Hello Everybody,

I want to welcome all artists, designers and developers!

The aim of the Arcade Construction Kit is to create a toolkit for very easy game development. I'm very happy that Genesi supports our effort generously with free EFIKA computers for each participant.

I'm very happy that our group of artists is growing fast.
I'm sure that we will create some real good games in the near future.

I would like to encourage you use this forum to exchange ideas and to get answers to all your questions.


Cheers
Gunnar

I think it would be very nice if every participant would introduce himself to the others.

So I just start:

My name is Gunnar von Boehn.
I'm 34 years old, married and have one 5 month old daughter.
I'm a professional software developer with a colorful Amiga history and now mainly working on Linux.

You can see a picture of me and see some more on my website.
http://www.greyhound-data.com/gunnar/


Cheers

I have contacted you before gunnar i just havent gotten a reply back.

As far as my game is concerned, ive started to create some prototype levels in sauerbraten..... they are really starting to come along.

Hi Ronin,

Sorry my fault I got quite a few emails and I'm currently answerig them all.
You should get an email in a few minutes...
I'm happy that we now have this forum it will help us a lot.


Cheers
Gunnar

no worries, what i failed to mention before is that i am an seasoned 3d artist/level designer. So no 3d yet, too bad. Hopefully when the efika is shipped out someone can go through the sauerbraten code optimising it for PPC.

As far as map prototype goes, im about 5% done.
I still need to texture, light, and model some of the map as well as power-up placement

The EFIKA has of course 3D support.
So you first person shooter engine should work there.

I was referring to the ARCADE game construction Kit.
The Kit is optimized to create those typical Arcade 2D games.
That type of game that was once so popular like Katakis, Xenon, Commando, Uridium, 194X ...
The Kit is fully focused on that type of 2D games.


Cheers

Hi Gunnar

I thought I would post up what i was wanting to make for you it will be a shoot em up like Uridium 2 old game but fun its set in space flying over a space station kinda thing i think only il be doing 3D gfx for it all.

im not sure how to continue though so a little help would be good do i need to get the dev box first?

Mark

Uridium was an excellent game.
Oh I have played it for many hours.
I think remaking this with some improved gfx is a very good idea indeed.

Creating the space ships with a 3D tool is a very good idea.
Uridium was full of space flyer turning or rolling.
Not drawing these loopings, turn by hand by using a 3D rendering programm will allow you to get very smooth movements (like 32 frames for one looping) with much less work then
painting them all by hand.

I assume that you have a computer and 3D program right now?
Then please you this computer to start creating the gfx.
The EFIKA should be shipped to us in the next month I assume.
Just in time to test some of our by then hopefully halve finished games on them


Cheers

Yea i will be using 3D studio to do the gfx maybe maya im not sure which yet.

you will need our address to get the hardware to us right?

also should i jsut create the needed gfx then give them to you ? how am i suppose to use my gfx and make a game with them.

sorry for all the questions:)

Mark

Sounds good.
Yes I will need the address of everybody.
The current situation is, that the toolkit works but lacks some userfriendlyness and lacks a few features which some of your games might need or not.

The idea is that every artists starts now with the work on his GFX. You then send me the GFX of the first level.

I use the current toolkit to create the first level of your game according to your ideas and wishes. Any features needed for your game that are missing will be added to the toolkit. During that process I'll polish the userinterface so that the Kit is nice and easy to use.

As soon as the Kit includes all the features needed for your game you get a copy of the Kit and can continue to design your game. If you want I will continue to help you with this.
Or I can continue do the whole design if you prefer.
I thank you for the questions



Cheers
Gunnar

will the toolkit be just for the arcade game construction kit or will it also include 3d games. because today i sat down to draw up some ideas and some parts of it simply cannot be done in 2d, ie boss battles. (but it could be fun in 2d)

Another game which would be fun to make would be a secret agent clone. ....the old one by apogee. ah... i wasted countless hours as a child playing that game.

The tool is optimized to create Sprite based 2D Shoot-Em-Ups.
You can create games like Xenon, 194x, Katakis or DoDonPachi with it.

I think it makes sense to have one tool optimized for one job. So that the tool does this one job very good and is still easy and intuitive to use.

When the tool is finished I could to create a version optimized to create 2D Jump and Runs.


Can you tell us what idea you have for the boss for which you would use 3D instead of 2D?

Cheers

the boss would be on a round platform (it would be kind of like a ratking) and every time you hit the ratking main body, one of the rats would detatch and charge at the character. Your character would dodge the charging rat, which would fall to its untimely death. So a 3rd person camera would be perfect.

I see. I assume you want to move the camera position around at this state. For effects using camera movements, 3D is of course the way to go.
But if you camera is "static" then we can do such scenes in the very best quality by pre rendering the needed sprites and just using sprites.

Cheers

the camera would be fixed but for some aspects 3d is a must.

I'll just use a different idea to create a game. Any chance any physics features will be integrated into the engine?