E3 Ready Demo

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

So here’s the deal: Me and 3 other people have come to a general consensus (which takes forever). That was- to create an E3 ready demo in three months. With about 15- 20 minutes of gameplay. Something reasonable. It’ll be an fps- because it just is.(and we all really enjoy it). We’re all artist really- and I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to use python. So the main question here is: what will it be about? What is the idea?
We were already working on a larger fps- but that’s going slowly and we all(I) wanted to put something under the belt as well as use a sprint style workflow.(where I ask them to make a bunch of assets and I try to magically throw it into a game. I make assets as well.)
So what we (I) need are interesting fps ideas that can be done with these arms:

Arms_top.PNG745×412 91 KB

Here’s the bottom. They are mirrored and rigged.

arms_bottom.PNG565×564 105 KB

So yeah. Does anyone have any idea’s?

2

You can have the player character pickup up things and hit enemies with them.Like in dead rising.I think that would be fun even though i never played the game.

3

That’s an idea. Also we are looking for something that works with a strong narrative. Think of this demo as something similar to the kind of demo’s Irrational Games make.

4

If that’s your goal, you should take some time to learn Python. You’re pretty likely not going to get a E3-level game / demo in just a few months if you don’t have any knowledge of Python under your belt.

5

That’s not much of an option here and I don’t see why python need be a necessity for a 15- 20 minute demo. Again we are all mostly artist and I do a (minute amount of) scripting in unity(java). Since it’s so short and largely narrative driven and really just eye-candy - it would be largely scripted events(without code or a minute amount). The way people make movie trailers rather than the whole movie itself. But regardless, any idea’s on fps’s with this in mind? Maybe even without the “s”?

6

If you knew python you could randomly place weapons in buildings.And also do other random things to make it interesting.It would make the game feel new.When it is old.

7

Isn’t the whole point of these demos to show off features in a game? Without python you won’t be able to show off new features, meaning your game won’t stand out from the many others at E3. Also, trailers for a film are always made from footage in the film(Sometimes it may be edited a little or bits may be taken from the final film, but this is mostly correct). I would suggest learning python. It only took me a few weeks to get a hang of it, and it allowed so many things to be possible. Anyway, you will need a scripting language to do “scripted” events, so I would start learning that while having other people on the team working on the graphics, there needs to be at least one programmer. You can also only access certain graphical properties such as blend modes from python, so it also ties in with graphics :slight_smile:

8

Never going to mention python again on these forums. Once again it’s not a full game. It’s not really meant for multiple playthroughs. Demo’s at game studio’s are typically built specifically for that purpose. As in the studio’s been working on the entire game but it’s not quite in alpha. So the studio takes a couple months out to make an entirely separate demo specifically for e3. Or they take a part of the game and really polish and refine it to a finished point. That’s the case for “The Last of Us” demo from last year. For some people- they only make trailers for movies they want to make. I am entirely aware that trailers for movies are taken from the movie itself. I do film making. But some people to practice once again only film a trailer for a movie they aren’t able to make- which is often times the case.

It’s not necessary for “scripted” events to use code. As in- they say “scripted events” in UDK but no code was touched for that. This is something somewhat similar.

I will probably never use blend modes. I will most likely not need randomly dropped weapons. Or anything procedurally generated and random. Those are small features that are unnecessary for a 15- 20 minute demo.

Please don’t worry about the execution of the game demo. We (I) just need concepts. A good place to start from. I’ve scoured the internet and first time it’s all just “nada. zip. zilch.”

So with this in mind- does anyone have any idea’s for a story driven FPS? Maybe without the “S”? Maybe hyper stylized? (we are artists after all)

9

It’s not necessary for “scripted” events to use code. As in- they say “scripted events” in UDK but no code was touched for that. This is something somewhat similar.

Blender doesn’t have anything like UDKs scripted events, so you will have to touch python if you want anything to happen. You will not be able to make a demo without any python, it is simply not possible(Without it being terrible, and if its going to be shown at E3 I don’t think it should be lol).

