I need your thoughts

[marshallh]

Well, peoples, it's been a year since GTP was started and although I have some nice-looking scenery running on my PC, there's not much else.
I have worked at it quite a bit, rewriting the engine several times and once more for the N64.
Now, it seems a lot of the people who were standing behind GTP when it debuted are gone. The biggest hit was Lucretius who was going to write some semblance of a story but elected to step down soon after. Now he's left and there is little backing left.

My question is: how much do you want to see GTP completed, and how many of you have reasonable ideas for structuring this beast?

Grand Theft Portable started with a very large premise; traversing a huge city with much to do. The problem is the "huge city". Even with a tile-based approach (re-using common buildings and roads) it is still quite an undertaking to make a believable setting.


My one self-criticism is that I have no structure in the things I do. What does this mean? It means I need to have someone else (or at least help) lay the groundwork for how the game will play. Then, from there, they will need to work alongside me to design an engine that will let the player do what the game should let them.


I cannot continue without a plan of what to do next.
Here's what we can do:
- someone volunteers to lay a plan of HOW the game will play (within reason) and in reasonable detail
- the "big city" aspect of the game is removed and the game is reduced to a collection of small, if fun, minigames. (my favorite)
- I discontinue the project.


Personally, I'd rather opt for the mini-game approach and be done with it. I have several good ideas for minigames, and there's a much better chance that these would actually be completed, if you know what I mean


Give yourself a big spongecake if you read all that. Hopefully it didn't come off as a big rambling.

Marshall

[gannon]

The mini game approach sounds fun, great for short attention spans
*Solder the wire on the pin!* <- wario ware, eat it

[Retromaster]

hmm...hard desicion. it's like wanting to pull the plug on a braindead person, go through painful and long processes to get it working, or just wake the person to be mentally retarded. (mentaly retarded is my way of putting the dream into smaller parts as with the mini games idea.no offense)
I would have loved to have the original idea, and I would have definitely volunteered to help write the storyline, as I have been known to have great ideas, but I don't know much about programming, just building system engines. I need to know more details if i'm going to volunteer.
Did you notice by scrolling down to the bottom of the forum index homepage where it shows which users are online that i'm always there?
I'm literaly living on this site. ....So I did not vote, because I can't make up my stupid little mind

[im_an_alien]

So I did not vote, because I can't make up my stupid little mind

Same here, I'd like to see the whole thing completed as one big game, but if that's not going to happen I'd go for the minigames.

[madc0w]

I think the main reason that people have "Stepped down" is due to the fact that there hasn't been much progress in the way of impletementing a game design. IF now you need more info on how the game should work, I beleive more would help now.

[bicostp]

Minigames are awesome, just don't turn it into a WarioWare ripoff.

[Rototiller]

Marshallh, look at the results: nobody wants to can it. You could turn it into minigames and gtp: you know, ben (or whoever), walks around completeing a series of minigames to make : the _________! Yep, the________! (insert main object of the game here.)

[josh]

I voted you keep on working on it... but if you do quit don't forget to Work on project Onett 64

[vskid]

I voted minigames, but it would still be cool it you finished the whole game.

[typamc95]

Full game.
What do you need help with, textures? Sound? anything but programming.

[blackbox_dev]

Ok, this is what I think you should do. It's based on the mini-games concept, but is still sort of like what GTp what going to be originally.

So, you can drive and walk around the "big city", to get to different buildings. Come on, you have to be able to drive around, there's no point in calling the game Grand Theft Portable if you can't. Along the way, you will meet with members of the forum, who will give you hints on where to go, what to do, etc. Each building that you can enter will be a mini-game sort of thing. Here are some of the buildings that i'm thinking should be included:

Ben's House - where you do soldering
Where ever it was that Ben use to work - design cases and CNC them
Radio Shack - buy tools, solder, parts, etc.
Game Stop - buy used Nintendo 64s (make them incredibly easy to kill )
Showroom - show off the portables you've made

And here's some silly ones that you might still consider:

MacDonald's - eat food
Repair shop - get your car fixed for money

You start with about $500 to make a portable Atari. As you sell portables, you get more money and move on to harder portables, up to the Xbox 360 I guess.

Like my idea? I give you full permission to use it, as long as i'm in the credits.

Btw, if you don't want to do it, I will.

[madc0w]

That sounds like a very cool idea. Like for making cases, you have to move the control stick back and forth quickly to cut the case and the faster the better the case. OR you have a cursor, and you have to follow an outline, the better the outline, the better the case.

[*o*]

id be willing to be a planner for how it would play!...if you'd let me

[joevennix]

hmm...hard desicion. it's like wanting to pull the plug on a braindead person, go through painful and long processes to get it working, or just wake the person to be mentally retarded. (mentaly retarded is my way of putting the dream into smaller parts as with the mini games idea.no offense)

That's not even funny dude.

Anyways, marshall, I'd really like to see you go through with this project, but the immensity of the task is a big drawback. It seems like your interest has dulled, and if that's the case, don't consider finishing it, just make the minigames and be done with it. But don't throw away the remaining code, either. Maybe another day

[Unidentified Assilant]

I can't really help with much, but here is my idea for the game.

I like iam7805's idea, but have more locations, in Ben's House have a computer and make it available to order parts of the internet or something, that adds to the element of the game, I know it's far too late now, but this game would of been better on PC rather than N64, but who am I to complain about it. Put in various members of the forum for "missions" or mini-games, and have people (NPC's?) that want you to build portables for them (ranging from the Atari 2600 to Xbox360/Wii (PS3?) laptop, there u go, a bunch of fun mini-games, building portables! you could model close to your original portables/lappies themselves, and the better you do on the minigame (i.e. have accuracy as the key, as I'm guessing it is in real life), the more money they can be earnt for, also have a function on Ben's computer at home when you can visit the Benheck website itself, and if you have any spare portables/lappies, you can sell them on the website, just like you do in real life. The money earnt from these can be spent on parts to make portables and other things you need in real life (clothes? food? luxeries?), remove the big city aspect itself in a way, and have a realitvely small area, or 2 or 3 areas if you feel like you wanna make the game a bit bigger, so it's easier to find your way around. Cars would be a great bonus to the game and make it seem more fun to get around the city, you should also be able to buy consoles and hook them up to a TV (more mini-games!), have a few minigames and be able to buy consoles and play them! the better the minigame requires the better console... and obviously you need to make portables to get the money to buy the consoles themselves... you have the unlockables in the game too for replay value and to make it all worth your while =)

In my opinion, that would be a rather fun game, and I hope other people on this forum think it will be fun too

EDIT: Damn I just had to add more, after reading the General News/Info thread completely. If we do see a PC game, can we have multiple playable characters (obviously based off characters on the damn forum), and an online mode, even if all you can do is walk around the city (or drive, depends on what you like really), or even at your house (yeah, each guy gets his own house ^^), you can go onto your computer, go on the internet, well, just Benheck.com Forums, and... sell your portables too each other! Even if it happens to be that primitive, it would still be an intresting feature. If you included all of that, or just that in Grand Theft Portable. I would play it for hours on end. Also, as well as being able to buy consoles, you should be able to buy screens for portables, obviously with the guidelines of them not being in inches, but quality themselves (better quality = more price ^^), or you could have the size in inches anyway, and make it so that a certain portable needs a certain size screen , i.e. PSoneP, needs 5" PSone screen. You could even have annoying people that ASK for a certain screen, more greedy and irritable customers than others lol. I think that's good enough guidelines for now... if you want to use any or all of that idea(s) in your game. Thanks if you actually did ALL of that.

Damn that's a long read.