Truth or Dare Game - Looking for a team

[max_carpenter]

Good Evening everyone,

I made a PC version of the classic game Truth and Dare but it was quite basic and a bit buggy now I have decided to make Version 2 completly re-written and a 1000% better. It is a free game for everyone to enjoy however to make it so good I am looking for a team of programmers and developers and even testers to help join in and making this an amazing game for everyone to enjoy.

If you are intrested in helping out for this game in any way the please reply to me or PM and I will talk to you.

DETAILS:
---------

We are going to be programming in Visual Basics .Net 2008 and we will be Using Microsoft Groove to share project files, calendar and other tools to keep everything running smoothly. You can be using any version of VB.Net 08 even the free Express edition so please if you're intrested please contact me.

Initially we will have a meeting through Groove where we can discuss our ideas for the game and draw out a plan together.

Thanks in advance for any interest,

Regards,
Max

[max_carpenter]

Oh I forgot to say anyone that is taking part will be listed in the About box with their preffered name the bit they helped out and can have a link to their website as well.

This game will not be sold on and will remain freeware for everyone to share forever. No money will ever be made from it not even donations

Regards,
Max

[Malin]

I can try, but tell me more about it . Can you send me previous version's source ?

[max_carpenter]

there not much point as the new version will be a different engine I am on my mobile at the moment so I will post laster with how the old one worked and some code but I am hoping to make this engine better as th old one uses plain txt file databases where I would like to use an access database for this one.

but even if that bit sounds like something you can't do there are plenty of areas some quite simple like a return section and dare suggestions via emailing module

regards
max

[max_carpenter]

Right hi, I don't currenty have the project files with me they are at my other place but here is what the other program did:

There were a few plain txt files, 1 for Truths, then a few for different dares split up in catagories. The user selected what dare catagories they wanted and then the game created 2 tmp files one with all the truth catagories selected (choice of two built in and custom database) and another for all the dare catagories then game then read loaded these databases into a dataset and also detected how many there were. I believe then the game had a screen with truth and dare buttons as well as other features like a timer, people dice etc etc when a truth or dare button was hit it generated a random number based on how many dares or truths there were and then bring it to the user via a message box then also marked the truth/dare as done so it didnt happen again, Then when the next one was selected and so on it detected if the done column was ticked and generates another one if all the coulmns are ticked then it displays Game Over.

I want this one a bit different through I want an mdb file that stores EVERYTHING and also the choice of repeating dares and truths so it will or will not do as above and a few extra features I think will make the game good. It will also know all the players whether there female or male to enrigh the game. Users will still be able to add there own truth and dares and also submit them to us so if we think they are good add them to our databases. Them game will also connect to our server every so often and update automatically which also includes the database file. We will be able to nick a few things from the old game but most of it will have to be written.

If you are good in ANY area of VB.Net and want to have a go at a FUN project then please give me a shout and we can discuss it further and see if there is a part you can help with. Also anyone that does help will get their name (or what they want to be known as) plus a link to their website if they wish and I have decided that as I will be hosting the game on the freeware section of my website I will also put contributers names and sites on my website which will be good publicity (FREE I must add) for you're websites and I or noone else will be making any money at all from this product.

Regards
Max

[Malin]

Allright. I need to try some examples of mine now. Still not sure if I am on this project. Give me some time - 3 days or so and then I will give you some more aswers. Straight away I can tell you that I'm using VB6 for programming. All this you wrote about, including transfer of data between users and our server, I can write allready. I need more information about the examples of questions, dares, the way of limiting access to the improper questions for youths and so on...

[max_carpenter]

Ok thats not a problem I have no completion date in mind.

I will post at lunch time today with more information and sample code.

Regards,
Max

[tsungik]

Any updates on this? How is going, have you started the project?

[Malin]

I think that Max_Carpenter will never give me more specifications. Strongly believe that he's had his lunch allready many times. Is this thread dead ? I don't know.

[max_carpenter]

no no its still going and I promise to post more details in10 mins. Sorry for the delay my server has been under attack recently so I have dropped everything to try and work out how to stop it but everything is back to normal now.

I am just on my way home and I will post straight away when I get home.

P.S Project not started yet still looking for people.

Regards,
Max

[max_carpenter]

Right I don't have the source files at home so I am going to give as much detail as how it worked as possible and I will paste in some source code Tuesday as its a bank holiday monday. I thought I had one of the old beta version hidden somewhere on my laptop but I have just been through the whole thing cant find it so I promise I will post some source code Tuesday.

Right the details:

Right there were 10 database files all in the form of text files these where:

PG
Teen
Public
18 + Light
18 + Medium
18 + Heavy
18 + Party
18 + All
Pain
Truth

These were all the catagories. When the game is opened up it had a screen listing the catagories and it also asked how many players there where and also if they wanted to enable cheat mode.

