How Far Fantasci Has Come
by Edward · 06/20/2008 (6:52 am) · 2 comments
Wow, I was looking over my Blog from a year ago. Faithfully, I have been maintaining this Blog every month, in conjunction with my Weekly Blog that details the open development of Fantasci. A year ago i was detailing my first very successful attempts to make some spacecraft with constructor. For those that dont remember it. A preverbial blast from the past.
www.garagegames.com/blogs/75893/13008
Fantasci has come a long way, from a single mmo project, to a three part Extravaganze. We have been working hard with programming with such notable names as Mark Dynna and Kittle, even contracts from DEDEN, and a interest from several high profile artists. Fantasci has kept on course, with a massive storyline and scope that rivals any small project, i have just gotten to one of my favorite cities, the Dark Elf City. some WIP items for those that dont keep up with my Blog.
As Well as some of our WIP GUI, We have chosen to not go with a prefab setup for any of our GUIs. We are remaining true to replace or remove as much if not all the prefab/kit material that we found relavent. It is a slow process. We are waiting on some code to remove the old AFX bar. Already these GUI pics are out of date, as we add in the popup code for the loot, add tranparencies, create additional icons for quick keys.
and one of our pics with some of our Visual Damage popups.
also a recap of the other city/zone for those that dont keep up with our weekly blog.
and some Static Discharge effects in one of our Scifi levels.
I want to take the time right now to thank those that have taken time to release some very useful tutorials that make alot of Fantasci possible. By listening to advice from the past posts and paying attention to forum posts, it has made break throughs for us. I also wanted to thank my team for making it so far, 15 months now is no small feat to work on 1 game, and one of such scope. We are slowly knocking out the functionality portions and well slowly turn to our Content phase and then its all polish and updates. :)
We would like to think that Fantasci is a example of what a serious minded Indie can do when they take a large idea and build on a idea step by step. My secret. I dont come to the board thinking lets take a prefab kit and make WoW. Wont happen and if you think it will happen you will fail. But if you know what you want. And build all your systems one at a time, building them one at a time, adding on like a lego system. The secret to this, is planning ahead. Do the research. Know that if your going to have some kind of persistance, you will need a DB in the future. Create a rubust DB first, then build on it. Keep it simple at first. Simple inventory, check, then lets add special modifies to the inventory, lets the add special ammo, and so forth. Dont try to through it all at once. This is a huge issue with teams with more then 1 programmer. The trick here. Organization. Assign 1 person to over see a specific task (or group of persons) and Complete the task before handing it off the the next task.
Over all, Persistance. Persistance of mind, Persistance of Story, Persistance of Ponfidance. I see Fantasci as it will be. I see it as a huge success. Fantasci 2: Spoils of War(Working title) is already being looked at in my spare time, so that Fantasci: Hidden War is being built to accomadate the Multiplayer version, which will be built on the storyline and information being gathered from the first project. Like a Snowball. We could do Fantasci: Hidden War as a MMORPG from the start. But honestly, Its too large of a project for a new studio to take off in 1 bite. So small bites and poof, a reasonable timeline, a managable project setup. And lots of great surprises.
Thanks for stopping by, We enjoy doing these blogs as we continue to give everyone a open development picture of what goes into a project. We do plan to close the open development stuff up as we close up our alpha phase, probably in 3-4 months. Dont forget if you havent already we have a weekly blog going back these 15 months at.
www.mydreamrpg.com/community/showthread.php?p=13479
Some of our movies and a free player manual (already a bit out of date, but a good pointer)
hosted.filefront.com/racs333
www.fantascihiddenwar.com
Interested in joining Fantasci's Team Drop me a line at racs333@hotmail.com. We are looking for artists and programmers that are interest in a long term project and might be interested in the challenge brought by 7 genres of game world, and a monster selection of items, monsters and models.
www.garagegames.com/blogs/75893/13008
Fantasci has come a long way, from a single mmo project, to a three part Extravaganze. We have been working hard with programming with such notable names as Mark Dynna and Kittle, even contracts from DEDEN, and a interest from several high profile artists. Fantasci has kept on course, with a massive storyline and scope that rivals any small project, i have just gotten to one of my favorite cities, the Dark Elf City. some WIP items for those that dont keep up with my Blog.
