I posted a link to my last blogpost on the Gibbage Forums.
I have since learned not to ask Brit gamers if they want someone to make a Dungeon Keeper clone. Just assume that the answer is ‘yes’.
I think a Dungeon Keeper-style game will be a good way to break into 3D, and once its done the engine will be easily adaptable to more complex 3D games like Inaria 3D, so Dungeon Keeper in 40 hours is the winner!
Okay, time to figure out exactly what I’m going to do next. I feel that I’ve got three options:
1. Star Revolution Redux. Finish Star Revolution, but with fewer features. The ground combat will be cut because it will require the most resources. Trade and alien interaction would be abstracted to menus. Players would land on planets solely to mine them or capture lifeforms. The game would then feature space combat (based on the combat prototype I’ve already written), contact with alien races, mining and trading. The game probably won’t be 3D. This isn’t too bad, but it’s only about 50% of the game I wanted to make…
2. Inaria 3D. Ryan really wants this, and honestly, so do I. But Inaria 3D would have pretty much all the problems of my original design for Star Revolution. However, it might be possible to work something up using sprites from another 3D game like Final Fantasy Tactics. A possibility, but it’ll be hard.
3. I’ve had this irrational desire to make a game in the style of Dungeon Keeper. This could very well make a very good first 3D project because of the simplicity of the 3D involved – Dungeon Keeper was actually a 2D game that was simply presented in a 3D manner.
4. One of the other projects I was considering after Inaria got finished. From these I’d probably pick either the simple real-time strategy game or the simple Master of Orion-style game. These probably wouldn’t be 3D.
In any event, no matter what I pick, I am going to be limiting myself to 40 hours again. Why? Because that actually worked. By embracing that limitation, I actually made a game (a pretty crappy game, but a game).
So, thoughts?
I just woke up from a nap.
Sometimes when I sleep I dream stuff very vividly. Sometimes I get really good ideas from those dreams. Heck, sometimes dreaming for me is like watching a movie – the dreams are that clear and that complete. I’ve gotten more than one story idea from my dreams.
While I napped, I dreamt about making a console game (specificially, a PS2 game). I was showing it to someone and we go to a boss fight. This was where I revealed my cleverness…the button pattern to beat the boss was:
X, Square, Circle (Pause) X, Square, Triangle, Circle. The final Triangle and Circle presses had to be done faster than the others.
I explained to whoever I was showing the game to that this was a subtle homage to Guitar Hero, as the timing and button presses were the same as in the song “Smoke on the Water” for that game, even going to far as to hum the classic baseline for that song while I pressed the buttons.
Now I’m awake and I can’t tell if this is a good idea or not!
This is the best podcast I’ve heard in a while. It’s basically Cliff Harris talking about his work in the game development business and how he went indie.
As I listened to the podcast I took some notes, which I am posting below. These are kind of stream-of-consciousness and may not make much sense unless you listen to the podcast (which you should!) I’m basically just posting them because…well, I wrote them and I don’t want to lose them.
Yes, we got the ZX-81 here in the States; it was sold as the Timex Sinclair 1000.
Yes, we had Astrosmash here in the States! It was created here, for crying out loud, for the Intellivision!
Interesting that Cliffski calls Asteroids “the default game” that most people write first…I remember reading an article from Andre Lamothe where he says that whenever he has to learn a new game development API the first thing he does is write Asteroids in it.
I firmly believe that all the best game developers are completely self-taught. I believe this because it means that one day, I might be one of the best game developers!
Evil Genius came so, so close. It was almost a great game, it just lacked…something.
“Take the mickey out”? Good grief, you Brits and your language constructions…
Ah, the parallels continue…I was terrified on my first day at Multimedia Games (my first real programming job). Heck, that lasted for the first few months. If it hadn’t been for my friend Brendan Segraves I would never have made it. I remember when I sent my first game to test, Brendan said “Congratulations! You’re a game programmer now.” That was really nice of him and I’ll never forget it.
