Finger Painting Appaloosa
The last couple of weeks I have been working on artistic contributions as there is a strong need for graphical content. With the intention of getting people involved, I am providing images to show the direction we are headed in. Also, I hope to show how easy it is to contribute. In this weeks post I want to show off what I have been working on and assure you that I have no professional education in art or the use of the two programs I use the most: paint and paint.net.
When the concept for Epimetheus began to solidify in my mind I knew that I wanted a world that offered many different aspects to role-playing. This meant a need for variety so that players could personalize their experience, but a variety of what? Well, the answer is everything. We decided to have a large variety of playable races of different sizes, appearances, behaviors, cultures, government types, languages, strengths and weaknesses all in one playable world.
Having many races to choose from is a nice feature and an often commonly overlooked one, but was it enough? Hell no! The old role-playing games in the dungeons of some friends parent's house always offered me a plethora of ways to battle the unending list of monsters and bandits. At this point, however, I had already familiarized myself with coding and understood the need to simplify. So classes were organized tipping my hat to the classic wizard and warrior genre games over the span of the last 25 years, but player cross-classing is out.
This has all the makings for a successful game right? Absolutely not. It would be just another adventure RPG if we couldn't find something that set it apart. Then toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium, I stumbled upon a game called Minecraft. It was so simple and the graphics horribly unimaginative that you would think it would be a complete flop, but I couldn't stop playing. That was when it hit me: sandbox game. Today the evidence of players' desire to impact the world they are playing in, even if for a limited time, was an incredibly untapped aspect to gaming. In my opinion, it was what made Sid Myer's Civilization game series so successful.
Can you imagine the content it takes to create a world filled with fantastical beasts, mythical creatures, and monsters of lore? Just to give a rough idea of what is needed, it took over five million man hours to roll out the first release of World of Warcraft. How could we reduce that sort of an expense? Well, what if we included mythological creatures from the four corners of the planet? And added all of the wildlife in the world? I mean this is our world after all. And who says that we have to limit ourselves to the wildlife alive today? And then it occurred to me that players love to make content.
I mean have you ever been to a fan site? They make videos, artwork, storylines, characters, track histories, create forums and support apps, it's crazy when you think of the raw talent that can be found spent on online games. Today fans are even more educated and industrious then ever before and so many are looking for ways to be noticed in this growing electronic world. Epimetheus offers everyone who has ever wanted to be noticed for their work an outlet that showcases their talent in application. Albeit there are some creative restrictions to preserve the intended look and feel of the game, but what job will give you 100% creative freedom?
And again it is a lot easier than you might think. The artwork linked to this post is done completely in paint (aside from the original pen/pencil drawings I did as a kid which I have used as a template) and paint.net. I literally started using these programs regularly about two months ago. It is a lot like finger painting, but I can change the size of my finger and the paint dries much faster. Both paint and paint.net are free programs.
When the concept for Epimetheus began to solidify in my mind I knew that I wanted a world that offered many different aspects to role-playing. This meant a need for variety so that players could personalize their experience, but a variety of what? Well, the answer is everything. We decided to have a large variety of playable races of different sizes, appearances, behaviors, cultures, government types, languages, strengths and weaknesses all in one playable world.
Having many races to choose from is a nice feature and an often commonly overlooked one, but was it enough? Hell no! The old role-playing games in the dungeons of some friends parent's house always offered me a plethora of ways to battle the unending list of monsters and bandits. At this point, however, I had already familiarized myself with coding and understood the need to simplify. So classes were organized tipping my hat to the classic wizard and warrior genre games over the span of the last 25 years, but player cross-classing is out.
This has all the makings for a successful game right? Absolutely not. It would be just another adventure RPG if we couldn't find something that set it apart. Then toward the end of the first decade of the new millennium, I stumbled upon a game called Minecraft. It was so simple and the graphics horribly unimaginative that you would think it would be a complete flop, but I couldn't stop playing. That was when it hit me: sandbox game. Today the evidence of players' desire to impact the world they are playing in, even if for a limited time, was an incredibly untapped aspect to gaming. In my opinion, it was what made Sid Myer's Civilization game series so successful.
Can you imagine the content it takes to create a world filled with fantastical beasts, mythical creatures, and monsters of lore? Just to give a rough idea of what is needed, it took over five million man hours to roll out the first release of World of Warcraft. How could we reduce that sort of an expense? Well, what if we included mythological creatures from the four corners of the planet? And added all of the wildlife in the world? I mean this is our world after all. And who says that we have to limit ourselves to the wildlife alive today? And then it occurred to me that players love to make content.
I mean have you ever been to a fan site? They make videos, artwork, storylines, characters, track histories, create forums and support apps, it's crazy when you think of the raw talent that can be found spent on online games. Today fans are even more educated and industrious then ever before and so many are looking for ways to be noticed in this growing electronic world. Epimetheus offers everyone who has ever wanted to be noticed for their work an outlet that showcases their talent in application. Albeit there are some creative restrictions to preserve the intended look and feel of the game, but what job will give you 100% creative freedom?
And again it is a lot easier than you might think. The artwork linked to this post is done completely in paint (aside from the original pen/pencil drawings I did as a kid which I have used as a template) and paint.net. I literally started using these programs regularly about two months ago. It is a lot like finger painting, but I can change the size of my finger and the paint dries much faster. Both paint and paint.net are free programs.
Amazing Job. I love the Cyclops!
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