A couple of months ago I officially presented
the project, and a few things have changed. The idea found some interested people here in my country and now we are a team of one programmer/writer (me), 2 modellers actively working, 2 more interested in working (one of them is a writer too), one concept artist/musician, and another programmer interested in joining the team.
Currently we are in technolgy testing phase, and decided to use Unity3d 5. Why Unity for an open source project? Well, our short term goal is to complete a playable game and get familiar with the game development process. The long term goal, or dream, (1 and half years) is to establish our own game studio and create a commercial product. Urho3D was insufficient, even when we were still in early stages of development, and probably will be insufficient for a commercial quality title. Also, the artists insisted that it looks much better
.
What do we need? First of all, we are requesting donations. Most of the team members dont have internet access, Im coordinating work through email and phone calls (long distance phone calls), sms, whatever. I lost my home PC 2 years ago and managed to build another, but it lacks case and the PSU died some weeks ago. Also, the team deserves some motivation, as some of them doesnt even have enough hardware to run the game.
Well, you might ask, why should I donate to an open source project? Will get it for free anyway. I agree there is no reason, but consider we are offering the source code (documented) of an unity project. If for some licensing reason, the whole project has to be removed from git, the scripts code will be available. All the art is going to be available under CC, including good quality, fully animated, modular characters.
We are also, in the spirit of Kicksstarter campaigns, offering some interesting rewards for sponsors:
$10 or more: you will be listed on the credits (yes, in that README file that nobody reads)
$20 or more: your name will appear in some place inside the game
$30 or more: your will name an NPC, tavern/shop or unique item
$40 or more: your will name an NPC, and it will lead a relevant faction or a location in the game
$50: Seriously? Are you that crazy?
How to donate? As the forum doesnt lets me to insert the donation button, I have enabled on on each blog I keep. Follow the links at the post signature and look at the right sidebar.
Game features:
- Open world.
- 6 classes, but most disciplines are available to all classes.
- Long, boring dialogs, with the interesting choices disables because of attribute/skill requirement not met.
- Many different creatures (although some of them will share same model) that you can kill, and unlike Pillars of Eternity, get XP for doing so.
- Old style, hardcore quests quests. You will often find yourself wondering what to do next (use Google when it happens).
We are open to contributors willing to join, specially programmers experienced with Unity.
You can get the current project code in
github repo, and the art is being released under CC license in OpenGameArt (check
http://opengameart.org/content/the-key-of-the-world).
See
here a little animation test.
Art test: