to option C which is handy games... Somehow it seems impossible to enter the market as a new company.
Ok but anyways, all your postings helped us a lot and maybe opened our eyes. So well, we maybe sometimes need a sort of reality check.
Cheers,
Don
#169214 - ingramb - Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:49 pm
Write your game for the PC. Wrap all PC specific code (graphics, sound, file system, etc) in abstraction layers. Limit yourself to things that are possible on the DS. Don't use any floating point. Be careful with memory allocation. Keep the graphics simple.
Then when the game is done, or further along, you can write a DS implementation of your abstraction layer for either the homebrew tools, or the professional tools (or both). The main advantage to the professional tools is the hardware debugger. If you build the game for the PC, you can use PC debuggers, which are powerful and free.
#169221 - sgeos - Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:44 am
500 monsters. If you have eight kinds of trolls, all of them may use the model with palette shifted textures. Your friendly NPCs may only use a couple dozen retextured models. Small additions and changes are easy if your project has momentum, but this is neither here nor there. Whatever you do to cope with limited resources, time and labor, there is still a whole lot that needs to get done.
If your heart is set on a DS game, I agree with ingramb. If you just want to get a game to market, maybe look at the iPhone or the Google Android. The iPhone is ultimately oversaturated, and you need to deal with Apple, but there are a lot of potential users. The Android is a completely open market, but it is not very big yet.
#169310 - TwentySeven - Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:59 pm
Well, its taken 4 people part-time about 18 months to get this working:
www.mydevstuff.com/twoseven/athia/athia_webcam_horrible.wmv
It plays a bit like diablo 2. Excuse the horrible cam job, I couldn't hold the camera, the DS, and play at the same time.
Its not much more then an engine and some preliminary assets at the moment.
Last edited by TwentySeven on Wed Jul 01, 2009 10:29 pm; edited 2 times in total
#169311 - Miked0801 - Wed Jul 01, 2009 3:59 pm
3 professional game developers aren't enough to do an RPG in 12 months on GBC let alone GBA or DS.
Doing Harry Potter Sorceror's stone on the GBC took 5 professionals (and a large, contract test team) ~8 months to do from scratch with no RPG scripting engine to start with and a decent GBC base engine.
Doing Eragon GBA took around 7 months with 8 professionals, a large contract test team, and a fully functional GBA engine to begin with.
More recent projects on DS have only scaled larger to get done in the same time period.
3 students, even if experienced with awesome skills, have a 0% chance of getting an RPG done in 12 months and just shy of 0% chance of getting a AAA RPG demo working. I hate to sound like a jerk, but RPGs are just huge, huge, HUGE time syncs to get right.