Galaxy Traders (Game Treatment)

[xcalpro]

Working Title
Galaxy Traders
Genre
A 2D Multiplayer PBBG inspired by classic Traveller universe. Players explore planets and gather resources for crafting and trade. Crafting will play a major part of the game as well as vehicle customization.
Graphic look and requirements
A 2D graphical top down play area using scrolling backgrounds and player sprites. 2D sprites will be rendered from 3D models.
Interface style
A third-person overhead perspective using keyboard and/or mouse. Players will move about a scrolling screen, interacting with objects and other characters. Various intuitive GUI displays will become available depending on activity of the player.
Engine
Game will be developed using PHP/MySQL, Construct 2, javascript, ajax, and HTML5 as needed.
Target audience
The game is designed to appeal to Traveller and Sci-Fi fans. It is designed to appeal to crafter type players. Only English speaking markets are currently planned.
Original work
All game art will be original art. With stories and characters inspired by classic Traveller races and species. Vehicles, objects and locations will also be inspired by Traveller content. Additional influences from other Sci-Fi television and movies. Since Traveller is copyrighted and licensed to Marc Miller/Far Future Enterprises, this is strictly a derived work, inspired by ideas from the Traveller Universe.
Gameplay
Game play will consist of traditional point and click adventuring and exploring where players perform missions and quests. Players will be able to explore various planets and travel aboard ship as well as on planet surfaces. Players will engage in close quarter combat as well as ship to ship combat.
New player experience
The game will start new players with simple quests and mission with difficulty level increasing as the game progresses. Players start on home planet and will eventually advance to the point where they will afford a ship for space exploration and travel
Competition
There are currently very few Sci-Fi games of this type being produced. Direct competition will be from other Sci-Fi RPGs of a similar design. Of those, there are no Traveller inspired titles currently being produced at this time.
Staffing and qualifications
I am currently seeking team members for concept and 2D art work. I am looking for committed people who have a similar vision in the type of game I are trying to produce.
Core team
Tony "XcalPro" Oliveira: Project Lead
Schedule
With adequate staffing, the projected development time is roughly 6-8 month (tentatively) before a playable alpha version is available for testing.
Budget
There is currently no budget for this project and is being produced by an independent development team that is self funding. Future funding will be provided by Kickstart or similar source once a playable beta has been created.

[Jackolantern]

A lot of this is already implemented, I believe, in the open source PBBG, Merchant Empires. I came across it compiling this list here. You may be able to scrape months off of the development time if it could serve as a starting point for a mod. Maybe check it out and see if it could work for you

[xcalpro]

Thanks, I did see that list and my game will have some elements of the Trade Wars type games. I will look at them and probably use some of their code. I am hoping to create something unique that separates my game from all those other Sci-Fi Trader games. I plan to have more of an RPG element along with crafting and vehicle customization.

[xcalpro]

Thought I would share a quick prototype testing of some of the gameplay. Don't mind the graphics as they are just placeholder sprites.
http://xcalpro.com/gtraders/

The above link was changed from a previous test site. This is now the permanent location for the future game.

[Jackolantern]

Very cool!

[xcalpro]

Ok, I decided to change the name to one I had originally considered. I also managed to install Dragon Knight and made some modifications. I was able to incorporate the HTML5 game created with Construct 2 into the DK PHP code. Now its just a matter of modifying the code so that it interacts with the HTML5 canvas playable area. I have successfully managed to get a playable exploring area which I plan to populate with items you can pick up and add to your inventory at some point.

I am currently working on updating the fighting system. http://xcalpro.com/gtraders/

[xcalpro]

Been trying to incorporate the HTML5 canvas portion of the game to work with the existing DK fighting mechanics and I am having a difficult time getting the old PHP code to fit. It appears that much of this code is not very efficient and is out dated. I am forced to revamp most of the existing code and probably rebuild the entire DK game from scratch using more efficient session and db interaction.

Looking over the code, I didn't find one switch statement or session variable being used, so I am sure the code will benefit from a rewrite. I also play to replace much of the db calls with DRY code.

I do plan to release the revised code eventually to anyone interested, but it may be some time before I get to that point.

[Foofighter]

hi good work so far,
u should think about removing the verification at register, i think its no state of the art anymore and maybe scares some willing players away.
I heard the best u can have now is a guest login with option to register later. But irs on you which way to choose and which priority this has for you.

regards

[xcalpro]

I have disabled the email verification system as the outgoing mail is not set up properly.

I am in the process of re-evaluating the entire system. At this point I just want to clean up and streamline the code and get a solid understanding of how all the systems are interconnected. I will eventually like to start adding new features like:

• Customizable vehicle system
  Resource gathering and refining
  Crafting system
  NPCs
  Quest System
  Both space travel and ground travel systems
  Ship to ship combat as well as personal combat

And once all those systems are in place, then it would make sense to add in true real-time MMO capabilities.