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War for the Overworld

Started by KyleM Nov 12, 2011 at 1:50 PM 14 replies 4.1k views
Original Post
KyleM
KyleM
Team name:

Subterranean Games


Project name:

War for the Overworld.


Brief description:

This project was originally a dungeon keeper game but we recently changed to becoming a Spiritual successor. Read additional information for more information about that. It's been in full development since January 2011 and we plan to release an alpha by Q1 2012, and hopefully the full release at the end of 2012. The game is a hybrid of many genres such as: God game, FPS, RPG, RTS. If you've played the Dungeon Keeper games you will know what kind of gameplay we are basing it on. If you haven't then we can show you our design documents and try explain it to you.



Target aim:

We plan to sell the game through steam. Paying the members with profit from the game.

Compensation:
You will get a percentage of the profit the game makes depending on how much you contribute.



Technology:

We are using UDK for the engine.
Modellers use Zbrush and Max/Maya.


Talent needed:

Right now we are looking for these positions to be filled most urgently

Graphics designer - (Making graphics for our sites, the games HUD and also making player emblems from concepts provided by the concept artists.

Enviroment artist - (Making concepts of rooms, for this you must be able to work with the modellers to make sure the design makes sense and is doable within the games mechanics.

Character modeller - (Being able to model and texture your models is what we are looking for, rigging is done by our rigger so that doesn't have to be worried about)


If you can fill any of these positions, leave a post in this forum or send me an email with links to any work you have done. Email is in contact section.

Team structure:
The people listed are the people who are considered the main part of the team due to the amount of work they contribute. There are a bunch of part time contributors also.

4 Programmers
2 Concept artists
4 Modellers
2 Game designers
2 Map makers
1 Animator
1 Composer
1 Audio engineer


The team page on our site is no longer accurate, so please ignore it.


Website:

www.warfortheoverworld.com - Site page
www.subterraneangames.com - Our community



Contacts:
kylem@warfortheoverworld.org



Previous Work by Team:

This is our first project, although a bunch of the members on-board are from studios such as Guerrilla games.



Additional Info:

We know that in the past we had advertised this project here as a dungeon keeper sequel/remake. We just recently switched to our own IP. We just pulled all dungeon keeper content from our sites and plan to start working on our own designs but base the gameplay on that of dungeon keepers. So this is more of a Spiritual successor.

In terms of gameplay we can't show any of our videos as we are pulling the Dungeon Keeper content, we can however show small amounts of model shots and a little bit of concept art on our own new designs.


[attachment=6071:VikingHero.jpg][attachment=6072:vikinghero-Sketch-01.jpg][attachment=6073:vikinghero-Sketch-02.jpg]
[attachment=6074:Viking Back Latest.jpg][attachment=6075:viking closeup.jpg][attachment=6076:Viking front Latest.jpg][attachment=6077:Valkyrie_Sketches_01.png][attachment=6078:Valkyrie_Sketches_02.png][attachment=6079:Valkyrie_Spears_01.png][attachment=6080:Gargoyle.jpg][attachment=6081:1.png][attachment=6082:ogre2WIP.jpg]


Feedback:

Any feedback is welcome.
KyleM
KyleM
Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.
sirkibble2
sirkibble2

Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Are the game designer spots filled? If not, I'd like to know more information on what is expected from the game designer. I'll e-mail you as to not flood this topic.
KyleM
KyleM

[quote name='KyleM' timestamp='1321216913' post='4883522']
Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Are the game designer spots filled? If not, I'd like to know more information on what is expected from the game designer. I'll e-mail you as to not flood this topic.
[/quote]

Well experience with game design in RTS or RPG is something we would favor a lot at the moment.
sirkibble2
sirkibble2
I see. Well, I would like to discuss it further through e-mail as to not take up your topic with technical discussion. I have e-mailed you. Thank you again for replying!

Digivance
Digivance

Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Criticism incoming:
My guess is you aren't getting many responses due to 2 major reasons. Firstly that your team is WAY to large and secondly that there is no chance for profit. You do mention this is intended to be a learning experience, as such no one is truly learning anything if there's 40 members. No one has to go out of their way and learn something new, if I can't do it someone else on the team can. My suggestion is to thin the heard down to only your most talented (and contributory) members and then you may get some more people to be interested to fill in the holes.
sirkibble2
sirkibble2

[quote name='KyleM' timestamp='1321216913' post='4883522']
Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Criticism incoming:
My guess is you aren't getting many responses due to 2 major reasons. Firstly that your team is WAY to large and secondly that there is no chance for profit. You do mention this is intended to be a learning experience, as such no one is truly learning anything if there's 40 members. No one has to go out of their way and learn something new, if I can't do it someone else on the team can. My suggestion is to thin the heard down to only your most talented (and contributory) members and then you may get some more people to be interested to fill in the holes.
[/quote]

His team is too big? What if the game needs this many members, paid or unpaid? And how can people not learn because there are 40 members? I know this isn't my topic but I am curious to understand the criticism since I want to learn.
DarklyDreaming
DarklyDreaming

[quote name='Dan Mayor' timestamp='1321316733' post='4883996']
[quote name='KyleM' timestamp='1321216913' post='4883522']
Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Criticism incoming:
My guess is you aren't getting many responses due to 2 major reasons. Firstly that your team is WAY to large and secondly that there is no chance for profit. You do mention this is intended to be a learning experience, as such no one is truly learning anything if there's 40 members. No one has to go out of their way and learn something new, if I can't do it someone else on the team can. My suggestion is to thin the heard down to only your most talented (and contributory) members and then you may get some more people to be interested to fill in the holes.
[/quote]

His team is too big? What if the game needs this many members, paid or unpaid? And how can people not learn because there are 40 members? I know this isn't my topic but I am curious to understand the criticism since I want to learn.
[/quote]
An experienced six man team can make a complete prototype within four to eight weeks. So, having 20-40 members, unless you are management ninja, is a bit overkill - it might not be so, but there is little to suggest otherwise.