Cheat mode was where they could skip the Truth or dare and had to do another.

Once the screen has been filled out the game use to open the database files selected and merge them all into one tmp file then it used to load them into a dataset with a another column to mark done.

Once it has loaded everything it used to show the main screen which consisted of a Truth and Dare buttons, as well as a Timer and start timer, cloth dice and buttons. If the Truth or Dare button was selected it went to the related database chose a random number within the range of rows and went to that row if it was already you would get another random row. Until all the rows where gone then display a game over.

When it picks a row that wasn't already done it marked it done and displayed its contents in a dialog box.

If the dare was time limited dare you can use the built in timer to time. Default time was 30 seconds and when it gets to 10 started beeping and flashing red.

It also had a clothes and person dice which if the dare required another person or to take an item of clothing of you can use these two features to choose.

That was basically it. I was working on a Customizer that you could add your own Truth and Dares as well as submit new ones to us so we could add them if we thought they were good. As well as an automatic database update but I never completed that.

This new version I would like to have everything built into one exe it automatically checks for updates on the databases and game itself. Custom Truth and Dares which also send to us for review and possible adding to the game. Also I would like to put the Truth and Dares into a Access Database unless someone comes up with a better idea thatas easy enough.

I also want to perfect the dice modules for more features like the person dice you have the option for not doing the the dares with same sex and this is what I want an online meeting for so we can decide on new features and ways to improve it.

I will post some of the core engine and couple of other snippets on Tuesday I will set a reminder to go of at lunch time and remind me. But please if you're intrested do join we will have fun with this project plus a good chance to advertise yourself and your site within the game and on the game download site.

I have enough resources with my server. I can host it, provide email addresses etc. I need a team to discuss, come up with ideas and actually make the game that people across the world are going to enjoy.

[max_carpenter]

Right I don't have the source files at home so I am going to give as much detail as how it worked as possible and I will paste in some source code Tuesday as its a bank holiday monday. I thought I had one of the old beta version hidden somewhere on my laptop but I have just been through the whole thing cant find it so I promise I will post some source code Tuesday.

Right the details:

Right there were 10 database files all in the form of text files these where:

PG
Teen
Public
18 + Light
18 + Medium
18 + Heavy
18 + Party
18 + All
Pain
Truth

These were all the catagories. When the game is opened up it had a screen listing the catagories and it also asked how many players there where and also if they wanted to enable cheat mode.

Cheat mode was where they could skip the Truth or dare and had to do another.

Once the screen has been filled out the game use to open the database files selected and merge them all into one tmp file then it used to load them into a dataset with a another column to mark done.

Once it has loaded everything it used to show the main screen which consisted of a Truth and Dare buttons, as well as a Timer and start timer, cloth dice and buttons. If the Truth or Dare button was selected it went to the related database chose a random number within the range of rows and went to that row if it was already you would get another random row. Until all the rows where gone then display a game over.

When it picks a row that wasn't already done it marked it done and displayed its contents in a dialog box.

If the dare was time limited dare you can use the built in timer to time. Default time was 30 seconds and when it gets to 10 started beeping and flashing red.

It also had a clothes and person dice which if the dare required another person or to take an item of clothing of you can use these two features to choose.

That was basically it. I was working on a Customizer that you could add your own Truth and Dares as well as submit new ones to us so we could add them if we thought they were good. As well as an automatic database update but I never completed that.

This new version I would like to have everything built into one exe it automatically checks for updates on the databases and game itself. Custom Truth and Dares which also send to us for review and possible adding to the game. Also I would like to put the Truth and Dares into a Access Database unless someone comes up with a better idea thatas easy enough.

I also want to perfect the dice modules for more features like the person dice you have the option for not doing the the dares with same sex and this is what I want an online meeting for so we can decide on new features and ways to improve it.

I will post some of the core engine and couple of other snippets on Tuesday I will set a reminder to go of at lunch time and remind me. But please if you're intrested do join we will have fun with this project plus a good chance to advertise yourself and your site within the game and on the game download site.

I have enough resources with my server. I can host it, provide email addresses etc. I need a team to discuss, come up with ideas and actually make the game that people across the world are going to enjoy.

[Malin]

Ok. Let's do it. If you want it to be all in one exe , then you probably don't want a database to be accessed just like that through explorer. This database should be located on the server which hosts the game. It would be fully downloaded each time the game starts and it would be fully downloaded again during the game but only if any changes to it would be made. For this kind of transfer I sugest FTP would be safest. However this game will also require a service on the server end, to aprove added truths, dares , questions etc. But then players, if more then one, would not communicate with each other straight away. They would only be able see their outcomes after each game is complete.

[Genovah]

I am interested in possibly being a part of this project you can contact me via MSN: [email protected] you can also contact me via e-mail if you are still looking for help with this.

