MaschinenZimmer
Banned
Yes, THE icycalm. Everybody loves him and he loves everybody. At some point he had an account here and now he needs YOUR help!
Some quotes from his fantastic and sexy website.
His goal:
Who he is:
The Requirements:
How to apply:
Money:
http://culture.vg/features/commentary/alex-kierkegaard-is-making-an-ubergame.html
So, let's do it, GAF! Get involved and be part of the Übergame!
UPDATE:
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=13&t=4775
Some quotes from his fantastic and sexy website.
His goal:
A real game, not the joke I was planning to make a couple of weeks ago. I got emails from a couple of guys who wanted to help with that, and after a little bit of chatting about it I decided to go for the real thing.
So, we've already started work and will have a basic prototype of the first area soon. However, it will be a hugely ambitious game (think Far Cry 2 crossed with Deus Ex, only better in every respect) so we are going to assemble as large a team as possible to make it happen (because, contrary to what the pseudo-intellectuals say, the best games are always made by the largest teams — and this INCLUDES Biohazard 6 you fucking pretentious fagots with shit taste).
Who he is:
I am the number 1 videogame and art theorist in the world, and the game will adhere as strictly as technology will presently allow us to all of my theory's conclusions.
The Requirements:
We need every kind of game developer under the sun — and as many of them as possible. If you've ever sat through the credits of a game like Deus Ex 3 and Far Cry 2, you'll know what I mean. There is simply no theoretical limit to the number of individuals from whose contributions such a game can profit. The only limiting factor, indeed, is the skill of the director — how capable is he of motivating the team to deliver the right content? of appraising and vetting that content so that only the best of it makes it through? of integrating that content within his grand design so that it ends up performing precisely the function which he had envisioned for it instead of getting out of control and ruining the whole thing? When a subhuman says "that director's team was too big", you should translate it as "that director's skill was too low to handle a team of that size". If you've been reading Insomnia for a while you might have realized how good I am at getting the best out of people: from the numerous reviewers who started out regurgitating the same bullshit as everyone else ("this game has no gameplay!"), and who after my coaching are now able to churn out unmatched articles and reviews in a couple of hours on a regular basis, all the way down to forum contributions from individual people who come and go and leave only a single post behind them — a single post which, due to my unmatched value-appraising skills and ruthless moderating style is better and more valuable than all the hundreds and thousands of posts they have scribbled in their lives in every other forum.
So, if your strong area is coding or content creation, get in touch. If your strong area is writing, get in touch. The game will have enormous and labyrinthine dialogue trees — even if you have no technical expertise you can still pitch in if creating branching paths and mind-bending character interaction is something that fascinates you and you are good at (or at least think that you might be good at — you can always give it a try, and I'll be sure to let you know exactly where you stand).
Note that there won't be any expectation of delivering a specific amount of work from anyone. Everyone will contribute as much as they can whenever they can, and the work will go on for as long as is necessary to reach completion. The atmosphere will be entirely relaxed, and you are welcome to kick back and just watch the game being built if for whatever reason you are not capable of helping in any way during various periods of the development process. Besides, we'll need playtesters anyway — people who will go in without knowing much if anything of the design, and come back and tell us what they thought of the experience. This is a task that even I won't be able to perform, since it's impossible for the game world to have a significant impact on its creator. What would help here is good reviewers (like all those who have contributed reviews to Insomnia over the years), and their being willing to analyze our work in the same manner they have analyzed the games they have reviewed — all the while keeping THEIR MOUTHS SHUT regarding this experience to the rest of the world until the game is ready to be unveiled. So, add playtester to the list of wanted personnel — and we'll need loads of those too.
How to apply:
All you have to do is send me an email at icycalm@culture.vg where you will introduce yourself to me and tell me in which area(s) exactly you think you might be able to contribute, and also of any prior experience you might have. At that point I may or may not ask you to submit a trial contribution, and if that goes well I'll invite you to join the team. (If, on the other hand, you actually have some prior work to show me, we will omit this step and I will evaluate your offer to join based on the strength of that work.)
