So I’m alone now in this dank basement working on my game. And I have to say, it’s a strange feeling knowing that the whole project is standing on this knife’s edge, about to teeter off into nothing.
The thing is, I no longer have an artist. And an artist is pretty important to a game.
I won’t go into the details as to why I no longer have an artist, but the fact remains, ATSS is without art, and without art, it’s just code and some crappy mock ups I’ve done in paint shop.
And I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pour into an artist. In fact, I’ve already dropped hundreds, and I’m no farther along than I was when I started.
So, what this means for ATSS…
Well, right now it means a couple of things. First, I’m looking for a new artist, someone who is willing to put the time in, as I am, without seeing anything upfront (like I am). I need a good 2D artist who really has a passion for games and who can see a value in a finished project.
This may be too much to ask for…people need to eat.
Second, it means a reassessment of the scope of the game. I’ve done a project timeline and with all of the features in ATSS I would be in development until March just on the game engine. I would like to cut this down quite a bit. This means that I’ll be scaling down some of the features, and doing a pretty major rewrite of the game design document. This also means I get to do a few things that I wanted to do before that would not have been possible.
With all of that in mind, I’m ready to being again, focusing more on a more streamlined, elegant game than one that is laden with so many features I can’t imagine debugging them all.
Now if only I could convince someone to come down to this place and draw something.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Subterranean Cartography
I’ve got one of those personalities that likes to check things off of a list, so looking at my project timeline as I go day by day through the first few pieces of actual engine development (as opposed to the month of tech-demo development we just exited) I’m already feeling good about the long term of the project.
Right now the timeline for game engine programming goes until March. That means that story script programming, planet maps, dialog trees, quests and so on will begin to be scripted (actually written in the game’s script language) in the second half of March. Until then, I’ll be writing down plot points, designing dialog trees and quests, all to be saved in a virtual binder (a real binder would get all damp and moldy in our underground offices) to be broken open like a time capsule in the second quarter of next year.
This year however, is all design and code and testing. Right now I’m working on the map system and mapmaking tools. By the end of the week we should have a fully functional map maker that allows us to lay down multiple layers of images, and save animations as well on the map surface. We will see how this goes, but I have high hopes for our map system.
Beyond that, there isn’t much to report at the moment. Eric continues to work on getting our sprites to look amazing. We are going with a hand drawn approach that I am very fond of and I think will give this game a nice unique look among the XNA games that are out there.
Well, that’s about all for now. Time to get back to building map making tools and spearing the rats that are trying to make their way up to eat my lunch.
Right now the timeline for game engine programming goes until March. That means that story script programming, planet maps, dialog trees, quests and so on will begin to be scripted (actually written in the game’s script language) in the second half of March. Until then, I’ll be writing down plot points, designing dialog trees and quests, all to be saved in a virtual binder (a real binder would get all damp and moldy in our underground offices) to be broken open like a time capsule in the second quarter of next year.
This year however, is all design and code and testing. Right now I’m working on the map system and mapmaking tools. By the end of the week we should have a fully functional map maker that allows us to lay down multiple layers of images, and save animations as well on the map surface. We will see how this goes, but I have high hopes for our map system.
Beyond that, there isn’t much to report at the moment. Eric continues to work on getting our sprites to look amazing. We are going with a hand drawn approach that I am very fond of and I think will give this game a nice unique look among the XNA games that are out there.
Well, that’s about all for now. Time to get back to building map making tools and spearing the rats that are trying to make their way up to eat my lunch.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Of Design Docs and Timelines: A love story
One of the more mundane tasks of any programming venture is the project documentation. You basically have to say of each and every piece “It needs to do this and this, and when you do this it needs to react like this and that, but not when you do this and this.” You need to give a plain language overview, and then a technically specific piece as well. And, for a general document like the one I just finished, you aren’t even doing all of the work you need to. There’s a second, much more in depth step that requires you to take those requirements and flesh them out in crazy detail so that when you go to actually program the thing, you’re not guessing at what you’re supposed to be doing.
So this is the phase that Among the Silent Stars is in right now. The 1.0 version of the design document for the game engine is done. The timeline is about 50% done in Microsoft project, and we’re looking at a game engine development cycle of until the beginning of March next year. Woof!
Aside from all of this, I learned in my perusing of the XNA website yesterday that the maximum game size for and XNA game on Xbox is 150 MB! Yeah, that’s less than the size of an RPG from ten years ago. This is very frustrating. I am told that XNA has great compression ability, and if that’s the case, then so be it. However, I’m a little boggled that Microsoft wants to put such a silly limit on our games. We’re the ones putting our time and effort into this, why shouldn’t we be able to make our games any size we want? And what about those who want to buy the games? Why shouldn’t they be able to buy games of any size?
