HW:Gamedevnet3

[b]Team name:[/b] PARPG development team

[b]Project name:[/b] PARPG - post-apocalyptic roleplaying game

[b]Brief description:[/b] The project was founded in late January 2009 when I started to flesh out the concept at our project wiki. PARPG is an old school 2d isometric roleplaying game, inspired by genre classics such as Fallout, Arcanum and Planescape: Torment. We've just recently shipped our first techdemo release and are now in planning stages for the second techdemo.

The team has agreed upon the following key elements: * Singleplayer RPG; no multiplayer or coop gameplay support * Post-apocalyptic setting nuclear winter setting. Story and game mechanics details are still getting fleshed at the moment * Meaningful choices and consequences; multiple paths to complete quests, including non-violent ways * Emphasis on well-written detailed branching tree dialogue * Tactical, turnbased combat * Written in Python (2.5.x / 2.6.x branch); utilizing the FIFE game engine * Isometric 2d perspective instead of going for full 3d engine complexity * Open source code and asset licensing * Open development philosophy; public development wiki and forums; anonymous SVN checkout

More information about agreed upon setting aspects as well as about the story and the game mechanics can be found here: * Game mechanics * Setting draft * Encroachment of ice age storyline proposal

[b]Target aim:[/b] Open source & non profit. GPL 3.0 for code, CC 3.0 BY-SA licensing for media assets (audio, graphics, text)

[b]Compensation:[/b] Although there are no intentions to make monetary profit with the project, there are a bunch of potential reasons for developers to get involved: * Improving your personal portfolio with the demo version of the game to land a job in the industry. The demo will be a one town / location version of the game. Creating such a demo will be an already quite challenging task and it gives us the chance to test concepts in a smaller scale undertaking first before trying to tackle a full game. A more detailed description of the demo concept can be found at the project wiki. * Love for old school isometric 2d RPGs. * Enthusiasm for open source game development. * Gaining game development experience by working on a team project.

[b]Technology:[/b] Targeted platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Win32

Programming language: Python 2.5.x & 2.6.x; not all important Python libraries have been ported to Py3k yet so we'll stick to the 2.5 & 2.6 branches for now. Time-critical code can be written in C++. C++ &lt;&gt; Python bindings are supported by FIFE via SWIG.

Engine: FIFE. I was personally involved in the FIFE project for three years and although the engine is far from being feature-complete, it turned out to be the best basis for a project like PARPG.

IDE: No IDE preference from my side. There are a bunch of good free as well as commercial Python IDEs available. I can't see a good reason at the moment to agree on a single IDE that needs to be used by all programmers; so freedom of choice for you.

[b]Download:[/b] You can either download the latest stable release</a> or grab the newest revision from our SVN repository</a>. We also provide an easy to use Win32 installer for techdemo 1</a>.

[b]Talent needed:[/b] [b]Python game programmer[/b] Implementing game features in Python.

[b]Python tools programmer[/b] Tools development. Creating / improving all kind of asset creation tools, e.g. a map editor. An example map editor tool comes with FIFE so this can be used as a basis.

There is already quite some code in our SVN repository. A guide how to download and run the latest version of PARPG can be found at our development wiki: PARPG download guide</a>

[b]Graphics artist[/b] We're trying to find artists who would like to contribute in one of the following possible fields of work: * 3d modeling: creating either organic or inorganic 3d models e.g. (non) player characters, items, weapons, etc. No preference concerning the modeling package to use. At the moment we got artists involved who use Blender, 3dsMax & XSI Softimage. A rendering setup</a> for Blender can be found in our SVN repository * Concept art: visualizing characters or GUI concepts as 2d art * GUI art: creating 2d graphics for the user interface of PARPG

[b]Sound effects engineer[/b] We would like to fill the following audio-related positions as well: * Audio effects engineer: creating various audio effects e.g. weapons, noises as well as sounds that will be used for the graphical user interface.

[b]Team structure:[/b] barra - public relations, developer recruitment, infrastructure maintenance, project management beliar - Python programmer maximinus - Python programmer qubodup - public relations, video recording q_x - 2d artist sirren - 3d artist zenbitz - game mechanics designer & writer

A listing of my prior game development experience, skills and the specific tasks I'll take over in the development of PARPG can be found at my personal user page</a> at the project wiki.

[b]Infrastructure:[/b] Blog</a> Forums</a> IRC channel</a> IRC logs</a> Subversion repository</a> Trac - task tracker</a> Wiki</a>

[b]Contact:[/b] The way of getting in contact with each other is to post a little introduction about yourself at the Introduce yourself</a> board of our forums. Post some bits and pieces about yourself (age, location, occupation, something along these lines) and in which department you would like to work. Providing examples of previous work / projects would be a great plus; post some screenshots or a link to the website of a project that you've contributed to.

Our developers will get back to you there and provide some pointers how you can contribute to the project and how to get started.

We offered the option to contact the project management via email and personal message in the past but this resulted in a lot of extra work for one specific developer as he was the only one who had the chance to reply to these messages. Therefore please DO NOT contact me via personal message or email anymore! I know it sucks to register at forums to get involved in a volunteer project but it turned out that the other contact options created even more problems and stress for the developers of PARPG. Thanks for your understanding.

[b]Previous Work by Team:[/b] I was one of the founders of the game engine project FIFE and worked on it for three full years from 2005-2008. My main tasks were recruitment of new developers, public relations (posting news at the blog, staying in contact with the community), infrastructure maintenance (wiki, SVN, trac) as well as maintaining the FIFE Win32 compile SDK - an easy to use all-in-one package to build FIFE from source on Windows systems.

More information about FIFE can be obtained from one of the old help wanted postings</a> I posted here at gamedev.net. Furthermore the FIFE wiki</a> is a great starting point as well.

[b]Additional Info:[/b] Here are some examples from our <a href="http://blog.parpg.net/media/">media gallery</a>:

[b]Concept art:[/b] <img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/0/0b/Jacob.png" alt="Jacob concept art" />

<img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/f/fa/Hoadir.png" alt="Hoadir concept art" />

<img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/f/f8/Hatman.png" alt="Hatman concept art" />

<a href="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/9/98/Improvised_weapons_2.jpg"><img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/9/98/Improvised_weapons_2.jpg/500px-Improvised_weapons_2.jpg" alt="Improvised weapons concept art" /></a>

[b]3d renders:[/b] <img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/4/43/Zeli_building.jpg" alt="Building by zeli" />

<img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/7/7a/Zimble_walls.png" alt="Walls by zimble" />

[b]Screnshots:[/b] <img src="http://wiki.parpg.net/images/f/f5/Screen-2010-03-11-14-40-44.png" alt="PARPG techdemo 1 screenshot" />

[b]Video:[/b] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaVqYqA5Vv0&feature=player_embedded">PARPG techdemo 1 impressions at youtube</a>

[b]Feedback:[/b] Any kind of feedback is appreciated. We're more than willing to learn from any mistake so shoot, we can take it :-)