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sRPG Tools Kickstarter Brainstorm

Started by lirmont, August 19, 2013, 01:08:58 pm

lirmont

August 19, 2013, 01:08:58 pm Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 06:41:09 am by lirmont
Time/Feature Estimate Spreadsheet: Kickstarter Estimate XLS (ODS).

--

As many of you who frequent the Tethical board may know, I've been working on the tools related to the sRPG engine, Tethical, for a long time. It's been a whole two years now! In that time, I've written a FFT map exporter, two fully-featured pieces of software, a drag-and-drop formula designer, a complex game data-management geared database, and started work on putting it all to use in a reference implementation game.

Now, more than ever, I need your help. I'm (hopefully) starting a kickstarter to get this thing finished. Most of the funds will pay for programming costs. Up to now, I've been able to use my own money and circumstance to provide software and engine features. However, I won't be able to do that without new capital.

Python is the programming language the engine is written in; C# is the programming language the tools are written in. The going rate for an outsourced Python oDesk.com programmer is anywhere from $4 an hour to $55 an hour. Similarly, the going rate for an outsourced C# programmer is anywhere from $3 an hour to $60 an hour. Additionally, it's my experience that you have to deal with time conflicts and the language barrier, especially for ambitious features. Of course, I'd like to do it all myself, and I'm willing to pro-rate the wage I'm used to ($20 an hour) in order to accomplish that.

I estimate there's probably around 40 more business weeks worth of work to be completed before the primary tool (the Tethical Control Panel) is completed, such that it can be used to fully manipulate a game running on the Tethical platform. That includes making the necessary programming additions to the actual engine. That puts the total around $20,000 at $12.50 an hour for 1,600 hours (pro-rated from $32,000 at $20.00 an hour). I will have an exhaustive list of all of the things that need to be done with time estimates and an amended total by the end of the week.

Anyway, to help make this future kickstarter a success, I'd appreciate feedback on these tentative goals (whether you think they are affordable/reasonable, what you'd like to see added or swapped out -- anything). For those of you who are new to kickstarter, they break pledges (money) into categories, where hopefully the more alluring awards are further down the list, costing more. Additionally, there is a concept of pledging more to the project than is necessary, instituting things known as "stretch goals", which add additional things. As this is mostly a digital thing, I'm having trouble making it competitive (which is why I'm posting this for review).


Pledge Levels:

  • $5 or more - A place in the engine-level "Special Thanks" credits crawl of the reference implementation game. A "Special Thanks" badge.

  • $10 or more - Contributor status, giving you license to use all the tools associated with this project and the demonstration game assets that have been contributed (contributed assets for use only with Tethical-engine games). Your choice of a "Very Special Thanks" badge, and all of the above.

  • $25 or more - Up to two first names of your choice put into the reference implementation game's name pool; standard English name-casing required. Your choice of a "Name Designer" badge, and all of the above.

  • $35 or more - Design an item to be put into the reference implementation game; name, description, and optional image required. Item will be buried in a chest on a map. Your choice of an "Item Designer" badge, and all of the above.

  • $50 or more - Design a recruited character; requires name, character alignment, paragraph-length general description, and may optionally come equipped with the item you designed at the $35-pledge level. Your choice of a "Character Designer" badge, and all of the above.

  • $200 or more (10 available) - Design a class to be put into the reference implementation game; requires name, skillset name, skills, skill prices in approximate job point costs, skill target types (self, team, enemy), skill target area (general description), and optional custom sprite (note: you must own said sprite to provide it). Your choice of a "Class Designer" badge, and all of the above.

  • $500 or more (5 available) - Design a game feature (ex. crafting) to  be put into the reference implementation game; it must be able to be completed in less than 40 hours of work. Your choice of a "Feature Designer" badge, and all of the above.

  • $1000 or more (5 available) - Design a feature (ex. particle effects) for an existing tool or for the Tethical game engine; it must be able to be completed in less than 80 hours of work. Your choice of an "Software Designer" badge, and all of the above, except the $500-pledge level awards.




Stretch Goals

  • $30,000 or more - A dedicated server to host the reference implementation game on the internet (which includes online matches, visible badges, etc).

  • $40,000 or more - A generic reference implementation state facilitating inter-game battle matches (which would include optional balancing at the server-level).

  • $??? or more - ?

  • $60,000 or more - Tools are made open-source, and the licensing is removed on the tools (would not apply to the contributions, because those need to be tracked).

