Well, if this gets off the ground (Key word, if), I can provide SVN repository for whatever. If it's only meant to be for a short time. For long terms projects, use SF or any SF clones (like the one OpenLayer is hosted on)

Yup, but too bad electing a team leader is a group decision, which can only end in failure.

Team leaders work in the real world because they are paid to be the leaders and you are paid to be the monkey. Out here, in the Internet, we all think our ideas are the best and will argue non-stop in circles until we get our way the thread is closed.

For a group project to be successful on the Internet, somebody needs to step forward and write a bunch of code and get it all working to build up interest. Now he is the leader because he has proven to have what it takes to get stuff done. He doesn't have cash to offer like in the real world, but he does have a substantial code base to build upon. People like to be part of something successful.

All that said, I do think that a team competition like amarillion mentioned can work if it is a very small project with a short deadline. But of course, such projects don't really need multiple people...

I view myself in a position where I would be of no help, other than setting up a SVN repo or two as that's a few minutes out of my day, unlike the hours (most likely as it's a game project) other work would need.

I'll second 23.

I'm down with that.

[nvmd]

No doubt, but I wish you had some screenshots there so we could see at a glance if there were any similarities in theme of gameplay. See what a group finds easier than an individual. Maybe they're all "endless" games, like Tetris.

Flattered by the "nomination". Okay, let's pretend I'm leading this; I'll throw out a "vision" and we'll see what the comments are. I'm partial to the quarter view adventure style game (think Link to the Past). I don't feel like doing a platformer since I'm still working on The Mighty Stoopid and I'd just be recycling code. Keeping within a realistic goal, there should be, say, three dungeons and then a final dungeon. Lots to do in between; like most adventure games, some mini-quests to actually get to the dungeons. Short game but we can try to pack a fair amount of interaction and an intriguing plot in there. So what do we need:

- setting
- plot and characters
- rough map
- ideas for flow of game/quests
- dungeon design
- enemy design
- player interaction, weapons, items, etc.
- graphics and sound (low priority for now)

I don't know how teams usually delegate code duties, but we need the usual; tilemap engine, collision detection, NPCs to converse with, objects to interact with, a way to track quest points, handling death/zoning/saving/options, in-game cut scene, all that jazz. Plus name some stuff I missed. Anyone want to grab one of those and start brainstorming?

3 would be wise. Maybe. Normally I would just make everything tile based though. Maybe some things will need to be separate objects by design, but that will be dictated by gameplay requirements. Clearly tilemap-everything would be easiest, so we'll do it if we can. That's a page 8 topic though.

Once a system is implements to handle NPCs and quest chains, implementing new quests is trivial (kill this monster, find this herb, talk to that guy, bring me materials to make this thing, find key for door, etc.) so there's nothing keeping us from making a relatively interactive world. I'm all for "get 'er done" but let's not be lazy.

Yeah, I was thinking futuristic setting too. No time travel though; there's lots of time to jump a shark later.

Okay, space station/colony for main setting. We could have a main colony and an overworld with smaller colonies. Dungeons could be satellites, caverns, power plants, hidden bad guy base on an asteroid, alien craft/ruins, etc. Lots of variety. Travel can be on foot or with a shuttle, maybe a teleporter can be opened up end game. Any one of these locations can be in space, on a planet, on a moon, or it can all stay "local". We could have a military man investigating some mutiny in secret (colonies don't get disrupted too much by that), we could have some lower officer who ends up saving (most of) the colony from an alien invasion, we could have something more personal to the main character.

This is going to give us a lot of freedom as far as weapons, obstacles, enemies, etc. go too.

Anyone want to have at a general plot outline? Should we make it a bit "cartoony" (like Link to the past was) or go for something more serious in tone and graphics?

Yeah, I'm putting this to bed until tomorrow. Kinda defeats the "team effort" idea if it's just you and me.

The main thing is not feeling ashamed of crappy idea, it's feeling ashamed because you are not able to translate them to working code.

Motivate people, join them !

PS:

I would have joined with pleasure, but some few week ago I decided to continue my abandoned project, so I set up a new project and I am cannibalizing my old old code, creating a to-do list, ect...

I'm liking it so far. One question I'd like to throw out there:

Turn-based combat(Final Fantasy style) or real-time(Zelda style)?

I vote for real time, because it's more fun.

Yes, real-time. That's why I drew parallels to Zelda and not Final Fantasy. Just now you'll be using a gun and not a sword.

I'm not too worried about code just yet; we're still in design phase. I would like to use C++ for it personally, but if the people most willing to contribute code prefer C, we're probably stuck with that.

First thing I'd like to be hearing is story ideas. We need something that follows the game flow through 3 dungeons to a final dungeon, and gives you some objectives in between out in the overworld. Is it just 3 arbitrary levels before the final level? Do we go the Zelda route of "collect three things from these dungeons to open the final dungeon" right from the outset? That would make for one simple story. After that we should hammer some details like what items or upgrades you get along the way, and then start mapping this out to various locales and get an idea how all the quest points link up. Once we know what we need to do all that, we'll have both the direction and hopefully the motivation to get the code flowing.