PARPG - isometric old school 2d RPG searching for 3d & concept artists (/w images)

[mvBarracuda]

Team name:
PARPG development team.

Project name:
PARPG - post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. It's just a working title at the moment and we can reconsider it later.

Brief description:
I had plans for such a project for quite some time but it was more of a vague idea than anything else. In late January 2009 I decided to start writing down my ideas for the project at a wiki. PARPG will be an old school 2d isometric roleplaying game, inspired by genre classics such as Fallout, Arcanum or Planescape: Torment.

The development team has agreed upon the following key elements:
* Singleplayer RPG. No plans for multiplayer or coop support.
* Post-apocalyptic setting. Story, setting and game mechanics details get fleshed at the moment.
* Written in Python (2.5x branch). Utilizing the FIFE game engine.
* Isometric 2d perspective instead of going for full 3d engine complexity.
* Open source code and asset licensing.
* Open development philosophy. Public development wiki and forums. Anonymous SVN checkout.
* Meaningful choices and consequences. Multiple paths to complete quests, including non-violent ways.
* Tactical, turnbased combat.
* Emphasis on well-written detailed branching tree dialogue.

Target aim:
Open source & non profit. Actual code and content licensing (which open source license to choose) will be discussed among the team.

Compensation:
Although there are no intentions to make monetary profit with the project, there are a bunch of potential reasons for developers to get involved:
* Improving your personal portfolio with the demo version of the game to land a job in the industry. The demo will be a one town / location version of the game. Creating such a demo will be an already quite challenging task and it gives us the chance to test concepts in a smaller scale undertaking first before trying to tackle a full game. A more detailed description of the demo concept can be found at the project wiki.
* Love for old school isometric 2d RPGs.
* Enthusiasm for open source game development.
* Gaining game development experience by working on a team project.

Technology:
Targeted platforms: Linux, Win32. Mac support would be a plus but judging from the project that I worked on in the past, finding a Mac maintainer can be a lot of hassle so supporting Macintosh systems is not a must.

Programming language: Python 2.5x; not all important Python libraries have been ported to Py3k yet so we'll stick to the 2.5 branch for now.

Engine: FIFE. I was personally involved in the FIFE project for three years and although the engine is not feature-complete and development is currently going slow, it might be the best basis that is available for such a project.

Talent needed:
Graphics artist
We're trying to find artists who would like to contribute in one of the following possible fields of work:
* 3d modeling: creating either organic or inorganic 3d models e.g. (non) player characters, items, weapons, etc. Blender would be the prefered tool of choice. A first rendering setup has been created and can be found in our SVN repository now: http://parpg-svn.cvsdude.com/parpg/trunk/media/blender/rendering_setup_01.blend

Team structure:
amo-ej1 - python programmer
barra - public relations, developer recruitment, infrastructure maintenance, project management
kaydeth - python programmer
or1andov - python programmer
sirren - 3d artist (character modeling & animation)
zenbitz - Python programmer; besides his plans to contribute as game programmer, he currently fleshes out the mechanics of PARPG. zenbitz comes from a pen & paper RPG background

Website:
Blog (http://blog.parpg.net)
Forum (http://forums.parpg.net)
Gallery (http://wiki.parpg.net/Gallery) - featuring concept art, renders, screenshots
IRC logs (http://logs.parpg.net)
Subversion repository (http://svn.parpg.net)
Trac - task tracker (http://trac.parpg.net)
Wiki (http://wiki.parpg.net)

Contact:
I prefer contact via email: martin DOT vohland AT googlemail DOT com

Additional information:
Screenshots:
http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/8/83/Screen-2009-10-06-14-12-41.png/500px-Screen-2009-10-06-14-12-41.png (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/8/83/Screen-2009-10-06-14-12-41.png)

Animations: (these GIF versions look a bit odd, but the ingame versions look far better)
http://wiki.parpg.net/images/c/ca/Long_coat_female_run.gif http://wiki.parpg.net/images/6/60/Long_coat_female_pickup.gif http://wiki.parpg.net/images/c/c8/Long_coat_female_stand.gif http://wiki.parpg.net/images/8/83/Long_coat_female_use.gif http://wiki.parpg.net/images/7/7c/Long_coat_female_walk.gif

Concept Art:
http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/d/d1/Rooftop_community2.jpg/500px-Rooftop_community2.jpg (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/d/d1/Rooftop_community2.jpg)

http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/4/4d/Guard-1.png/500px-Guard-1.png (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/4/4d/Guard-1.png)

Render:
http://wiki.parpg.net/images/7/7a/Zimble_walls.png

http://wiki.parpg.net/images/3/3b/JUNKHOUSE.png

Feedback:
Any kind of feedback is appreciated. We're more than willing to learn from any mistake so shoot, we can take it :-)

[mvBarracuda]

Note: I've adjusted the contact information in the starting post. Please DO NOT get in contact with me via email or PM if you would like to get involved in PARPG.

