Its been an year since I was here

[ahmedali]

Asslam, i have been very busy with MBA and other real life issues, that doest mean i have not been doing anything related to gamedev.

You can see the updated blog here

http://elkali.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/putting-it-all-together/
http://elkali.wordpress.com/pakistani-gamedev/

Good to know about some new guys interested in gamedev.

 

[Rapchik Killer]

Great work you are doing there ahmed.. the project looks really cool the only thing i would suggest using openal instead of fmod because of licensing.. and one more thing, i didnt see you mention much about scene management.. thats going to be a issue later on so better of having a nice system in the beginning.. BTW the power outage is killing me here too, i used to have 7 hours each day and looks like wapda wasnt happy with it so the upgraded it to 9 hours :S... neway thanks for keeping my content updated, i will mail you as soon as a game i am working on currently is released so you could also attach it to my reference.. and pm me your email..

 

[Sarmad]

Great work . Keep it up.....

 

[ahmedali]

Great work you are doing there ahmed.. the project looks really cool the only thing i would suggest using openal instead of fmod because of licensing.. and one more thing, i didnt see you mention much about scene management.. thats going to be a issue later on so better of having a nice system in the beginning.. BTW the power outage is killing me here too, i used to have 7 hours each day and looks like wapda wasnt happy with it so the upgraded it to 9 hours :S... neway thanks for keeping my content updated, i will mail you as soon as a game i am working on currently is released so you could also attach it to my reference.. and pm me your email..

Sound is not the priority yet, fmod is free for non-commercial use, and it can be replaced with other lib easily.

About the graphical scene management??

Yeah, you should update your blog too

 

[Rapchik Killer]

About the graphical scene management??

Yes.. like having oct trees for indoor scene management.. or having a nice scene graph..

Yeah, you should update your blog too

lol.. i was thinking the same thing..

 

[ahmedali]

Currently its all just brute force . I'm focusing more on engine design, entity & ai architecture.

I expect in future Chaster's portal scene manager would get more stable and mature, and it supports OctreeZone too, so in simple words, there would be decent support for both indoor(using portals) & outdoors(EditableTerrainManger which im currently using).
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I guess you dont use Ogre, the Terrain plugin already uses Octree for culling while Portal scene manager should be able to integrate with it.

 

[Rapchik Killer]

i have used ogre a few times before and its amazing.. i actually forgot that you were using ogre in your engine though.. ogre has really nice scene management.. and after implementing portals you should have a really ass kicking engine.. awesome work dude, keep it up !

 

[Rapchik Killer]

yeah, i pmed you when i think i was working for trippert labs.. they wanted to get as many programmers as they could i told them about you and ahmed ali but didnt have your details so we couldnt contact you guys.. neways cade pm your mail too so that if i get some other offer like that i could get in contact with you too..

edit: @alkali: actually i remembered i had another blog and am thinking of maintaining that one its rapchik.wordpress.com so remove the older one and put this one in its place..

 

[ahmedali]

@Cade, can you tell more about yourself, which uni? what you are doing now.?
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I didn't know that you could enter games into Softec.

Yeah that was a wild ride..., since I was NOT a computer science student I had no idea that its important to go with some technical documentation about the project.

I got a surprise too when there was a guy from karachi, who modded FarCry to make a driving training simulation.......he was in the top10 with me. See how easy it is..

Entering is easy, but convincing the judges panel, mostly old age professors with no interest in gaming is something else. You are more likely to win the competition with a more academically recognizable project.

 

[ahmedali]

Goodluck

Yes I can understand, thats why I never called up a team to make a game, just waiting for the right time and the right people.

 

[ahmedali]

Yeah I know Kazmi, he is in my list of right people too

 

[Rapchik Killer]

Nice work you have been doing there cade.. and first time i am hearing about this kami guy..

 

[ahmedali]

See http://elkali.wordpress.com/pakistani-gamedev/
Under " Non Programmers"

 

[Rapchik Killer]

wow.. the guys done some really nice work.. btw the kaami kazmi site is not linked correctly ahmed..

 

[aameeshah]

I really appreciate what people like Ahmed and Cade are trying to achieve. But if you are doing is alone its simply waste of talent. A proper AAA 3D title require teams of 30-200 talented people and that's simply isn't possible in Pakistan right now. Why don't you guys put some effort in Web games(Flash, Silverlight, Director, Unity3d, WildTangent ), XNA or stuff like IPhones SDK, Symbian OS.

No one cares to download and check out 3D demos. Either put it on Web where any one can play it or go with some Hot new tech like XNA and IPhones. It will have much better chance of getting peoples attention.

Now I am no 3D guru! I am just into Physics games or 2D Retro games remakes. So I care more for Gameplay and Fun aspect of it. Great thing is that I am actually making some money out of my Hobby (Selling Flash Games). Rapchick is also doing well making Mobile Games.

You guys are young so I will still encourage you to do Hi-Tech Stuff and hope to get some proper job outside of Pak. But What options do we have within Pak?

P.S. Cool! Ahmed I Just Realized you also got my link ShahSoft in your Blog. Thanks! You can Add my city : Hyderabad and my new Flash Game BrainTest. Just Hope I can show u guys my Newest n most Fun game soon (its a Physics Puzzler).

 

[powerofleo]

Salaam,

I am new here so i think i dont have much to say. First of all that we like our "Pakistani Games" even a total conversion of virtua fight to Adventure of Bashera. This is very basic game with urdu dub and texture with urdu wording. I did play it even end, why beacuse of its Pakistani conversion.

And i will love to play any pakistan game even if its DEMO.

 

[aameeshah]

Yeah Cade, iTrango might be in position to make a proper,complete game. They may get funding for making some Safeguard, MilkPak game but getting a Proper publisher like ubisoft, EA behind you is still quite impossible. They will have to make 30-40% of game by themselves and later hope to get some publisher on board. So its better that they are sticking with Freelance work.

 

[ahmedali]

To cut the story short, i have no plans for 2d/web development, i wouldn't be rejecting tons of web games offers if i had any, that doesn't mean i don't value the money.
I just tend to be persistent with what i do in my free time. And I expect to make several attempts to make mainstream commercial games for Pakistani market in coming years Inshallah; of course with colloboration.

@powerofleo
Technically fighting games are not difficult, but they can be extremely challenging from design perspective. Just take Tekken5 for example, each character has 100+ different moves. But it all depends on the complexity of combat design and gameplay.

 

[ahmedali]

I don't want to make and publish game just for fun, it has to make a good business, unfortunately people underestimate the value of billion dollars game industry, imagine how many jobs it will create if we get a share of world's game industry. I'm very interested in ideas related to Marketing & Distribution strategy for future possible game. Besides marketing strategies we have tons of marketing and distribution channels in Pakistan, that can be exploited.

But there is a condition, the game has to be really good, not necessarily AAA, no need of hifi graphics. If a game has overall production quality (no bugs/glitches, story, decent graphics) and gameplay quality(the quality an average gamer expects in a game), if its get marketed well, with good sponsers (which isnt very easy) and partners(very important), appeals to potential buyers, we can highly reduce the chances of failure even if its not get succeeded.

Talking about the sponsors, lets say im most likely to make an action(violent) game, so I already lost plentyful of potential sponors not willing to sponsor an action game.

BLOG UPDATE
elkali.wordpress.com -- how-could-i-forget-this-the-racing-rickshaw/
http://elkali.wordpress.com

 

[Sarmad]

Cool yar amazing.........