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Hero of Allacrost - Established RPG project seeking C++ and OpenGL programmers

Started by Roots Mar 4, 2008 at 2:40 PM 14 replies 2.8k views

Original Post

Mar 4, 2008 at 2:40 PM

Team Name The Allacrost Project Project Name Hero of Allacrost Brief Description Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game that shares similar appearance and gameplay with classic console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software and is available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. We have been working on this game for over 3 years now, and have made 3 demo releases to date. Target Aim Allacrost is cross-platform and is available on all flavors of Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, FreeBSD and whatever else we can get it to compile on in the future. It is also designed to support multiple languages, from English to Portugese to Japanese. We are aiming for as broad of a target audience as possible, and hope that people from all walks can enjoy this game. This game will be of special interest to those who favor a strong gameplay and story more than realistic 3D graphics and physics. Additionally, the game is not-for-profit and open-source, licensed under the GPL. Compensation Because we will not collect any revenue for this game, we cannot offer you financial compensation. However, all of the current staff are quite content with putting forth their efforts into what we believe will someday be a great game to share. [smile] Your full name will appear in the game credits. Team Structure Our team is composed of both "staff" and "contributors". The staff are the core group that drives development, coordinate efforts, and take responsibility for getting things done. Contributors, on the other hand, are people who simply help out with small tasks when they have the bandwidth and interest. Because we are an indie project that does not compensate financially, some staff may be on extended periods of down-time when they get busy with real-life. Thus, it is quite difficult to gauge how structured our team truly is, but we typically have about 20-30 people on the team at any time. See the list of game credits and also the peopled involved page on our wiki for a list. Right now, we have only a very small number (2-4) of programmers on our team that are active. Many senior programmers on the team have recently become busy with other things in their lives and they regretfully had to take a leave of absence from the team. Our next release goal is the largest endeavor that we have ever worked toward and we really need the additional man power to add all the features for that release. As for myself, I am the founder and lead developer of Allacrost, and I've been working on it since June 2004. I have coded a large part of the engine myself and I also write the story that the game follows. I dabble in creating artwork from time to time as well. Technology We don't have any requirements for artists, musicians, or developers to use any specific tools, as long as it gets the job done. Our programming staff concurrently develop on Linux, Windows, and OS X and Hero of Allacrost presently runs on all three of these platforms. The game engine for Allacrost is written from scratch. Allacrost currently uses the following languages, libraries, and APIs:

Programming Language: C++
Scripting Lanuguage: Lua (and Luabind for binding C++ and Lua code)
Low-level system library: SDL
Graphics rendering library: OpenGL
Image libraries: libpng, libjpeg
Audio library: OpenAL and libvorbis
Text rendering library: SDL_ttf
Internationalization: gettext
GUI library (for the editor): QT4

Talent Needed Please take a look at our coding needs page in our wiki. This page lists a short description of each major area in our code base, as well as an estimate on which areas need more help. Our bug tracker also contains a pretty complete list of our current coding tasks as well as outstanding issues. General C++ Programmers We would like to hire a number of additional staff programmers to our team, perhaps around 4-6. Moderate to advanced knowledge of C++ is required, and experience with Lua is preferred as well (although this is not required). You must also be able to hold design discussions with the rest of the programming team, not just hack away by yourself in an isolated corner [smile]. This person would be need to be willing to work on multiple different areas of the code as the need arises as well. We need to focus most of our attention at this point on game logic (e.g., the code that directly determines how the user interacts with the application and how the game progresses). You will likely begin working in one of the following areas:

map exploration
party management menu
shopping interface
battle execution
boot screen

There is also a small amount of engine-related work to be done, but other than the graphics engine that area of our code base is pretty well taken care of. OpenGL programmers Our in-house graphics engine is in dire need of some additional help, and we'll probably need to hire 1-2 programmers here. At the moment, no one is working on it and it requires an upgrade in order to meet our next release goals. What we need accomplished from our graphics engine includes:

perfected text rendering and display
a number of various improvements to our GUI system classes (our GUI is also designed in-house)
construction and texture management for procedural images
an overhaul of our lighting and other visual effect systems