Personally answering every application turned out to be a lot of stress and as I'm rather busy right now, we have to send you to the introduction board of our forums (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?board=8.0), where you can get involved in the project. I know it sucks that you have to register there but it turned out to be the only viable solution for us at this point. Application emails have been piling up during busy weeks and I simply didn't have the time to check out all of them and reply to them in a way that each serious application would have deserved to be replied to. Thanks for your understanding.

But let's get to the news update right now! Sometimes there seem to be an endless number of obstacles to jump over in the course of developing a large scale game from scratch. In the end it all comes down to persistence to work through all of this. This said: heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update!

Let's start with a short FIFE-related note: if you're running the SVN version of PARPG on your Windows system, make sure you check out the new FIFE Win32 DevKit (http://fifengine.de/2009/11/16/new-fife-win32-devkit-available/). The FIFE team recently updated their DevKit to address a really annoying guichan issue and furthermore also moved from Python 2.5 to Python 2.6. Our download guide (http://wiki.parpg.net/Download) has been updated according to it so make sure to check it out!

On the code front amo-ej1 created a dialog validation tool that will help the writers to verify that the dialog files don't contain any syntactical errors. Furthermore: saritor started to refactor our GUI code in a branch, an architecture proposal (http://wiki.parpg.net/Proposal:GUI_Architecture) can be found at the wiki.

Here's a quick rundown of the events in the graphics department. New artist on the team comscar created the portrait of a snow shoveler (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/c/ce/PARPGcomscar_snowman-1.png) in cooperation with veteran Gaspard. As Gaspard has been on a drawing spree lately, he also had a stab at this snow panorama (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/b/b7/Aloneinthewilds.png).

Continuum modeled a collection of rusty barrels (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/c/ce/Rusty_barrels.png) while new artist on the team EGO created two (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/5/52/Mall_3.jpg) mockups (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/c/ce/Mall_2.jpg) of the techdemo mall area. While EGO was on a run he also created a lone explorer (http://wiki.parpg.net/File:Finderskeepers1.jpg) concept.

Looks like the situation in the concept art department is improving lately: Q_x is new on the team as well and contributed a main menu concept (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/7/74/Mockup.png) right away. We have also updated the wiki gallery (http://wiki.parpg.net/Gallery) over the course of the last two weeks and added additionals screenshots (http://wiki.parpg.net/Gallery#Screenshots) there.

I know that I sound like a broken record but we're still short of 3d artists :-( You would like to help us out of our misery? Please don't hesitate to introduce yourself (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?board=8.0) at our forums!

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog (http://blog.parpg.net).

That's all for today. Next news update scheduled for Monday, 30th of November. See you then :-)

As we're still short of 3d artists at the moment, concept art veteran zeli had a stab at 3d modeling again. Not bad for the start:
http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/4/43/Zeli_building.jpg/500px-Zeli_building.jpg (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/4/43/Zeli_building.jpg)

[mvBarracuda]

Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update! This one will be rather short and not so picture-heavy as the last ones. Most of us have been pretty busy lately, so the number of topics to write about is rather small.

First and foremost: we found out that shipping the upcoming techdemo release of PARPG in 2009 is not realistic anymore at this point. There is simply too much planned content still missing but we'll try our best to release the techdemo in early 2010; hopefully between late January and early March. I'm sure that's no news but this aspect needs to be underlined again: content licensing is simply a huge can of worms. We can hopefully ship the entire content of the techdemo under CC 3.0 BY-SA terms but it looks like at least some used textures that reside in our SVN repository and won't ship with the game will be licensed under different terms. For details check the blog.

Open source enthuasiast Sindwiller posted a work in progress audio track. Head over to our forums (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=582.0) and feel free to provide feedback. We plan to feature the final version of the track in our first techdemo release.

The objects directory has been recently restructured (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=580.0) and kaydeth created a first test version of the win32 installer (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=516.0). Furthermore we also recently discovered a performance bottleneck that shows up if you have a lot of map instances. Furtunately we were able to profile (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=570.0) the issue and the FIFE devs plan to improve performance in this field in one of their upcoming releases.

The techdemo characters have been further fleshed out; both at the wiki (http://wiki.parpg.net/Draft:Inn_and_denizens) as well as their ingame scripts in SVN (http://parpg-svn.cvsdude.com/parpg/trunk/game/dialogue/).

Sirren created a bunch of furniture (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=579.0), including beds (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=579.0). All the new models including the used textures can be found in the media section of our SVN repository (http://parpg-svn.cvsdude.com/parpg/trunk/media/3d_models/) now!