[max_carpenter]

Malin;

Database is not a problem for me its easy to protect it although if it got it from the webserver each time plays would be good you have sorted the updating out there already however the server would have to be available for the game to work and there would be a delay while it gets it. I think the best bet would be to discuss this in the project team meeting but what you have sugested is a good idea and a possability.

Are you intrested in helping out with this project because I could really do with someone like you helping out.

Thanks,
Max

[max_carpenter]

Here is the promised code sorry for the delay:

Once the Game Setup screen has been setup and they press the Play button the game starts opening up the text database files required. Each catagory has a boolean value of True or False and if its true it loads that database if not goes to the next one here is a peice of code for one of the catagories:

  If truths18 = True Then
            Dim t18reader As StreamReader = _
            New StreamReader(Application.StartupPath & "\db\truths18.dhcd")
            Try
                GameTDB = GameTDB & vbCrLf & t18reader.ReadToEnd
            Catch
                statusc = "3"
                errorc = "200"
                taskc = "MakeDB, DB.Grab, \db\truths18.dhcd"
                paramc = "modGameDB"
                frmdebug.ShowDialog()
            Finally
                t18reader.Close()
            End Try
        End If

Once it has gone through all the catagories and loaded whats needed it then creates a tmp database file with all the chosen catagories one for truths and one for dares:

       'Create Temporary file for Truths database
        Dim twriter As StreamWriter = _
        New StreamWriter(Application.StartupPath & "\db\ttemp.tmp")
        Try
            twriter.Write(GameTDB)
        Catch
            statusc = "4"
            errorc = "201"
            taskc = "Createdb, DB.Write, \db\ttemp.dhcd"
            paramc = "modGameDB"
            frmdebug.ShowDialog()
            Application.Exit()
        Finally
            twriter.Close()
        End Try

Next comes creating data tables for the truths and dares:

        'Load in Truth database
        If truthTbl Is Nothing Then
            truthTbl = LoadTable(Application.StartupPath & "\db\ttemp.tmp")
        End If

Private Function LoadTable(ByVal filePath As String) As DataTable

        'Importing Truths and Dares database into memory
        Dim dt As New DataTable
        dt.Columns.Add("Phrase", GetType(String))
        dt.Columns.Add("Picked", GetType(Boolean))
        If IO.File.Exists(filePath) Then
            Try
                Dim lines() As String = IO.File.ReadAllLines(filePath)
                Dim row As DataRow
                For Each line As String In lines
                    If line.Trim <> "" Then
                        row = dt.NewRow()
                        row.Item("Phrase") = line
                        row.Item("Picked") = False
                        dt.Rows.Add(row)
                    End If
                Next
            Catch ex As Exception
                statusc = "0"
                errorc = "100"
                taskc = "TBLSRowCreate,GameLoad"
                paramc = "FrmMain"
                frmdebug.ShowDialog()
                Application.Exit()
            End Try
        End If
        Return dt
    End Function

It then works out how many there are so the Random Generator knows what to pick from:

        'Work out how many phrases there are
        TruthIndex = truthTbl.Rows.Count - 1
        DareIndex = dareTbl.Rows.Count - 1

And what I done next was make the Random Generator only allow selection of some of the Truth and Dares in each game so that every time you play the game it was slightly different. so for instance if there 100 dares it would only select 50 if there were 200 it only selected 100 and so on.

When they selected a Truth or Dare the following executed:

Try
            Timer1.Stop()
            Dim phrase As String = TruthGetPhrase(truthTbl, tindex)
            If phrase <> String.Empty Then
                debugphrase = phrase
                MsgBox(phrase)
                Timer1.Start()
                thad = thad + 1
            Else
                btnTruth.Enabled = False
                If btnDare.Enabled = True Then
                    MsgBox("All truths have been picked.")
                    tfinished = True
                    tindex = Nothing
                    Timer1.Start()
                Else
                    MsgBox("Game Over! Reset to play again.")
                    tindex = Nothing
                End If
            End If
        Catch
            statusc = "2"
            errorc = "300"
            taskc = "TruthGet"
            paramc = "FrmMain"
            frmdebug.ShowDialog()
            Application.Exit()
        End Try

   Private Function TruthGetPhrase(ByRef tbl As DataTable, ByVal idx As Integer) As String
        Dim phrase As String = String.Empty
        Dim isPicked As Boolean = CBool(tbl.Rows(idx).Item("Picked"))
        If isPicked Then
            Dim tmpIdx As Integer = idx + 1
            While tmpIdx <> idx
                If tmpIdx > TruthIndex Then
                    tmpIdx = 0
                End If
                isPicked = CBool(tbl.Rows(tmpIdx).Item("Picked"))
                If Not isPicked Then
                    phrase = CStr(tbl.Rows(tmpIdx).Item("Phrase"))
                    tbl.Rows(tmpIdx).Item("Picked") = True
                    Exit While
                End If
                tmpIdx += 1
            End While
        Else
            phrase = CStr(tbl.Rows(idx).Item("Phrase"))
            tbl.Rows(idx).Item("Picked") = True
        End If
        Return phrase
    End Function

That was the main engine to the game of course its going to be alot different in this new version and hopefully a lot better coding and more reliable I do know the way its done is pretty poor practice but there you go.

