Reality Revision

Long time since the last activity on this blog, mainly as since real actual work has started on the game, I’ve been preferring to use the forum to get work posted as opposed to this place.

However, the project presentation to University of Virginia Student Game Developers was today and this is the notes for people who wants the information…

Here’s the presentation powerpoint.

The Imperium Project was actually started around January 2008 when I grabbed Honya and began planning for a VN game based on a scenario and storyline design I built up slowly over the past three and four years or so. It is a cross-platform PC RPG designed to combine the aspects of Visual Novels (storytelling) and Tactical Role-Playing Games (battles) using 2D Isometric projection.

For scenario, characters, plot, most Computer Science people aren’t really interested in that, so I’m not going to go into that in detail. If you are interested however, browse around this blog, the wiki & forums, and you’ll see plenty of details all around that.

The SGD coding aspect will be focusing on the game’s combat levels, which will involve a number of the typical Tactical RPG features (e.g. Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem). The main difference will be instead of combat being reliance on the party as with traditional RPGs, the game will heavily emphasize on more realistic tactics using elements from RTS/RTT games (except not real time at all). Two of the most significant differences will be a heavy emphasis on template ‘minion’ units, and tradeoff of resources between local and strategic battlefield scope (affected by certain character stats as well as special orders like call reinforcements, reserves, artillery and air strikes, etc).

The code responsible for game mechanics will be written in Python language (which unfortunately isn’t taught in UVA, but it’s a simple yet powerful language with both high code and runtime efficiency). The game will be built upon the Pygame Game Development Library and Renpy Visual Novel Engine, the two of which will take care of most of the fundamental implementations (like basic display, tile mapping, I/O, etc) so the project can focus on higher level code implementation.

The development team has been steadily building up since January, and currently our group Major Arcana has nine members. However, most of the current personnel deals with the development of the characters, story, graphics, and music, with very little focus on the coding aspect. I’m hoping to get some support through SGD to help me about that however.

I’m looking for:

• Coders/Programmers (2~5) - preferably with either coding experience in Python, or at least interest in learning this language.
• Designers (1+) - preferably with RTS modding experience, as this position will require significant attention in balancing game mechanics and unit stats.
• Artists (any I can) - some experience with GIMP or Photoshop, and maybe the willingness to learn another programs if we so choose one to aid in the making of sprite and tile sets.
• Writers, Composers - if anyone in SGD is interested, which I’m not really expecting.

Contact me via email if you wish to help. If you are interested in becoming an artist or composer, it be great if you can drop me off some examples of your work.

Check the ‘Project’ bar up top for more details on this project.