Editor's note: Andrew continues his fascinating reportage on Dudebro, the NeoGAF community's joke-turned-actual-game. This installment focuses on the game's development process. -Brett

Dudebro has gone from meme to NeoGAF game-in-development. In this exclusive four-part series, we will explore gaming communities, independent development, and the state of modern video games. In this second installment, we'll take a look at how the game's development and its 90-plus volunteers are organized and examine just how seriously the production team, Grimoire Assembly Forge, is taking the project.

Part One: The Birth of a Meme and How NeoGAF Began Its First Video Game
Part Two: It's Straight-Up Development Time! (You are here)

While satire and humor brought together the massive team of NeoGAF members now working on Dudebro: My Shit Is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time, narrative, characters, and jokes were promptly set aside when serious development work began in order to first nail the concept of the game.

As it stands now, the game will be relatively simple. Each level will be a single screen rendered in 3D and viewed isometrically, with movement and shooting mechanics akin to a twin-stick shooter like Geometry Wars (changed slightly for keyboard and mouse). It's being developed with the Unity Engine (which you may have encountered through the viral hit Off-Road Velociraptor Safari) and will available on PC via web browsers. However, don't let its free distribution and ease of access fool you. This is a full-on game, one that draws inspiration from Diablo and Torchlight.

Lead designer Andrea Nicolò (NeoGAF user Jocchan) put this very serious approach into action from the early stages of development. "Our main concern was trying to turn a joke that probably would have gotten old very fast into a fun experience that's able to stand on its own," he says. "Gameplay came before everything else in every design decision, and we actually discarded some pretty funny ideas because I believed they could have hindered the type of gameplay we were trying to achieve."

While this philosophy is laudable, it requires an intense amount of organization and coordination. Without any sort of corporate structure or money, and less expertise and experience than an ordinary studio, the keys to propelling the project forward are maximizing the work of the 95 individuals involved, filtering ideas, and ensuring each task is handled promptly. A tall order for a ragtag group of forum users, but the voluntary nature of the project actually helps with organizing.

"People are working on it because they want to, and that means everyone is putting forth their best efforts. Another big plus was that we had everyone bringing in their own skills. We knew what everyone could do, so naturally this made the task of determining how things get done slightly easier," says producer Alan Partridge (NeoGAF user Earthstrike). "With a voluntary project, you're presented with a skill set. Naturally, the development process needs to cater to the skill set and not make unreasonable demands."

The development process mimics the component nature of the skills that are bringing it to life. Miguel Alonso (NeoGAF user Mik2121) has been put in charge of 3D modeling and says that the art and level design lends itself towards the number of people working on it. "We needed to find some art style that could both look good enough and not take us forever to create each piece of the environment, weapons, and other models," he explains. "We are also working on all the environments as if they were Lego pieces. That is, instead of creating full, complex environments from the ground up and with very concrete shapes, we are just creating lots of props that can be stacked together to create a wide variety of environments."

Another key to the development process is keeping it public. The actual design document is available online, and it offers compelling insight into the game. It keeps the volunteers in the know with an added benefit. "The more exposure we have on GAF and around the Internet," says producer Dan Myers (NeoGAF user Danthrax), "the more people step forward with the desire to contribute."

One fear that the core development team has stems directly from the fact that there is no investment or corporate entity attached to the project. Ironically, they fear there will be too much game. Feature creep is a term you will hear often when speaking to the guys working on Dudebro, and they are distinctly aware that if they don't set limits, they could continue adding new features, elements, story, and characters indefinitely.

This goes back to their guiding philosophy: make a good game. While the process has been very organic from the beginning, Nicolò and Nayan Ramachandran, the project's head writer, work closely with Myers and Partridge to stay within the capabilities of the volunteer work force. Unlike the high performance jet engine that is a high budget studio, Grimoire Assembly Forge is more like a Rube Goldberg contraption, where many disparate and non-endemic parts work together in unlikely and harmonious ways to complete, against all probability, the job at hand.

Already, a lot has been done. Within a month of the birth of Dudebro, music, art assets, and the bulk of design has been completed, and the team put out a (very) rough playable alpha. But to keep to the scheduled May 2010 release, the team must make the trek from non-existence to complete game in six months, a blink of the eye in the conventional video game development cycle.

Dudebro Nation

Development is not the sole concern of the Dudebro team. Myers has been given marketing and public relation duties, and he is taking them very seriously. Contrary to the general tone of NeoGAF, he and all the members of the team have been congenial, thoughtful, and insightful, something that gives credence to the development of the game. They have a comprehensive strategy and are fully aware that public awareness and image management are as important as the game itself.

Which only makes sense. Myers and his team are the exact people that corporations pay millions to reach. They have their buzz-worthy social media in order and provide regular updates to both the growing team of contributors and their potential audience.

One thing that Myers states emphatically is that Dudebro will be definitively and explicitly a NeoGAF game. The forum brought these new developers together, and it is something the team will celebrate as they make the game. Site owner EviLore has allowed the complete and full use of the NeoGAF logo and site, and the team is intent on hiding a plethora of in-jokes and memes created by the NeoGAF community throughout the game.

On the other hand, they are aware that Dudebro has wide-reaching potential. The excessive manliness of modern games is not a unique criticism by the NeoGAF community, and they will tailor the game experience to the outsider. In fact, while monitoring communications via the Dudebro Twitter and Facebook accounts, Myers has noticed that already the game has caught the attention of more than just NeoGAF members. As NeoGAF has been driving people towards the project, many people are signing up for NeoGAF (a long process, I might add) because of the game.

Full Circle

Perhaps the most striking thing about the Dudebro team members is that they are comfortable with the idea that the world's most infamous video game critics are now making their own game. They aren't worried about developer reaction. They are solely concerned with quality of the game in a more general sense: Can they meet their deadlines? Do they have the right people to accomplish their goals?

This attitude stems from the intentions of the developers. While Dudebro will be a cutting satire that will provide plenty of commentary of the state of video games, the team members are perfectly fine with the fact they are lampooning products that they love. The game will be both satire and homage, a love letter to the reasons the NeoGAF community congregates every day. "We're paying homage to a lot of the things we love about video games," Myers points out, "particularly classic stereotypes like over-the-top boss fights, 16-bit-era cut scenes, and the ubiquitous high score counter."

Ultimately, the team is focused on a simple set of goals. "We're just making the game we want to make, making it as fun and as funny as we can," says Myers.

The fun is not reserved for the end user. The developers themselves are having a lot of fun making this game. They are optimistic and enthusiastic. Their glee is embedded in every aspect of the process. It is readily seen in their design documents and work to date. Each new contribution is accepted and appreciated, and each member is attempting to trump previous contributions in terms of both quality and hilarity. The team has even gotten the voice of Duke Nukem, Jon St. John, to be the voice of Dudebro, a development that sent the collected volunteers reeling in laughter. With this move, one can almost see the circle complete itself. What was once a satire and became reality is now being satirized itself.

The NeoGAF community has rediscovered a truth about our hobby, and it holds true whether you are playing or making games: Video games are fun.

Next up: The Mythology of Dudebro