Hello all,
I need a game developed that is similar to battlezone 2 (though more complex). Think of this game as the dady of BZ2 where BZ2 types games are embedded within a larger RTS game. The game play though is RTS/FPS with the treatment identical to BZ2 rather than other games such as savage etc.
The game is a part of a program to develop decision making, problem solving, communication skills and leadership qualities.
The project is a go there are no two aways about it. The problem is I have NO EXPERIENCE in this field.
I was wondering if you folks could help me understand, how to evaluate potential vendors and issues that I should consider.
I am in conversation with couple of small development studios in Eastern Europe or 1 man shows in the US (albeit with a few titles under his belt mostly in arcade or roller coaster type games. He promises to put together a team)
I need just the multiplayer element, no single player, music etc. Graphics just a notch better than BZ2 and not cutting edge. If need be the game could be limited to a single terrain type (snow, desert whatever)
I am being quoted %150-$250k, is this realistic?
What kind design studios I should be talking to. I cannot spend the kind of money big publishers do. The game is for a niche training/ learning market and $150-$250k is about the budget. Possible?
would appreciate all help I can get.
regards
ah one more thing, could some one review this engine for me?
http://www.panteragamestudio.com/engine.htm
No one could ever replace BZ.
Not in our hearts maybe, but people who have never heard of BZ would probably love the idea.
There was some guy a few month ago who posted that his company was doing a remake of Battlezone II or something. He didn't mention much at all, didn't seem very specific, and haven't heard from him since...
EDIT: Removed random sentence :P
Quote from: Feared_1 on July 17, 2008, 05:36:43 PMThere was some guy a few month ago who posted that his company was doing a remake of Battlezone II or something. He didn't mention much at all, didn't seem very specific, and haven't heard from him since...
Yep, right here: http://www.bzuniverse.com/forum/index.php/topic,7686.0.html
bhutnath, I'd start there, that thread by frozenfire, and see what you're up against. If anything, you and him are asking similar questions. Then maybe after that, you could ask someone like BS'er (he's registered here), a longtime fellow BZ and BZ2 gamer/modder, who is currently developing his own game.
Last but not least, search for past threads here.
thank you for the tips.
It is interesting to see other projects in work. The project I am looking after will be part of program to develop leadership, decision making EI related skills. The game will not be available in the market for purchase (bummer).
In this sense it is not in competition with any other game. In fact if another game meets our requirement I would happy to license it. If BZ2 licensing issue would allow and if a mod could do the work. I will be happy to fund its development. We are not in the 'gaming' business. Its developing learning experiences that interests us and we think that games like BZ2 has a lot to offer here.
No one in my firm has any experience with developing games and I was hopping that folks here could sensitize me to issues that would be of importance.
Why not just start and play with BZ2? You may be better off going with BZ2 with a mod as you said. This should save you financewise and timewise, rather than building a new game from scratch. There are many dev houses around you can inquire with about contractual freelancing, and I believe you're already doing that research. Yes you may have to check with Pandemic Studios about licensing if you will be using BZ2 in a corporate environment, if there is such a thing in BZ2's EULA (sorry haven't looked at it in awhile). I think buying several copies of BZ2 would be better than the suggested allocation of $250k (it's probably higher than that, dunno). Or you can always get around that and have a LAN party at your house with your work colleagues... err friends. Of course, you probably can't get a corp tax writeoff on it if you do it that way. :wink:
Wow. It just so happens that I have been working on a game that has a lot of elements from BZII. I had been planning on keeping it simple as a kind of deathmatch arcade game, for the simple reason that I figured it was the only way I could make money with it....BZII is too complicated for the mass market.
How very, very fortuitous that you should show up here :)
I work with the Unity engine, and did the following to learn my way around it a bit:
http://slackerrevolution.com/PickleWars.zip.zip (http://slackerrevolution.com/PickleWars.zip.zip)
This is the windows version...just unzip it and run the exe. I can provide a Mac version if you like. It's pretty rough, but it only took me about 100 hours to make, starting from knowing nothing about the Unity Engine. My current project is progressing much more quickly.
