How Close Can Indies Get To AAA Games?

I envy you 2D guys, in VR we need stable fps at 90 at all times. You can forget set pass calls above 500 or real time light, or deferred rendering for that matter. We can just dream about foliage and the like :/ I hope multi core draw call optimization will change all that some day, Vulkan still don't work with SteamVR on 2017.1 so we are stuck on DX11.

Haha, that's cool, probably can't afford you anyway but nice work on those scenes!
When the game start to generate some revenue I will remember you

Waiting list is just if you rent, if you have the money you can buy a house any time. yeah, alcohol is expensive in general here

 

You guys talked about PGC earlier, just saw this in my artstation flow, looks sick

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/42V98

 

There you go @ShadowK ... you have much confirmation of how high the quality is in your work. Now throw that quality out and get something done! lol

Maybe try dropping it down to half time?

 

Nah, I'd scrap the project if it wasn't up to my standards.. I'd hate to release something and say sorry people I could do better but ultimatley I couldn't be bothered. Oh by the way I want you to pay for it..

I understand there needs to be a compromise somewhere, I mean if it's not maintainable I am essentially tripping myself up before I've started.. Although graphics to me are important, it's like music it has to at a base level clearly relay what you're trying to achieve and there's many types of music as there is games y'know I've seen beautiful 2D games, 3D games etc. come in all sorts of styles from solo dev's all the way up to AAA..

I still think today seiken densetsu (secret of mana) is a great looking 2D game, very interesting.. Graphics are the window into your game and it sets mood / atmosphere etc. etc. you think the batman franchise would be the same if they were half assed low poly graphics set in an overly bright day scene?

It's just they aren't the be all and end all, there has to be an actual game under that impressive exterior that's worth playing, it's all for naught if that's not the case.. As opposed to what some say, have the right recording equipment and you can have the highest fidelity recording of a guy who sings like a cat.. Doesn't mean anyone wants to actually listen to it ..

I think the more stylistic approach (in my last screenies) as it's simpler and TBH looks more effective is probably the way to go..

 

Lighting and good asset, don't really showcase pcg much in any way here lol, the camera works is half the job.

But yeah PGC is something hard to sells, people can't tell whta's important in the final image anyway, and why their crappy attempts is bad irrespective of PGC.

Nobody to continue the planning challenge? Anyone to help do the requirement breakdown of a town? I promise to realize something with all of that if we complete the plan. It will involve pgc obviously lol.

 

I tend to write in extremes about graphics. I know that. Honestly I think I do it more to reinforce it in my own head more than anything else.

Well that and I have seen too many other projects killed by this graphics thing over the years where people literally just gave up because other devs kept pushing them to improve the graphics so they finally just said to hell with it thinking nobody seemed to appreciate all of the work they were putting in. Anyway it is enjoyable making art. Not sure why but it is. And it is only natural to iterate and make things better and better.

I don't want to do it because I know from firsthand experience I'd never get anything done and ultimately I get much more satisfaction from that. So my games are tiny, don't look awesome and probably seen as a joke around here but that is okay. I get satisfaction from it.

Anyway sounds good. As long as you have a path forward that is the important thing. And yeah the last screenshots look great. I think you could lower it down some but if you can have a playable demo out by the weekend at this level then more power to you. lol

 

The key is - as always - insane amounts of grass

 

I think @AndersMalmgren and @GarBenjamin are both onto something really important for small efforts.

I think there's too much focus on epic scope, huge worlds, etc.

@AndersMalmgren's video really demonstrates that instead of going big, lavishing immense detail on the small can have huge payoff. @GarBenjamin is also on the same track with his idea to take on a 1-2 mile area and just cram it with stuff to do.

The most unexplored space in games is interaction. Sometimes those interactions can be AI driven (like agent based simulations I'm obsessed with (mount and blade, Crusader Kings, Sims, etc).

@AndersMalmgren's example is interaction with fine details on weapons.