Note that, once I've invited you to join, you will have to subscribe to the site if you aren't already a subscriber. This is for two reasons. 1) There will be a (hidden) subforum on the site where we will work on the übergame, because this method is superior to trying to exchange emails between dozens of people. And 2) I want to know your real name (which PayPal will give me) because I don't want to allow anonymous people to join in and take a peek at the game before I am ready to unveil it. If you prefer to work pseudonymously — via a handle, like zinger, for example — that's fine, and I will not divulge your personal information to anyone. But I will still need to know who you are because I don't want my game design leaked ahead of time, if I can prevent it. (It won't be a huge deal if it's leaked anyway, because everyone else is too lazy, untalented and incompetent to do anything with it even if they had it, but I still want to try and keep it under wraps for as long as I can.)
Money:
As regards the financial issue, there will not be any money changing hands on this project for a very long time. However, money WILL eventually come into the equation — either in the form of a major publisher taking us on and funding our project (the preferred solution, since as every real gamer knows the best games are always funded by the biggest publishers), or of an eventual Kickstarter campaign, or Steam Early Access, or episodic release of the game via Insomnia's online store, with each chapter funding development of the next one. All of this will be discussed in the game's forum at the appropriate time, as will the issue of compensation for the various contributors. The more, and the more valuable, your contributions end up being, the bigger the slice of the pie you will eventually receive.
The big prize though will always be the work itself — making NOW, what is BOUND to be made by someone at some point. Giving a swift kick to the present, and propelling it that little bit faster into the future. Creating art history, and showing the rest of the world how great art is made. With unbounded ambition, and unfettered enthusiasm.
But above all with a fuckload of talent and a crapload of resources. Which is where you come in.
http://culture.vg/features/commentary/alex-kierkegaard-is-making-an-ubergame.html
So, let's do it, GAF! Get involved and be part of the Übergame!
UPDATE:
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=13&t=4775
Pretty much the only real idea in all these threads is the belief that I am incapable of "delivering", whatever that's supposed to mean. I'll clear this issue up soon.
In the meantime I'd like to announce that I've finished ALL the aspects of the preliminary design -- both aesthetic (setting/plot) and mechanical. The design document is several pages long (perhaps 3 or 4 or so, I can't tell because I am writing in Wordpad), and, at least as far as mechanics are concerned, even if I dropped dead tomorrow a very capable director (think Clint Hocking, Sid Meier or Kojima) could take it from my hard drive and go off and complete the game in a couple of years, technology permitting (because the scope and concept of the game is so bleeding edge I don't think there's an engine on the market capable of powering it at the moment, except if it's custom-coded for absurd hardware like four GTX Titan Blacks or something). This as regards mechanics, because as regards plot development and "message", no one can finish this game but me. But I do plan to start writing down the full plot soon, so when that's done, yeah, I could very well drop dead and the game could still be made by someone else at some point down the line.
Here is a list of influences, to get an idea of the kind of complexity I am talking about:
Far Cry 2
Deus Ex
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Orgy of the Will
Blade Runner
Planetary Annihilation
Highlander
Elite
Dune (the Amiga videogame by Cryo)
Iron Man 3
Killer 7
From some of these works I am taking mechanics, from others aesthetics and plot, or scope and "message", or a combination of some or all of these. The design document includes detailed explanations of precisely what I am taking from each work, but I am not going to post it here because... as long as I am working on the project, I don't want anyone to run off with my ideas. Trust me when I say, though, you'd sell off your left kidney to play this game the moment you read the details of my design. Nothing else you've ever played comes close, and nothing remotely like it is being planned for any point in the foreseeable or even the unforeseeable future. You'd have more fun simply READING my design than PLAYING even the best future game that is currently in the planning stages. That's the kind of gigantic leap forward I am talking about here.
I am also planning a teaser trailer for release in a couple of months. I'll post more news here when I am ready to unveil them.
