Hey everyone! First off, I'm new to Lemmy and not sure if this is the right place to post - still getting the hang of the federated stuff, and I'm on mobile ATM, so makes it a bit more difficult - but I wanted to share a project I've been working on for many years, on and off.
I'm mainly posting to see if anyone might be interested in contributing - although I know that may be a long shot. I've posted this information below on Reddit /r/INAT and I'm not sure if Lemmy has a specific community for this type of thing, but I couldn't find a specific community so I am posting it here. If this is not the right place, of course just let me know and I can delete the post (or of course a mod can remove).
Background: I have designed a two player abstract strategy board game that I have worked on for more than 10 years - on and off. I have made many attempts to digitize the game to allow online play, but have never managed to finish the project. I am making this attempt again, and thanks to the improvements in LLM coding, I have made quite the progress. But still, I am a very amateur programmer - and have finally decided that the best chance this project has of success is to license the game into the Creative Commons (CC-BY) and Open Source (GNU GPL).
Current Status: The game is currently already implemented to work in the browser against the computer player - but the current computer logic is extremely bad at the game, and will need to be drastically improved. The physical board game rules are complete, and this is just the digital adaptation, however, since this is a open source (and hopefully communty community developed) project I expect the the gameplay to adapt and evolve with rule variations to be implemented for custom gameplay.
Current Contributors: Currently, I have used free AI LLMs to get this current version of the game to where it is at, so the code base will likely need refactored. I posted on INAT a while ago, and there are a few people who have joined the discord and began showing interest in contributing, with one person creating a refactor plan to switch over to the boardgame.io framework, rather than the current vanilla javascript. While this has yet to be implemented, I think it is a solid that we should refactor into eventually.
Who are we looking for: This is my first attempt at trying to digitize this game since releasing it into the creative commons/open source, and I am hopeful that others might be interested in contributing. I am not looking for any specific skillset or requirments to join the project - as I want this to become a game where the players have the capability to be involved in the development process. While programmers are much needed, we can also greatly increase our chances of success (which I measure simply by the amount of plyers who actually play/are involved with the game) by having contributors who can create sound effects, music, art assets, web design, or even simply playtesting the game or spreading the word to find players (honestly, the game is quite niche, and building up a player base will likely not come easily). So in short, anyone and everyone is welcome. . . just hop into the discord and contribute what/when you want or can, with no pressure or obligations.
"Portfolio": https://www.patreon.com/posts/113134314?collection=787282 note: While this isn't strictly a portfolio in the traditional sense, I have written about the long journey of attempting to develop this game over the many years with various teams of people. The other posts on my Patreon, as well as the many links below of the game progress will hopefully suffice to provide a decent amount of background in lieu of a traditional portfolio.
Links: Github Repository (GNU GPL Version 3): https://github.com/GreenAnts/Amalgam_Webgame
Playable Game, with rules integrated: https://greenants.github.io/Amalgam_Webgame/ note: This is the actual product we are working to develop - currently has a lot of placeholder text, but the gameplay is working against the (unskilled) player bot.
Other ways to play, no rules integration Screentop.gg - https://screentop.gg/@Anthony/Amalgam Tabletop Simulator - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1402132394&searchtext=amalgam
Discord Server: https://discord.gg/gKHjJNBWAd
Video Tutorial: https://youtu.be/LZD5h4siXVM
Board Game Geek (BGG): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/433428/amalgam
Main Website (old): https://www.amalgamboardgame.com/ note: this is mostly used to host the rules, but the playable game link above will likely be replacing this eventually.
Rule-book: Option 1: https://github.com/GreenAnts/Amalgam_Webgame/tree/main/assets/Rulebook Option 2: https://imgur.com/a/amalgam-board-game-rules-0lTmlgR Option 3: The "Main Website (old)" link above
Yeah the "AI" slop approach is ultimately a waste of time since everything will need to be rebuild anyway. But on the other hand maybe its useful as a demo to attract actual devs.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the AI approach, I would love to build it without, but I simply am not a good enough programmer to do it without (I have tried in the past, but eventually give up).
AI has allowed me to actually get the digital version farther than I have ever gotten it before - and on one hand it's nice that I can actually create something, but on the other hand I am afraid it will turn off people who would have otherwise possibly been interestes in contributing. . . But without anything created at all, I would have probably a harder time getting contributors - so a catch 22 in a small way.
But yeah, my current plan is to try and get the project as far as I can using AI, in the hopes that an experienced programmer will eventually be interested in contributing and cleaning up the mess I've made. Probably not the smartest strategy, lol, but it's the only one I've got. ¯_(ツ)_/¯