Announcing FreedomRPG (working title) and a plea for help.
Hello, my name is Andy Krill, and I'm a fledgling indie developer and long time gamer currently working on a single-player roguelike/sandbox game called FreedomRPG (working title). It is a heavily moddable, animated tile-based game for the PC that kind of straddles the line between Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft, with a healthy dose of Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing and several other games thrown in that had gameplay features that I enjoyed and feel that need to be together in one game. It will be similar to Minecraft in that your character will "wake up" in the game's world with no knowledge of where it is or how they got there, and will have to do whatever it takes to survive in this new world. The game will be centered heavily around the idea of the player making this new world their own, in whichever way they decide to do so. Below are some work in progress pictures:
Everything you see in those pictures is moddable in a style very similar to Dwarf Fortress's Raw Files. The images, the stats/flags of the items, the terrain, the graphical parts of the UI. All of it is contained within human-readable raw data files that anybody can modify or expand upon, no coding experience necessary. For example, here's the entry for an edible Mushroom item I have been using in game to test various things:
[MOBID:7]
[MOBTYPE:Object]
[MOBNAME:Debug Withered Mushroom]
[GRAPHIC:DARKFOREST:4:4]
[STACKLIMIT:99]
[USABLE:EAT]
As you can see it's all pretty straightforward. If you wanted to, you could do a total conversion and completely replace the majority of the game's content just by modifying these external raw/image files.
The map system will function in a hybrid of Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft's styles, where each map is a section of the over-all world map, each one being randomly generated. You'll also be able to share maps with other players, so if you find or build something and want to share, you can do so without having to upload your entire world map.
The game will also be classless and level-less, as I plan to use a skill based setup similar to Ultima Online, where if you want to get better at something you need to keep doing things that use the skill in question.
Also, yes, you may recognize some of the graphics I'm using as belonging to somebody else, but these are literally only being borrowed as I am an absolutely horrible artist and didn't think colored squares with text in them would look very good when trying to demonstrate my game. If the game gets to the point of release, I will definitely be changing them to something less stolen/borrowed, but more on that later.
Anyway, as you can probably tell there's still a lot of work that I need to do on it before it gets anywhere near a playable state, as right now the only gameplay element it contains is plowing certain terrain types into dirt and then planting seeds that do nothing. I intend to do a release pattern similar to Minecraft's, where the earlier you buy it the cheaper it will be, with the maximum price being $20. However, I'm a long way off before I can even do the initial alpha-test release. That's where the plea for help comes in.
I had originally began working on the game about 5 years ago as a hobby/pet-project to keep my C# skills from getting rusty, and to also make a game that I truly wanted to play. The extent of my C# knowledge is limited to 1 Intro to C# class I took at a local community college, and whatever I can find online. At the time I was finding it very difficult to get a job anywhere, as nobody would ever reply to my applications/resumes, but the financial situation was good enough that I didn't have to worry and could focus on my game.
2 years later my mom, who I live with, lost her job, and I was forced to put my game on hold to try and find a job so I could help out. By this time my game was barely more than a partially functioning engine, due to the limitations of my C# skills. However, once again I found myself sending out hundreds of applications/resumes, only to never get a reply on any of them, even when I applied as a gas station attendant or 7-11 Clerk. I even tried doing freelance Technical Support & Computer Repair via Craigslist but only got 1 customer in the span of 2 months who ended up ripping me off for $100 anyway. No matter who or what me and my mom tried to apply for, we've been ignored. About 3 months ago I decided that if I didn't want to end up homeless, my only real course of action was the game.
This all brings us to the plea for help. Me and my mom are staring down the barrel of homelessness at this moment, and my game is our best bet of turning a horrible situation into something better. However, my game doesn't need funding, we do. We've run out of options, and we've almost run out of time. We can barely afford to feed ourselves, let alone cover the utilities or mortgage. Things have gotten so bad that we're even allowing my abusive, alcoholic father live with us just so he can pay rent, which is currently our only source of income. So I'm asking you, the great and powerful Hivemind of the Internet, for help.
If you like what you've seen so far and want to see this game finished, just want to help out a fledgling indie developer, or just want to help a couple people down on their luck, then please donate whatever you can. Anything you can give will give us a better chance at surviving, and gives my game a significantly better chance at being released at some point in the future. Paypal info is: dbogle94@gmail.com. Those that donate will be given a free copy of the game upon it's initial release, which will include all future updates. Of course, the initial release is wholly dependent on me being in a position to get it to that point, which is why I'm asking for help.
Thank you for your time, and please feel free to ask questions.
tl;dr - Soon to be homeless Indie Developer working on potentially awesome game needs help from the Hivemind. Please help!
Posted Jun 11, 2012, 10:14 PM UTC