Sorry about the lack of posts. We’re crunching at Aspyr as we move towards our first playable.
And I’m back on caffeine. Which means my diet is kaput. My energy level was just too low without caffeine to survive a crunch. And that low energy level is also why I haven’t been posting, and why I haven’t touched Star Revolution since I posted the combat demo.
Star Revolution is supposed to be done by the end of July. That simply is no longer possible, if it ever was in the first place. Star Revolution was a mistake; it’s just too big for me to do by myself. I am abandoning it (temporarily; I do want to make this game eventually).
Which means I need a new project. Something I can do on my own while surrounded by screaming children, which means something closer to the original Inaria in scope.
Any suggestions?
Star Revolution was always an ambitious project, but I don’t think it is too much for you to do alone. How is this for an alternate; narrow the scope from the entire game, to just part of the sub game.
The plan was for Star Revolution to take place in a galaxy with many solar systems. Why not make Star Revolution Lite, be just one planet. This way you can merge, Inaria and your current combat prototype with a sci-fi theme and continue forward. Then, when this is done, you can either, release it as a complete, smaller game or just put the star map and planets in.
As for the PTFSD front, don’t be disheartened by the caffine. If it was easy, they wouldn’t call it addiction! I was reading an article the other day and a phrase jumped out at me; “Eat less and move more.” I still have a soda a day, but I have tried to make myself smaller portions for each meal. My doctor told me that 10 minutes of excersize will increase your metabalizm for 12 hours. I have taken to walking 2 laps around our building at lunch. This takes me anywhere from 11 to 13 minutes and I feel better afterwards.
I don’t step on the scale all that often so I don’t know if I am actually losing weight, but I know that I feel better, have a better attitude and I refuse to believe that it will do anything by help.
Those are both very good ideas. Thanks.
I don’t suppose you’re fond of diet soda, or coffee, or black tea, or penguin mints?
It might be worth acquiring a taste for a sugarfree caffiene delivery device. (Penguin mints come from Central Market, BTW)
Inaria 3D!
(Think about it. You know it would rock.)
I actually like Jolt Gum, but the only place I can buy it is online at ThinkGeek. If there were just someplace local I could get a good supply of non-cola-based caffeine…
Well, 3D Inaria has the same problem as 3D Star Revolution. It’s just too big for me to do on my own. Hmmm…I guess I could start with billboarded sprites on a heightfield, but in the end I will need to write an animation system, which could take a long time. Then I need 3D models with animations. Where do I get them?
Non-cola based caffeine is readily available. Coffee and tea have been around for centuries and are available in a multitude of forms. Not only that, but coffee is all the caffeine you need for hours and hours.
And yeah, penguin mints are also good. Three mints have the caffeine content of one soda and far less sugar. They used to be available at Central Market and Book People but we’ve been having trouble finding them.
As we’ve discovered in the gaming industry, the addition of a 3rd dimension has caused an increase in the complexity of all the game art. It is no longer plausible for a person to garage-game up a game if we’re in 3D land. 3D models and animations are the kinds of things that are horridly difficult.
However, if you concentrated on the space game, you don’t need an animation system, or at least, you don’t need one that complicated. You can layer in a better animation system when you’re ready for the ground combat. And by then, you may have the services of a volunteer art monkey, or have found a useful source of alien art (perhaps Spore will have a solution).
But 3D inaria in Space with simple 3D object ships might be a good halfway point between Inaria and Star Revolution.