The new Metro has insane environmental interactions, the rocks sliding off the edge of the cliff, everything seemingly alive.

Minecraft has free form interaction on a scale never before seen, being able to completely build and change the world.

As impressive as AAA titles are, they tend to not revolve around interaction to the same degree as both pure high fidelity, scope, and attention to detail. AAA prefers the mind blowing set piece, but these are rarely interactive.

I really think that the space for interesting and clever interactions is still fairly wide open for smaller efforts.

 

Oh I forgot to mention I have not played that Batman Arkham game I've heard so much about but I have to say that Uncharted 4 I am studying does indeed look very impressive.

Visually it is incredibly well done from what I have seen so far. The gameplay is all super simple but seems to be executed very well. There is still some stupid auto cinematic scripted stuff happening but for the most part they have managed to integrate it into the game fairly seamlessly.

Right now I am trying to decide what to do... a demake of a scene from Uncharted 4, revisit the rpg project from last weekend to scale it down further and complete a game from it, completely redo it all as an ultra low poly rpg action game or finish up my AGK game jam template.

I guess my next dev session should be completing the gj template and get it out of the way. Then I'd kind of like to add some wildlife to that rpg demo. Maybe some geese hanging around the water and some rabbits in the fields. And maybe a cave. With some skeletons and other undead. Maybe some big spiders too.

Ha ha. I'm just messing around anyway so why not?

 

I dig the "demake" idea, and I'd love to see your take on a scene from Uncharted, it'd be fun to check out.

 

Just another random note on the "grass" demos we're seeing.

I've always been a big, big believer that "quantity has a quality all it's own". I think that the grass examples really demonstrate that visually.

Even in my, far less polished project, by pushing the grass quantity I was finally able to achieve some decent looking and feeling scenes.


Nothing here but 1 grass texture and 4 terrain textures.

 

You are just scared lol I focus on small world but this is a thread about AAA, and how to get close, we have to go analytic, but people don't like that, it's not glamour, that's why I started the planning challenge "on a big epic". People are just trying to cope with their cognitive dissonance imho, they do like amazing stuff, but then instead of rationally measure what's possible, they turn around and make assumption to not have their dream shattered.

I have notice when teaching some people that if you make the demonstration that they can, they would still refuse, because it doesn't match their mental model. Not saying that AAA indie is entirely possible, but the thing is to measure exactly WHERE it fails.

I mean look at that pgc landscape, someone was convinced that pcg is good base on something that has nothing to do with pgc, people just want easy confirmation of their fear. That's why IMHO many project don't get done, not because they are big, but because people are driven by fear, insecurity, dream and indecision, these are related, they are attracted to "comfort", to not be hurt, like someone who search his key at night, under the sole lamp post, even though that's not where they lost their keys, but at least they can see there, braving the dark is too scary. The "short term flash" is what people look at, like these artstation model that won't work in real case scenario, it's all about the illusion!

I use to feel that way, insecurity drove me to do bad decision, in order to prove myself to other and to me, I tried to put amazing works that would lead to nowhere, it's less glamour to do things in order, where you have to do more menial tasks before shining, I resist jumping on these forums and distract myself with short terms work that would "prove" my point because it won't lead anywhere in practice, I have done that too much and fell behind my ambition, that's why my project is 10 years old, always building "demo", sample, screenshots, concepts, to prove I'm doing something, to be secure, but really that was crap lol. I did stuff in order and now I have a solid structure to move forward! That was late but alas I did it, and it was faster!

/rants


Believe in the rational

 

There's only one thing that slows me down and I avoid too much, characters.. Creating 150 animations, sounds, 20 models with 20 types of clothes that has to be morphed 20X over for every body morph, which requires different Idle's / blendshape animations for every cutscene dialogue you do is ridiculously dull and time consuming. The rest is meh.!

I might just have most of my chars wearing helmets, it would cut down development time by about three months ..

P.S gotta love CE / LY, it even has "gaze control" LOL!. http://docs.cryengine.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1310802

 

I think you miss my point.