  • $70,000 or more - I'll livestream at least 10 hours a month of me programming. I may optionally take realtime suggestions during that period.



As always, thanks for your continued interest in this project. If you haven't checked out this project in depth, most of the threads on this board contain lots of development pictures. Thanks.

Choto

Well the rewards/pledge amounts seem pretty good actually.. I just have no clue how much interest the design of a game gets on kickstarter. I think getting it to a point (which you may be at) that you can show some animated examples of events of battle sequences would go a long way as people are probably more moved by fireworks than screenshots of design features. I really do hope it gets alot of attention and support when you put it up though, you deserve it from the work you've done.

lirmont

August 25, 2013, 09:45:49 am #2 Last Edit: August 26, 2013, 03:32:51 pm by lirmont
Thanks! Here's the plan for what the video will entail:

  • (The music I want to align the following with is at -4:04:000, and I want to use it because it has three major parts to the song with I want to line up with: http://freesound.org/people/Kyster/sounds/197114/).

  • Introduction screen (reminiscent of the map name screen from FFT): title text "Tethical sRPG Engine"

  • Screen wash + winning condition screen: title text ("Conditions for Victory"), sub-text ("Impress KickStarter Audience!", with "Kick" in white gradient and "Starter" in green gradient); image: 001; clip: 001.

  • Concept introduction screen: title text "Battle"; image: 001.

  • A very short flash of a certain White Aegis (knight) swinging a sword at a bat (MON sprite) on the "Morning Mandalia" map with full HUD implemented.

  • Concept introduction screen: title text "Events"; image: 001.

  • The first half of the dialogue event that leads up to the battle of the previous section (essentially shows sprites, dialogue font, and vanity dialogue boxes).

  • Concept introduction screen: title text "Art Tools"; image: 001.

  • Sub-concept introduction screen: title text "Sprite Animation Tool"; image: 001.

  • I plan to have it show sprite animator burn through loading dark blade.

  • Then, opening a frame for editing.

  • Then, changing color or something to update it (causing the tool to immediately switch over to the new animation).

  • Then, a demonstration of the contribution browser to download a sprite.

  • Then, a demonstration of loading the sprite downloaded through the contribution browser with added images for the named attachments.

  • Sub-concept introduction screen: "Unicode Image Font Tool"; image: 001.

  • It initially loads the font Lijj and Mobius put together.

  • Then, I want to cycle through the various color blocks and variants.

  • Then, I want to show that the effects are all contained in the program.

  • Concept introduction screen: "Managerial Tools"; image: 001.

  • First, the map editor.

  • Second, the items editor.

  • Third, a short section from the long demo I did of the formula editor.

  • Fourth, the music editor.

  • Fifth, the art directives.

  • Finally, I want to show the Tethical game intro video I made.

  • That will fade out into just the map-like background with the estimated delivery date (ex. "September 2014").

  • That text will fade to the pertinent credits (including credits for the art and music).



Clips: 001 (intro sequence) and 002 (just title text).

Mobius

Why, you should have said this earlier.

You have my full support there with any sprite poses you might need. Like the bat hurt poses. And the party sprites. Do mind that I am travelling, so it might come off slow.
Now everyone sit down, relax and have a good damned cup of tea.
Then go out into the forest and see the stars.

Then come back and realize it's pointless to be so worked up over what's meant to be our hobby.
That should be my motto here, holy s

lirmont

You know I'm no artist, and my prolific failures are especially well-documented in this particular forum, but I've got the good start material you and Lijj have already done. So, I plan to do it myself. As it will be very short, the amount of things I can potentially mess up should be relatively low. I will just placeholder the rest of stuff so that, where characters would be more animated, they'll just be really predisposed to standing. It's pretty easy to hide that stuff behind text boxes and interface; I'm not worried about it looking sub-par, as I expect people will be too busy drooling over your extended-portait art. I'm going to ninja-edit in the parts in that post as I get them done (ex. the part with the multi-colored text is already done). Thanks!

Mobius

I was thinking how the screen introductory animation could have the camera rotate overhead; make some sprites show first as front poses, then side and sometimes a back pose, like when you rotate the camera in FFT.

Those are not made yet..

Then there's the Knight striking animation.
Now everyone sit down, relax and have a good damned cup of tea.
Then go out into the forest and see the stars.

