Hero of Allacrost - RPG project with well-developed engine

[rujasu]

Hello everyone. It's been some time since we've posted here (http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16188), but we're still around. It's been over a year since we released our game editor and fourth demo, but progress has quietly been made behind the scenes. In the next couple of months, we will release another demo, and this will be the last one. Some of the new content we've developed can be seen here:

http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/screenshots
http://www.allacrost.org/multimedia/music

Overall though, we've suffered from a lack of manpower lately, so we are looking for people to help out. Our game engine and editor are mature enough to support the development of the full game (maps and scripting are the areas I'd say we are farthest behind in terms of) but we need some help with maintenance. In particular, because we have mostly Mac and Linux developers, we actually need some people to help maintain the Windows release. (Yes, I realize this is an odd problem to have.) We also would like someone to help with graphics programming, as the video engine has some bugs and minor limitations. Finally, we have developed a translation system using gettext, and someone with gettext experience could be very helpful with that.

Looking forward though, I'd like to get the first 1-2 chapters of the game released by year's end. This means we'll probably need people to help out in at least some of the following areas:

- Map design (we have a map editor which should make this task fairly easy)
- Game scripting (using the Lua language, which is easy to learn if you've had any programming experience)
- Enemy design, balancing
- Pixel art
- Sound effects (we do have a great collection of music at this point, but a good composer could certainly help as well)

Even if you can't help out directly, we'd appreciate any feedback you can offer us. Thanks!

[Jetrel]

Anyone who is dying to do a (strictly) FF-style RPG, and knows how to do pixel art, this'd be your chance.

I'm not very involved in the project anymore, but they've got vastly more momentum than trying to work from a dead-start.

[Cloud]

Whilst I'd love to help out with a project like this, I don't feel confident enough to say my programming skills are adequate to offer help in that area (and I've never touched Lua before), and I'm pretty inconsistant on my Wesnoth artwork at the moment. I might reconsider in the months to come, but I'll aim to join the forums and lurk for a while.

[rujasu]

Whilst I'd love to help out with a project like this, I don't feel confident enough to say my programming skills are adequate to offer help in that area (and I've never touched Lua before), and I'm pretty inconsistant on my Wesnoth artwork at the moment. I might reconsider in the months to come, but I'll aim to join the forums and lurk for a while.

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly understand the desire to sharpen your skills a bit. That said, contributors at all skill levels can help us at this point. This is particularly true in the art department. While we've always had a very small-but-effective art team, we currently have no artists who are actively contributing to the project. Currently, we have enough art to create generally usable maps, but we need help filling in the detail. The current alternative for us is to have programmers work on art, so generally if you can give us something that doesn't look dramatically out of place, or like something a five-year-old scribbled out with MSPaint, it's likely an improvement.

In terms of programming, Lua is ridiculously easy to pick up, and you really only need elementary skills for the sort of scripting we're doing. On the C++ end, we mainly just need a graphics programmer and some people to fix bugs at this point.

We're also going to need some early beta testers in the near future (probably 1-2 weeks).

In short, don't be intimidated.

Also, we have a fairly active IRC channel at #allacrost on irc.freenode.net; Roots (the project's founder) and I are there just about every night, along with a few others. Feel free to stop by. Our forum is at http://www.allacrost.org/forum/ as well. Hope to see you around.

[Jetrel]

While we've always had a very small-but-effective art team, we currently have no artists who are actively contributing to the project. Currently, we have enough art to create generally usable maps, but we need help filling in the detail. The current alternative for us is to have programmers work on art, so generally if you can give us something that doesn't look dramatically out of place, or like something a five-year-old scribbled out with MSPaint, it's likely an improvement.

Anything is helpful; if you're able to join the project, make+animate one monster, and then move on, that's still extremely useful for them.

[Roots]

There's a very strong likelihood that next month we'll have an internal release of the game in progress to our forum members. That would be a great chance for artists to actually play the game and see for themselves what art we are missing and where. Either rujasu or I will post here when that internal release is available.

[Zerovirus]

Perhaps I will join. I forgot if I have an account or not.

[Zarel]

In particular, because we have mostly Mac and Linux developers, we actually need some people to help maintain the Windows release. (Yes, I realize this is an odd problem to have.)

Hah! That's a very common problem, you know. Warzone has the same problem. 5 active Linux developers, 2 active Mac developers, and a Windows developer that's available 2 days a month. We cross-compile the Windows installer on Linux, but it's all rather silly. I guess people who like to develop software for fun generally aren't Windows users.

[Roots]

Hah! That's a very common problem, you know. Warzone has the same problem. 5 active Linux developers, 2 active Mac developers, and a Windows developer that's available 2 days a month. We cross-compile the Windows installer on Linux, but it's all rather silly. I guess people who like to develop software for fun generally aren't Windows users.

In the past we had the problem with OS X developers, not Windows. I think in 2006/2007 we had a lot more Windows programmers than anything else. Then a lot of them switched to Linux. But yeah, a lot of people who develop games for Windows want to try to make money (the vast majority of them fail miserably) so they aren't interested in projects like ours. They don't understand the bliss that is open source development.

[Roots]

We have a new release of the game available today. Unlike our past internal releases, this one we are making publicly available to everyone. We call it an "unstable" release because its basically a development snapshot, but its totally playable and gives you a great sense of where we're at and where we're going. You can download it by visiting our website and reading the front page news post.


http://www.allacrost.org/

[JustasJ]

Your "unstable" release is unstable enough for turning off suddenly without traces at the time I got really involved within the game. That was the part where I had to trace that Kyle guy within those caves. I moved right and the game suddenly turned off. No error mesagges, nothing.

[DUHH]

As with everyone, time is limited, but I´d love to contribute with something art-related. But I´ve never really done pixel art, nor tile sets, and I´m not taking any more portraits that I´m doing for Wesnoth. But battle backgrounds might be nice. Or trying to learn pixel art or doing tiles.

[Jetrel]

As with everyone, time is limited, but I´d love to contribute with something art-related. But I´ve never really done pixel art, nor tile sets, and I´m not taking any more portraits that I´m doing for Wesnoth. But battle backgrounds might be nice. Or trying to learn pixel art or doing tiles.

I can give you quite a bit of advice on pixel art and tilesets, if you take this on.

[DUHH]

I'd appreciate that very much, Jetrel!

[JustasJ]

Isn't there only use of "pixelate" filter in GIMP and knowing the size in which your pictures should be in pixel art?