Psst, Jonas

[Jaedar]

Tell me something about your new game.

I promise I won't tell anyone

PS: are we gonna see a post-mortem on Excon?

[Jonas]

Woah I haven't been here in a while. *Dusts off account*

We did a post-mortem for internal use but it's not very interesting and it won't be published. Also it wasn't written by me, in case you were wondering.

I would tell you all sorts of things I'm not supposed to tell about our next game, but we're actually planning to go public with it tomorrow. So there's no point in talking about it now.

But now you know that, at least. When you're finished reading this sentence, you'll also know that the game is called Clandestine.

[Jaedar]

Clandestine.

Ah I see. So it's going to be a SPAH GAME, spiritual sequel to alpha protocol! Featuring full 4d and oculus rift support.

We did a post-mortem for internal use but it's not very interesting and it won't be published. Also it wasn't written by me, in case you were wondering.

What a shame.

[bobby 55]

Clandestine.

Ah I see. So it's going to be a SPAH GAME, spiritual sequel to alpha protocol! Featuring full 4d and oculus rift support.

What we really need is another game with zombies.

Seriously though, I'll be interested to see what LA comes up with, but a game with spies and stealth would be cool.

[Cybernetic pig]

What we really need is another First Person Role-Playing Immersive Sim. A fair chance it could be too! Fingers crossed....

[Jonas]

http://clandestinethegame.com/

What we really need is another First Person Role-Playing Immersive Sim.

Well I'm with you there, but sadly we don't really have the $10 million lying around that we would need for a project like that.

[Cybernetic pig]

Well I'm with you there, but sadly we don't really have the $10 million lying around that we would need for a project like that.

Why would the budget need to be higher than CLANDESTINE? Deus Ex didn't even have cinematics, all in-game/engine.

[Jonas]

The first-person perspective requires an even higher visual detail level than over-the-shoulder, and the amount of programming work that goes into the sort of emergent gameplay systems that you need to make something like Deus Ex, is pretty crazy. I'll admit I exaggerated with the $10 million budget, but a solid first-person game is just too expensive for us right now.

[Cybernetic pig]

The first-person perspective requires an even higher visual detail level than over-the-shoulder

That's subjective :p As long as it doesn't look as bad as, say, System Shock 1 then I'd be happy. But I am probably in the minority there unfortunately, which is why you use the phrase "requirement"- from a business perspective.

and the amount of programming work that goes into the sort of emergent gameplay systems that you need to make something like Deus Ex, is pretty crazy. I'll admit I exaggerated with the $10 million budget, but a solid first-person game is just too expensive for us right now.

Congratulations anyhow.

[AEmer]

Unfortunately I think Jonas is on the money.

First person perspective generally has a ton of graphical rendering of what can only be described as close ups and super close ups. These kinds of things demand individual art assets be higher fidelity. Since you can't predict which things will be close-upped, everything has to be developed to a higher fidelity level - and that's more expensive.

3PS and isometric is just cheaper.

[Cybernetic pig]

Unfortunately I think Jonas is on the money.

First person perspective generally has a ton of graphical rendering of what can only be described as close ups and super close ups. These kinds of things demand individual art assets be higher fidelity. Since you can't predict which things will be close-upped, everything has to be developed to a higher fidelity level - and that's more expensive.

3PS and isometric is just cheaper.

Edit: Actually yes, you are correct. All the animation work.

isometric doesn't require a ton of detailed anims.

But I can easily live with a FPP game with crappy & recycled anims, meshes etc, like Deus Ex But it would still probably cost more even if they are crappy & recycled.

When it comes to geometry, textures and meshes I think it's entirely do-able, just the anims that is the problem, perhaps. But hey, Jonas is the professional, and is sane enough to make wise choices
Look what I did in UDK and it didn't cost me a penny: http://s1309.photobucket.com/user/Cyber ... sort=3&o=1
Note what you see is WIP, not really worthy to show and tell, there are only a few models and geometry isn't even close to being complete, let alone anything else, but if one were to make an indie FPP game it can only look that good (or bad) or better, which is better looking than Deus Ex so who wouldn't be satisfied?

[VectorM]

Look what I did in UDK and it didn't cost me a penny: http://s1309.photobucket.com/user/Cyber ... sort=3&o=1
Note what you see is WIP, not really worthy to show and tell, there are only a few models and geometry isn't even close to being complete, let alone anything else, but if one were to make an indie FPP game it can only look that good (or bad) or better, which is better looking than Deus Ex so who wouldn't be satisfied?

You do realize, that even if all they did was use UDK assets, they would still have to pay everyone working on it, right?

[Cybernetic pig]

Nope, completely oblivious to the fact.

You have now been blocked. I haven't got time this year to play your nonsensical games.

[VectorM]

Nope, completely oblivious to the fact.

Then what is the point of your anecdote?

which is better looking than Deus Ex so who wouldn't be satisfied?

You seem to have this constant mentality, that if YOU like something and YOU are satisfied with something, then everybody else must/should think the same way.

Considering that people on the official DX forums complained a LOT about the graphical fidelity of DX:HR, i think that it's safe to say that a lot of people would be dissatisfied with a similar game that just used simple editor assets.

And then there's games like the Witcher 2, that seem to have convinced a lot of people, that even smaller studios should be able to produce very high quality graphics.

[AEmer]

@ Cybernetic pig:

I agree that it's entirely doable. The HDTP project for the old Deus Ex illustrates that if you put in the work, you can easily achieve a higher fidelity for all of the textures in a game.

The concern, however, is the 2000 man-hours (guestimate) that have gone into HDTP. Take a 40 hour work week, span it around a year so you get 50 such weeks, and that's one man-year to achieve this graphical fidelity. If you can half that by going for a different view (say 3ps), and you have a 2 year development cycle, that's a quarter of a position.

If you're only 8 people, you probably have two artists. That's 12,5% of your artist time on hi def textures vs. 5% or less on textures.

And that's just when you're going for the visual fidelity of Deus Ex: HDTP. Modern games have significantly more complicated textures that typically arise from much higher quality base models and normal / bump mapping.

I reckon that it's doable _if you're not using your own assets_, though. Asset reuse will drastically cut down on development time as it gets more common.