My point is that if instead of focusing on the very large scope - if you lavish detail on very small scope you can out perform AAA.

I've never seen gun detail on a AAA game as high as @AndersMalmgren's gun example. No AAA game has done that, the only game that is in similar level of detail (or potentially higher) is Tarkov (also not AAA). Both Ander's game and Tarkov focus on the interactions with the weapons the components and the details.

By focusing on the very small and making the interactivity very high fidelity, you can surpass current AAA treatments of the subject.

You know this as well, you are impressed with Facade, a game that did revolutionary work - but did so by lavishing immense detail on a very small scope and focusing on interactivity.

 

@neoshaman we already all know the answer. It fails due to time. AAA is big even if not open world. It is a LOT of content at a very high quality. A person may be able to make some art pieces at that quality level but making some and making them all is a big difference. TIME man. And all of the audio. Lots of speech. And cinematic sequences both cut scenes as well as in game scripted stuff.

As @ShadowK has said a hundred times... any bit of it is not impossible and maybe not even that difficult... but all of it as a whole... there is the issue.

You'll never make a AAA level of content AND quality game in a reasonable amount of time. The only way you could complete the same thing in the same 3 to 5 years as a team of full-time dozens maybe 100+ people is if those people are all either very incompetent and / or very lazy and you are very skilled and very ambitious. It's just simple logic.

If you change the target to the essence of a AAA game then it is probably worth discussing. How to make a facsimile of a AAA game. One that gives the same vibes. That is different.

 

That's where I need a use case, as I mention before:

The idea is:
1. measure the actual load of a generic epic game, using averages and basic structure
2. find asset that works together, and pcg solution that make relevant stuff
3. make further decision based on that to alleviate the cost
4. Estimate how many specific assets you can build on your own
5. build the world base on what you have, making more decision to cut down stuff and increase the impacts.

The implicit question is, do there exist enough assets that works together to build an epic AAA?

Imagine you have to work on an new installment of an existing IP, asset are fixed and you must create a story with what you have, except here the asset are random picked instead of the IP.

 

Now that is a great question. If there is enough content we could probably produce one scene of AAA in a month and have a demo that looks promising in a weekend

If you have all of the content it is just a matter of some design & programming. And to me those are far faster than content generation at that level of quality and quantity. Hell let's face it I couldn't even do it. It'd probably take me 1 week to make a rock that looks "proper" in that context. Characters? I couldn't do it. Period.

 

No, as much as @frosted thinks the asset store is an integral tool the difference between them and what a team of 300+ engineers / devs have worked on is night and day.. Even AAA in a lot of cases can't keep up with the fringe cases of major engines (hence why they use Unity / UE etc.), so expecting a solo or small team of dev's working on a single tool (no matter how good they are) isn't going to cut it.

Don't get me wrong, if you're working on a small(ish) indie project then grabbing the toolsets off the asset store to push yourself far into development is a must.. I understand that much (if you get the right tools that is).

At a base it will take you two - three years to put together an openworld RPG of decent quality, if we're just using brute force manpower for linear games potentially far more. You do not have the time to develop extensive toolsets or the expetent result will be something like no mans sky..

You're essentially dealing with en mass skills across the board that collectively no single human could ever learn in their lifetime.. They have money for middleware that has been developed by other large teams, so then you have large teams upon large teams and a lot of these games already have a foundation.

This is what irks me about the toolset is the answer spiel, if it was possible then it would of already happened.. It hasn't, we can't even get close to a AAA RPG created seven years ago never mind anything that's happening now.

What you can do is if you're really willing to pull up your sleeves is subjectively build a better game than a lot of AAA releases. It just won't compete on scale, that's all.!

 

Not remotely. The best assets are very generic and bland or too stylized. These are good for filling in 'stock' areas. But the heart of a game is never the 'stock' area.