I have a good amount of experience working on this part of our engine so I'll be willing to help anyone who comes along to get familiar with the code and how to go about achieving these objectives. Contributing Programmers If you're interested in helping out but don't have the ability or desire to make a strong commitment of working on a regular basis, you may be interested in signing up as a contributor. Contributors have completely free reign over what they work on and when they work on it, but are still an important part of our team. Contact Information To apply for any position in our team, go to this page and fill out the application form. Make sure you pick the "staff" application if you want to make a strong, regular commitment. If you want to help out but can't dedicate a lot of your time, use the "contributor" application. We will get back with you shortly once we receive it. Additional Information Why You Should Work With Us I would like to provide a short list of reasons why you, as a programmer, should consider working with us. Some of these reasons come straight from our staff policies.

Flexibility - you are not tied down to working in one area. We are a very flexible team and you have the option to work on whatever you want, whenever you want.
Establishment - we've been working on this game for over three years and are stronger than ever. In short: you don't have to worry about this project disappearing and your work going to waste.
Collaboration - you'll be working with, and learning from, a lot of experienced programmers on the team. We work well together, learn together, and help each other design and develop awesome code. [smile]
Excellent code - I believe you'll have a hard time finding another game with a code base as nice as ours. It is well written and designed, commented appropriately, and has plenty of documentation. This makes working with our code much more pleasurable than working with a mess of spaghetti code.
Timing - we just released our third demo a couple weeks ago, so right now our code base is very stable and easier to work with than it would be if you joined in the middle of a big development push.
In-house development - our game engine is designed by ourselves from scratch. This has allowed our programmers to learn much more about game design than if we were to use an external engine. If you really want to learn a lot about game design, we're an excellent team to gain that experience from.
Feasibility - Allacrost is not a MMORPG. Allacrost does not sport a highly-advanced, 3D interactive environment. This makes meeting our team goals much more feasible, lowering the bar to an appropriate level. This is important because many of us have zero or very little game development experience prior to this project. But at the same time, we do still set goals that are very challenging and provide for a great game experience to the player.
Professionalism - despite being an indie project, both our game and our team are very professional. This shows in our artwork, our music, and our code. You'll be part of a high-quality project that is already recognized by people in many communities (including this one [wink]). We're also very organized as a team, which really makes a huge positive impact on our morale and our development progress.

Links

Website - http://www.allacrost.org/
Wiki - http://wiki.allacrost.org/
Forums - http://www.allacrost.org/forum
IRC channel - #allacrost at irc.freenode.net
Bug Tracker - http://bugs.allacrost.org/ (we also use this for task management)
Sourceforge Project Page - http://sourceforge.net/projects/allacrost

Also check out these programmer-specific links of interest:

Code documentation (hand-written) - http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Code_Documentation

Code documentation (doxygen generated, slightly outdated) - http://www.allacrost.org/public/doc/doxygen/index.html

Code standard - http://allacrost.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Code_Standard

Project stats provided by Ohloh - http://www.ohloh.net/projects/3178?p=Hero+of+Allacrost

Commit analyzer provided by CIA - https://cia.vc/stats/project/allacrost

Subversion Repository (web-browsable) - http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/allacrost/ Screenshots The Title Screen Exploring a Town

Making Way Through a Cave

Fighting a Battle

Character Management

Shopping for Wares

Music Confrontation -- our battle theme Latest release Demo 0.2.1, released Dec 10th, 2007 Feedback All forms of feedback are welcome and encouraged, including negative feedback as long as it's constructive. [wink]

nsmadsen

Mar 4, 2008 at 2:48 PM

I'd like to show my support of this project. I've seen this project over time and they seem to be on the right track. I love the retro-RPG style and think title screen looks great! Keep up the great work and let me know when I can play it!

Thanks,

Nathan

RyanG

Mar 4, 2008 at 3:04 PM

Seconded.
To often do I see a "forming a team" help wanted posts, but these guy show their progress and have done a lot of work. Keep it up, we need more people like you.

mvBarracuda

Mar 4, 2008 at 3:44 PM

One of the best, most serious and hardest working teams you'll find here at the help wanted section of gamedev.net!