As Well as some of our WIP GUI, We have chosen to not go with a prefab setup for any of our GUIs. We are remaining true to replace or remove as much if not all the prefab/kit material that we found relavent. It is a slow process. We are waiting on some code to remove the old AFX bar. Already these GUI pics are out of date, as we add in the popup code for the loot, add tranparencies, create additional icons for quick keys.
and one of our pics with some of our Visual Damage popups.also a recap of the other city/zone for those that dont keep up with our weekly blog.
and some Static Discharge effects in one of our Scifi levels.
I want to take the time right now to thank those that have taken time to release some very useful tutorials that make alot of Fantasci possible. By listening to advice from the past posts and paying attention to forum posts, it has made break throughs for us. I also wanted to thank my team for making it so far, 15 months now is no small feat to work on 1 game, and one of such scope. We are slowly knocking out the functionality portions and well slowly turn to our Content phase and then its all polish and updates. :)
We would like to think that Fantasci is a example of what a serious minded Indie can do when they take a large idea and build on a idea step by step. My secret. I dont come to the board thinking lets take a prefab kit and make WoW. Wont happen and if you think it will happen you will fail. But if you know what you want. And build all your systems one at a time, building them one at a time, adding on like a lego system. The secret to this, is planning ahead. Do the research. Know that if your going to have some kind of persistance, you will need a DB in the future. Create a rubust DB first, then build on it. Keep it simple at first. Simple inventory, check, then lets add special modifies to the inventory, lets the add special ammo, and so forth. Dont try to through it all at once. This is a huge issue with teams with more then 1 programmer. The trick here. Organization. Assign 1 person to over see a specific task (or group of persons) and Complete the task before handing it off the the next task.
Over all, Persistance. Persistance of mind, Persistance of Story, Persistance of Ponfidance. I see Fantasci as it will be. I see it as a huge success. Fantasci 2: Spoils of War(Working title) is already being looked at in my spare time, so that Fantasci: Hidden War is being built to accomadate the Multiplayer version, which will be built on the storyline and information being gathered from the first project. Like a Snowball. We could do Fantasci: Hidden War as a MMORPG from the start. But honestly, Its too large of a project for a new studio to take off in 1 bite. So small bites and poof, a reasonable timeline, a managable project setup. And lots of great surprises.
Thanks for stopping by, We enjoy doing these blogs as we continue to give everyone a open development picture of what goes into a project. We do plan to close the open development stuff up as we close up our alpha phase, probably in 3-4 months. Dont forget if you havent already we have a weekly blog going back these 15 months at.
www.mydreamrpg.com/community/showthread.php?p=13479
Some of our movies and a free player manual (already a bit out of date, but a good pointer)
hosted.filefront.com/racs333
www.fantascihiddenwar.com
Interested in joining Fantasci's Team Drop me a line at racs333@hotmail.com. We are looking for artists and programmers that are interest in a long term project and might be interested in the challenge brought by 7 genres of game world, and a monster selection of items, monsters and models.
About the author
I am working on my first large Game with a team of programmers and artists. I am a avid gamer and am the lead producer and director of Fantasci Hidden War. I have my first published game credit with Chariots as a Level Designer and Interior Artist.
#2
06/20/2008 (10:29 am)
I love that first forest shot, reminds me of UT and that forest; which reminded me a great deal of the redwoods out here on the West Coast... 
Torque Owner Brian Wilson
Not to go off on a tangent, but it would be great if some of those out there working on MMO-esque projects could write up retrospective articles on what it's like to be in the middle of such a big undertaking so that the bright-eyed newcommers can know what to expect life to be like once the projects are underway.
Keep us updated on progress, it's always good to see how things are going.