There is not a single asset dealing with a recently destroyed village. Very few to no good ruins sets (for the kinds of ruins I'm looking for - recent ruins in early medieval setting not ancient ruins). Once you try to really make anything specific you are screwed.

I've never even been able to find a good stone wall to my taste.

The main deficit in stock assets is character models though. We are years away from having enough good character models to make anything close to a game.

The sound is terrible. There are only maybe 2 good music options if you want to do procedural audio. There is not a single good exertion audio asset, much less everything else.

The thing is - the asset store will grow over time. Maybe in 5 years there will be enough to make a real game purely from asset store, but as of today it is not possible.

I am immensely familiar with the asset store. I go through almost every art asset in high detail every 2 months or so.

 

It's been done already, small demo (one scene) of AAA visual quality with a few kitbashed assets are like unreal bread and butter. They are dime and dozen on youtube.

The thing is implicitly, indie HAVE a AAA team, we have 900 engineer at unity and the asset store + internet is the rest of the team, we don't have as much control as we would want and that's why we can't do anything from scratch like AAA.

We also don't have the limitation of targeting console who are really mid range gaming computer, so we can hide behind a bit of technical overhead by targeting PC.

If we had stolen ripped content to the addition, there is no scope we can't make lol but that's not legal

 

That's not AAA though, it's just a small scene nothing more.. I've seen a lot of impressive looking "arch viz stuff" come out of Unreal but the issue is it ain't a game.. AAA have access to every engine and use different pre-made engines too but they also have access to advanced support and they can hire Unity engineers to create bespoke solutions for them..

So again they have the same as us and more.. No matter the scenario, you can't win. All you can do is make the best YOU can with what you have.

 

A demo like that is not what I mean. That is nothing to me. And I don't mean that as an insult to the people. I mean make a working playable area. Not just a walking simulator. For demos I am more impressed by the stuff coming out of the demo scene.

Unless it actually does something... is something I can play and a world I can interact with my interest is low. I've rambled on about interaction a lot over the years and this is also what @frosted was saying up above... interaction is key.

Anyone can throw together a bunch of assets into a scene but what is the point of it?

 

well don't have ruin and and destroyed village? but can this be done by procedural? ruin is very "formal" and empty, it's less difficult to build that a live personal house.

That do reduce cost and the thing you have to build, the question is, is this cost of specifics a load we can handle. Also generic asset with the right composition can be truly unique, in real life we compose stuff out of manufactured good everyone have access, but everyone's house is different even with the same "props".

However Challenge accepted, I finished the breakdown of my own project, I have some mental process free now! I KNOW it's not entirely possible, but the thing is to demonstrate how far can we go, and if the things we think are problem are really the thing that blocks us. And maybe from then we can start laying foundation to solve the remaining problem.

Also we generally compare AAA with top of the cream AAA, which is a problem in itself, and there is many problem we can hide with design decision, think star trek spaceship landing replaced with teleportation lol. You have to work WITH the limitation instead of against them.

I think because I don't have the same programming proficiency as you, it will lead to an interesting failure too. Failing is fun you learn from it.

I'm interested in scope.

 

The thing is that we are talking asset load, it show the asset load, interaction is key but that's another problem not related to the assets problem (at least not until we start considering animation, which intersect with AI and interaction).

Interaction is key, but we have established that interaction is not what limit us.

 

Perhaps my skill as 'art director' is inadequate, but I think there simply aren't enough assets.

Until last year or so - it was not possible to make a good 'brigand hideout' which is kind of crazy.

There still aren't enough good medieval tents. These are very important for makeshift campsites or brigand outposts, etc.

The towns are mostly covered in bits and pieces. Dungeon/cave is covered in very good detail.

Cultures: Viking style is reasonably well covered.

Despite 100 town sets, these are all western european in ~1300+s era or viking.

There is still not a single reasonable quality peasant set focused on mostly realistic peasants. Only very bad Tolkien fantasy trope.

In terms of what is most feasible from Asset Store right now, the closest would be Diablo style ARPG in Diablo3 style world with high fantasy enemies. ARPG dungeon assets are probably the best all around in terms of realistic use from asset store.

