They don't make them like this anymore

Gold boxes games would be my pick. The entire forgotten realms series is excellent, as are the first 2 of the krynn games (dark queen is a bit of a let down). Ultima 7 and 7 part 2 are unmissable as well. I laugh at anyone who hasn't finished Wizardry 6, it is just that good.

Korplem said:

Kasper: I mentioned a few years ago that I haven't forgotten about Peroxide. Now, I may have forgotten what the name of the game was, but I remember being impressed! I expect a press release sometime within the next, oh, I don't know… ten years. Does that sound reasonable?

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He heh! Well, we've learned from our past mistakes, PR-wise. We went public with our Ultima 1 remake waaay too early, which gave a lot of people too high expectations. But maybe, just maybe, we're still cooking on something If we are, I'm sure you guys will be among the first to know...

LuckyCarbon said:

I'm working on it. I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it and I certainly don't have the rights for it so it's going to be completely a fan project.

I've been using Unity3d since that went free to small developers remaking BAK. If you're not familiar with Unity3d (demo) it's perfect for what I'm aiming for and compliments my skills. I'm a heck of a programmer (just ask me) but not much of an artist. Limited progress so far, I'm still working on the chapter 1 terrain in the Unity3d terrain editor. I've been compiling free/cheap BAK looking building models as I don't have much of a budget. My biggest concern right now is finding animated models for combat: humans, armor, swords, etc of acceptable quality.

Any 3d modelers/animators want to work for free on my fan project with nothing to show so far? …….. I didn't think so.

You can play with my first test sample that I made just learning the tools if you want. Please don't think it's indicative of the quality I'm aiming for with a BAK remake.

Sorry, this is totally off-topic.

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Very cool, I really hope you succeed! I saw a number of art packs are available for the torque engine, including animation, and they seem affordable: http://www.torquepowered.com/products/browse/artpacks
I have no clue if it is possible to use them with other engines, but I thought I'd throw that out there, just in case...

LuckyCarbon said:

I've been using Unity3d since that went free to small developers remaking BAK. If you're not familiar with Unity3d (demo) it's perfect for what I'm aiming for and compliments my skills. I'm a heck of a programmer (just ask me) but not much of an artist.

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Cool! I'm curious how you came to work with the Unity engine. I know some of these guys - they operate here from Copenhagen

For my own project, I stay away from 3D modeling - because I know I can't do something that looks good. I consider bad 3D graphics much MUCH worse than "functional" 2D graphics - so that's what I'm going for.

But it's a challenge to develop a game all by yourself, I must say

Good grief. Everyone is a developer with a secret game project 'round here, it seems You guys keep on rocking!

KasperFauerby said:

For some reason I *really* dislike Wizardry 8. I've tried, but I simply can't get into that game. It just seems so empty, and the combat is simply too slow and too frequent for me. From what I've seen Wiz 7 is somewhat different though, so it might be something.

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Same for me. I only tried Wizardry 7, and hated it. Two steps forward - random encounter. Repeat. That's not for me. If I want a combat simulator I play a TBS.

Betrayal at Krondor would be a good choice, but let's be honest: The early 3D graphics are unbearable nowadays.

Maybe try one of the earlier Might & Magics. The M&M 3 - 5 series was good. Sort of 2D sandbox games. Gigantic map, something to do everywhere, and more than a lot of everything.

Gorath said:

Same for me. I only tried Wizardry 7, and hated it. Two steps forward - random encounter. Repeat. That's not for me. If I want a combat simulator I play a TBS..

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Gorath - Wiz 8 did away with the random encounters, you can see all your enemies, and avoid them if you want. There's also a patch that vastly increases the speed of the combat if you find it too slow. It's a very different game from previous titles in the series.

The combat in Wiz 8 isn't dramatically different from the later M&M games actually, just a bit more complex.

GhanBuriGhan said:

Very cool, I really hope you succeed! I saw a number of art packs are available for the torque engine, including animation, and they seem affordable: http://www.torquepowered.com/products/browse/artpacks
I have no clue if it is possible to use them with other engines, but I thought I'd throw that out there, just in case…

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Those look like they might be great but it looks like they're in a proprietary torque format. I'll have to read up to see if there's a way to convert those to a format Unity supports.

KasperFauerby said:

Cool! I'm curious how you came to work with the Unity engine. I know some of these guys - they operate here from Copenhagen

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I've done flash game development and have even experimented with flash 3d ( it sucks ) and working with Ogre3d for a while too, then the other day I was reading an article on ArsTechnica about Interstellar Marines, read about the Unity Engine, loved the concept, started playing with it, I was very impressed. I think the future of gaming, especially indie gaming, is in a distributed web platform and Unity fills that niche perfectly. It allows a small development team a distribution platform without having to find a publisher or having users download and install their application, users can try it online for free, instantly, and get a feel for it.

DArtagnan said:

For my own project, I stay away from 3D modeling - because I know I can't do something that looks good. I consider bad 3D graphics much MUCH worse than "functional" 2D graphics - so that's what I'm going for.

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I agree but I'm not any better at making 2d art than I am 3d, either way it's going to look bad or I'm paying for it.

DArtagnan said:

But it's a challenge to develop a game all by yourself, I must say

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Don't I know it. That's a lot of the reason I chose BAK this time (my other serious option was JA2), simple rules, simple dialog, story already written and the Unity engine is very good for the terrain I need to create. BAK's tavern, shop and city hot spot scenes are going to be a lot easier to duplicate than most game's city environments.

I'm only planning on creating chapter 1 right now, see how much work that is and how well it's received.