I will probably never use blend modes. I will most likely not need randomly dropped weapons. Or anything procedurally generated and random. Those are small features that are unnecessary for a 15- 20 minute demo.

Well, blend modes are pretty important for particle effects and such which are pretty important in a game with great graphics. Particle effects from dust to water splashes to fire to blood to cold air breath to ect, all need to use a certain blend mode, and you can only access one without python. All these effects are necessary to make a game look great though, so it’s important that they look correct.

Please don’t worry about the execution of the game demo. We (I) just need concepts. A good place to start from. I’ve scoured the internet and first time it’s all just “nada. zip. zilch.”

If you could give us an overview of the story it would help us come up with ideas that could tie in.

10

Sorry if I sounded a bit curt and rude in my first reply. However, I was suggesting Python for polishing purposes, as without it, one tends to have a lot less opportunity and ability to make the game really look impressive.

I’m not sure what you’re asking for. If you want game concepts, you can look around at different games and copy or mix them up. However, anything interesting will probably require Python to realize effectively, so I’m not sure what you’re after. If it’s easy enough to do without Python, it’s probably not really interesting. If it’s interesting enough to want to include in an E3 demo, then you would have to learn Python to implement it effectively. Even a first-person setup requires Python to some extent, so I’m not sure what you plan to do without it.

Are you planning to actually go to E3 with a demo, or just make a demo for a proof-of-concept of sorts?

As a last guess at it:

Something physics-interaction based wouldn’t require Python to work. An interesting idea would be the ability to shoot chains to tether physics-enabled objects around (i.e. shoot a chain at a barrel, and then the ceiling to make something to jump over a chasm), but this would require some basic Python.

Like Spike1 mentioned, maybe mentioning the story would help…?

11

So what’s an E3 game?

12

That’s exactly the question. I haven’t the foggiest idea what the story should be. That’s why I ask. I’ve looked around the internet and can’t really find much.

@spike1: Logic bricks are the most similar thing to kismet logic in blender. Have you used UDK? And- I’ve used blender since 2.38 was a thing. I’ve figured out enough to make a playable game. Graphics is too much of a blanket all term. Remember- artist. You do not need particles to make a game look great. Also depends on your definition of great. Maybe if you’re trying to approach realism but not all the time. What games need isn’t more particles and more polygons- but more thought to composition, contrast(very little of this in most games), and use of color. I went to art school and I’ve also studied cinematography and I am telling you- it is not all necessary. It really is dependent on the art style. I could have wild juxtapositions of realism and minimalist art deco and maybe even just vaguely use value to suggest form- for the player to navigate around. So. Yeah. I’m probably not going to write or learn python for the duration of the demo.

Also not sure what functions are supported in blenderplayer android. Might have smoke in the game but probably use scrolling textures or some such.

This is supposed to be a proof of concept of sorts. But if possible( or I can figure it out) throw it on the Ouya and see what Ouya Inc might do with it. Probably nothing- but at least if we have a cool demo in time for E3.

If so- it’s really supposed to be something that pushes the ouya visually. Less space marines and war. More different things. Interesting idea’s that intrigue. Think and Ayn Randian society beneath the atlantic. That sort of thing.

13

I have a game, with mechanics, and new features, just needing a little polish and more art, check out project.wrectified in team projects,

We have most things powered by logic and a few snippet size code sections for a few things like physical motions and property passing via parent and child hiarchies.

It still needs polish and some coding, but if someone wants to take over temporarily to make a demo while my PC is down… The project.has been getting a thousand views every few days lately…

14

That sounds interesting. I’ll take a look.

dancreator: Electronic Entertainment Expo is the largest game Expo in California. It’s where a lot of game companies give press conferences and just generally show off their games to the games media.

15

Just wondering, what do you have done at the moment? You haven’t got a story, or a gameplay idea, or any settings and characters, yet you want to create something for a huge public convention? If you want the community to come up the the majority of the ideas I would suggest making this just a community project in general, as that would let people who know python do the programming, and let everyone pitch in ideas.

