Plan for David Blake

The Curse of the Dead Project

This plan will not advance your knowledge of Torque, TorqueScript, or include source/models/etc for you to use in your projects. It, instead, is a lament on projects that I've had to kill because they weren' fun. Which I think is just as important for people to see. The reality of dead projects that suck is sobering, but it's something that we have to accept and move beyond. And no one wants to work on a crappy game.

I've significantly killed (well, maimed is probably a better word) two projects. One was a top-down shooter ala Smash-TV. I learned a LOT about the camera code in Torque while working with it, but I also learned that as much as I love shooters, I really hated making them. Plus my models looked HORRID in god-view. The second project was a 3D platformer. I went back to play my favorite platformers and try to draw elements that I loved about them. The result was a single level of complete and utter suckage. Technically, it felt nice and responsive, but it sucked. Hard. There was no fun to be had. I'm definitely keeping this around because I handled a lot of issues that I hate in platformers, but I don't really feel like working on a platformer.

So I was in a bit of a design crux. I have a million designs, but none of them are feasible for someone with as busy a schedule as I have (because it's nearly to get a team together on my schedule). So I looked to the Game In A Day. I've always wanted to enter GiD, but I have yet to do so. My time just seems to suck whenever it comes around. But the idea of "snow" made me think about a simple yet sweet game design. I wouldn't do it in GiD simply because I have avoided network gaming and so would have to learn a lot to even make it feasible for GiD.

But it's a simple multiplayer snowball fight with three modes. Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Hold the Fort. It's also in 2D, so Torque 2D would be mandatory for me (though I've begun prototyping it with colored blocks in Game Maker; ph34r my mad MSPaint skillz). In the deathmatch, each team has to annihilate the other team. In Capture the flag, each team has to get the other team's flag and get it back to their base (who woulda thunk it?). In Hold the Fort, a team has to hold another team's fort for a set amount of time. The controls are a simple mouse-shot Abuse derivative (much like Mutant Storm). The players can pick up and throw snowballs as long as they are on a "snow tile". The more times they pick up snow on the same tile, the less snow is on the tile. As it snows, the tiles build up their snow again. In a fit of creative brainstorming, I thought of things like flamethrowers to melt snow of catapults for bigger snow balls, "stealth snowmen", etc. I also thought of a difficulty scheme that favors the losers. So, if you're kicking ass, the losers get an advantage (say a flamethrower to melt the snow so you can't tag them with as many snowballs). The main thing about it is that it is a short game with clear objectives and that it's simple and fun. Which is something that the other two projects I worked on were not.

Whether or not I end up participating in GiD 8, this is the first project that I want to embark on with Torque 2D. If it doesn't have multiplayer bindings (as it did not the last I heard), I'll just have to figure out how to add them. Which means more Torque learning for me (always a good thing in my book). It's also the first project that I've been excited to work on other than the initial "wouldn't it be cool to make a 3D platformer/shooter/rpg/etc?!!!" It's also the first time I felt like working on a multiplayer project, and it's one that I'm actually excited about. I haven't felt this way for a long, long time. I think my cynicism has gotten to me, but the design document for Snow Day is a couple of pages long and it excites me more than the designs that I have that are hundreds of pages long (and not feasible without a huge budget). It's not there to tell a story. It's simply rainy-day fun, or snowy day fun in this case.

So far my base prototypes have been fun. I haven't done any multiplayer stuff and my GM AI really sucks, but the base tossing of snowballs is fun. It's sad that something that I created in extremely short order is more fun than something that I worked for QUITE some time on. But I'm glad that I found something FUN that I want to work on.

I'm starting early this week on getting some of the level art together (snowy jungle gyms, etc). At least I will once I get my Mac back. I forgot that we had to put together a concert that we filmed. Hopefully it'll be soon since school is out and the people putting it together will have time.

The Small Potato Films film festival went well. People came. They saw. They left. But they also seemed to enjoy it. I'm just happy that it's over. Filming starts in December for our next film, so I need to get as much dev time in as possible. I doubt Torque 2D will be in my Christmas stocking, but I can always hope!