Project Talimus (working title) is to be a fully
playable single player 2D realtime strategy game based on the current
work of the FcMP and Freecraft projects. The focus will be on
creating an original world, an epic story and unique unit types. We aim
for a seamless experience, all graphics and media should fit together and
meet certain artistic standards and follow design documents. Talimus is not
meant to be a clone of Warcraft, or any other game.
The goal of project Talimus is to get one or multiple single player games done. However the goal is not to create a huge game similar in length to commercial games, but instead focus on getting small, but 100% playable and tested campaigns done. Each campain will therefore be complete in itself, even so the story will most likly build on previous campains and might continue in parts in the next release. In the end there should be a lot of small campains, which all together form a larger game. Along with compelling game play, the goal is to tell an epic story, full of human emotion, victory and defeat.
Project Talimus will make a clear cut between incomplete development versions and fully playable releases. Development versions will not be publically available on the main website, but instead be done on a seperate developers page and only announced to the development mailing lists. The goal is to not bother the player with incomplete and non-working stuff. The player shouldn't become a beta-tester without knowing what she is doing. Project Talimus will not release anything into the general public until it is done and once a release is done it will be done till the end of all days and no further changes will be done to it (except a few bugfixes or new translations into other languages).
The first steps of the development process:
I) Work out the look and feel of the game.
A) User Interface - sketch
B) Tileset - sketch
C) Units - sketch
i) Unit Animations - sketch
ii) Unit Portraits - sketch
D) Buildings - sketch
II) Story
A) First campain
B) Short overview over the large story which should connect
all the multiple single campaigns
C) Characters
III) Design Doc - describe how to create media, and how they should look
A) User Interface - doc
B) Tileset - doc
C) Units - doc
i) Unit Animations - doc
ii) Unit Portraits - doc
D) Buildings - doc
E) Sound - doc
F) Music - doc
G) Cutscenes - doc
IV) Design Demo - Create a playable level with the bare minimum of each
of the above, so that all the processes are defined and new artists can use
the design demo as a reference.
The goal of FcMP is to create a replacement for Warcraft2 media. The goal of Talimus is focused on creating a high quality game, without being restricted by the goals of FCMP. However some of the goals of Talimus and FCMP intertwine, so hopefully we can help each other advance. Also the goals of Freecraft have changed, from being a WC2 clone to becoming a strategy gaming engine. We hope to help Freecraft move in this direction by offering another Freecraft media pack that does not conform exactly to the Warcraft II design.
It might be possible to release single campaigns every few months once the basic graphics set is done. But since the complete development of all campaigns won't be finished in a few month, maybe it will take years, we need to keep track of earlier releases and keep them alive, so that player that will start to play the game in a few years will still get the complete game and not miss the introduction campaigns. This can be either done by porting the campaigns to new versions of the Freecraft engine or by releasing the campaigns together with a static compiled Freecraft engine. Which way to choose depends on the number of incompatible changes in the Freecraft engine and the size of the campaigns.
Ultimatly the Talimus project might have an end one day. When all campaigns are done and the surrounding main storyline is told the project should turn into maintaince-only mode and just make sure that things keep running.
Project Talimus will be released under the GNU GPL, to ensure that the project is Free and stays Free. It will not only mean that it will be free of cost, it will also mean that you can get access to all the development stuff, source code, multilayer source images, etc. and are allowed to change it and make works based on the work of project Talimus.