Anyone is of course free to choose their own team structure -- but 20 people will in general just be too much of an overhead and would be better served with fewer, more skilled, members. After all, if ten of your twenty contribute once a month then what use are they really? But hey, if it's just for learning you can roll it any way you want.
"I will personally burn everything I've made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames."
~ Gabe
"I don't mean to rush you but you are keeping two civilizations waiting!"
~ Cavil, BSG.
"If it's really important to you that other people follow your True Brace Style,
Digivance
Digivance

[quote name='Dan Mayor' timestamp='1321316733' post='4883996']
[quote name='KyleM' timestamp='1321216913' post='4883522']
Well response hasn't been too great right now and I'm wondering if showing some gameplay would entice some more people. I'm reluctant to do that as not all content is pulled from them yet.


Criticism incoming:
My guess is you aren't getting many responses due to 2 major reasons. Firstly that your team is WAY to large and secondly that there is no chance for profit. You do mention this is intended to be a learning experience, as such no one is truly learning anything if there's 40 members. No one has to go out of their way and learn something new, if I can't do it someone else on the team can. My suggestion is to thin the heard down to only your most talented (and contributory) members and then you may get some more people to be interested to fill in the holes.
[/quote]

His team is too big? What if the game needs this many members, paid or unpaid? And how can people not learn because there are 40 members? I know this isn't my topic but I am curious to understand the criticism since I want to learn.
[/quote]

You won't learn because A the project manager doesn't have time for you and B if there's something you can't do the project manager will ask someone else on the team that can. This means you will not be challenged, you wont have to learn anything you will just practice whatever your best at. Although practice does make perfect and for a writer it may be a different story then with Programmers and Artists, I am a programmer and I know from experience. If I keep making the same program or web page over and over again I'm not learning anything, I'm just spitting out the same thing I already did. That does not make me any better of a programmer, when I started getting better is when the boss fired the other 5 programmers and demanded that I figure out how to do everything myself. This is what got me to learn more programming languages, more techniques, different methods and so on. So I guess it all depends on what position you are looking for, however as a programmer I see no educational value working on a project that has more then one or two other programmers.

Back to the idea of posting directly to this thread, that was my original point I guess. If your meaning to LEARN then get rid of everyone and figure out how to do it with just your core members. Like DarklyDreaming said there becomes a point when someone becomes worthless to the progression of your project. Only contributing once per month or say even one or two hours a week is doing nothing more then slowing you down. Cut them out and learn to do their position yourself, that will make you a bit more experienced in game design which is your overall goal no?
KyleM
KyleM
In terms of time, I am on this project every day for atleast 4 - 6 hours a day on the days I have college till late, and then on most of the day on weekends. So really I invest alot of ttime into this project, enough so that we are fairly originased and that the 20 active members we have are a valuable asset to the team, also the aim of this project isin't pureley learning, we are aiming to release a commercial quality game. So sticking new guys on tasks they cant do just to get them to learn would be a bit stupid and could really affect the quality of the final product. When it comes to new comers, we often stick them on a less important task (that is still a challenging task) and see how they do, then from there they work their way up.


The 40 team members we have aren't just separted over programming and concept art, but the other sectors of development. Map makers, animators, story writers, game designers, administration, community PR, Voice actors, sound engineers and composers. We have a large team, and I know we could probably drop a person here or there, but really it shouldn't be too much of a problem, we have so much work to do that there is quite easily good tasks we can assign everyone who joins the team.
SolidPress
SolidPress
Hello,

Just a bit of constructive criticism here...

Do you really need community PR, voice actors, sound engineers, composers, etc... at this point in time?

You shouldn't need PR until the game is in a polished state on the finish line to release.

You shouldn't need voice actors, sound engineers, or composers until most of the gameplay is done.
KyleM
KyleM

Hello,

Just a bit of constructive criticism here...

Do you really need community PR, voice actors, sound engineers, composers, etc... at this point in time?

You shouldn't need PR until the game is in a polished state on the finish line to release.

You shouldn't need voice actors, sound engineers, or composers until most of the gameplay is done.


Our game is at a far enough stage that we are able to do testing with our units and also able to test sounds within the game. There's no point in turning these people away until the game is almost done, a bit silly in my opinion.

The community PR is also a game designer.
KyleM
KyleM
Updated the post, our game now offers royalties as payment for your work.
KyleM
KyleM
Sup ballwinkle.
KyleM
KyleM
Updated the jobs we need, filled alot of the other needed positions.

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