The game I am currently working on is titled "ZonePatrol", and has been designed as a race game in the style of Hydro Thunder...its going to be using an elliptical trainer machine for a controller. As I code up the physics and basic stuff, I've been nursing the idea of an intergalactic conquest mmog with strat elements from the Battlezone Games, Star Raiders, and Star Control.
Here's a screenshot...I can send you a copy to play if you like.
(http://humanpoweredgames.com/ZonePatrol/ZonePatrolScreenShot001.jpg)
As far as cost goes, I'd need more specifics on what it is you're building, and when you need it. I can help you with a design document if you don't have one yet, too.
I'll send you a private message with my contact info.
Now thats what pb5 should look like!! :-o
i see lizard's red devil :P
Wow, that looks nice.
WOW
'hunts for a new water texture'
Its not just the texture.. its the distortion that really makes that something.
Its what BZ2 has always needed, Distortion Shaders!
So many explosions, lots of water areas, it definitely could use them for graphical effect. But hey, who knows when BZ2 will ever get the ability to HAVE shaders at ALL?
Quote from: Feared_1 on July 18, 2008, 02:47:23 AM
Wow, that looks nice.
Oh, I didn't mean the giant bean stalk, what is that?
I also like how you can see the land from far away. I wish BZ2 was able to do something like that, but it just murders FPS.
Thanks for the compliments. Yes, that is Lizard's Red Devil...he's given me access to his back catalog, so more of his creations will be appearing as things come online. That Red Devil has jet boost too...it screams like a purple butt baboon!
The big green column is a nav point. If you've ever played GTA or Crackdown, they have race segments with these huge tall meshes that are easy to spot from a distance.
The water distortion is just a tiny sample of the shaders I have access to. I'm focused on gameplay at this point (and this finicky optical sensor I'm using to pick up RPMs off the elliptical trainer), once all that feels right, I'll start the eye candy application. I want to preserve my momentum for making the gameplay perfect, then expend effort to ramp up the pretties.
If you guys could scare up the cash to keep me fed for a year, I'd be happy to make BZ III er...Zone Patrol, Combat Commander for you. I keep having to slap my hand and tell myself "BZ was a commercial failure...DON'T MAKE BZ or you and your wife will starve!" ... but as you can see I'm having limited success with that. It will probably end up happening one way or another.
We could make a nice source engine mod.
Source?? I was considering modding source until I found out just how hard the damn thing is.
Just to make a new weapon you need to go through about 100 stages and some in c++.
See BBB, a source engine mod would be lots of fun!
are those riples in water eminating from the ship?
just to get this clear in my head... is this like... battlezone 3 pretty much? with far superior eye candy?
oh please! i would pay lots for that! especially if it was as moddable as BZII is now (if not more so)
Quote from: General BlackDragon on July 19, 2008, 12:46:40 AM
are those riples in water eminating from the ship?
No...it's just reflections. It's a hovercraft, you see, so it doesn't disturb the water :)
It would actually, the downdraft would make a huge ripple on the water.
Having a water actually ripple is easy to do if small, but anything large in size and it because far too costly to be real-time.
And source is not that hard, it is a bit convoluted in places (due to the typing system they use, I would have made it very different, more templating, less macros, far more clean), and I like Unreal's style better (but I *HATE* UEngine3... pretty, but gull freaking they screwed so many things up, I thought they were smart too, Up to UE2.5 it was wonderful), but Source is dang fast.
(http://www.overminddl1.com/image_scripts/image_sig.php?type=ODL1signitures&image/sig.gif)
Generated by OvermindDL1's Signature Auto-Add Script (http://overminddl1.com) via GreaseMonkey (http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/)
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 19, 2008, 04:09:11 AM
It would actually, the downdraft would make a huge ripple on the water.