 

What about sci fy, or more precisely, science fantasy? ie where you can mix and match asset ala stargate or star wars. The choice of the theme is key, it doesn't have to be medieval fantasy, we can even create our own given sufficient story justification. Alien are much more easy to create convincing one, so having quality facial animation is immediately solved, pcg can create well done sci fy house that aren't any realistic, etc ... we can solve these problem by being smart.

I'll make it all possible, that's my role.

 

What @frosted has described has been my own experience as well. Heck man if there were enough assets on the store I would have used them to make some very nice looking bigger scale games. Well bigger by my game standards is still tiny bit you see what I mean.

You are right though @neoshaman one could take inventory of what is available then build a game around that. However I attempted such an inventory and design a couple of times in the past (granted for 2D) and it was an exercise in frustration more than anything else.

 

This is literally how I began - 100%. This approach has many more challenges than it might seem.

@neoshaman I'm not sure about sci-fi -- I don't pay attention to these assets since they aren't potentially useful to me.

I was literally able to move the game to third person because of high quality animation packs available on store. If not for those packs, I would still be in top down.

Final note on this subject - because of deficiency in character models I am considering adding undead to the game. This is not something I want to do, but it is perhaps my best option since the options for character models are so slim. Simply, I need more strongly differentiated character types for different enemy encounters.

 

So the goal is to try anyway! Si I make a note that:
- building are not up to standard on your first estimation, maybe props too.
- Landscape seems to have the right tools so far,
- character animation seems complete enough,
- special effects are covered,
- textures are almost solved with all the tools and pbr,
- now character might be a harsh one, body template may not be a problem and we don't focus that much on them, cloth can be cheated,
- but face and facial animation, acting, voices are a huge problem. Need some investigation.
- I don't think music is as much as problem,
- but sound effect I don't know,
- there is still creatures design etc ...

 

Music and sound are very poor - but perhaps I am very picky about sound. Again, I cannot find good "attack grunt" "hurt grunt" sound despite listening to every option and buying 3 exertion/battle cry/etc packs.

The best locomotion sound I have seen is from cryengine asset store promotional pack from a long time ago that I am probably not legally licensed to use (need to check if this can be used in another engine).

Ambient environment is totally inadequate for real use, very good for demo, very bad for long play session.

In terms of music - to do a good job, you need granular tracks for procedural audio. There are almost no packs that provide this. The audio in general is best fit for diablo style game, very hard to find good audio for anything else.

Many musics are unusable due to weird harsh sounds that are not bad on first listen but on loop make it horrible.

 

We have very split opinions on artwork from the asset store, I think every RPG creator under the sun has the M4K packs and after W3 everything else looks to me a bit like an asset flip.. Sure a tree is a tree and a spoon is a spoon, but where's the line between your own game and an asset flip?

Sure you can slap on some textures you bought and it'll look a little bit different although most can tell anyway.. At some point you might as well just buy an RPG framework, twiddle some sliders / add some text and slap it out there.

I scrapped an entire project because it had too much in the way of pre-made stuff, it felt like I was trying to make someone elses vision my own.

 

"a good artist borrows a great artist steals"

 

THe goal is still to avoid getting too much emotional attachment to the result, if it's good, it's good. Film reuse local and props all the time, the mood and direction can change everything, most people just slap these assets in a generic landscape, so of course it's going to be noticed, that's something we need to see if can compose around. The thing is that what is just an assumption and what is something we can legit build around? We can only try.

But anyway, those concern are too early, I need a basic breakdown, a gameplay loop and solid structure first. They will tells you how to compose.

 

Well I am all for encouraging you @neoshaman to give it your best shot. Believe me I would very much like to see you put together a cohesive and interesting game world.