This seems arbitrary and frustratingly like the Xbox team who is brilliant in their design and technical side, but terribly hard to understand in their decisions about access, size limits, and marketing.
Well, back to ATSS. I begin spec design on the first item on the timeline tomorrow. It’s a piece that I have not yet tech demoed, so I’m looking forward to bashing my head against the concrete pillars of my dank basement office and screaming into the darkness for the rats to stop their squeaking to just LET ME THINK! I think I will need a lot of tea and pastries from Panera to keep me sane.
So this is the phase that Among the Silent Stars is in right now. The 1.0 version of the design document for the game engine is done. The timeline is about 50% done in Microsoft project, and we’re looking at a game engine development cycle of until the beginning of March next year. Woof!
Aside from all of this, I learned in my perusing of the XNA website yesterday that the maximum game size for and XNA game on Xbox is 150 MB! Yeah, that’s less than the size of an RPG from ten years ago. This is very frustrating. I am told that XNA has great compression ability, and if that’s the case, then so be it. However, I’m a little boggled that Microsoft wants to put such a silly limit on our games. We’re the ones putting our time and effort into this, why shouldn’t we be able to make our games any size we want? And what about those who want to buy the games? Why shouldn’t they be able to buy games of any size?
This seems arbitrary and frustratingly like the Xbox team who is brilliant in their design and technical side, but terribly hard to understand in their decisions about access, size limits, and marketing.
Well, back to ATSS. I begin spec design on the first item on the timeline tomorrow. It’s a piece that I have not yet tech demoed, so I’m looking forward to bashing my head against the concrete pillars of my dank basement office and screaming into the darkness for the rats to stop their squeaking to just LET ME THINK! I think I will need a lot of tea and pastries from Panera to keep me sane.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Look at all of this Office Space!
So, here we are. I’ve just finished putting my computer desk together and I have to say, I’m liking the looks of this place. Dank basement smell? Check. Rats running around through some kind of hodgepodge of crumpled news papers, mildew infested dry wall fragments, and tattered bits of bum clothing? Double check. Flickering lights that hang menacingly from cords that dangle precariously from cracked ceiling fixtures? You guessed it…check.
So atop my desk is my trusty laptop which looks laughably small compared to the large mahogany beast it’s sitting on. But hey, the way I figure it, if you’re going to sit somewhere, even if it’s in the dank basement of an old abandoned, probably condemned building in the industrial district of Philadelphia you may as well do it with some style. And here, amid puddles of fetid water, crumbling masonry, and questionable decision making, a new XNA game is being born.
Yes, this is the home of the development team working on the game Among the Silent Stars (a working title which is arguably better than the old title “Nebulon”). How long have we been here? Well, we’ve just moved into our new cozy dank crime scene waiting to happen, but we’ve been working on the game for about a month now and boy are we making progress.
Well…sort of. We’re in design and tech demo phase right now. It’s all about, “Can we do this?” and “How do we do that?” at the moment. And so far, the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. There’s a lot of user interface testing and mouse clicking and so forth going on right now. And there is design document writing. My goodness, there is nothing more boring to me than writing a design document. It’s necessary, despite what anyone tells you about “indy gaming.” Unless you’re making the next “breakout” or Space Invaders, a design document is going to be needed to keep all of your jumbled thoughts straight. And my friends, it’s not fun to write.
We are…wait…let me explain what I mean by “we.” There is me, Josh, and then there is Eric. Eric is our artist. I’m…everything else right now. Project leader, lead developer, story writer, UI designer, and so forth. These are the hats I’m wearing right now (along with a brown superman hat that I picked up a week ago that I really like a lot). So I’m having to decide which hat to wear at what time. There is a part of me that just wants to sit down, write the story of the game, get my characters all fleshed out, and start hitting up quests and dialog and all of that fun creative stuff.
But that’s just not how I’m going to go about this thing. The truth is, I’m a programmer in my day job, a VB.Net developer to be exact. I know how projects go, and I’ve watched how projects are managed. You don’t get a big project done by doing the fun parts first. OK, well, that’s only partly true. I really love laying out how a thing is going to work (architecting I believe it’s called) and if you spend the right amount of time doing that, a project runs much more smoothly than if you don’t. So for me at least, you do get a job done by doing the fun part first. But that’s because I’m strange. Here the fun part however would be the creative bits like characters and story. But games don’t just architect themselves and especially not RPG’s.