DArtagnan said:

For my own project, I stay away from 3D modeling - because I know I can't do something that looks good. I consider bad 3D graphics much MUCH worse than "functional" 2D graphics - so that's what I'm going for.

But it's a challenge to develop a game all by yourself, I must say

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What do you go for when you can't do either bad 3D or functional 2D? That's the boat I'm in, and why I'm focusing in entirely on the game mechanics and such first; graphics come way later, when I can draw better stick figures.

azraelck said:

What do you go for when you can't do either bad 3D or functional 2D? That's the boat I'm in, and why I'm focusing in entirely on the game mechanics and such first; graphics come way later, when I can draw better stick figures.

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Well, if you get something done you can show around or demonstrate - art can come relatively cheap or even free. So it's a good approach.

But you can learn such skills and I started out without any knowledge many years ago. But I got comfortable with Photoshop and now I can do decent stuff within my limits.

Since this thread appears populated by upcoming games developers i was wondering if someone could help me with a rather dumb question:

Are there any game engines which are adaptable/flexible enough to allow combining a space sim and surface TPS engine as well? Or would you need two different engines, one for space and one for surface operations?

One more question: how big a development/art team (approx) is required to produce a commercial grade game within a 2 year period? I heard Bioware only had 10 guys working DAO which i find sort of surprisingly small.

As a side-question : How good are Amiga emulators nowadays ? How good compared to the original Amiga ?

Which original Amiga? From what I can tell, it's pretty darn good.

Ambermoon discussion moved to its own thread.

Coldcall said:

Since this thread appears populated by upcoming games developers i was wondering if someone could help me with a rather dumb question:

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There are no dumb questions save those never asked.

Are there any game engines which are adaptable/flexible enough to allow combining a space sim and surface TPS engine as well? Or would you need two different engines, one for space and one for surface operations?

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I'm building a totally custom engine. So I have no idea.

One more question: how big a development/art team (approx) is required to produce a commercial grade game within a 2 year period? I heard Bioware only had 10 guys working DAO which i find sort of surprisingly small.

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This depends on what you are doing. If you are using an existing engine, then 10 people might be able to pull it in under two years, assuming a few things. Remember that Bioware does this day in day out, and likely adapted an existing engine for DA:O as well.

However, 2 years may be optimistic with having to build a full engine, test and test it some more, all the graphics, sound, etc... It's why I have no set timeline. I expect that I can *possibly* have the core mechanics done in 6 months. After that comes sound and graphics engines. Then the editor. then on and on and on.

Well, if you get something done you can show around or demonstrate - art can come relatively cheap or even free. So it's a good approach.

But you can learn such skills and I started out without any knowledge many years ago. But I got comfortable with Photoshop and now I can do decent stuff within my limits.

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I'm probably being a bit prideful in this, but I don't want *free* anything. Most likely I'll be buying art once I have an engine to put it in, just to ensure a high enough quality for what I want. I am trying to get the skill to do as much myself as possible though.

The only thing I'll want volunteers for is beta testing, further on up the road. At that time, I'll know I'd never be able to fully test it by myself. Heck, balance testing the mechanics (which I am doing via PnP play) is almost beyond me.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

As a side-question : How good are Amiga emulators nowadays ? How good compared to the original Amiga ?

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WinUAE is still the best AFAIK.

You'll need Amiga ROMS - but they're easy to find.

It's almost 100% compatible these days - but generally, the more dedicated hardware is used in the game - the harder it is to emulate. The Amiga hardware had quite a bit of weird stuff dedicated primarily to arcade games - so some of those are bound to be a bit glitchy.

But for RPGs - the tricks used are simpler, and as such I'd bet 99% of RPGs are fully compatible with the latest UAE. But, you need to mess around with Kickstart ROMS and other things, because they were written for different configurations back then.

KasperFauerby said:

I'm considering "Albion" or one of the "Realms of Arkania" games. Or maybe "Anvil of Dawn" (but I've played a bit of this one years back). I've never really played the Gold Box games either.

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Albion blates, a great game IMO.

You might try The Summoning, Veil of Darkness, or Dusk of the Gods as well. All three share the same engine; an isometric real time system.

The Summoning is a straight fantasy game, with decent combat and puzzles. The main issue is there is a bit of backtracking, so the game feels empty for the most part. Magic power also regens very slowly, so spells are relegated to secondary use for the most part.

Veil of Darkness is a horror-themed game light on RPG elements. It's pretty plot-focused, with puzzles and exploration being more the key than straight combat.

I have Dusk of the Gods, but I haven't played it much. It's a Norse-themed game.

Benedict said:

Albion blates, a great game IMO.

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I downloaded it from Abandonia over the weekend. I've only played it till the first dungeon in the Iskai city, but I could see how this game would have been awesome when it was released

I love the overall atmosphere, especially how it changes from the Toronto to Albion. I also like the transistion from the 2D areas to the 3D ones, it adds an extra element of variety. I probably won't attempt a full playthrough due to lack of time, but I sure wish I hadn't missed it back in 95'.

JDR13 said:

I downloaded it from Abandonia over the weekend. I've only played it till the first dungeon in the Iskai city, but I could see how this game would have been awesome when it was released

I love the overall atmosphere, especially how it changes from the Toronto to Albion. I also like the transistion from the 2D areas to the 3D ones, it adds an extra element of variety. I probably won't attempt a full playthrough due to lack of time, but I sure wish I hadn't missed it back in 95'.

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I also brought it back out (DOSBox on Mac) based on some of these comments ... another one I would love to play through at some point, but it is tough with all the new games ...