I know roots (who acts as project manager and programmer) and he's one of the nicest persons I've come along so far! Definately consider this project is you got the required skills :-)

Roots

Mar 5, 2008 at 2:20 PM

Thanks everyone. It always surprises me how quick people are to give us endorsements to these posts. [grin]

I get the notion that we don't get as many applicants to these posts as we used to because we are no longer a "new" project. People seem totally willing to jump into a team that has made little to no progress and has a large amount of risk, but shy away from teams with a long history and a ton of achievements. Go figure [lol]

Daaark

Mar 5, 2008 at 2:29 PM

Every time I see these screenshots, I think you zoom out way too far from the main character. Do you support widescreen?

Roots

Mar 5, 2008 at 2:45 PM

Quote:
Original post by Vampyre_Dark
Every time I see these screenshots, I think you zoom out way too far from the main character. Do you support widescreen?

Yeah there's been some discussion about that in our team. Take a look at these two screen shots from FFVI and Chrono Trigger:

FFVI
Chrono Trigger

Proportionally, the sprites occupy a lot more screen space. This is because the screen resolution in FFVI and Chrono Trigger is much less than Allacrost. Our default resolution is 1024x768, and I think FFVI and CT are smaller than 640x480. Our sprites are actually bigger than both of those games as well. We have 64x32 pixels for our sprites, where as Chrono is like 46x28 or something.

Now to satisfy that desire of the camera being closer to the characters, we have one of two options. The first is to reduce our screen resolution significantly, and the second is to keep the current resolution but magnify all the tiles, sprites, etc. The problem with both of these solutions is that the larger you zoom in, the more blocky/pixelated the artwork will appear. Maybe this is a big issue for some people, or maybe most won't care about it. I personally don't have a problem with our view. The only real issue I have with it is that it makes our maps seem smaller than they would be with a zoomed in view, since you can see such a large area of the map on the screen.

No, we don't have wide screen support yet. We may add it in the future, but right now we have a lot of things that are higher priority.

Daaark

Mar 5, 2008 at 3:21 PM

I think those shots look a lot better. The SNES ones fill the screen with interesting things and keep the action close. Your shots are 4x as big, and just serve to show off big empty areas. It's mostly just dead space, especially that cave. It creates a detachment from the characters and the world. It looks more like a god type game, and not one where you control any one character.

A 'bigger' view would be a lot nicer. That way, the player wouldn't be looking at a screen that is 95% empty space and the layout of the cave wouldn't be entirely revealed.

Jetryl

Mar 5, 2008 at 5:24 PM

Quote:
Original post by Vampyre_Dark
I think those shots look a lot better. The SNES ones fill the screen with interesting things and keep the action close. Your shots are 4x as big, and just serve to show off big empty areas. It's mostly just dead space, especially that cave. It creates a detachment from the characters and the world. It looks more like a god type game, and not one where you control any one character.

A 'bigger' view would be a lot nicer. That way, the player wouldn't be looking at a screen that is 95% empty space and the layout of the cave wouldn't be entirely revealed.

(allacrost's unofficial lead artist here)

Basically yeah - I agree exactly with what you said. I'm sort of an unholy coder/artist hybrid, so I initially had the same view as roots had, for the same reasons (notably, I had never done a mockup to see what a zoomed-in versions would look like). Our lead musician was complaining about it much like you were, and I decided to give it a serious look. I turned on a screen-magnification program, and played through the game a bit, and it felt considerably better to be zoomed-in. In fact your screen example is basically exactly what I'm in favor of.

So I'm now with the growing "zoom-in" camp; it's just a matter of convincing roots. If anyone else reading this feels the same way, posting to that effect might help.

