I'm a solo game dev, and I want to make a sci-fi comedy console RPG. Any advice?

Okay...so, I've noticed how funny science fiction is seeing a resurgence with TV and movies ( The Orville, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc ). But there's barely any representation of this genre in video games. I'm looking to change this as best I as I can.

If anything, this is something that's got to involve a full team, not just me. But for now all I can do is experiment with Blender and Unity.

All I can say about my game is that I want it to have character creation at the beginning from one of twelve species ( including humans ), and the player goes on from there to complete a tedious main quest. There's supposed to be humor and funny elements of everything from the combat to dialogue to side quests.

I feel like this could work if it was on platforms like the One and PS4. Not giving anything else away, as it's still just an idea in my head. So any advice?

Make the animations independent of frame rate. Do your due diligence and design it to run on a wide array of hardware so you can easily run it on many systems - easier to port to other platforms and such.

That said, I've never used Unity. I tend to like to start from scratch (ish), but I guess I'm sort of a masochist when it comes to programming. It may be a lot more work but you'll have complete control over everything.

What are you thinking of for graphics? I would probably go toward the Unreal engine if I were making a 3D game. I would probably just start from scratch with SDL or SFML I were doing 2D.

@pyro1245: I want my game to be cartoonish 3D. Maybe cell shades would work too, but I don't want to try it until I get the basic look premise handled.

Also I'm not sure about Unreal. I won't own the rights to my work, I read their policy. It pops up as soon as you do so much as make an account before download.

i like the idea.

humour lends itself well to the heavily scripted telltale-style point and click genre but beyond that it's arguably more difficult to achieve as a consistent theme, often relying solely on dialogue from over the top cheesy characters - duke nukem, serious sam for example - or through subtle satire in games like gta. it'll be interesting to see how you go about implementing it as a predominant theme throughout an rpg-style game.

my advice is to target pc over consoles initially. and i'm assuming "tedious" main quest is a typo

@Macutchi: Thanks. By "tedious" I meant to say "long and challenging," like Skyrim's.

And I'm sure a game like this could do well for the PC alone, Steam in particular. I also want to make sure it's Steam controller-friendly.

I can't speak from a game dev or design perspective, but my best advice would be to read/watch/listen to as much of the genre as you can and make sure your story, characters and tone are nailed on. Quality writing and storytelling will make all the difference for this genre - particularly dialogue. I recommend Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Philip K Dick, etc. (assuming you haven't read them already).

Light-hearted sci-fi is one of my favourite genres, and it's definitely under-represented. Would love to see what you come up with. Good luck!

Make sure you watch every Extra Credits episode out there ;)

Yes, stop daydreaming about it being an "idea". Actually sit down and learn the things necessary to know to develop a game.

Also, learn how to form a team and conduct the team. This requires communicational skills, endurance and patience. Especially if working through e-mail.

It's gonna be a hard road mate. Many people sugarcoat it by saying "anyone can make a game today" but really, it is a though challenge, wich many people give up on because they lack the sufficient amount of the necessary qualities to see it through to the end. Good luck! Greetings from a fellow dev :)

Do not try to make the humour politically correct. Because politically correct lame-o jokes do not make anyone laugh.

If you really want to make comedy, use dirty jokes, outrageously insulting stuff. Kinda jokes that will make people spit out their coffee because they just cannot believe what the game character just said.

I'm talking the kind of humour like classic Eddie Murphy stuff, from era before he went soft and started to to limp-butt dr Dolittle nonsense.

Use that kind of humour, and the gamers are totally hooked. Because then they want to play on just to see what the next outrageous joke is about.

For believe me, if you go with politically correct jokes that even menstruating feminists would not find insulting, your game will end up meh and lukewarm. Wishy washy.

So, go rad with the humour. Don't be afraid to use controversial language, the kind of stuff that will make you instantly banned from politically correct forums like this one.

@sanghelle56: Surprised it got this far and no one brought this up.

As a solo dev you have to be very careful to work within your means. When I read your post and see that you have plans for 'twelve' species my first thought is why don't you start with one or two and add more at a much later time. Scale your ideas down so that you can actually complete your game. Focus on the core gameplay and once you've got that down then start expanding your scope. Don't build a game so huge that you can't even achieve your first prototype.

I would also ask, what have you built before? Have you built your own Space Invaders yet? Or are you still toying with the tutorials?

@suicidesn0wman: I'm basically building from scratch, ie at the drawing board. But you're right, I should get familiar and start small first. I don't know what the "Roll-A-Ball" thing from Unity is supposed to teach beyond controls for a simple 3D construct, but there's probably other ways to get through Square 1.

Also I can imagine that starting off with Blender means taking squares and turning them into vertical rectangles.

@sanghelle56: I don't know if Blender has gathered a following in the game industry right now, but when I was doing development we found Blender to behave opposite of the standard tools we used for 3d graphics. You'd go to click on a point and drag it on the Z axis and it would go the opposite way you expected, like the whole program has it's controls inverted.

If I were doing 3d still I'd be using 3ds, Maya and C4D for modeling, and Blender only for texturing.

@henrythefifth: everything can be done wekl or badly.

@sanghelle56: are you gonna write it?

How about this for a joke:

The hero steps out onto a bustling spaceport, with lots of weird looking aliens carrying crates and stuff back an forth.

The alien guide smiles at him and says, 'All this must look pretty exotic to you, eh?'

To which the hero answers, 'Not really. My home country has aliens do all the heavy lifting too!'

That chip on your shoulder is showing dude.