i don’t know where to begin so i guess i’ll start with the history of the project
the project concept began around 2002-2003 i’d just discovered fallout and thought of a kind of fanfiction but it was all in my head “what if fallout was in my home state in Australia”
around 2010 (or when ever the SDK was released) i started making a Fallout 1 map in Cry engine and showed some friends we decided we wanted to try and essentially remake fallout 1 in cry engine 3 but the idea eventually turned into my original IP being an open world post apocalyptic first person RPG set in Australia primarily around Melbourne
by early 2011 the project was called “D.R.O.N.G.O.” in hind site the title was stupid Drongo is extinct Australian slang for stupid the title implying that one would be stupid to wander the wasteland… any way we had a 100km2 mapsize some gameplay features were being implemented and yeah we were developing our little project life was good until we had to begin to adult
early 2012 development was going at the speed of bacon a number of people had left and the project was canned they were all at university or starting other careers i went off to join the Army and it was one of those things i regret never happening
this year however ive been injured and i’ll be taking 6-12 months leave (after negotiating with DVA and the Army) and for some reason call it a quarter life crisis but i want to do this i want to get this done for some reason i need to do this
i believe tech has moved on enough that i can complete at least a massive chunk of this game on my own but i admit at some point i’ll need coders right now its just me and a friend who is a professional concept artist but is willing to do some textures
the idea is that spend this time off work to at least get a working prototype working and get backing or interest anything because my ideas are ambitious with a massive game world not seen since fuel and textured by Megascans
however i don’t know where to start i want to do this but i just don’t know where to begin even back in 2011 when the project had 15 people working on it all i did was storyline in game lore and map making/detailing i have watched youtube tutorials and i am prepared to learn coding i want to do as much as i can on my own
look guys any advice is helpful i know i’m probably going to be laughed off the forum but the project is a dream of mine cheers
Well if you plan on making a game and want a team, then story line is probably the first thing you wanna have. So everyone knows what you have in mind and where you are coming from so no one is on a different page.
Do some simple concept art for levels. Get the idea you want and then start making the levels. You can buy 3D models from the launcher or other sites to use. Or get a few modeling programs.
It’ll all take time of course. But with UE4 you can use the Blueprints to get things set in if you don’t have anyone to do C++ for the project. Get sounds and music made and ready to be imported.
Story is irrelevant, all you need is context and setting. ‘Fallout 4’ style RPG in Australia is as much as you need to touch on - what you do need is a reasonable understanding of the high level game design committed to paper. From there you’ll need to start working on it yourself, as you’ll never get anywhere if you’re not progressing on your own.
I would second ambershee in putting your ideas on paper. You should look at writing your Game Design Document. There are some good templates to get you started online if you search for it. However, before tackling all of the paper work you should work on writing out the general concepts of the game on paper before diving into the detail. One good and fun way to do that is to actually imagine what the game case would look like, and draw/write it out. Typically on the back of a game case you have a few pictures highlighting visuals of the game, and 5 to 6 points that highlight the unique aspects of the gameplay. It certainly isn’t a required step, but it’s actually a fun exercise that helps you work out the premise of the game before diving into all the detail.
As the previous post mentioned, the Game Design Document (GDD) is a MUST if you want to set the approach and scope of your game. Also, it helps you to the rest of the team to fully understand your idea before you start prototyping. I have found some templates in the web, so you can find one and start filling it with the details of your project.
Sketching and designing levels helps you to transform the written ideas into graphic ideas, or maybe works the other way for you