Before everything else: Why should you even bother starting a collaboration with me? There is only one answer I can give to persuade you: I make freeware games. That is, I have *completed* eight full, freeware games. My website,
http://vdweller.awardspace.com, bears proof of that. My latest game, Metal Venture, reviewed
here, also bears proof of my dedication. No game of mine is Quake 5, but at least I can promise that, once started, there’s a good chance that it will be finished.
So, what is this all about? Read below!
I am currently developing a “random world generator”. You can see it in its first stages of development
here (4.4 MB .zip – Press F1 for instructions).
My goal is to combine the feeling of vastness of Oblivion, the randomness of a roguelike and the cyberpunk atmosphere of Shadowrun. A universe contains randomly generated planets, with random settlements, with random areas, with random people, who give random quests. It is quite early to discuss about a main goal, perhaps randomly chosen from a pool of greater challenges. Of course, player progress is saved, and the game ensures that once a random universe is generated, players will find the same planets/locations etc each time they return to the game. That is unless they begin another adventure.
I can make decent graphics for a game, but I suck at pixel art. I thought that an appropriate graphical style for such a game would be a higher-res equivalent to Shadowrun for SEGA Genesis. Take a moment and look at these images below.
These graphics are not bloated with details, but they do give the overall feeling that somewhere, in the dangerous streets of a distant metropolis, a hero is struggling to make a living in the shadows of corporate buildings. So far I’ve thought of the following locations. Each one needs its own graphics:
1) Arcology (google it!)
2) Cave
3) City
4) Floating city
5) Megacity
6) Mining facility
7) Mining platform (as 6, but for water areas)
8) Outpost
9) Power Plant
10) Research lab
11) Ruins
12) Starport
13) Tribal camp
14) Underwater lab
15) Vault
16) Village
If you think you can do it, DON’T START DOING IT YET. Just post an image of a building, a street with some buildings, some elementary concept art. Have the Shadowrun images as a guide for another reason: The design perspective. No isometric or other weird schemes. Start by assuming that the average character sprite size is 40x40 pixels, so anything else should be scale according to this. If your style is good, then I’ll PM you with more specific info.
At this point, there is not much else left to say. Please feel free to ask any questions :)