Now one last personal remark from my side. Unfortunately a lot of university-related tasks have been piling up over the course of the last weeks. I'm simply not good at multitasking so for now I have to take a break until the Christmas holidays to finally finish two still outstanding papers. Don't worry, I'll be be back to bring you the next (short) news update some time between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Stay tuned!

Read the full news update at the PARPG development blog (http://blog.parpg.net/).

And here's the teaser for this week: a gate. Hey, but at least we figured out how to properly apply alphablending whenever the player characters walks under the way archway!

http://wiki.parpg.net/images/d/dc/Screen-2009-11-30-20-23-22.png

[mvBarracuda]

Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. We hope you had pleasant holidays and wild New Year's Eve parties :-)

Some of us just returned from their holiday break and now it's time to find out who's still around and can help us to release our first techdemo in early 2010.

This said: open source enthusiast Sindwiller is definately still around and released an updated but yet still work in progress version of his Snow may never end (http://parpg-svn.cvsdude.com/parpg/trunk/game/music/snow_may_never_end.ogg) audio track. Feel free to give it a listen and let us know what you think.

While our programmers have been enjoying a well-deserved rest, the FIFE team has been working on a new stable release (the first one after 18 months!) of their open source engine that is utilized by PARPG as well. If things go as planned, their 0.3.0 release will be shipped at 2010/20/01 (http://www.fifengine.de/2009/12/14/fife-0-3-0-release-date-january-20th-2010/). With some massive luck, the new experimental view code (http://www.fifengine.de/2009/12/07/view-performance-branch-almost-complete/) that is currently in testing stages, will make it into the release as well. We've tested the code ourselves (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=570.msg6946#msg6946) and although there are some smaller bugs left, performance improvements have been massive on some systems :-)

Zenbitz hasn't been lazy over the holidays, but rather continued to work on the dialog scripts (http://parpg-trac.cvsdude.com/parpg/changeset/454), so feel free to check out the latest dialogs in action (http://wiki.parpg.net/Download).

Looks like our concept artists don't celebrate Christmas; at least I have no idea when they were able to find the time to pump out a massive number of new character portraits. Last but not least, we're doing some hidden product placement to advertize a long time favourite indie RPG project that recently released a first combat demo of their game.

Read the full news update at the PARPG blog to find out which game it is: PARPG development blog (http://blog.parpg.net/)

And as mentioned above, here's one of the new portraits, say hello to Jacob:

http://wiki.parpg.net/images/thumb/0/0b/Jacob.png/500px-Jacob.png (http://wiki.parpg.net/images/0/0b/Jacob.png)

That's all for today, next news update scheduled for Monday, 18th of January.

[mvBarracuda]

Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update! We've finally made it: the first techdemo release of PARPG is available for Linux, Mac and Win32 :-)

Win32:
* PARPG techdemo 1 r522 Win32 installer (https://sourceforge.net/projects/parpg/files/techdemo1/parpg_td1_r522_win32.exe/download)

Linux, Mac, BSD variants:
* FIFE r3236 source package (https://sourceforge.net/projects/parpg/files/techdemo1/fife_r3236_src.tar.gz/download) (needed to run PARPG)
* PARPG techdemo 1 r522 source package (https://sourceforge.net/projects/parpg/files/techdemo1/parpg_td1_r522_src.tar.gz/download)

You can find detailed instructions how to install PARPG on your system at our blog (http://blog.parpg.net/2010/03/parpg-techdemo-1-finally-available/).

My permanent departure:
This said: I'm sorry to say so but it turned out that I won't have more free time on my hands in April. There have been changes in real life and I simply don't have the time and the energy to continue my job in project management. That's why I've decided to ship this first techdemo release of PARPG and retire after that.

The reason why I'm announcing my departure now, is that the increased public interest due the recent release hopefully helps to find a new maintainer for the project. I do still strongly believe in the concept of an old school isometric 2d RPG but unfortunately time for me has run out.

Unfortunately not many of the formerly involved devs are still active at this point. But I'm sure that a new project manager can find a new interested developers for such a project.

PARPG infrastructure:
To increase the chances that somebody actually picks up the project, I'll leave the entire infrastructure (blog, forums, wiki, trac, svn, etc.) in place for at least another full year. I'll pay for the hosting and will be around and do my best to support anyone willing to take over.

Ways to contact me:
In case you want to discuss becoming the new maintainer of the project, feel free to contact me via IRC (http://irc.parpg.net) or email: martin DOT vohland AT googlemail DOT com.

That's all concerning PARPG for today.

Not sure who will post the next update at this blog. In case we can't find a new maintainer for the project soon, the next update will be prolly the first post mortem article mentioned above.