Anyway, an idea you might like is this:
You tell the heartfelt story of a group of lice as they try to escape the giant flood sweeping through a little boys head. Use the lice to bend over hair strands, bite and create bumps, and other innovative ideas. I definitely haven’t seen something like this before and by using a cartoony geometric art style this could be created and run well on the BGE. I always like the idea of humanizing animals(or in a previous game of mine Fruit lol), so i think it would be interesting for a narrative driven game :slight_smile:

16

the trend is clearly “survival horror”. DayZ (and all the clones like Rust, WarZ), Metro 2033, Slender (i think there are about 5 diffrent ones), 7Days to Die, Alien Isolation, Survarium, Amnesia, Evolve, Daylight, just to name some, which where released 2013 or going to be released 2014.
Well yeah, you could just jump on that train and build a mashup between some of them, like the atmosphere of Metra and a gameplay mechanic like Clocktower.
If you would ask me i would like to see more games like Otherland (canceled), Journey, LSD Dream Emulator, The Stanley Parable, Elevator.
Just throw some things together, which makes no sense.
a medieval farmhouse in the desert, you enter it and the inside looks like a hallway from a 80s scifi spaceship (like alien 1). when you try to get back you see a endless ocean, where a ww2 plane crashes into the water. so now you decide to take the hovercraft, which was spit out by a huge whale. Inside of it you find a red telephone booth, but when you try to put in some coins, one of them fell down and you already feel like you are not in kansas anymore.
i would like to see the world forced to be beyond reality.
Let’s give it a name. Let’s call it “This is Not Reality - The Exploration Adventure”
You start inside of a volcano on a small platform with 3 Doors (blue, red and green). there is nothing else you can do. you have to make a choice. each door will bring you to another crazy scene. There are mutiple choices everywhere, and you will have multiple endings, but none of them will be satisfying. You just tease the player with endings like blending the screen to black and restart the game.
i know a game is not motivating without any rewards. So the Player will ask himself, why is all of this, but instead he should ask himself where is the real Reality. And now we bring in some kind of puzzle. You have small signs on the doors and they will help you to find the Reality. Most of them make no sense, they are just there to cnfuse the Player, but some will help you. Some hieroglyphics like:
temple, treasure, dead.
Now a smart Player will know, you should not open the chest inside of the temple.

Okay so the Key Features are:

  • Exploring
  • Crazy Scenes
  • Multiple Choice
  • Multiple Endings
  • Final Ending

You don’t really need a good Story, when you have a good Ending. And you don’t even need a final solution for everything, just enough hints, so the player can think “oh yeah, that’s why all of this was happening”
Something like:
The Main Character was bored to work alone on the moon and consumed some LSD, to escape the gray everyday. And all the places he met in the game, where a mashup of places he wanted to visit in Reality.

I actually wrote more as i wanted hehe.
i don’t even think that it helps, but maybe some parts are a bit of inspiration?

17

My first thought: What is E3? or an E3 ready demo?

Sounds like you all do asset creation. I think this is fine because assets are a lot of work. Unfortunately not the only work :spin:.

You might want to get a programmer/logic designer on-board to apply the behavior (or the other way around apply the asset to the logic). You also need someone to create the levels = tying the assets together.

I think there are a lot of good logic developers in this forum who require good asset creators (I do not want to offend anyone - I know my logic skills are way better than my modelling skills :wink: ). You might find one or two that can help you out there [please do this in the team project forum].

Your model looks nice. But I’m not sure if a viewer will ever see this much details in an FPS (finally it is just a hand).
The only place I would see in an FPS is the avatar-hands (directly in front of the camera). I still think it strange that you can see arms and hands in FPV - but it is indeed an important feedback to the player.

18

E3 level quality (anything that doesn’t subject to ridicule over there) PC game demo is not doable from scratch in 3 months.

