[POLL] M.O.G. MULTIPART EVENT - PARED DOWN?

Poll

Would you participate in the M.O.G. game creation multipart event? - Results

Yes - I totally the whole thing!
18
22%
I am tempted, but probably would not deliver anything
22
27%
I would partially participate in principle - I would submit some of the things
15
18%
No, but this is a good idea.
20
25%
No, and this is a stupid idea. Boo!
4
5%

Posts

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M.O.G. Multipart Event "My Own Game"

This topic is about the nebulous plan I had to have people tackle the creation of an entire game by themselves, all custom. Graphics (tilesets, chars, battlebacks, monsters, etc...), music, sound effects, story/writing, and scripts (maybe?) - the whole shebang.

The intent is to get people out of their comfort zones and attempt the different aspects of game creation. MOG would be a multipart event, with each event focusing on a different aspect. The end result would be a full game made entirely by YOU!

However, this is a pretty ambitious undertaking, and would require quite the commitment.

It also runs into problems for people with "teams" - person X is our artist, person Y is our scripter, person Z is our writer etc etc... Having a team working on the same things they always work on undermines the intent of this event. I intend on making this a no-teams event - a true solo effort!



What it takes to make a game
I was thinking about the components of creating a typical hobbyist game (RPG), and here is a "core" list I came up with:

-Design
-Pitch
-Music
-Sound Effects
-Story/Writing
-Graphics
-Systems
-Demo
-Completed Game

...and the progression goes something like IDEA -> PITCH -> DESIGN -> RESOURCES -> DEMO -> FULL GAME

What it takes to make it an event
In this event I want to cover the core areas of game design, music, programming/eventing, writing, and graphics, plus I also want to stress the importance of pitching and "selling" your game to an audience.

Here are some of the core deliverables for the different aspects of creating a game for the MOG event:
-Design document(s)
-Gameprofile
-Soundtrack
-Graphic Pack
-Demo
-Full Game

Here are the deliverables for things that I think are important, but outside the "core" of the focus of this event:
-Tutorial or script submission (your "system")
-Sound Effect pack
-Fanfic(?) (basically, a novelization of your game - I want something stressing the writing. Another idea would be a "worldbuilding" document - something that really delves into your game world and gives backstory on characters and plot)


Event structure
There would be a "parent" event called MOG Multipart Event, and this is the one that would kick it off, wrap it up, and give out superstar achievements. It would also be the event where people would start talking about ideas, and perhaps submit the final game download.

There would be 6 sub-events (with their own event page). Each of these subevents would have their own 100ms achievement for participating.

MOG Pitch
-talk about "selling" your game
-Deliverable: Gameprofile
-Duration: 1wk

MOG Design
-talk about game design and ideas
-Deliverable: Design Document
-Duration: 2wk

MOG Music
-compose music!
-Deliverable: Soundtrack (the core tracks - probably about 7?)
-Duration: 4wk

MOG Graphics
-make and talk about graphics, tilesets, facesets, charsets, battlers, monsters, panoramas (and other stuff?)
-Deliverable: Graphic resource pack
-Duration: 8wk

MOG Demo
-release your game's demo!
-Deliverable: demo download
-Duration: 3wk

MOG Finale
-release the final game!
-this event might just be a repurpose of the parent event, since the point is just to release a full game, and that is the overarching purpose of the entire MOG event.
-Deliverable: full game download
-Duration: 5wk


Throughout the event, I will also run some "bonus" events, each with their own 50ms achievement for participating:

MOG System
-talk about your game's unique gameplay system(s)
-Deliverable: tutorial or script
-Duration: 4wk

MOG Sounds
-develop sound effects
-Deliverable: sound effect pack
-Duration: 4wk

MOG Story (or maybe MOG World?)
-talk about writing, characterization, worldbuilding
-Deliverable: Novelization (or Worldbuilding document)
-Duration: 3wk


The durations were just guesstimates, as I am unsure what would be appropriate timeframes for developing the deliverables for each. Now, they don't all start at the same time, so while the event duration may only be, say, 4 weeks, you know that it is coming so you can start work ahead of time.

Assuming that I start this event on April 1st (or earlier for the parent event), and have the first sub event start for realz on April 4th, here is a timeline of it all:



The thinking is the event will start late March and you get to do some idea brainstorming, and then the first thing you got to start working on is the design and the pitch. The pitch will be the first deliverable, and it will deliver the gameprofile. Then you got to deliver your first full draft of your game's design (naturally, this gets refined over the course of the project, but you should solidify your main ideas early).

Then it is on to making resources, and making the game. So the middle events will cover music, graphics, sound effects, systems/programming, each with their own deliverables. Finally, it comes to releasing your demo. Then your "Fanfic" or "Worldbuilding" (don't want to reveal spoilers before a demo is out, right?), and then it is the grand finale!

