Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Programming => Topic started by: ScottFreeCapital on February 14, 2015, 06:52:33 pm

Title: HLP Game Designers?
Post by: ScottFreeCapital on February 14, 2015, 06:52:33 pm
Just curious if there are many HLPers who are also game designers. Given the amount of crazy awesome, vast scope mods, I would suspect that many of those modders either moved on to game design, or never quite stopped modding during work on game-like things. During my work week I create cloud applications that sadly do not involve explosions, stories, characters, ships, bullets or lasers, or any other awesome stuff.

I just barely started work on a real time strategy game using the Unity game engine. Now that I have started working on this as a side project, it is honestly all I can see myself doing in the long term future, I totally love it. Every small tiny feature that gets done is far more exciting than every tiny feature I'd normally complete at my day job.

I was kind of torn between putting this on the Game Discussion board and here, but I figured I'd place it on the Programming board just because about 98% of all the game design work I've done with the Unity game engine is code. They seem to kind of tell you that you don't so much need that much code and only need to throw in scripts here and there - that's a lie. A better way to think about the Unity engine in my experience thus far is that it provides the graphics and environment you need but all your mechanics still have to be written out. Of course, you can occasionally download some third party tools to do this for you.
Title: Re: HLP Game Designers?
Post by: Lepanto on February 14, 2015, 08:43:13 pm
I'm also a writer for Legends of Equestria, a FTP MLP Unity MMORPG. It's a massive undertaking, dwarfing any FS project. I wrote in minor NPCs based on Misuzu and Steele. :)

I don't need to know much about the technical side of game development, which is convenient, because my coding experience is limited to one online class I gave up on out of sheer frustration.
Title: Re: HLP Game Designers?
Post by: ScottFreeCapital on February 16, 2015, 01:22:47 pm
I'm also a writer for Legends of Equestria, a FTP MLP Unity MMORPG. It's a massive undertaking, dwarfing any FS project. I wrote in minor NPCs based on Misuzu and Steele. :)

I don't need to know much about the technical side of game development, which is convenient, because my coding experience is limited to one online class I gave up on out of sheer frustration.

I just had to Google "Legends of Equestria" and found the website: hilarious to see the dark colors here on HLP and your love of FreeSpace mixed with that kind of a color scheme.

In typical "game designer" fashion, I've had my hand in all areas without really ever being a master of any. I write a lot of code for a living now, but that doesn't make me a master of even programming by any means.

Long ago, I created some 3D models here at HLP, none of which ended up included in any mods or even got textures, but still - it was a good experience to get done.

I also have designed some levels here and there - barely started on some worlds for the Source engine (used to create Half-Life games), did about 10-15 missions for FreeSpace back in the day (though that data got lost on some freely hosted website somewhere, maybe it's on one of my ancient hard drives).

After working on my new RTS game, I have to say that I think the bulk of the magic for games certainly happens with code. Or, maybe about half of it happens with code and the rest happens from the artists. A great game could not exist without both.
Title: Re: HLP Game Designers?
Post by: Lorric on February 17, 2015, 11:13:18 am
Look at all those pony avatars:

http://www.legendsofequestria.com/team

And then there it is. The Freespace logo. :pimp: