On Version 1.0 Release, Feature List, Roadmap...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - 10:50
I'm just wondering, has it been posted somewhere before what we hope to achieve by version 1.0?
Will 1.0 be a full game or just the completed engine?
Is there a list of features that will be in place by the time of the official 1.0 release?
I think it would be awesome to have a "roadmap" leading up to the release to give us a sense of progression and purpose. Have you thought about throwing one together Clint?
http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/todo.php
I know, I know, this page does not mention a 1.0 milestone. But this list has been really accurate up to this time. My guess is that after "Translations," the focus will shift to creating art assets (for nearly a year... see this post too) and then to putting together a full game.
It's probable that the GitHub milestone tracker will be more effective than the todo page in the future.
Oh, never saw this, this is exactly what I was thinking. Awesome.
Thanks
Btw I mean the post, I saw the to-do list :)
I've created v0.14 and v0.15 as Milestones in GitHub. Most issues aren't assigned to a milestone; those are just whenever they're done they can be added in.
I do plan to keep at this until a full game is released; in my mind, the engine isn't useful until it's been proven on at least one game.
The good news is that I've gotten lots of code help from plenty of you via GitHub, and I think the engine pieces will come along much sooner than I had planned because of this.
v0.15 Translations will be a MAJOR milestone, and will require a ton of work. Once the project makes it through that milestone, I imagine much of the engine work will be (1) making sure the right parts are moddable, and (2) adding interesting new features. Currently it's hard for me to see much past v0.15 to know what will be the next priority.
I will definitely be focusing on art assets after v0.15, as more art will probably be the main challenge after that.
Don't know if I've done a good job of answering the big question. If you have specific questions I can try to answer those?
Is the artwork going to be made before the story has been written? I.e. Is the artwork a part of the engine or part of the first game?
Well, I'll assume there's a ton of artwork that belongs on the "fantasy core" art no matter what story direction the game takes. Tons of common tile sets and monsters can and should be added.
It might even make sense to keep the first Flare game pretty straightforward -- maybe a Diablo style dungeon crawl with a fixed number of levels in a basic linear order, with a handful of side maps. That's not an exciting first game (especially if the levels aren't yet random) but it's definitely finishable and would be a good first step for the engine.
On the other hand, it is usually the unique things that get remembered.
I think that a lot of general art coulb be used, but that some art should be made to improve the feel, later on.
However, I think that it is best to let this evolve in a natural way.