general update - shelled etc

well it's been a whole month now that I've been at my new job and it's going well as far as jobs go. it's nice to have income again that's for sure - I was literally getting skinny towards the end there before I caved in and looked for non-game work. and no longer living in my car is ok too I guess.

it's more of the same - tech support, going on 8 years now - but having done it for this long I'm at least making decent coin (though not nearly as much as a developer) and it's at least high-level enough that I'm not sitting on a phone all day saying "thank you for calling xyz corp." it's interesting enough work to keep me distracted from my passions (gamedev and ballet) but not so interesting that I take my work home at night (nobody here works nights/weekends, a refreshing change of pace from microsoft).

still, I'd forgotten in the 8 months I had been doing game dev full time just how much time gets sucked up by a day job - by the time I get home it's 7:30-8:00 and I don't even want to boot up my ailing laptop to play a round of games let alone *work* on my game, having already stared at a computer screen all day... but that's where contractors come in, and god bless them. once again (as prior to 8 months ago) part of my job as a game producer is to go to work every day to fund my game... and that's fine by me so long as progress is made, even if I have to listen to credit industry jargon all day instead of game industry jargon. and though it feels like going in circles sometimes, as I don't have a deliverable yet nor none in the immediate future (aka a finished game), my father says I'm listening to the guys who've done this stuff and come before me, and listening/learning from them *is* progress, so it is making progress in that regard. dang this stuff is slow work though!

sploidz will finally be pushed out in early aug (haven't been giving it much attention lately) and it will be nice to have that monkey off my back. not sure if it was a mistake or not to take the scrapped shelled mini-game and dev it into a standalone freebie game instead of scrapping it entirely... on one hand it was a good technical excercise from a producer standpoint, just to take any game and iterate it and see it through, and it cost very little ($1k total); on the other hand it is the millionth game of its type, and though it didn't cost a lot in dollars, it *did* cost a lot in time. probably it was more work than it was worth *but* as a beginner it was worth the work just to learn the skills. and once shelled is done I can technically cite a 2d *and* a 3d game on my calling card both as a studio and individually... which can't hurt. as for its non-originality, it's my first game *and* it's a freebie, so who cares and 'nuff said. moving right along...

that brings us of course to shelled. well the new job changes things a lot for that game. having an income again means I'm not in such a rush anymore - a big part of the rush was I wanted to be making money before I ran out of money so I wouldn't have to work again... and I'm seeing now that was short sighted, that it can take 5 years to get to that point. my own game studio in portland, how I long for thee! another big change is just having a little bit of money to put into it again instead of having a fixed amount to work from... which is not to say feature creep will happen, just that I am more open to iterative changes as expenses aren't so much an issue compared to before. and I'm able to pay contractors slightly more relaxed sums which is nice for everyone too.

what this translates to... well a few things.

first, the t2d programmer for sploidz is now a support programmer for shelled. andreas kirsch will be helping gary preston move the project forward: squashing bugs, making UI changes, doing anything gary doesn't want to or passes off to him :)

second, I'm taking a full month in the project (aug) to do nothing but focus on fixing outstanding single player or network game bugs, upgrade the code fully to 1.4 (only parts have been upgraded, namely audio), finalize the networking features (in place but buggy and not feature rich), and in general just stablize the code and pinch off any loose ends. this has been needed for some time but I hadn't had the budget to take such a breather cycle, instead putting budget into iterations of features. this is an "investment" into the game so to speak in that the payoff is long-term and invisible, compared to the immediate and visible payoff of feature iterations (aka cool stuff). the addition of another programmer on the project should help this along too, and it's a great time for him to jump into things (he's just learning TGE for the first time - in fact I bought it for him - but is already experienced in C++ and learns quickly).

and third, shelled will be turning into a completely different game than the one currently known. relaxed schedule means more open to iterations. the big picture view is that as joe m. pointed out (and big thanks to him for the discussion, which essentially got this ball rolling), the problem is that people come in to shelled expecting either a scorch clone or a fps... and shelled is neither of those things. the gameplay as it currently stands is fun and vaguely new and I and many others love it, but the general public just wasn't getting it or "buying into it," a shame because they seem to buy into the idea of the game before playing it so it's like I'm halfway there. I needed to make the game more scorchy or more fpsy... naturally since scorch (along with a healthy dose of orbz) was the original seed for the game, that was the direction I wanted to go. so post-stabalization, the game will have many changes, which in code are small but in gameplay impact are huge: fixed 3rd person perspective (no more 1st person), no more direct control over tank (click on-screen buttons to change angle, direction, weapon, etc w/keyboard shortcuts), no complex flight anymore (click where you want to go, auto-moves there), simplified simplified simplified, and echoic much more of the original scorch, while still adding enough novelty to make it original (turtle theme, 3d graphics, mini-golf style shot power meter remaining, ultra-simple to pick up and play). will this new version be fun? original enough? hit the spot? I don't know - and that's ok - that's what iterations and playtesting are for.

I am hoping to have the "scorch" edition of shelled ready by IGC... but like last IGC I am not planning a special build for the conference so it may or may not be ready in time. fortunately the new design changes leverage nearly all work done on shelled done so far, so again, in code the changes are relatively small, so that is fortunate.

for those bemoaning the loss of the current novel gameplay of shelled (all 2 of you), post-stabalization but pre-scorch the code will be split off so that it can later be revisited after shelled is done (done meaning released, out the door, selling, post-selling patched, and marketed). no doubling up on game dev again for me - one at a time! this second game will be 90% of the code of shelled (pre-scorch changes), with a few FPS elements added in (i.e. shooting a weak "phaser" gun that goes straight and isn't affected by gravity). new models will replace the turtle tanks to make them sci-fi techy-like tanks, tim aste's custom environments for shelled which were scrapped will be revisited, magnus's custom hud for shelled which was scrapped will be revisted, and the whole thing *should* take very little effort to complete... especially with a solid bug-free network-complete base to go on - it's essentially just swapping out the art/sound of the current (pre-scorch) version and adding a little bit of new code for guns and bang, new game right there. it won't have the heart or character that was put into shelled, but it won't be a total cheapie knock-off either. I may have a demo of this for IGC in that it will simply be shelled as it is *right now* but with all the shelled toon gfx removed (and no guns - just the cannon).

this plan also seems to fit in to the idea of FPS = hardcore = detailed techy graphics, casual game = mainstream audience = fun toony graphics. oversimplification but you get the idea.

so... job ok, sploidz coming soon, shelled stabalized & split, turning into more close of a scorch clone with a later game to capitalize on the current gameplay and various scrapped graphics.

that's all from me, let's hear from you!

josh