Back in the saddle ...

It's been a while since I've blogged about anything which wasn't more or less technical in nature. So far 2006 has been a year of experimentation for me. It's been nearly 4 years since I created Aerial Antics (HOLY S#!^) and about 2.5 since it was published here at Garage Games making it my bazillionth something game but my first official and published title. I can honestly say it's been that long since I've put my all into a game project as well.

This is really simple, my path since Aerial Antics has been jumbled. I've created an insane amount of game prototypes since. So many in fact, that I began giving my prototypes out for free in order to drive traffic to one of my websites. That action was just one more of many of my experiments (albeit one in marketing) since Aerial Antics.

Aerial Antics wasn't an experiment, it was a labor of love and a targeted business investment. At the time I analyzed my situation, accounting for my skills, funds, and publishing options and created a title which I thought maximized my potential at the time and still maintained a manageable scope. I'm quite proud of the outcome. Initially, it was everything life should be, something fun and simultaneously something that could sustain a living.

Unfortunately, to this point the outcome hasn't fulfilled all of my expectations. The outright honest truth is that I really haven't figured out why that initial official game hasn't done all that I wanted. Now don't get me wrong, it's done some great things. Just getting published here at Garage Games alone was an honor and that's not to mention the TV spot on G4, the Sim game of the year nomination from Game Tunnel, all the magazines that gave a nod, or the best of all paying customers who said things like it was the best $15 they spent on a game, or that they wish there was a Tribes mod with physics like Aerial Antics. Thinking about it, all that was so much more than what I really expected and truthfully better than what I expected. If I had to trade the experience I've had so far for a more monetarily profitable one, I don't think I would.

Even still, I cannot sit for eternity living off of praise for an old game. Over the past few years I feel that the perception is that I've gone lost, from someone who could target and produce something good quickly with intensity to someone who'll remain forever wondering what hit him. That notion is of course absolute absurdity.

Back to experimentation which can be easily misconstrued as confusion. Without experimenting and reaching out for new methods and boundaries I would not be able to create something better than Aerial Antics. The problem being that experiments can also be misconstrued as 'real work'. I can't say it didn't pain me a bit to shoot off a break out clone and have people tell me they were under whelmed. The same can be said for firing off free prototypes, or for any of the dozen other prototypes I began.

Obviously, anything you create is going to be part of your resume and people will read into each part however they want. What really matters though is how I read my own work and subsequently make decisions based on it. I'm the only one who really knows whether I truly believed in a project and put my best foot forward or not. A lot of people won't even get that far.

As for me now? Well, I've never been in a better position to create amazing games. Everything is adding up and I'm about to lay down my best work yet. I'm 20X the man I was when I initialized Aerial Antics and it's going to become very apparent over the course of the next year.

Back to something I said earlier, which is that I don't know exactly why Aerial Antics didn't meet the mark I initially set. Well, it's somewhat true. I (nor anyone I've spoken with) can pinpoint a problem. However, through all of my experimentation I've managed to not only have new people play Aerial Antics today give me better feedback than initial players did but I've been able to create a couple of new and original games which get extremely positive feedback, as in I have to tell people to stop playing and give me my computer back! Thus, in a round about way I have figured out what went wrong ;) It was never anything which could be pinpointed, rather it was a combination of small issues which will never surface again thanks to my empirical adventures.

So everything's completely on the up and up right? Well just about everything. The only thing still missing is the unrelenting belief that what I create will make me a good living. Looking at all the facts I'm about a million times more likely to score this time around. I've got way more skill, more computers, more money, more contacts, and I'm working with a bunch of really great people. However, there's a principle in life which I think is really important that applies here. Naivety is a great motivator. When you don't know something can't be done ... or that something is really hard to do you just go for it. Although, I had made plenty of games before Aerial Antics I'd never seriously thought any of them would make me a good living. Then when I did go for it I was so certain that I was ready and so certain that I was more capable of this feat than anyone else I just went and gave it the old he-ho and out popped the game. I really believed in it, which was a great feeling.

These days I hunger for that feeling but I don't worry that it's not there 100%. I'm simply not naive to the fact that this is the real world and sometimes great efforts don't pay off in the exact way you would expect them to. A new feeling I've discovered and appreciate a bit more actually is my confidence that I will get back in the saddle no matter what.

Thinking about it I'm no different in that respect than I was 3.5 years ago. It doesn't say tenacious in my profile for nothing. I had just come off 10 months of True-Vol only to be ripped a new one on it. Back then of course it only took me about 2 months to heal up and go again. These days life is more complicated and so I've taken more time. The great thing about it, to those who know anyway, imagine the difference between True-Vol and Aerial Antics multiplied by 20.

Well, that does it for the self-analysis this evening ;) There are a few more issues that I need to address which have a lot to do with Garage Games and the evolution of the indie.

This blog really started in my head over a year ago when Bravetree was merged with Garage Games. I've been letting it sit and simmer and I haven't said anything because I didn't want to say the wrong thing and offend someone. Back then I didn't like it, let's just start with that.

My initial feelings were that Garage Games was failing in its quest to make sure that game developers could control their own destiny. I mean, if Bravetree couldn't make it on their own steam then who could? From my position at the time it was really depressing. Think Tanks was obviously a good selling title, essentially one that I looked up to and analyzed a lot after Aerial Antics trying to figure out what I could take from that title and incorporate it into my own games in order to create something more profitable. Now, there I was looking up to Think Tanks and bam the developers are no longer were standing on their own ... and they had a much better selling game than mine!

It looked to me as if the indie dream was fading real fast. No more small teams creating new ip's and living off them. Instead it looked as if consolidation was again taking the lead! I don't know if anyone else felt this way but I sure did ... and I just bit my tongue hoping there was a silver lining.

OK, so fast forward a year or so. Yes, there's a sliver lining. Here we stand on the verge of the greatest time game developers have ever known. Xbox 360 is open for anyone, inexpensive dev tools are plentiful, whole engines that let you focus on creativity over technology are here! Of course as I predicted to myself about 5 years ago Garage Games is right on the front lines really going places and still fighting for indies everywhere touting the new game development 'democracy'!

Now I view the Bravetree merger in a new light. The members of that team truly are brave in a sense parallel to that of the members of the US military. Those who fight for US citizens to be capable of maintaining their nice free and independent lives while they relinquish some freedoms. Who knows if the independent movement would be where it is today as it relates to Microsoft, Garage Games, XNA, and Xbox 360 dev in general had it not been for Bravetree adding their power to aid the larger ship that is Garage Games.

Somewhere in the Torque documentation I read not to jump to conclusions or make snap decisions about the engine because do to its complexity some of its power and logic will not be apparent for months into development. I see this principle expanding beyond the technology and it's a nice realization. Great job and thank you Garage Games!