ROOTS'S PROFILE

I don't mind seeing resources used between projects at all. What I mind is people using copyrighted content in their games, such as pulling artwork from Final Fantasy titles, Chrono Trigger, etc. Not withstanding the fact that use of such content is illegal, I just plain don't like seeing artwork from my favorite games being stripped out and bastardized into a much lower quality amateur title. It's difficult for me to explain exactly how I feel. It's like I don't want my nostalgia and endearment for that content to be damaged as a result of seeing it in a game that I know won't live up to the standards of the original.

Hi everyone. I run an open source project with the goal of producing a RPG in a style similar to Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI. We've been working on the project for a long time and have released several demos in the past, and now we're at work to assemble the first of many parts of the full game (we release it in pieces at a time). I'm hoping that we can find people with past game design experience to do things like assemble maps, write scripts, and generally make the game come alive. It would be great if we could find some more artists to help out as well. Anyway, read on for a more complete description of the project, the roles we are looking to fill, and how to help out. I'll be happy to answer any questions and look forward to your feedback as well.




Project Description
Hero of Allacrost is a single player 2D role-playing game inspired by classic console RPGs. In Hero of Allacrost, the player will explore rich environments, solve challenging dungeon puzzles, and fight strategic battles in an active-time based system. The game is free open-source software and is currently available across several platforms including Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. In addition to the game, we also develop and release a custom content editor for the game. Development on the game and editor began in June 2004. Our project has released numerous playable demos in the past and we are now working on production of the true game, starting with the first of many release modules to come.

Many great people from this community have found our project and joined our efforts throughtout the years. Our project took a long break last year, but we're back to work and need some additional help. This project has a lot of history behind it, and thanks to that we are now at a junction where our development efforts are no longer focused on code, but instead on content. What we need most right now are artists to help us fill in the missing gaps to our content and game designers to take art, music, sound, and code and tie it all together into what the player will experience. We have all of the code completed that is necessary to make this game come alive, but we could still use additional programmers to continue making progress on this front as well.

Very recently we produced a development video, which you can watch below. This video shows the game being played in real time in it's current state and includes commentary on missing artwork and design ideas that we've been discussing. Watching this video is the best way to get a feel for what this game is all about, so please have a look.


You may also wish to check out our roadmap to see a list of what we're currently working on and what is required for us to meet our next release goal.

http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap

Compensation
No monetary compensation is offered through participation in the project and all members of the team work for free. Everyone has their own personal reasons for contributing, whether it is to gain experience for their resume or portfolio, improve their skills, or simply because they enjoy it.

Talent Needed
=== Game Designers ===
Game designers combine our code and content and craft the game's experience. This includes designing maps, crafting of enemy data, scripting of battle actions, balancing, and more. This is a great position for someone who is interested in making games, but lacks the skills to create game content themselves. Please see the following page for more information on what game designers do and what you can expect if you accept this role.

http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/New_Game_Designers


=== 2D Artists ===
The game artwork is developed in two complementary styles: traditional pixel art and digital painting. Please take a look at the following pages to get an idea of our artistic influences and style, and to learn more about being an artist on our project.

http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/New_Artists
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Style


Website
http://www.allacrost.org

How to Join
Please see the following page on our wiki:
http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/New_Contributors

The best way to contact the team with a question or request is through our forum at http://www.allacrost.org/forum

You can also try joining our IRC channel at #allacrost at irc.freenode.net to see if anyone is around to speak to you.

And of course you can either reply to this thread with your questions, or send me a private message here if you would like to ask something privately.


Screenshots and Artwork
You can find all of our screenshots at http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/screenshots . Unfortunately these are all old and the current state of the game has a slightly improved appearance. Here are some selections:








(The game is developed in English, but includes internationalization support so it can run in other languages).

author=CyberDagger
Instead, make the game you want to make. Make a game you would like to play. All that matters is YOU. Don't compromise your vision because of what others want. If your game's any good, we will like it, even if it wasn't made according to our specifications.

I disagree with this. If your only goal is to make a game that just you want to play, then this would make sense. But if your goal is to have your game played and enjoyed by as many people as possible, you have to consider more opinions than just your own. For example, when I started my project several years back, I had a lot of ideas that appealed to me that I wanted to see in the game. But after it became clear that most of my team did not like some of those concepts, I gave in and abandoned them. If you work with a team of volunteers like I do, you can't be a totalitarian about your game's design. Others will want to influence the game's design as well, so if you are stubborn about keeping the design to yourself, you'll have a hard time retaining people to help you complete your project unless you start paying them.

author=Clareain_Christopher
Avoid fangames. More specifically FF fangames. If FFD and FFBMP don't chew you up, I will.
Games that dare something new are always on my list.

I agree. I'm new here and I was hoping to try out some RPGs, but I was sorely disappointed that so many on this site are fan games, or games that re-use copyrighted assets from well-known commercial titles. I have no interest in playing such games personally. I know that it's difficult to create a game with completely original characters, story, and artwork, but I have so much more respect and interest for these types of endeavours.

I've been working on the same project for the last 8 years (yes, really). Hero of Allacrost is a project that I founded and started completely from scratch in 2004. I've worked on it off and on throughout the years and we've made several small demo releases (which you can find on our website). It's not a RPGMaker project, but one done completely from scratch. We designed and developed our own game engine and editor in addition to the game itself. It's open source, cross platform (Windows, OS X, Linux, others), has internationalization support (languages other than English), and free to play. All the artwork, sound, and music are original works, although we do use some external content that has been made available under acceptable licenses.

Here are some visuals.

Artwork







More samples of our artwork here: http://www.allacrost.org/wiki/index.php/Artwork_Style

Screenshots

These are unfortunately all pretty old. The game looks slightly better now.




More screenshots here: http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/screenshots


Videos

Earlier this week I made a video showing the game in it's current state, along with audio commentary about what we're working on and where the design is heading.


You can find older playthrough videos by searching for "allacrost" on youtube.

Thanks!

Oh, I forgot to mention that the game is completely free to play. Always has been, always will be (despite some people that try to convince me to make it a for-profit endeavour).