And this is why finishing stuff looks so damn good on the resume. You can have a PhD in applied artificial intelligence, but that does not mean you know how to make a complete game. The only thing that proves that you know how to make a complete game is having made a complete game yourself. Cliffksi was probably a more competent overall game developer than any of those guys with their fancy college learnin’, and here he actually felt unworthy to work with them! (See “the best game developers are self-taught”, above.)
“I learned what the hell source control was and I learned what the hell a debugger was” == me collapsed in paroxysms of laughter. I didn’t learn what a debugger was until my first job either.
At Gizmondo, we played poker, darts, foosball, Heroclix and Magic as well as computer games. Cliffski’s right…the environment and attitude at a proper game company is just awesome. It’s almost like belonging to a club instead of working at a company.
Yep, failure hurts. But it makes you savvy, and it’s hard to become savvy without failure, so the best thing is to simply consider it part of the process.
Well, Star Revolution looks like it’s going to turn into a fantasy combat game, so I know all about games not turning out the way you plan at the start 🙂
The Dexterity forums! I miss them; yes, IndieGamer forums are the proper successor, but the tone seems different there…
“The whole of game development is full of code hackers who do everything their way” – true. This is a natural side effect of “the best game developers are self-taught”, and Cliffski’s right – you need to read Code Complete and Effective C++ and take what they say to heart, even though it will probably be completely different from how you taught yourself to program.
Cliffski’s dancing around what he really wants to say about Lionhead…it’s unfortunate to have a story to tell and not be able to tell it.
“Terribly badly paid”? What fool wouldn’t pay his game developers properly?
Ah. I guess Peter likes to have lots of low-paid, low-skill developers instead of a small team of highly-paid, highly-skilled experts. That’s…well, completely wrong.
Wow, the parallels between Lionhead and Origin are scary…both companies had initial success, grew too fast, got overextended and then had to be bought out (Origin by EA, Lionhead by Microsoft). All that is left to the Lionhead story is the inevitable dissolution of the company.
Recruited by Maxis. Wow. And it turns out they picked him because of one of his very early games, Starlines…which has been my experience as well. You honestly never know which thing you’ve done is going to get your next job 🙂
He’s definitely got his wheel spun up, which is fantastic. He’s making the games he wants to make, he’s already got companies courting him, so if he starts having trouble making ends meet as an indie he’ll have no trouble finding another industry job…perhaps with a company that isn’t going to fold next year.
“You have to be shameless and creative about promoting your game.” Absolutely true, and it’s why I’ll probably never be humongous because…well, I just don’t feel that my games are worthy of such self-promotion 🙂 This is something Dan “Gibbage” Marshall also obviously understands.
Ah, Guildford…birthplace of Bullfrog. God, I miss Bullfrog. We were supposed to get a third Dungeon Keeper. And a third Syndicate.
Yep, design is hard when you don’t have an existing design to copy. That’s why there are so few truly new game designs.
1. You must learn proper software development and stop hacking everything.
2. You must become a good self-promoter. You must be willing to spend as much time on supporting and marketing your current games as you do making new stuff.
Well, starting a company is a HELL of a lot easier in the US than the UK…
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?
Weight: 349.5
Grade: B. I only exercised twice last week, but I did manage to get through the week drinking only water. I think I might be pushing it a bit…I’m still feeling the effects of the lack of caffeine (and sugar calories), and last time I was completely over that before I started exercising.
So I think I’ll actually back off for this week. If I push too hard, I’ll have a really bad week and then I’ll be tempted to just quit. So my goal this week is to drink only water.
Good, but not great. Slow. Long. The amount of ass Superman kicks is quite limited. The number of one-liners he says is zero. The Superman from 1 and 2 actually liked being Superman, but this Superman doesn’t seem to like his job very much. The second half of the movie is mostly messianic shots of Supes silhouetted against the sun, which gets old fast.
I have three kids, which means I don’t get to go to the movies very often. It always irks me when I waste an opportunity on a merely good movie like this one. But now that we’ve got that out of the way, maybe we can actually get a really good movie with this cast and crew next time. One where Superman actually punches somebody.
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