Content there has to be growing all the time. I have made at least two threads about this issue. And have thought several times about hiring artists to populate it with sets and new pieces that will fit with existing sets. But I am not motivated enough to do that yet. lol

 

Another example of small scope - high fidelity + interaction:

PT - game is what 4 rooms and 1 character?

But problem here is nobody on this forum is a good enough game designer to make that experience compelling. But it is an example of very limited scope, but higher depth.

 

I'd love to lock you in a room with a bunch of artists while you say that.. @frosted, why isn't anyone on this forum a good enough "game designer"?

 

Youre not a developer yourself I take it? programming good mechanics take time and love. It's very noticble when too little focus and love have been used on the code. Plus if you want to expand your universe, add new features, game modes etc the code need to have some core arcitechture that supports maintainability.

 

The bigger problem is the people on this forum are able to see your passive challenges for what they are (the unspoken or rather unwritten "prove me wrong... do it!") lol

Speaking of this forum.... I don't even know why I am in here... this thread is like anti-me... complete opposite of what I generally focus on. And I am not even using Unity so why am I even here period? lol Good discussions I guess.

Well good luck! I'll drop by again to playtest the first areas of the work by @neoshaman and @ShadowK looking forward to those!

 

Do you have any other supernatural elements in the game? I didn't see any before. Adding supernatural elements is a huge change that would necessitate major differences in how you build the world. Don't do it!

 

What type of game was this? An RPG?

Are you thinking action RPG or turn-based (or some other non-twitch variant)? Hard to say which would be easier, though I imagine the action RPG would require a lot more custom animation stuff.

And on that matter, do you think it should have combat at all? Combat's a very easy and familiar way to incorporate gameplay, but there's no rule that you have to have it.

I imagine like many RPGs you could have a quest system of some sort, based around talking to an NPC, performing some task, then receiving a reward of some point. XP? I'm a fan of XP, though it necessitates some work in designing the game benefits from XP (leveling, stat changes).

And what are you referring to with "solid structure"?

 

I really feel it's wrong also. But, if it's kind of limited - like a Game of Thrones with only a little bit of supernatural - maybe that would be alright?

There are no other super natural element, and I really hesitate, so I'm very open to feedback.

The problem is really making different kinds of encounters really feel different. I'm very limited on character art which makes life hard.

It's worth noting that I've resisted any super natural elements passionately for a long time, but at some point I also need to get this game released with enough playable content to be satisfying.

 

Supernatural meddled in with realistic, even happens in the Witcher.. So sure but FFS not zombies.! Anything, flying manticore's, fish, treacle monsters, giant apes that are grumpy because they have allergic reactions to potassium, ANYTHING but zombies.

 

I agree with @ShadowK about anything but zombies But even if you have any kind of supernatural elements, you need to have it built in to the world from the ground up. You can't just throw it in. Witcher was mentioned - in that world the magic plays an enormous part in the plot of the game (through the Lodge) and also plays a not-insignificant part in the actual gameplay, both through Geralt and through the many magical enemies (not just of magical origin like a Golem, but magical effects like that tree enemy (something like a treant)).

Have you tried looking to the Assassin's Creed games for a little inspiration? They obviously aren't totally combat focused, but they typically have a number of different enemy archetypes like lithe runner, standard fighter, big bruiser, etc.

 

I have gone through AC in pretty good detail for a lot of inspiration.

Really sticking to core values though, Mount and Blade, here we have different cultures representing different kinds of guys you fight (both with and against). That's ideal. But that's also expensive since there is very very little on the asset store that's usable in this space.

Battle Brothers did Mount & Blade inspiration with some undead and orcs, and they did a pretty good job. Didn't feel super out of place, even in a low fantasy gritty world.

If the game is successful, then I can think about contracting out some art to finish that stuff - but I need to get to Early Access from here without freelancers.

 

I haven't played Battle Brothers, so I couldn't comment on it. Honestly, nowadays I don't even play games with any fantasy in them, but I did a little while back (and I made an edit in that previous post about Witcher). I've never played one where the supernatural elements were just there - they always impact the game's design (narratively) in some way.

