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Plan for David Myers
Plan for David Myers
| Name: | Dave Myers |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Mar 02, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Dave Myers |
Blog post
Busy, busy, busy...
<aside>This is mirrored on my blog if that's the sorta thing yer into: www.lumpygames.com/madrantz</aside>
I've been a bit busy these last few days, and my poor blog is paying the price for it. Yesterday I started working for the folks at MVP Online creating some sports games. I spent a bit of the weekend working on getting up to speed with their current codebase. I also spent some time this weekend examining the next steps for Lumpy.
T2D?
The current plan is to prototype a few ideas with the now-released Torque 2D Engine. At the very least this is a nice engine to quickly prototype 2D game ideas. Maybe not as easy to use yet as something like Macromedia's Director product, but then again you get to think like a real programmer using T2D instead of whatever you have to think like to code up something in Director (kidding, kidding - it's a cool product I know). I'm not 100% sure yet if we should ship using T2D, though there are some significant benefits in doing so. However, there are some downsides also, depending on what game we choose to do.
Phil Steinmeyer gives a pretty decent overview in his blog of things to consider if you want to get your game into the casual audience online portals and hit the largest possible audience. In particular having a web-enabled version of our game might prove very beneficial, but with T2D the only real option I see would be to use ActiveX, which is a questionable move (someone correct me if I'm wrong here). I'm also a little (itty-bitty amount) worried about having no fallback software rendering mode. I'm not sure what the stats are nowadays on 3D video cards and casual gamers, but I still wonder how much to be concerned about cutting any piece of the potential audience due to something like hardware requirements.
Of course, some of this concern is predicated on what kind of game we make. If we went for something more for the hardcore gamers, I wouldn't worry about hardware or web versions of the game. But I'm leaning towards the first game being more casual. We'll see.
Help, I need somebody...Help, not just anybody...
The next thing I decided is that I wanted to bring on someone to help code things up sooner rather than later. It would be cool if I could include people in the earlier prototype phase of development if at all possible. So, I pinged fellow GarageGames dev Nicolas Quijano to help out. Now, if I can just get him to sign the darned business forms (again - kidding Nic, kidding), we're going to start prototyping the first game idea hopefully this week. I want to publicly welcome Nic aboard and I'm really looking forward to drinking with him again at IGC...wait, no...developing games with him at Lumpy - yes, that's it. Or both. ;)
I've been a bit busy these last few days, and my poor blog is paying the price for it. Yesterday I started working for the folks at MVP Online creating some sports games. I spent a bit of the weekend working on getting up to speed with their current codebase. I also spent some time this weekend examining the next steps for Lumpy.
T2D?
The current plan is to prototype a few ideas with the now-released Torque 2D Engine. At the very least this is a nice engine to quickly prototype 2D game ideas. Maybe not as easy to use yet as something like Macromedia's Director product, but then again you get to think like a real programmer using T2D instead of whatever you have to think like to code up something in Director (kidding, kidding - it's a cool product I know). I'm not 100% sure yet if we should ship using T2D, though there are some significant benefits in doing so. However, there are some downsides also, depending on what game we choose to do.
Phil Steinmeyer gives a pretty decent overview in his blog of things to consider if you want to get your game into the casual audience online portals and hit the largest possible audience. In particular having a web-enabled version of our game might prove very beneficial, but with T2D the only real option I see would be to use ActiveX, which is a questionable move (someone correct me if I'm wrong here). I'm also a little (itty-bitty amount) worried about having no fallback software rendering mode. I'm not sure what the stats are nowadays on 3D video cards and casual gamers, but I still wonder how much to be concerned about cutting any piece of the potential audience due to something like hardware requirements.
Of course, some of this concern is predicated on what kind of game we make. If we went for something more for the hardcore gamers, I wouldn't worry about hardware or web versions of the game. But I'm leaning towards the first game being more casual. We'll see.
Help, I need somebody...Help, not just anybody...