Then come back and realize it's pointless to be so worked up over what's meant to be our hobby.
That should be my motto here, holy s

lirmont

The battle scene will just jump straight to focus on the attack part (no intro). The default vanilla rotate and slide will definitely be pared down to just being a top-down slide for the event, conveniently ignoring the need for all those other views. My plan is that the hero group will need NE poses (which I know are not done, but I will frankensprite them by drawing over an existing sprite in sprite animator, which should be much less noticeably amateur considering it's a view mostly of their backs), and the monsters (bats, because I can't show Marlboros) will need SW poses (which you did already). Come to think of it, this is kind of a field test for all the tools I wrote.

Lijj

Make it pro as possible for the swing-attack animation! It won't be too much work to make a sprite set with just just one attack. I think angle change would be really nice as well.
Top-slide AND rotate to awe Kickstarter!
  • Modding version: PSX

Choto

Did I ever give you the fairy sprite? I'll post a spritesheet of it for your use.

lirmont

I don't think you've posted it, but that got me thinking that I'd like to request permission to use the flan sprite instead. The event is designed with infectious-type monsters, and that would fit perfectly in place of the Marlboros that were in the original (and I'm trying to kill two birds with one stone here). Thanks.

Choto

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamg Flan. The backpose too? I'm not thrilled with the way that turned out, but if he augments the nasty vibe you're going for I guess it's all good.

lirmont

If there are back poses, I will do my best to hide them. The event portion will probably be done tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get the interface stuff done tomorrow, too. Thanks.

3lric

\o/  Flan

Also cant wait to see how events work!
  • Modding version: PSX

lirmont

No units on the field yet (still trying to get the back poses of the actual characters in the event done), and I had to spend time ripping out the code I wrote to make crappy fonts (i.e. fonts made by hand with errors) display semi-correctly. But... Fonts (Lijj & Mobius), expanded portraits (Mobius), maps -- Oh, my!




Lijj

August 28, 2013, 04:25:21 pm #14 Last Edit: August 28, 2013, 05:49:43 pm by Lijj
Whoa! That looks great so far! Only the parchment needs to be extended a bit further on the right side to meet the chocobo's neck.
  • Modding version: PSX

Myrmidon

Not without coming out the back of the other guy's head...

...maybe flip it? have the faces aiming at the outside of the screen instead of inside...

lirmont

August 29, 2013, 08:54:53 pm #16 Last Edit: August 30, 2013, 03:52:23 am by lirmont
@lijj: I'll get that fixed.

--

Early Morning Battle on the Plains (Event)



Video: download.

Credits:

  • Smash - Character design, event text, extended portraits, Eleanor sprite, and Steeling bat sprites.

  • Lijj - Font and UI design.

  • Kagebunji - Guardian sprite and Hector sprite (Hector: Kagebunji, Jimmy, Twinees).

  • Choto - Flan sprite.

  • lirmont - Map.


Thanks to everybody that helped me out with this event (you can still help out by criticizing the parts you don't like; I may be able to fix them). Thanks!

--

So, I wanted to have this event done by yesterday, but I had a flash about how to handle events better. So, I decided to program that feature instead.

Laying out Unit Placer Objects






Anyway, the picture in the spoiler doesn't include the code I'll write to make the actual movement across the map and other miscellaneous actions happen. However, what it does do is walk straight through that conversation ("Early Morning Battle on the Plains"), firing off events as it hits them.





So, as the dialogue is walked during the event, the walker chooses to run any handlers for the event names that are attached to a given line. These are currently set up to be run before the line happens, and, as such, your handler can delay the conversation for however long it feels like. At any rate, this particular event has 3 line events it can respond to. Sequence and Parallel objects can be used to perform animations from the context of a handler. These particular ones include the signal to the dialogue walker to mark the handler as done as the last part of the animations, so the dialogue walker will wait until the animations finish. However, you could just as easily put that signal first, so that (if there are not other handlers stalling the dialogue walker) your animation would happen during the text being displayed. Furthermore, because it's set up like this, you can signal the same actions based on line events regardless of whatever active language the player might have set (so long as you use the exact same names for the line events).

Choto

Looks friggin' awesome. This will definitely grab the attention of any FFT fan.

lirmont

Haha, glad you liked it. That is definitely my aim. Thanks again for the flans. They deliver!

Lijj

Oddly the second line of text is taller than the first.
  • Modding version: PSX