GAMER LOUNGE 20XX (NO CASUALS!!)

[Kitsu]

So I've always wanted to make a fangame but I'm only capable of making sprites. How can I get people interested in helping me make something like that? I would need programmers, artists, music writers, and so much more. No easy feat. I don't know if it's possible to get a team on board. TSR itself has attempted it many times and it often never goes anywhere.

Alas, I have a burning passion to do so anyway!

I'd suggest writing out professional game development documents, such as detailed game design documents and proposals. These would showcase how serious you are in developing your game and hopefully demonstrate that you're not just the "idea guy." Making some accompanying art (and related art documents such as asset lists and art style guides) would also help there, too.
You'd still need to address the issue with motivation; it's especially hard to motivate people to spend time on a project if they're not also very passionate about it, and real life issues can easily become blockers. Of course, if you have it, monetary compensation can help in both areas, but if that's not possible, you can try to plan out as much as possible and work with what you have when you have it (such as relying on a couple core team members while accepting assistance from a revolving door of people with free time or something).

One of the fan projects I've worked on has two core members (one writer/designer and one programmer/animator) and they would assess exactly what assets they would need and get volunteers to help out (on my part, the animator would work out a stick figure animation and then I would flesh it out based on a single finished frame). Lately, I'm guessing because volunteers were not reliable, they started commissioning someone to churn out portrait sprites, too.

I'd also suggest considering using an "Agile Methodology" to keep relatively steady progress and to ensure that for every time period involved, you could have a "playable" (not necessarily as playable as you'd like, but just enough) thing to demonstrate what you'd worked on.

I guess though most of these things are how you can keep an ongoing project alive, but I'm not entirely sure how to get your starting crew to begin development other than to work on a good proposal and just pitch anywhere you think could work out (consider creating the proposal and designs to be project work just as much as making the actual game really).

[psychospacecow]

What's the fan game about?

[Koh]

It probably also needs to be said that the idea of fangames are dying down a bit, with the booming success of indie game dev stories now, and also the larger rise of copyright issues. Why spend several days and months working on a fan project you can't sell and can potentially get Cease and Desisted, when you can do something relatively original and turn it into a profit, so you can use that money for future projects?

My suggestion to you: Scrap the idea of it being a fangame by swapping out the characters and settings for something original. Then it can be an "inspired by" game that you can actually sell and not have to try and hide behind a vague fair use clause.

[Kosheh]

It probably also needs to be said that the idea of fangames are dying down a bit, with the booming success of indie game dev stories now, and also the larger rise of copyright issues.  Why spend several days and months working on a fan project you can't sell and can potentially get Cease and Desisted, when you can do something relatively original and turn it into a profit, so you can use that money for future projects?

My suggestion to you:  Scrap the idea of it being a fangame by swapping out the characters and settings for something original.  Then it can be an "inspired by" game that you can actually sell and not have to try and hide behind a vague fair use clause.

case in point:

[Koopaul]

Yeah but the whole reason for making a fan game is because you want to see your beloved franchise do something you know will never happen. I feel like that's the reason why Psycho Waluigi was made. Because it's creators KNEW Nintendo would never ever ever make a game for Waluigi themselves. That's the reason why this guy put Ridley is Smash. It's because we love these things and we want to see them become a reality.

Me? I always had a dream about making a Mario RPG that was a huge tribute to the series and greater universe. It would be dedicated to Mario fans everywhere. Featuring characters, locations, items, and more from all over the Mario series that fans would recognize and love. This game would be so jam packed full of content that it would boast having "at least one reference from every Mario game" be it a cameo or quick jingle.

Besides all that stuff what would the game be actually like? Well its a Mario RPG that borrows elements from Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi, and Super Mario RPG but would feature an all new sprite style. Mario will partner up with characters like in the Paper Mario series, however his partners this time are the famous Mario characters we all know. Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong, and more join him as save the world from all the greatest villains from past Mario games.

"Super Mario Superstars" it would be called! And now with a game like Paper Mario: Color Splash announced, more than ever I want to make it.

Honestly I would never want to swap the characters and setting with original characters. I find things like Mighty No. 9 and Yooka-Laylee as painful reminders of things we don't have. I mean, if you really loved Banjo-Kazooie or Mega Man, why would you settle for an imitation?