Yes friends, I said RPG. One developer, one artist. It’s crazy, I’m aware. I’m also realistic about it. Hence the design document. We are going to go about this thing the way that it should be gone about (or do this thing the way it should be done, whichever you like better). Right now we have twenty four independent game engine specs from an inventory system to the game interface customization screen. And we’re going to spec each of these pieces out like we imagine professional game developers do. Well, I’m going to spec them out and Eric will tell me where I’m right, and where I’m crazy.
As I’ve said, we’re about a month into development already and I’ve got a bunch of tech demos up and running on all manner of different pieces of the game. And at the moment, I’m building a fairly respectable game library of classes and enums and all sorts of happy programmer jargon.
The next phase, after I’m done fully specing out the project is writing up the project timeline. We’re hoping for a one year development cycle, though it could go past that.
Right now I have two fears. 1. That we won’t complete the game. 2. That if we do compete the game, the XNA initiative on the 360 will have fallen on its face, or that there will be so many games on it that ours will get lost in the mix.
I’m hoping to keep this developer’s blog up and running on this site so that you, dear reader(s) will get some small insight into the pitfalls and successes of making an independent game.
Welcome aboard…oh, and watch where you step, I’m not sure if that’s water or...something else.
So atop my desk is my trusty laptop which looks laughably small compared to the large mahogany beast it’s sitting on. But hey, the way I figure it, if you’re going to sit somewhere, even if it’s in the dank basement of an old abandoned, probably condemned building in the industrial district of Philadelphia you may as well do it with some style. And here, amid puddles of fetid water, crumbling masonry, and questionable decision making, a new XNA game is being born.
Yes, this is the home of the development team working on the game Among the Silent Stars (a working title which is arguably better than the old title “Nebulon”). How long have we been here? Well, we’ve just moved into our new cozy dank crime scene waiting to happen, but we’ve been working on the game for about a month now and boy are we making progress.
Well…sort of. We’re in design and tech demo phase right now. It’s all about, “Can we do this?” and “How do we do that?” at the moment. And so far, the answer to both questions is a resounding yes. There’s a lot of user interface testing and mouse clicking and so forth going on right now. And there is design document writing. My goodness, there is nothing more boring to me than writing a design document. It’s necessary, despite what anyone tells you about “indy gaming.” Unless you’re making the next “breakout” or Space Invaders, a design document is going to be needed to keep all of your jumbled thoughts straight. And my friends, it’s not fun to write.
We are…wait…let me explain what I mean by “we.” There is me, Josh, and then there is Eric. Eric is our artist. I’m…everything else right now. Project leader, lead developer, story writer, UI designer, and so forth. These are the hats I’m wearing right now (along with a brown superman hat that I picked up a week ago that I really like a lot). So I’m having to decide which hat to wear at what time. There is a part of me that just wants to sit down, write the story of the game, get my characters all fleshed out, and start hitting up quests and dialog and all of that fun creative stuff.
But that’s just not how I’m going to go about this thing. The truth is, I’m a programmer in my day job, a VB.Net developer to be exact. I know how projects go, and I’ve watched how projects are managed. You don’t get a big project done by doing the fun parts first. OK, well, that’s only partly true. I really love laying out how a thing is going to work (architecting I believe it’s called) and if you spend the right amount of time doing that, a project runs much more smoothly than if you don’t. So for me at least, you do get a job done by doing the fun part first. But that’s because I’m strange. Here the fun part however would be the creative bits like characters and story. But games don’t just architect themselves and especially not RPG’s.
Yes friends, I said RPG. One developer, one artist. It’s crazy, I’m aware. I’m also realistic about it. Hence the design document. We are going to go about this thing the way that it should be gone about (or do this thing the way it should be done, whichever you like better). Right now we have twenty four independent game engine specs from an inventory system to the game interface customization screen. And we’re going to spec each of these pieces out like we imagine professional game developers do. Well, I’m going to spec them out and Eric will tell me where I’m right, and where I’m crazy.
As I’ve said, we’re about a month into development already and I’ve got a bunch of tech demos up and running on all manner of different pieces of the game. And at the moment, I’m building a fairly respectable game library of classes and enums and all sorts of happy programmer jargon.
The next phase, after I’m done fully specing out the project is writing up the project timeline. We’re hoping for a one year development cycle, though it could go past that.
Right now I have two fears. 1. That we won’t complete the game. 2. That if we do compete the game, the XNA initiative on the 360 will have fallen on its face, or that there will be so many games on it that ours will get lost in the mix.
I’m hoping to keep this developer’s blog up and running on this site so that you, dear reader(s) will get some small insight into the pitfalls and successes of making an independent game.
Welcome aboard…oh, and watch where you step, I’m not sure if that’s water or...something else.
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