I probably should extend music to 6 weeks and have it end on May 30 (or maybe mirror graphics and have it 8 weeks?). But I do want this event to be kept as tight as reasonable, and I definitely want it to wrap up before the end of August (before school starts for like 80% of our userbase).

If you submit your deliverables, you get the 100ms (or 50ms) achievement. If you get all of the "core"/main deliverables, you also get a bonus, say 200ms, MOG Superstar achievement.

Also, about a week after each subevent ends, I will reopen them for late submissions and latecomers to the event. All of the reopened events will end 1 week before the finale deadline.

This might be too ambitious of an event, though. Do you think we would get full participation from end to end? Do you think we'd even get enough participants to make this undertaking worthwhile? I have my doubts. I can see a lot of people applauding the concept, but few people actually following through on it.

Anywho, that was a long schpiel. Thoughts? Will you participate?


I should stress: this is not a competition. It is a challenge!

####################################################
################## UPDATE ##########################
####################################################

I think I am going to pare this down the areas I REALLY want to address, and then wrap it up with an event that limits people to making games from the resources created.

I am going to focus on: graphic resources, music
I am going to drop: scripting, game design, writing/worldbuilding
I am going to leave as a side-event: sound effects, pitching your game
I am going to generalize: game creation event

Thus, the format of the event will play out more like this:
1. The "MOG Music Event" and "MOG Graphics Event" will run first, in parallel, for 10 (?) weeks.
a) The MOG Music event will focus on creating a "complete" soundtrack
b) The MOG Graphics event will focus on creating a resource pack - tilesets, monsters, characters, facesets, etc...

2. A optional "MOG Sound Effects" event will run shortly thereafter for a shorter period. Less emphasis will be given to this.

3. A "MOG Game Creation" event will run next after the previous events have concluded. Participants are limited to using resources created during the previous MOG event. Bonus points for using MOG sound effects (RTP sound effects will be allowed). Gaps in resources can be filled with standard RTP, or resources of your own creation. Other publicly available resources will NOT be allowed, neither will purchased commercial resource packs. Super Bonus points for using YOUR OWN resources to make a game. Multiple game submissions will be allowed. Scripting is allowed, as are publicly available scripts (because scripting is no longer a focus for the event). During this event I will run a short workshop/write an article about pitching your game and managing your project.

I am going to try to get experts in music composition and spriting and drawing to write tutorials. I am going to link what beginner resources I know about. I hope to coerce the CSS gameprofile superstars to share their secrets, for the game's pitch and presentation segment.

I dropped game design because as a community we seem to cover that pretty well in everyday activity, plus we have a lot of existing resources on that. Same with story writing/worldbuilding. Sound effects were never a big thing with this event, but I still would like us to try it, so I left it as a side-event. Scripting/RGSS/programming is a massive undertaking on its own, and the scope of that is too big for what I had in mind. We'll have to try tackling that later, perhaps in a different setting (a collaborative workshop perhaps?)

Thoughts? I wanted to get this started in the next 2 weeks.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
I think this is a really cool idea, and there's a good chance I'd participate. However, I think some of your fears for low participation are well-grounded. It takes a really jack-of-all-trades type person to be able to do absolutely everything related to making a single game with fully custom resources, and many of us have very definitive weaknesses (for example, the music in my submission would most likely be ear-bleedingly awful XD )

I know that's the whole point, to get people out of their comfort zone, but I worry that people won't enter because they're not willing to go outside their expertise because they know the game will suffer for it.

I both applaud the idea and, like I said earlier, would probably try my hand at it, and I hope I'm wrong and more people like the idea and are willing to dabble, but I'm really not so sure.
I reckon I might do it *just because*. But it is such a large undertaking for what might turn out to be a poo project (because I made all the little stuff). I reckon, for what it is worth, a much better idea is to just create an event where everyone must create their own stuff and come up with a game within a week or month. Like you said, it dont need to be a contest, but it can just be something random and fun instead of SO MUCH COMMITMENT :I
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
I'd be more down with a no-RTP event, or maybe a series of challenges for each individual type of asset (with rules that only total novices can participate).

I can't imagine wanting to put the effort into a full game (even a bite-sized one!) with all original assets, only to have certain assets be absolute crap.
Gonna have to agree with Sooz. It's a good thought, but it's way too much effort for something that probably won't turn out well.
Smaller events for each category would probably be a better idea, for example a event to make a cool script.
If you had to do every single thing yourself in the game my guess is the number of participants would be less than 3.
A jack-of-all-stats dev is extremely rare ( I don't think I've seen any good/great games on this site where everything was made by one person. Most of the best and most popular games on this site are made by teams of 3 or more people :\ ). I probably would have gone for it, had I been able to code and write my own music. But no. Those are two skills I don't have.
BurningTyger
Hm i Wonder if i can pul somethi goff here/
1289
author=SnowOwl
Gonna have to agree with Sooz. It's a good thought, but it's way too much effort for something that probably won't turn out well.
Smaller events for each category would probably be a better idea, for example a event to make a cool script.
If you had to do every single thing yourself in the game my guess is the number of participants would be less than 3.

