The other big change is that this will not be an open-source project. My goal is to get the first expansion working (156 cards) and get authorization from NECA, the company that bought Wizkids. It would be cool to sell it for $10 or $20 because there aren't any other videogames like it on the market. (The market really needs more trading card videogames and not lame, yuppie games that only cater to 12 or 14 year olds.)
To summarize, my new goal for this blog is to write a Pirates of the Spanish Main videogame and try to sell it for cold, hard cash. The first version would only let you play against the computer but later versions might change that.
I'm very hesitant about this project because it will require a very sophisticated user interface compared to Forge. The physical area for a pirates game is very large, at least 3 feet long and 3 feet wide. To make the user interface as good as possible I plan to use a 2D Java videogame library to handle the low-level grunt work rather than write my own.
Both the user interface and the artificial intelligence (AI) are both big unknowns that could sink this project. Forge has a decent user interface and AI but both will have to be improved if I want to make a commercial game. I don't take many risks in life but I'm willing to gamble on this one.
As always, thanks for reading,
mtgrares
p.s.
Maybe I should start a new blog instead of changing this one, who knows? If I keep this blog I need to come up with a different blog title, something like "Java Videogame Programming" which sounds extremely lame and boring. Maybe "Pirate Programming" is better?
Won't people pirate Pirates?
ReplyDeleteI have pursued similar projects for other games. Typical licensing is $10k plus a percentage of sales. This explains why there are few desktop implementations of board games. iOS is another story and publishers are more willing to license on consignment. Bottom line is that it is very expensive to do as a hobby, especially on IP that was not a big hit.
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the hard numbers. Pirates might turn into an open-source (free) project if I can't sell it.
ReplyDeletewhy dont u have a donate button im sure many people would be glad to donate money.
ReplyDeleteI think you misunderstand - in general, most publishers will not allow free adaptations of their games, either. (In hopes that someone else will come up with the $10k) VASSAL goes under the radar because it is so hard to set up that the player base is minimal, but even so, modules have been withdrawn due to complaints by the publishers.
ReplyDeleteThe goal for publishers is not to have a niche desktop implementation. They want to have a hit on iOS or Xbox Live. The market size for desktop software is so minimal, anyway.
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