(I do agree that there's one area where we -shouldn't- zoom in, and that's the UI/HUD of stats; SNES UIs were necessarily cramped, and that was a negative of their systems. I think it would be to our benefit, though, to render the actual game visuals at a smaller res, and then upsize them; preferably with something like Eagle or HQ*X).

webwraith

Mar 5, 2008 at 5:41 PM

The game looks awesome, and I can't wait to give it a go, but I'm wondering if you guys have looked at RPGMakerXP. Not that I'm knocking your work (your own engine, I take it?) but the town image, at least, looks a lot like the style of the included tilesets. Not really a criticism, just my opinion. It won't stop me playing the game, though :P

EDIT: I love the look of your battle system... :P

Jetryl

Mar 5, 2008 at 10:33 PM

Quote:
Original post by webwraith
The game looks awesome, and I can't wait to give it a go, but I'm wondering if you guys have looked at RPGMakerXP. Not that I'm knocking your work (your own engine, I take it?) but the town image, at least, looks a lot like the style of the included tilesets. Not really a criticism, just my opinion. It won't stop me playing the game, though :P

EDIT: I love the look of your battle system... :P

We thought about using a kit-based system, but there are major downsides:
1] No linux support, not open-source, completely at RMXP's mercy as to what it can run on; which basically amounts to windows, and .... windows. Since almost none of us actually use windows (mixed linux/mac group, mostly), that kinda ... wouldn't work.
2] No ability to code anything that would set us apart from all the other RMXP games out there. We've got some very interesting visual effects planned; some of which RPGMaker doesn't have. Same goes for audio.
3] RMXP doesn't really match our visual style; certainly not any of their sprites and monsters.
4] Not GPL, and we're at their mercy for what we can do with our game. We're pouring a ton of work into this game, and we don't want to be told we can't do something we want to do with our final product. One of the major things related to this is localization; RMXP is Japanese, English*, and a few other languages supported by unofficial hacks and tweakery that's not necessarily guaranteed to work. If we wanted to translate it to French, I don't know if we could. :( But in OSS, not only is translation to anything officially supported, but - if your game is any good, people will beat the door down to translate it to their language. Also, because we're GPL, we can borrow content from other GPL software - one excellent area this plays out in is SFX; so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel for basic stuff like sword slashes, etc.

So, an rpg kit of any kind really doesn't cut it for us.

Also, I should mention: WE NEED ARTISTS! We've got two good ones, but more artists would make this game get finished faster. Anyone interested, drop us a line at http://www.allacrost.org/forum/

* some versions have apparently been released in korean and chinese, but really - point is it's only a few languages that -they- decide to support, rather than being able to release in what -we- want to support.

Boder

Mar 5, 2008 at 11:30 PM

I sometimes listen to the music and I'm going to know all the tunes before I even play the game. Especially "In Search of Truth."

linternet

Mar 6, 2008 at 11:49 AM

Quote:
Original post by Roots
I get the notion that we don't get as many applicants to these posts as we used to because we are no longer a "new" project. People seem totally willing to jump into a team that has made little to no progress and has a large amount of risk, but shy away from teams with a long history and a ton of achievements. Go figure [lol]

I ran a (failed) marathon freeware project for roughly 5 years and I think the reason why a new project generates more applicants than an established one is impact.

Development work early on DEFINES the project while later on a developer's work is defined BY the existing project. It's typically less fulfilling for freeware/open source develoeprs who derive their payment from creative satisfaction.

I don't know how open you can be to making dramatic changes later on and still get the game finished (I did fail after all :) ), but what I do know is that being super-rigid was an utter failure at making new developers feel like full members of the team and I'm pretty sure that more openess on my part would have attacted more people or enticed the ones we had to stay longer.

Sorry for ranting, your game looks great. I can't wait to play!

Gallivan

Mar 7, 2008 at 12:31 PM

I have had the pleasure of participating in this project for a few months now.

As detailed in Roots' original post we are looking for staff or contributors. If you're worried about time constraints please apply anyway; the contributor scheme allows for donations of the smallest code or artwork.

So if you're looking to contribute to a well-founded project, 'Hero of Allacrost' awaits.

bigdirtyphil

Mar 7, 2008 at 4:57 PM

Filled out the contributor form yesterday, still waiting for a reply! :)

-BDP

Roots

Mar 7, 2008 at 9:00 PM

Quote:
Original post by bigdirtyphil
Filled out the contributor form yesterday, still waiting for a reply! :)

-BDP

Our programming lead (not me) is handling programming contributor applications, and we've had a bunch since this thread was made (no staff apps though unfortunately). Give it until Monday and if you still haven't heard back, let us know or post here again. Thanks!

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