[Koh]

Because it's better than nothing at all, or the false hopes of fangames that never see completion through however many variables, or just end up not being anywhere near the caliber they could've been. Instead of putting faith in a series that you know is never going to reach its potential, instead, you can put your faith in something else, that is similar and aims to have that potential within its own universe.

Always wanted Zelda to make another game similar to the first in terms of openness, exploration and choices, how you could do almost everything in just about any order and such. But it's not going to happen again. A Link Between Worlds was pretty close to that concept, and they're claiming the upcoming Zelda game will be, but I have my doubts.

So, I'm making sure to incorporate such elements into our own games so that people can get that sense of adventure again, where you're actually exploring the world on your own terms, instead of being taken on a Disneyland Tour.

[Koopaul]

I mean, I'm fine with gameplay ideas that are similar but to make characters that seem so damn similar to the thing we love is just weird to me.

It's like, you broke up with your girlfriend, but then get a new girlfriend who looks and acts like your ex.

[Kriven]

I think what you want to make could be done with some GameMaker-fu... But if you don't think you can learn that, you might have to bite the gameplay bullet and make your game in RPG Maker, which hey, as a Mario fan, I would play the shit out of an RM2k Mario game that accurately captured the Mushroom Kingdom. Even if you want to get into some more advanced mechanics later on, working in RPG Maker on your own for a while might generate interest in enough people for you to put a more well-rounded team together.

[Jermungandr]

This is going to sound rather random, but I just had the realization of a literature reference in Majora's Mask.

And perhaps I am an idiot and everyone already knows about this, but I did a Google search for this and didn't come up with anything, so maybe this is a reference not widely recognized?

Anyways, you remember the two fairies Tatl and Tael right? Specifically, remember their colors:



Tatl, the girl, is white; and Tael, the boy, is purple.

Now look at this quote from Chapter 17 of Peter Pan (1911 version):

"There are always a lot of young ones," explained Wendy, who was now quite an authority, "because you see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are."

Interesting! And it certainly explains Tael's strange choice of coloration.

Granted, you could make the argument that Tael is clearly a deep purple whereas mauve is generally a lighter, paler hue, however (a) an actual shade of mauve would have easily been mistaken for pink, and there are already pink fairies with roles as healing items in the game, and (b) it could be a translation thing, as I doubt Japanese has a word for the specific color "mauve" and they likely read it as "purple".

Incidentally, Navi might also be included in this reference. This might just be poor memory on my part, but I don't believe that Navi's gender is ever mentioned in the game? Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't recall any gender pronouns being applied to Navi, which would fit in with the final line of the quote about the blue colored fairies.

Anyways, maybe I'm just being dumb but I thought it was an interesting enough discovery to share.

[Helmo]

Pretty sure Navi is female.

[Jermungandr]

Well sure, everyone is sure of that. But I'm not sure where it is we actually get that information, because I don't recall it ever being revealed within the context of the game itself. The only one in the game that ever speaks directly to or of Navi is the Deku Tree, who never uses any pronouns to refer to "her". Everyone else just refers to Navi as "a fairy".

[puggsoy]

The only one in the game that ever speaks directly to or of Navi is the Deku Tree, who never uses any pronouns to refer to "her".

http://zeldawiki.org/Navi#cite_note-navi-2
"Navi the fairy... Thou must aid Link... And Link... When Navi speaks, use (^) to listen well to her words of wisdom..."

[psychospacecow]

Eh Jerm, you should submit that to Facts. Its a cool detail. http://www.vgfacts.com/game/thelegendofz...jorasmask/

[Kriven]

It would make sense, considering all the other Peter Pan inspirations in the series.

[Skyla Doragono]

So I've always wanted to make a fangame but I'm only capable of making sprites. How can I get people interested in helping me make something like that? I would need programmers, artists, music writers, and so much more. No easy feat. I don't know if it's possible to get a team on board. TSR itself has attempted it many times and it often never goes anywhere.

Alas, I have a burning passion to do so anyway!

Money helps. I have considered commissioning artists to assist with making a fan game numerous times, even though I will never see a profit from it. You'll make an artist happy too, so that always helps.


As an aside, can someone please explain to me why Earthbound is only on the New 3DS? You can't tell me the old 3DS doesn't have the processing power to handle a Super Nintendo game; that is bullshit.