Post by iamallama on Jan 13, 2014 3:08:36 GMT
Operation: Llamaquest
Once again, another busy week. Seems like so much has happened and yet it has only been 2 weeks. I would like to start off by saying, again, thanks for all your support. All the suggestions and ideas flying around have been wonderful and I really think we can come up with something cool.
The Name
So while we haven't officially named the game, AmY made a great point: we can't just call it "the game." So we threw around some ideas and came up with our tentative name: Llamaquest
Registrations for new forum open: llama-quest.com/forums/
Some other names we came up with:
- Llamas Online
- Pixelquest
- Llamacrab
- Llama Fantasy
- World of Llamacraft
- League of Llamas
- Llama Llegacy
- PixelTrail
As you can see, we spend our time very wisely..."Only the important stuff" I always say.
Game Engine
An important part of how any game is going to be created is the game engine. I searched around looking at probably 20-30 different game engines from Flash to JavaScript to Java to standalone desktop engines written in like 10 different languages. And I tested each one. I wanted to find something that would offer good performance and not be too complicated. I wanted something that would allow us to write for the browser, desktop and ideally with support for mobile as well. The final decision came down to LibGDX (Java) and Unity. Both have some great stuff. LibGDX offers some of the best performance I have ever seen and since it is just Java, it runs on everything. However I finally decided on Unity. Unity is extremely powerful while being easy to use. Once you get used to the development process a little, it saves tons of time. There is a browser plugin (can list games on Kongregate), great desktop support (Steam greenlight here we come) and even supports mobile. I am really excited to get started writing something in Unity and can't wait for the process to start.
What Have We Been Doing
Well, talks about classes have pretty much wrapped up (well as far as we can get without some play testing). We have a setting for our world and so that splintered off talks about the skills for the classes and the storyline. This is where PinkCrown's creativity starts shining. She really is talented at telling a story and I'm sure you will all be pleased. AmY has been working hard with Lighterthief on some dynamic light stuff. We are still trying to decide whether we will have dynamic ambient light, but in the mean time, here is an animated gif of an FO sprite with dynamic lighting I had LT make up for this post. Looks pretty good considering that the FO sprite is really flat. It can take some work to give such a small/flat 2d sprite a 3d look. The rest of the team has been doing an awesome job as well. Ideas are flying around like a llama with wings.
Edit: Here is a realtime example showing the dynamic lighting. The gif doesn't do the effect justice.
Contact
I have created a twitter account if anyone cares to follow @iamallamaquest. Feel free to send me any questions you have. I'll be posting up dev-blog stuff when it comes out. The usually twitter things.
Donations
Finally donations. I have setup a donate button on PayPal. Currently I am the only one paying for the tools we need and I am far from rich. 100% of all moneys donated will go towards development. Most likely helping to buy tools for the team. If you want to donate something specific, like buy something for the team, message me and I'll let you know what we need. Anything will help, even just a dollar or two, it all adds up. I am thinking of some rewards for donating. If you have something that you need and I can help, please just send me a message and I'll do what I can. I haven't decided anything yet, but I will say that anyone who donates will get something when we get far enough to make stuff. I don't know what, but maybe stuff like stickers, 3d printed figures, tshirts, autographed pictures of a llama. We are not far enough to say what will be available yet because I don't even know, but you will get something eventually. I promise. You can kick us down a few cents here. I'll be adding a donate button to the top of the forum when I get some free time.
-iamallama