If you just want a proof of concept, it might be feasible to pay someone to whip up a demo, but you’d likely need to start over if the project ever went further than that (due to reasons already mentioned). So we’d be left with a situation similar to where we started, just with more interest in the project. It feels to me like—if a fan game was to happen—it would be better for fans to create everything themselves from the start, even if it takes longer. That’s going to require people who want to code in their spare time. It’s a fairly big ask for a professional who already spends their week working on other people’s projects, and likely has their own side project ideas as well, to spend their evenings and weekends on a fan project, although it’s not impossible to find people like that.
One of myy favourites games, Riven, is getting remade from the ground up in 3d (and real time - the original game was basically a slideshow of still images with the odd animation thrown in) by fans. These guys are pros in the industry (some of them) and have spent years now doing this on the side. Even for those who are not Myst fans the team’s blog is a really interesting read for those interested in game design http://www.starryexpanse.com/
Yes, I am aware one would need to start over if one was to continue the project, but paying a guy would enable us to keep the assets. You may say it’s better if fans were to create everything from the start…but where are those fans? How are they going to show up? When? Who is coming up with the idea to get things started? It’s better to do something than to stand still in my book. You may, on your way to create a simple demo, connect with other people who would like to be part of the project. There might be big PD fans out there who wouldn’t mind having this be their side project. Hell there might just be a game out there that allows modding that would greatly facilitate such a demo. Point is, there are many possibilities, when you become too picky right off the bat, you may think you are being realistic or factoring all the variables and having foresight, but for the most part we are just killing a load of possibilties. It is important to keep an open mind. If companies like Sega did that more often, we’d have more sequels to our beloved quality IPs.
Do we even know what the algorithms for combat in PDS are? Or is the goal to just tinker around until you get something “close enough”?
Maybe if that Sega Saturn homebrew development engine gets far enough along someone will be insane enough to be interested in disassembling Saturn games.
That’s a lot of “mights”! You’re right, what I’m asking for is a more concrete strategy. Asking for a safer strategy is a bit different from having a closed mind, it’s about ensuring that any effort—be it paying for someone to do the work or creating the code/assets ourselves—can realistically be obtained and has a good probability of leading to the next stage of the project.
Most fan projects succeed due to hard work and a desire/willingness of individuals to do that work themselves, with leadership ensuring that the parts come together as a cohesive whole. That said, if you think it could work, maybe put together some sort of plan for the Baldor battle demo and see if there’s enough interest? I certainly wouldn’t want to kill off a project idea like this.
Someone made the J0 engine, which enables Saturn development through a combination of C and SH-2 assembly, depending on how much performance you need eek out. I brought it up because if a big enough homebrew scene becomes a thing, you’d have a community of people that know a lot more about the machine - and by extension, would know more about disassembling it. It should be easy enough to find with a google search.
In my opinion, we do need to have everything planned beforehand. We can’t just put the cart before the horse, and assume we’ll eventually get something “close enough” just by looking at the original game. There would need to be a full roadmap of what we’d want to do, and how we could potentially achieve that. As @Hukos said, you don’t just get to figure out stuff as it progresses.
The most feasible idea, as some have pointed out, would be to get Sega themselves into the matter; doesn’t matter if it’s an emulator, or a straight up rewrite, so long as it meets the goal of porting the game to other systems.