Ya Srsly. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having people go outside their comfort zone, but don't forget too that many people choose their specific role in a team according to their strong points. SO my suggestion would be a bunch of "mix-it-up" events where people do something they normally don't. It'd be somewhat hard to judge the truth of complete novice-hood though. Possibly one idea is to take an established team who';s worked together before and have them shuffle their roles; for example if Clare draws and I do the writing, our roles would be reversed for this project (though I'd prefer to avoid that particular combo right now>)
Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
I think this sounds awesome but I agree that the logistics need some thinking. For example, I know absolutely nothing about making music or sound effects, so much of the time for that part of the event would be spent on just figuring out how to do it. And as a few people mentioned, it would be kind of disappointing to put so much effort in a game only for at least one aspect of it to turn out crappy since it's not your area of expertise.

EDIT: Also, if this happens, please don't limit it to RM only!
It sounds cool, but I have no idea how to do sounds/music. So that part of said game would suck. Which would make the rest of it suck.

Remember the RMN Music Pack? It took like 3 months to finish it, didn't it?
I'd be extremely interested in this, but I to have little talent in the musical department. Doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to try, cause I'm sure I can string together something that sounds half decent given four weeks and the software to do it in (I think that's the clincher there - having the right software to work with).
I can do everything but scripting, music and sound effects. I'm trying to do them by myself for my first game ever (except for sound effects), but it's HAAAAARD (and it takes lotsa time, specially scripting).
I won't participate, I think.
This is a cool idea--it helps new developers work their way through the process. The problem is that for vets, it's a huge time commitment, and they probably have already tried their hand at the different aspects of development. You're also going to lose people as the event progresses: maybe 10 percent of the people might find that their pitch is lame and not want to continue, then more might find that composing--or art or whatever-- is too daunting, or they may find that they can't produce anything during finals, fall behind, and not make it, and you might only end up with a few people who see this through till the end.

Personally, I'd like more events that encourage working as a team, as, if I'm left to my own devices, I'll just work and work and work, but I won't reach out to other people, which is something I actually WANT to do.
kentona: "Hey guys! Let's try to break out of our comfort zones a bit!"
Everyone: "I only try things that I expect to succeed at, sorry."

Well, yes, of course some parts of your game will suck comparatively. And doing some parts will be hard as balls for you. But who cares? We are here to learn, and share. And you will probably surprise yourself, if only a little. And even IF you know you have a weak spot (now), attempting it will teach you a lot about it and help you communicate more knowledgeably in that area when you DO go and do a hardcore game with a competent team. This is a great asset. Being familiar with all aspects of game development is a good thing.



Also, if you do this, you get like 900 bonus makerscore.





author=Feldschlacht IV
yo who called me

Notorious.

I chuckled, and then I was dismayed because I realized that very few people here will understand that reference.
There is a difference between going out of your comfort zone and jumping headfirst into lava.
It's just too much new stuff to cram into one thing, plus a huge time eater.
Do it as separate events, sure sounds good. Do it all in one go? No thanks.
Bob Ross is talking out off his ass.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I don't think I would participate in such an event, but I do like the concept behind it. If that is any consolation. Probably not.
I might just join for that makerscore bonus. Holy crap, that is a lot. I would join though there's always that possibility I won't finish.
author=SnowOwl
There is a difference between going out of your comfort zone and jumping headfirst into lava.
It's just too much new stuff to cram into one thing, plus a huge time eater.
Do it as separate events, sure sounds good. Do it all in one go? No thanks.
Bob Ross is talking out off his ass.
We do things as separate events all the time. And the only ones who participate (largely) are those that are already experienced in that area. So I doubt that that would go anywhere.

And they are separate events. If you only wanted to make a custom soundtrack, just participate in that one event - don't bother making a game. If you only wanted to make sound effects, do that event. If you are participating in the large event, but don't want to compose music, skip that subevent, and use the RMN Music Pack instead. There are a lot of options.

Break out as much or as little as you want. But I would encourage people to attempt each section anyway, even if you decide after not to complete it.

Even if in the end all you have is 1 custom music track made in Mario Pain Composer, and a handful of poorly drawn monster battlers, at least you finished a game and tried! And that's all I am asking. Try!
This sounds pretty interesting. I think I'll give an attempt at all custom. I have nearly zero talent in music so it'll be interesting to try and make a soundtrack.
I can totally try. Sign me up chief!

(It will not end pretty but that's besides the point)
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