It's not a fan-type hovercraft. It's got an anti-gravity device on it that gently caresses the terrain below, leaving it un-mussed and fresh as a spring morning.
Anti-gravity?? And realism just goes out the door.
BBB, its a BZ2 unit, its anti gravity, that's the facts.
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 19, 2008, 10:52:03 PM
Anti-gravity?? And realism just goes out the door.
Reality? We're IMMERSED in reality all the time. Why would I want to build a game that acts like reality? Reality is free, and already built! Everybody has reality...I can't sell that!
No. No! A thousand times no! I am creating colonies in cloud-cuckoo land, where the the toves are slithy and magic ponies have the power to heal grevious injury! Where Wylie Coyote can rise from his destruction and formulate his next scheme, no matter how violently the last treated him!
You sir, can HAVE your reality!
Harumph
@N1 - If they are anti-gravity, why do they have dust trails? Its actually biometal propulsion emitting some kind of energy that keeps the unit floating.
@AcVg - So Call of Duty 4 couldn't be sold? :-P
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 19, 2008, 11:26:01 PM
@N1 - If they are anti-gravity, why do they have dust trails? Its actually biometal propulsion emitting some kind of energy that keeps the unit floating.
@AcVg - So Call of Duty 4 couldn't be sold? :-P
Last time I played CoD4, I got shot probably 400 times in a 2 hour period. I never went to the doctor, because that would have sucked and not been fun at all. So I just ducked behind stuff till I felt better.
It was awesome!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
That brings to mind a certain ZP review...
:lol: :lol:
lol so true
the real trick is to make unreality realistic
hmmm, seems there are a lot of people trying to create a game 'like' battlezone, I am working on a storyline right now for a game that my co-workers and I are looking to develop, it will be similar to battlezone using the same style of gameplay, but with more fps ability in it, but I'm still looking for an engine, but I will have plenty of eye candy once Unreal[R] engine III comes out for free :evil:
anyhoo looks great AV
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 19, 2008, 11:26:01 PM
@N1 - If they are anti-gravity, why do they have dust trails? Its actually biometal propulsion emitting some kind of energy that keeps the unit floating.
Noooo, it isn't. In BZ1 it is the large thrusters on all the ships and in BZ2's movies it is the thrusters on the back.
I thought the thrusters aided movement in BZ2, since they are too far back on the ship to keep it up..... in BZ1 is IS the thrusters.
BZ1 uses more down thrusters, but the craft still levitate when an electrical field is put through them.
It can't levitate unless it is emitting a force which keeps the unit floating by pushing it up from the ground, hence the dust trails.
You are suggesting that a force is moving the dirt particles, but in reality what moves them is the impact of another matter. In BZ1 if it exhaust from the thrusters, but floating biometal itself creates a gravity field. For example, try magnets. Cover a magnet in dirt, hold another magnet over top so it repels, and watch as the dirt does not move (as long as the magnet in it is secured in place).
You're both correct. The explanation for the dust trails however, is more likely due to the aerodynamic properties of the craft forcing the air underneath it into the ground and thus kicking up dust. On planets like the moon where there is little gravity and virtually no atmosphere, its also possible that some residual particles being released from the thrusters (or repulsor surfaces) on the craft alone might also be able to move dust around a lot more since there is not a lot of gravity to restrict the movement of such dust.
Quote from: bigbadbogie on July 30, 2008, 03:54:40 AM
It can't levitate unless it is emitting a force which keeps the unit floating by pushing it up from the ground, hence the dust trails.
Look at this Magnetic Levitation (http://www.5min.com/Video/Magnetic-levitation---how-does-it-work-9717) video, and note how the liquid hydrogen reacts after the superconductor has established a magnetic field with the magnet. The liquid hydrogen at the top of the superconductor does not move around according to the magnetic field, it just stays put. But when you move the superconductor, it will force the liquid nitrogen outwards with additional force similar to that of of a craft kicking up dust when it passes over a dusty surface.