Topic: Introducing... me, myself and my project

I just thought I'd say a quick hello to this forum.

My name is Philipp Geyer. I'm a game programmer. I graduated University of Abertay, Dundee a year and a half ago (Summer 2010) and started working for Ideaworks Game Studio in London. Since then, I've worked on 4 iOS titles including, most recently, Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies.

In my "free time" or what little I have, I enjoy programming and fiddling around on my own personal projects. Much as I have little distractions, mainly in the field of Memetics where I'm trying to write a small library to allow evolution and dispertion of information within games, the main project I have been spending my time on is a game.

Due to a couple of reasons, the game will be targetted towards Windows/OS X/Linux with the possibility of handhelds and other devices coming later. The original plan was that I would develop a game engine along side the game, with some friends doing the gameplay programming, however, I have since given up on that as it appears I cannot trust any of my friends to do any work. I am not insane enough to believe that I can do both engine development and gameplay programming, hence me looking for an engine to use and coming across Maratis3D.

The schedule for my game was disrupted, unfortunately. The plan was to have my engine in a usable state for the game to begin development in earnest in Early September. Until that time my team and I have been busy with design work and have a good deal of game design and plot design worked out and written up. We also commissioned a couple of pieces of concept art. September, unfortunately, was the beginning of almost 3 months of crunch time for me and my friends were starting their last year at university.
TL;DR: Busy busy busy. Game was put on hold.

As the game was recently released and the first scary updates are out, I'm no longer quite as stressed at work, so I am resurrecting my project.

A little more about me. I use Linux predominantly and, while at university, have done several talks about gaming on Linux, both what games are available and what's available to develop games easily for it. I have also fiddled around with as many different hardware and software platforms that I have been able to get my hands on. I wouldn't say that I'm confident with all of them, but I'm at least familiar. I am a big fan of free and open source software, but as of yet, have not contributed, or released any myself. I do intend to try and give back to Maratis though whenever I can.

Finally, I'm just looking for a 3D artist to be able to bring my concept art to life, until I have something I can work with and play around with, I will be poking around the Maratis source code some more and getting more comfortable with it. When I have something visual up and running, I will probably start a devblog and link to it from the forum, adding pretty pictures to my posts smile

If anyone has any questions, give a shout. I hope I can give as much to the Maratis community that Maratis looks like it will give me.

  • anael
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Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

Hi Philipp,
welcome to the forum and thank you for your message, it is very worm and interesting,
I think it is very valuable to the community to read from a professional, I hope some people will respond and keep the topic alive smile

I'd love to see more about your project when it's started.

Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

I've been asking around for artists, so with any luck, I can have something together soon. I still need a name for the game so I can get a fitting domain name, but that will all come in time.

Also, much as the majority of my "free time" will be working on my game, I still have a love of side projects, apart from anything else, if I've been wrestling with a particularly gnarly problem for a while, it's nice to change what I'm looking at. For this reason, I can try and offer my services, primarily to try and add features to Maratis, with Anael's permission of course, but if anyone has anything that they might want adding, give me a shout and if I've got time, I'll give it a go. I'm interested in engine development, hence me trying to write my own, and have some experience through work with integrating 3rd party libraries.

EDIT:I've just reread what I've written and I'm sorry if my posts sound conceited. I'm not trying to just come in here and say "look at me, I'm awesome, I will do everything" I am far from competent enough to make something so complete or robust as Anael seems to, but I'm willing to learn and help where I can, and I definitely want to help contribute to this project smile

Last edited by Nistur (2012-01-07 18:01:22)

  • Vegas
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Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

Hi & welcome! (very late..)
I'm pretty intrigued about your project, what type of game will it be ?

Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

Thanks! Any welcome is better than none wink

The game design started off life about 3 years ago with my friend and I talking about point and click adventure games. So it's heritage will be there. However it's... evolved a bit since then.

It will be a 3rd person murder mystery set in a semi-fantasy pseudo Noir world with a dash of dark humour. I believe I was playing Discworld Noir at the time. However, rather than a point-click interaction, the player will control with a more normal, direct, control method. Much as I don't like the comparison, Heavy Rain is maybe a reasonable example.

The game design itself is probably far too big to undertake with a scattering of people during what little free time we have available, but the plan is to make a polished demo with one location, then try and use that to get interest in the project and build up the team.

As I think I said, the plan is to aim for desktop OSs. One reason behind that is that I can't do anything which comes into competition with my work. So no iOS, probably no Android. For now at least. Also, I don't have an iOS device and I can't afford to set up dev stuff for one. (I also don't want to give Apple any more money than they already have...) On the other hand, through work, I have contacts in Sony, and I've been told that, if I can get a demo made, they will make sure I can get a devkit, probably a Vita. So I think I might try and make Maratis work using the Homebrew PSP devkit to begin with, so I can send them a demo they can see on device.

I have a couple of pieces of concept art, but I don't really feel like sharing them yet tongue I want to keep the suspense a little longer wink When I have the beginnings of the first location modelled, I think I might show the concept art, and maybe a glimpse of the location tongue I have a very rough block out I made, but I'm the world's worst 3D artist, I'm waiting for my colleague to replace it with prettiness tongue

  • Vegas
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Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

Nistur wrote:

I have a couple of pieces of concept art, but I don't  really feel like sharing them yet tongue

Grr i was about to ask if you mind to drop a sketching or something smile

Looking forward to see the first images, btw i saw the robot in the other topic,
don't know if this is for you game, but that's a really stunning work.

Hope to see more soon !

Re: Introducing... me, myself and my project

Heh, I just like to keep people guessing a little wink I'm sure you will see it shortly smile As soon as I have something more substantial than some concept art and a grey box room, it will be posted.

About the robot, it's not for the game, it is a personal project done by my friend and colleague, Umar Shaheen. He's been working on it for a while now. I asked whether he minded me use it for a few tests for polycount and things, as it's quite high poly. He has, however, said he would do some of the work for my game smile