Of course there were a few other bits like the timer and the dice but the post is getting rather long.

One thing I would like to do in this new version is make the game inteligent. I want it to know whether the person dice/timer or cloths dice is needed for the current dare and automatically open or execute the nessary stuff.

[tsungik]

Do we have any takers on this project?

[Malin]

Max. I want to appologize you for what I have to tell you right now. I have to quit, because I have some very important things to do which have nothing to do with programming. I understand that it took you loads of time to gather sourcecodes and place them here. Once again...sorry mate I scrued up.

[max_carpenter]

Hi, I have spoken to Malin and he said he will be able to help out with the project as the project start date is around 10th July.

Please does anyone else want to have a go at this project. It will be lots of fun. There is already some intrest in this game from a players point of view I have a couple of people asking if they can Beta test it which I have replied with no only project team members can beta test the game and the public will only see the final release.

So please if anyone would like to help make this fun game give me a shout. Looking for both men and women to help on this project so please please give me a shout if you have a bit of spare time not much is required its not going to be a demanding project where you have to spend a certain amount of hours a day on it simply when you got time if you busy all week fine just come back to it next week its a relaxed project with no deadline so if you're at all intrested even the slightest give me a shout.

Regards,
Max

[max_carpenter]

Project is going to be underway in 1 Month.

This is last request for developers to work on one of the most fun game to date.


Also developers will get to state their name and website in the game as well as on the website hosting the game. It will be a freeware game where no money is made but the pure good feeling of making something good that every person in the world can enjoy.

If you're intrested or want to know more about it please response here or email max @ dhcd.co.uk

Thanks,
Max

[formlesstree4]

Well, I'll be willing to help you out if you want any. I've added you on MSN

[.NetNinja]

How is the game coming along? Do you need any help with anything?

[max_carpenter]

Hi, thanks for your response. The game is still on hold due to some more pressing matters but I am still looking to build the team up ready.

What area is your expertise or the part you would like to help on and do you have Microsoft Groove?

Thanks,
Max

[.NetNinja]

I do not have Groove, but is not a problem to get. I'm not sure I have a "area of expertise" really. Lately I have been writing a LOT of class library's where I currently work. But I have done it all. Just not 100% on graphics.

[max_carpenter]

Graphics is fine I would say I am alright at GUI's and I already have a design in mind for that as for the logos/images I am ok with. My two main concerns are the Database stuff and functionaility and the way things work.

I am alright at programming in general but I am very weak at classes and inhertiance as well as database stuff and its all stuff I am trying to learn at the moment.

I would Estimate and would like to start the project planning in January where we will all meet up (online) and Ill put across some points for discussion (features/structure/updates etc etc)

and we will put a plan together of who is doing what how and when and we will keep two groove projects (1 for all the project files and 1 for all the calendar/meeting controls as far as I am aware you cant have one project to do both if this is wrong please let me know)

So if you do want to have a go at this if you get groove then send me a PM with your groove account and email and I will add you to the projects and let you know when we are getting ready to start.


Regards,
Max

[.NetNinja]

What type of database are you going to be using? I'll also be getting groove in the next couple of days.

[max_carpenter]

Good Morning,

At current I plan to use an Access Database. It has not yet been decided to have the database on the local computer for running and every so often the game checks for updates and db updates or whether to have the database online and the game loads from that one each time. Personally I think the first it better due to people might not have internet at the time.

Ok if you let me know when you have groove and Ill add you to the project.

[.NetNinja]

I agree. I have my own domain with plenty of space and database room if you wish to opt that way. We could also host the database on my end and check for updates. Its however we decide to play it.

[max_carpenter]

Hi, Thanks for the offer but I am ok about Hosting anything. I actually run my own company so I have all the Server/Hosting equip we will need for this and any other resource all I am in need of is:

VB.Net Programmers
Really need:
> DB Programming People
> Someone who is good with classes and Inheritance
> Someone who is good with communicating with the Web
Testers
People to Add to the Database

[dee-u]

I do not have groove and I only do C# in VS2005 but if there will be anything that I could share my help with then let me know...

[max_carpenter]

Hi dee-u thanks for your repsonse. Unfourtantly this is a vb.net 08 project only.

However I do need testers and people to suggest/add truth and dares to the database

So if you are intrested in either of them or do believe you can help with VB Express 08 then everyone is welcome. Every person helping will get credit in the About screen as well as a link to their websiteif wished for.


Thanks,
Max