 

Thanks, I think your comments here helped reinforce my will to resist the lure of cheap & easy extra content.

I know it's wrong for the game, but man.. it's tough.

 

It will pay off in the end when you have a more consistent and grounded experience that didn't require a rewrite to justify why the magic users aren't controlling the world / using their power technologically and what supernatural source the magic came from.

Edit: I'm saying magic here, but the same could be applied to most supernatural elements in general.

 

Wondered why I had this odd urge to check this thread again.

Sadly I am not. I have no development experience. No programming. Or graphics. Or sound fx. Or music. Or design.

 

@frosted You can have notzombies like the last of us by claiming a illness, parasite or a condition so you can use the zombie assets in a repurposed way with its own sets of ruled (after all they aren't zombie). It might open narrative affordances, like a cult purposefully infecting people to control them because they have a plants that gave the antidotes, think like voodoo zombie, the wond on the flesh are not because of decaying but because the people are not conscious and have less care about their body and end up wounding themselves stupidly, etc ... you can improvise at infinitum.

The goal is to make something AAA like, the thing is that AAA is often mythified beyond relief, I want to model something close in many aspect to horizon which don't do everything well but hide it with shiny stuff (see the comparison video with zelda), water effect for example are rather weak, physics has been simplified, etc ...

I have also limitation like voice acting and facial fidelity lol, I'll see how I deal with that, who know? Alone I don't think I can match totally the AAA anyway, but I'm super interested in where to cheat, especially regarding unity's limitation (see streaming assets without hitch) and the limit of pcg. I think the end result even if not AAA will be worthy.

I don't see turn base AAA (as in blockbuster budgeted), so I'll keep it simple, there will be no party either, let's dodge that bullet. The goal is to do something loosely like what a AAA would do, that's the framing, so combat is kept, we are not here to innovate or make the best game (though no combat is something I'm interested in), good enough is where I need to go. I expect a lenient combat system where the strategy and variety will come from rpg tactics like buff, debuff, elemental weakness and other rpg trickery like stun, stagger etc ... (xenoblade will be a model).

This will gave me an easy way to plan encounter before designing them. And enemy behavior will be a mix of rpg mob and beat'em all 3 engagements distances. I want to reduce risk because one man big scope isn't something that's easy lol even without all that AAA ambition. But I have always been interested in designing scope, I planned one day to make an infinite game like no man's sky but with proper infinite progression inspired by idle games. This will be a training toward that goal lol.

What I mean by structure is what I had alluded with grandia 2, having a predictable pattern to apply and eventually subvert, a formula to make the progression, places and enemy, so that I only have to fill a template to create them when shopping for assets or applying PCG. Basically the whole starts of the exercices is to design, copy, stole, modify, existing template to have something that makes decision painless, BUT creates something working.

 

So in short you're not making anything like a AAA game, you're making a game the best you can using methods we've known about since the 90's which really gives you no specific advantage over anyone else?

Look I'm not here to dump on your dreams and / or your ambition to even make a mid sized indie RPG you need nerps of solid rock. We've seen this a thousand times throughout this forum over many years, see if you can even compete against a mediocre indie first because it's tougher than it looks.

What's your experience so far of making games? How many at least prototypes have you made so far? Where is this optimism coming from? Because ask @Billy4184 who really wanted to do the same as you how the whole AAA thing panned out.. Don't get me wrong his asset store stuff is impressive, it seems at least he is doing well for himself and I like his work but I'm sure we've all been convinced we can do it at some point to find out the odds are insurmountable.

I encourage people to take this path, especially because it's like a self realisation as such about your limits and the limits of the toolsets you're using. It's better just to get it out the way..

When I say "less talking, more doing" I don't say it just to be sorta passive aggressive, I mean it as when you do it you will see what I mean. I'm seriously not trying to talk you out of it and I'd love someone to seriously get at least 75% of the way there, because it gives others hope.

But you have to be somewhat a realist as well.