Not even if you already had a polished idea and extensive GDD.
Not even if you had professionals and a budget to hire them.
Not even if you had a professional dev kit and experience in your production pipeline.

I can’t even find info on how to try to apply for a spot anywhere in E3. I’m fairly certain only money talks and E3 is way out of reach of indie devs let alone couple of strangers that met online and wanted to make something wacky in 3 months.

Setting such goals is waste of time and potential. Take your time, learn the engine, learn games. If you’re into E3 and huge commercial AAA gaming that event is for BGE is not your best pick TBH but sure you can use it to cover the basics.

Gameplay demos of complex games (= complex features) are still just as complex, programming wise might only save yourself some debugging, optimizing and parametrizing work compared to full game. You don’t downscale the game features for demo because the demo is explicitly for your features. You mainly downscale the amount of content such as the number of levels and characters.

That being said python is mandatory for any more complex games in one form or another. You might get away with logic solutions but chances are sooner or later you find that you should have gone pure python to begin with when you have to convert one buggy/limited/too complicated setup after another to DIY python scripts that simply work.

But python is not hard nor scary and people seemingly avoid it for nothing. You can totally learn it by just reading the scripts people have made which is something you couldn’t do with more complex compiled languages like C++. Compared to that python is like reading English.

19

I haven’t got a setting. Nor a story or much else. Did you know I think that there were less than 10 artist for the entire game of Crysis 3? Just a thought.

I know how to use blender. Been doing it since 2.38. I’m studying design atm.\

We are not a couple of strangers that met online. We actually know each other physically. I’ve known them for two years and they’ve been a group for longer.

Also you can’t really say that it is not possible unless you try. As in scientifically you have to have a bunch of people trying to go from 0 to E3 and all fail to say that is completely impossible. Probably not possible- but you can’t really say. Most demo’s don’t have “levels” they demo one. Some levels are made exclusively for the demo at some studio’s.

@Monster: You’ve never seen the hands of a character in an FPS? Maybe bioshock? Any of them? Also that’s what I do. Level design with the assets. I make some on the fly if I need it but so far…

Also- python has got to be the oddest language I’ve seen. I really can’t make heads or tails of it in blender. The game doesn’t have to be necessarily complex- just interesting to play and absorb the story. For example one of my top moments in a demo from Bioshock Infinite(that’s why I always reference it) is when the bell tower comes crumbling down in front of you. Bell strikes the ground so close to you, that you almost get hit. That is the kind of thing that I’m looking for. Large events. Also btw, Did you know that Ouya Inc didn’t set up inside of the convention center. They set up across the street. A smart move.

Demo’s don’t really have endings per say- only cliff hangers. So the real meat potatoes is in everything but the end.

Another reason I’m asking is because- honestly we were going to use these arms but they got chopped in favor of something else. Now I would like to create a small demo game that has them in there. That’s why I ask for the idea to include the lead as a guy with black gloves. So think of this question as less of a “feature ideas request” and more of a “narrative ideas request”. So again- don’t worry about the execution. It has been discussed. Just looking for narrative ideas.

20

Ok, I’m very upset with what you have said in this thread Kamiyama and hold some very strong feelings against you.

You have given us the grand inspiration of hands… great progress keep it up!

So here’s an idea: (Game play concept, won’t fit with story easily)
You have two teams, with 32 soldiers on the battlefield at a time. One leader on each team. All soldiers are AI trying to reach and destroy the enemy base on the other side of map. The players functions cannot be to stop opposing soldiers (which is your soldiers job) but to aid your own soldiers. So health guns, strength guns. Player can position mines etc which blow up opposing soldiers.
Whenever a soldier dies they re-spawn and have to run back into battle.

Another Idea: (For a story)
Australia is finally annexing New Zealand. You are part of a Maori squad of resistance trying to take back a New Zealand city from Australian occupation.

Must I point out that you are fairly silly asking for game ideas on a forum (silly or lazy?). Because of this you must give everyone in this thread credit in the credits regardless of your final game idea. Legally we all aided you in the process of developing a game concept.