Involving more people in free games. Framework for connectin

[lekemat]

Good morning . I have something to say and hope I can do it in some way giving some meaning. I want to expand some thoughts about ways for moving us towards better and bigger free game projects. Please bare with some unfinished and rough thoughts. You are welcome to expand or reshape.

First about the present scene of free games:
a) We have a lot of game projects.
b) Most of the projects are small scale.
c) It is hard to contribute in any project

What I want to do is to change c, and let it be totally easy to contribute to free game projects. If we get lot more creators involved we will probably also change point b. We should see more big scale free game projects.

How do I suggest making it easy for creators to contribute in free game projects?
My idea to do this is to meet the possible creators where they are and invite them to do random tasks in their field, perhaps within the most active free game projects.

Different kinds of creators will be at their different places. A graphics creator will perhaps be at Blender or Gimp or Mypaint. An audio creator will perhaps be at Ardour or Audacity. A written text narrative creator will maybe be at Libreoffice. A code creator will perhaps be vim or something.

All groups of creators could get invitation in their most used crative application tools to contribute in the most active projects. Maybe in Blender the creator hit the «new task» button and the program finds something to do. Perhaps «make a 3d model of a sword for Erik the viking king for the the awesome game Erik» (BTW I think Blender are working on a cloud based asset management system at the time).

I think lot of people would like to contribute if they got the tasks presented in the applications they use. Then I think we could have really rapid and huge developments in free games.

What do we need?

We need an application for game design, where designers can list and describe what they need.
The items in the list must have an online place for asset storage.

Then we need hooks in the different applications..

We need probably lot of work on this and many details I do not see at the moment.
…...

Well, now my writing spirit is over for this day. I hope you got a rough idea.

[c_xong]

Are you asking for something like http://www.lookingforpullrequests.com ?

[eugeneloza]

Are you asking for something like http://www.lookingforpullrequests.com ?

Why nobody likes pascal/fpc/lazarus?

I think lot of people would like to contribute if they got the tasks presented in the applications they use.

Maybe... but very hard to believe...
I think that if sites like OGA had more activity / more easy-to-use system it would have been much more efficient.
The problem in contributing is not 'I don't know where to contribute' but time/efficiency. E.g. I'm not sure it's a good idea to create Eric's sword for a Eric project which will never see the light... It's better to create an epic sword and place it to OGA. And if there is no teapot at OGA, then make a request for one, and grab the result in some time. But it's very hard to believe someone will ever make a cool unique assets for a no-name game conceptual idea and until the working prototype (and, maybe later on too) you are on your own / with friends if they share the idea .

[Vandar]

I usually contribute to projects which I like. That means, such a project must have reached a state of completeness that I can try it. E.g. a game must have some levels or something to play. If I then think the idea is good, but the art is bad, I might be tempted to help. Likewise, if I miss a feature in some tool, I might feel tempted to write the code for the feature.

Even after this step I hit problems - my code was not liked sometimes, my art was felt to break some rules, tradition, whatever. So sometimes I just made it and used it by mself.

I have the same experience as developer - people will start joining once the game is playable and promising. Particularly the "promising" is important. Before that stage it is a struggle e.g. to find people who are willing to make graphics. And I can udnerstand it, because 90% of the game projects which are not playable yet won't be playable ever, and I also do not want to spend time on things which never will see the light.

I don't think the problem is connecting the people. The problem is to get projects far enough, in a showcase state, that people will start gaining faith in the future of this project. Afterwards, it is important to have the project structured in a way, that they actually can help. Obscure file formats, unusual tool chains, strange conventions all will be roadblocks for potential helpers. Sometimes even the technology is a problem - while people around 40 might know what colormapped images are and how to use palette animations, this is pretty unknown to people who have grown up with truecolor images.

[Vandar]

Forgot something: Big projects come with quite some management requirements. I once tried to coordinate a team of five active contributors plus some helpers, and it really took a lot of time - that much time that I eventually almost had no time to include all the contributions and do tests before releases. Unlike programming or painting, management tasks can't be this well planned, a manager needs time when a problem occurs. If he can't react soon enough, people will become unmotivated, or even start leaving.

Managing a big distributed team is not easy. It is even harder if the people involved do not have previous (professional) experience in such environments. That's why most successful open projects are small - the larger the team, the more likely it is to break apart.

PPS: If people are joing and leaving frequently, there will also be a need of good documentation, so that new team members can püick up where former members stopped. Writing this documentation is time consuming, and also not easy.

[rogerdv]

I have to agree with that. Im currently coordinating the work of 2 artists and 1 developer, none of them has internet access, so I have to rely on e-mail and even phone calls. At some point, I had to stop programming, just to try things and teach them how to properly model for a game, discuss ideas with the other programmer, etc.

[andrewj]

Why nobody likes pascal/fpc/lazarus?

For what it's worth, I'm going to try castle engine (and fpc) soon.

I have used pascal before (way back in college) but it will still be a steep learning curve. This sort of answers your question: most programmers would rather build their new project in what language they know well, like C++ or Java which get taught in schools, so they can cconcentrate on the actual task rather than grappling with a new language and new libraries.

[eugeneloza]

most programmers would rather build their new project in what language they know well

Yep... that's Lazarus/pascal for me... Since ~1995...
So that's what I can't understand - am I alone pascal? Many sites (like the one given above) don't even have an option to choose it as a language... Even sourceforge (it may be chosen as programming language for the project, but not be filtered by in search results).
Castle Game Engine is the thing I need But yet too lazy to spend a huge chunk of time to dive into it. It appeared much more complex than I first expected...

[Vandar]

Pascal always was a bit of a niche language, and the most popular times are past. But you're not alone, there are more Pascal fans out there.

[eugeneloza]

There are more Pascal fans out there.

I'm joking about being alone. I participate in pascal forums/groups. But I mean the 'selection of languages'. Actually... choice of game eingines too.