The next thing I decided is that I wanted to bring on someone to help code things up sooner rather than later. It would be cool if I could include people in the earlier prototype phase of development if at all possible. So, I pinged fellow GarageGames dev Nicolas Quijano to help out. Now, if I can just get him to sign the darned business forms (again - kidding Nic, kidding), we're going to start prototyping the first game idea hopefully this week. I want to publicly welcome Nic aboard and I'm really looking forward to drinking with him again at IGC...wait, no...developing games with him at Lumpy - yes, that's it. Or both. ;)
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 02/26/06 - (Board) Game Day 02/21/06 - GarageGames has arrived 02/19/06 - I 06/09/05 - Plan for Dave Myers 03/22/05 - Plan for Dave Myers 03/14/05 - Plan for Dave Myers 03/09/05 - Plan for David Myers 03/02/05 - Plan for David Myers |
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Submit your own resources!| Anthony Rosenbaum (Mar 02, 2005 at 00:23 GMT) |
| Josh Williams (Mar 02, 2005 at 01:22 GMT) |
Congrats to you and Nic on teaming up! Nice combo there. Can't wait to see what you guys pull off.
Edited on Mar 02, 2005 01:23 GMT
| Jeff Tunnell (Mar 02, 2005 at 06:29 GMT) |
Edit: I'm having a hard time expressing my thoughts, but it is your spare time, and you need to take the chances you see fit to take.
Edited on Mar 02, 2005 07:46 GMT
| Peter Dwyer (Mar 02, 2005 at 10:18 GMT) |
While there are still people without hardware rendering, this is becoming rare. Even motherboard chipsets (the video built onto the boards of new computers) now have hardware acceleration of 3D and 2D.
I don't really believe in aiming for the lowest common denominator. You have to make way too many artistic and creative compromises and ultimately end up with an inferior product.
Don't get me wrong I'm not talking about having concepts that require a geforce 6800 ultra to render correctly or anything like that. I'm talking about cutting your 600 sprites down to 200 to cater for software only rendering and someone with a 486-33, decisions like that!
| Dave Myers (Mar 02, 2005 at 14:15 GMT) |
There is definitely a war going on in my head between a more casual game (tricky definition) and a more hardcore game. Orbz and Think Tanks are pretty casual in my opinion, for instance, as is Phil's sheep game. Galactic Civilizations by Stardock is more hardcore. I have not had the experience yet of making a game like GC, and I'm concerned about the scope and time necessary to create a game like that. There is something to be said for getting your newly-formed team the experience they need to ship games by first working on something, for lack of a better word, simpler.
The war is also between the business owner and the game designer. The business owner wants to make money, and the game designer wants to make a game that breaks out of the pack of me-too bubble-popping clones. Of course, the best case scenario is a mixture, where we make some decent money and get Lumpy rolling. But how do we make a more serious game and get eyeballs? There are few outlets for that type of game right now. The online distribution partners have lots of eyeballs for a more casual game, but the other route seems like it would require a significant marketing effort that I'm not sure I can guarantee out of the gate.
The nice thing about where my head at right this moment is that I plan on us prototyping some different ideas, including at least one hardcore idea. In the end the prototyped game that is the most fun will win out for full production.
| Phil Carlisle (Mar 02, 2005 at 14:55 GMT) |
The casual portals all seem to suggest that having a software rendering based stream that uses an early version of directx is a good way of targetting the "low end". From what Scot Bilas wrote (I'm pretty sure that Phil uses that in his blog entry there, but basically its scotts talk at GDC), it seems that the current real choice for "low end" browser enabled content is Flash.
In the end though, the tools are a means to an end, not the end itself. Ive definitely got a wish to write a T2D version of the sheep game, because it would lend itself well to that task. I've also got a hankering to write some simple flash games, write some ultra-hardcore FPS games, etc etc..
Basically, there are SO many projects out there to do, that its about staying focussed on one long enough to finish it (for me right now anyway).
| Joshua Dallman (Mar 03, 2005 at 20:57 GMT) |
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