I want to get a game created - help!

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I've an idea for a game for any platform really, preferably PSOne but for any I guess, can anyone help me get it off the ground?

To clarify, can I simply get the ideas and story done up or do I have to write the whole thing myself? And what about licencing (sp?) rights? The idea I have is based on a show so what kind of permissions do I need to get?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Based on a show?

You'd have to talk to the producers of the studio (or whoever owns the right to the show).

Depends on whether or not you can sell it to a publisher. Talk to one of them, then see what they'd require done. Most will offer a team that you will oversee, if they think the idea will sell.

 

If you did it for PC as freeware then I don't thin you'd need anyone's permission, but then, you don't get anything out of it that way.

 

To make a game, one needs following:

1) A team that consists of graphic modeller (~2 or more), musician, FX-planner, programmer, beta-tester, team-leader, event-planner and designer. This, of course, means...

2) That one needs loads of money to make a decend quality game. Then it needs to be manufactured, shipped, marketed and distributed -meaning: contacts and deals. And another team specialized to these.

So, if you have enough funds (say: 20,000€), then you might start thinking about finding a company and creating your game.

Whoops; did I say company? Oh, that means that one must remember the corporate law too... Lawyer, support personel, management... Then they need some proper working place too.

[ November 26, 2003, 13:08: Message edited by: Virne ]

 

For someone with NO money though, is it possible??

I mean, can I just contact the owners of the rights to the show for permission, and if I get it, contact a game publisher with my idea and get something happening? I've got pretty much the whole idea for how the game will go, but I'm still fine-tuning some of the possible gameplay options and storyline.

 

In fact, I believe that whoever created Rollercoaster Tycoon (or some game like that) did it all by himself.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/scratch.php - that article may help you.

 

Commercial development systems for consoles are extremely expensive (around the $10,000 mark). You also need a commercial development licence and the console manufacturer is due a royalty on all games sold.

However, a home development system for the Playstation was released some years ago (I can't remember what it was called - will somebody please remind me?). It's almost certainly no longer available, but you could pick one up on Ebay. You may not use this system for commercial development, but you could certainly use it to knock up a demo, which you could try hawking to various games developers.

To code a demo, you need to be a good C programmer (the Playstation development system uses the GNU C compiler) and you need to be a good artist. You will probably find that you need some assembly language skills as the CPU of the Playstation is only around 33MHz. For a demo, you could probably get away with no sound or music, otherwise you need to be able to make music as well as everything else. If your game will use vector graphics, you may not need great artistic skills as you can generate the graphics programmatically. If you want to use 3D graphics, you will need to learn the appropriate mathematics. Teaching yourself some physics for realistic interactions will not go amiss either.

If you don't have the skills required to code a demo, you can still try hawking the idea to games developers. Do a Google search on something like "pitching a game" to get the lowdown on how to go about it. If you think your idea is really great, you will need to leave a dated copy of all correspondence with a lawyer so you can assert your rights if someone tries to steal your idea.

Be aware that there isn't a great deal of development for the original Playstation going on.

An alternative to attempting to make a game for a console is to make your game for a handheld device instead. These systems use J2ME and Java is a MUCH nicer language to program in than C and all the boilerplate code you need is provided by the Java runtime. Better still, all the software you need is free to download (you just need to buy a suitable mobile phone or suchlike) and, with the possible exception of good artistry, the bedroom programmer is on an equal footing with commercial developers. Java-enabled devices are like going back to the days of the Spectrum and C64 without the need to use machine code.

 

Actually, everything doesn´t have to be that expensive. Me and 3 friends from the army started making a game. I wrote the story, one did the graphics one made the engine and the last one had been in some sort of music school so he was to do the music and sounds. Although, when our time was done in the army the project shut down

So if you know people with skill that are interested things get alot cheaper. I mean, we did this on our sparetime so we didn´t spend any money on anything since we had what we needed at home. The plan however was to sell the game to a gaming company which would, hopefully, get our names out and make things easier in the future. And ofcourse eventually get us enough money to start our own company. To bad it all went in the can when we moved back home to different cities.


Although, this might not be a solution to your problem since you might not know people with the required skills. But it doesn´t always have to be expensive. If I were you and didn´t know any people IRL I´d try to contact any mod-making party and ask if they were interesed, and had the skill, to make an entire game.

 

So, we are back at the drawing board again; you need a team of talented people who can develope the game at their spare time *regularly.* Then you might send a demo to a gaming company to promote your team, and then the company *might* show some interest -if the idea is something special indeed (=> can make lots of monnney ) and the team is willing to change this job to their day-job.

Then we might say the game is sheit and it's back to the drawing board.

 

An alternative that could be the stepping stone between your present position and your dreams in making mods to existing games. You have to start somewhere, and right now, this seems the most logical place to start. Of course, some games are more easily modded than others. You have something like NWN which is easier to make a mod for than something like BG2. Than you have things everywhere in between.

For instance, I'm looking into making mods for Jedi Academy. I just had to download the toolset, and I've started scouring the net for good tutorials. I've learned a lot in just three weeks, and I'm still truckin'.

It would be great practice and give you some experience.

 

Thanks guys, I can't program worth a s*** right now so I guess I'll look into that article (properly as soon as I get the chance) and the Google search.

I actually found out there are already 2 games based on the saame show but can't find out anything about the particular games.

 

Take a look at GameMaker5 ( www.gamemaker.nl )

You won't be able to make anything near a commercially viable game, and 3D is pretty much out of the question, but with a bit of practice you should be able to cobble together a fairly fun fangame on your own.

 

Just go for it!

 

Thanks guys, all have been a great help and a confidence-booster.