Making my own AC game...

[nudgenudge]

Recently, I've had the idea of combining all the best aspects of the Animal Crossing franchise into one mega-game.

The dialogue from Gamecube crossing, the villager systems from wild world, the city from city folk, the customization from new leaf, and very few aspects of NH. I'm gonna be honest, I didn't really like NH very much. But that's for another post.

Naturally, this brings up a lot of difficult decisions, such as...
-should I create my own engine or mod a currently existing game?
-should the camera angle remain the same?
-how should rewrites of "boring" villagers be handled?
-how many things from my own imagination can be implemented before feature creep sets in?
-how do I possibly bring the level of depth that GC had to all the new villagers?

and most importantly: How do I avoid a cease and desist?

I don't know, just figured I'd share. Nothing's set in stone yet and obviously this is a MASSIVE undertaking considering how much is really going on under the hood in any AC game. Just making some rough ideas and sketches. Maybe one day i'll be able to release this thing, get hit with a DMCA, and then never be able to update/improve it. Who knows.

 

[nightglow]

Depends how you want to go about it and where in the world you are located.

I'd suggest using the game engine Godot unless you already know how to make your own engine. It is open source, free, and can be used for commerical use if you want as long as you mention what you need to in the credits of your game.

Personally, I'd avoid modding "to make a game". However there are people out there who can get away with it because of where they live, but honestly... I'd just not do it. There are problems with it, and then you have what work you did do blocked in certain countries.

Nintendo can't touch you for making a similar game that is still different. Just like how Nintendo lost their lawsuit against Temtem, a monster battling game similar to pokemon. Just, don't mod an already existing game or use Nintendo's assets.

Best of luck to you!

 

[Introspective Onlooker]

I wouldn't consider the City to be CF's "best aspect" (in fact, I can't think of anything in that game that stands out to me), but hypothetically, I think it'll be great if it was an actual city, and not just a place you go to shop and trade things. It could probably function similarly to Tortimer Island with players online, with a slew of activities for everyone to play. Just have some more interactivity and make it bigger; that's what I think.

-should I create my own engine or mod a currently existing game?
-should the camera angle remain the same?

Despite possessing very little knowledge in terms of modding and engine design, I think it'll be harder to build an entire engine, rather than to create an elaborate mod for an already existing game. Just be careful, though. Nintendo is unreasonably strangely strict about this stuff, and they won't hesitate to undo your own craft if they feel their IPs are being threatened.

The camera angle probably doesn't need to be changed, either. The Rolling Log still works, and I think Nintendo has a good reason to keep it in the games.

-how should rewrites of "boring" villagers be handled?

I wouldn't put much stock in this. People have different feelings about what constitutes as "boring". I think it's more important to rewrite villagers to fit the personality archetypes they're meant to represent, rather than appease people who feel the dialogue is stale just because it's not villagers making cold remarks towards the player or complimenting said player at every opportunity. I'd hesitate to bring back the obnoxious Snooties or exaggeratedly brash Crankies from PG! without tweaking their dialogue to be a bit less rude for no reason on a constant basis, but it'd be better than what we had in the past few games. Jocks and Peppies, though? No. Their NL iterations are the only ones I can tolerate because they aren't as exaggerated and they are actually, genuinely friendly to you, as they should be; they don't see you as an acquaintance that they can take advantage of, as they did in previous games. They want to be your friend — GC and WW conveyed this message poorly.

-how many things from my own imagination can be implemented before feature creep sets in?

I'd worry more about making sure the game improves on certain aspects of the series (i.e. interactivity, events, etc.), and less about how much new stuff to put in the game.

-how do I possibly bring the level of depth that GC had to all the new villagers?

Bit confused with this question. No offense, but GC villagers didn't have much of anything going for them, aside from participating in events. They don't have hobbies, they don't (ask to) visit your house, they don't carry tools around (I mean, it's mostly superfluous, anyway), they don't have birthdays, thus have no parties, they don't ping you; they won't even acknowledge how nice you've been to them because they'll still you treat the same, no matter how long they've known you or how much you "bonded" with them (another problem with this franchise, in general, tbh), so it's not as if they'll give pics of themselves to you as they would in the later games, and unless you own DnMe+, they couldn't even wave to you or hand you a live K.K. recording. Villagers were much more limited in terms of interactivity on GC. You could just mean the dialogue, but that's just dialogue — randomly generated dialogue, and not representative of how villagers were handled overall in the game.

and most importantly: How do I avoid a cease and desist?

Don't even announce your project until you're SURE it's finished. I'm not sure if there's a sure-fire way of not being hit with this strike. You just have to hope it doesn't.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to discourage you, or think your opinions on what the best aspects of the series are, I just want these aspects to be improved, period. More often than not, fans understand their favorite series better than the developers who created it. I believe the AC fandom is a good example of that. If you do manage to make this endeavor of yours into a reality, I just hope it turns out the way you want it, and that it won't get cancelled because of Nintendo's idiotic war on these harmless fan projects.

 

[ChefC]

I've actually had this idea myself. Game engine wise, I wouldn't mod a game. Starting with a programming engine would be better (I personally favor unreal engine). If you happen to continue through with this, I'd be delighted to try and help.

 

[ztc0611]

From somebody who considers this a lot and makes games: I recommend trying to go after the wild world style, and make it in Godot or Unity “from scratch”. Modding a pre existing game would be incredibly technically difficult. And a lot of work to just be C&D’d because you are using Nintendo’s code and assets. I recommend wild world style because it would make it much easier to make a lot of assets without needing lots of experience in modeling, the low resolution would hide the imperfections. (See A Short Hike)

This would be a very big undertaking, I would definitely recommend trying smaller projects before going all in. But of course the passion has to be there or you’ll never be able to keep it up, so it’s a difficult balancing act.

On Godot v Unity, I personally extremely prefer Godot, but Unity has far more plug and play assets and tutorials. But if you sold the game you would have to give Unity a cut, and they’re also increasing monetization in general and have a sinking reputation.

I also would not recommend making it as a direct animal crossing fangame, branch out and you might end up with something you can sell, and that Nintendo won’t destroy in a matter of hours after you post. See Mother 4 becoming Oddity, which probably only survived as long as it did as M4 because Nintendo doesn’t directly own the copyright to Mother. AC is surely a special game, but a lot of it is pure vibes.

Feel free to DM me if you would like to discuss further. I might be able to provide tips if you go with Godot.

@Camera Angle: I’d think about this a lot, because the fixed perspective makes it easier to do forced perspective designing. But if you’re not thinking of making it be design focused then that might not matter. I wouldn’t recommend 360 camera though.

 

[nudgenudge]

From somebody who considers this a lot and makes games: I recommend trying to go after the wild world style, and make it in Godot or Unity “from scratch”. Modding a pre existing game would be incredibly technically difficult. And a lot of work to just be C&D’d because you are using Nintendo’s code and assets. I recommend wild world style because it would make it much easier to make a lot of assets without needing lots of experience in modeling, the low resolution would hide the imperfections. (See A Short Hike)

This would be a very big undertaking, I would definitely recommend trying smaller projects before going all in. But of course the passion has to be there or you’ll never be able to keep it up, so it’s a difficult balancing act.

On Godot v Unity, I personally extremely prefer Godot, but Unity has far more plug and play assets and tutorials. But if you sold the game you would have to give Unity a cut, and they’re also increasing monetization in general and have a sinking reputation.

I also would not recommend making it as a direct animal crossing fangame, branch out and you might end up with something you can sell, and that Nintendo won’t destroy in a matter of hours after you post. See Mother 4 becoming Oddity, which probably only survived as long as it did as M4 because Nintendo doesn’t directly own the copyright to Mother. AC is surely a special game, but a lot of it is pure vibes.

Feel free to DM me if you would like to discuss further. I might be able to provide tips if you go with Godot.

@Camera Angle: I’d think about this a lot, because the fixed perspective makes it easier to do forced perspective designing. But if you’re not thinking of making it be design focused then that might not matter. I wouldn’t recommend 360 camera though.

Hello ztc! This is all really really great advice. I've become increasingly busy with school and work starting up, but I am still interested in pursuing this idea. My mental health is a mess. I need to figure out medications and organize my life before I'm prepared for a project this big, or really any projects at all. I don't check the forums often but I'll keep this page bookmarked.

Post automatically merged: Oct 3, 2022

I've actually had this idea myself. Game engine wise, I wouldn't mod a game. Starting with a programming engine would be better (I personally favor unreal engine). If you happen to continue through with this, I'd be delighted to try and help.

Hello ChefC! I am in a discord group that is preparing to do work on whatever this idea is someday. But the ball is not rolling at all right now, we need to figure some stuff out first.

If you want in, send me a message.
Janx#7726

 

[JKDOS]

and most importantly: How do I avoid a cease and desist?

Keep it on the down low. Stay away from Reddit and Discord, and don't be posting samples to YouTube. As long as Nintendo stays in the dark, you're good. Once you're done, and the game is released, Nintendo can't do anything about it.

 

[PoppyPumpkin]

Keep it on the down low. Stay away from Reddit and Discord, and don't be posting samples to YouTube. As long as Nintendo stays in the dark, you're good. Once you're done, and the game is released, Nintendo can't do anything about it.

Is that how Longvinter got away with it? haha