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Greetings Garage Gamers. (My first blog!)

Name:	Daz
Date Posted:	Apr 13, 2007
Rating:	4.5 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Profile Page:	View profile page for Daz

Blog post

This is my first blog, so please be gentle!

Greetings Garage Gamers!

I am a 31 year old independent "lone wolf" developer from Cairns Australia, and last year I started a small game dev company called Redback Games. I am married with 2 children, Noah who just turned 6 and Levi who is 4. Both boys are gamers, and I am happy to say are starting to show signs of having 1337 skillz. (I love my clones!)

I have been lurking here since October 2004, and I thought it was about time I posted a blog with my current progress.

I have decided that there is a niche market in educational software, and would like to target this market with the aim of one day being able to afford to create some mainstream games as well.

My first title is called MathFighters, and it is a simple arcade style shooting game designed to help children learn basic mathematics, where a mathematical problem is displayed on the screen and the child has to shoot the balloon with the correct answer. This game is almost ready to start beta testing, so if there are any parents out ther who home school or would like to try it anyway, drop me a line at daz@redbackgames.com

My second title is an interactive safari where children can explore virtual worlds, taking photographs of animals and observing their behaviours designed to teach children about various species of endangered animals.

I am also working on a game designed to teach children about the correct procedures to prepare for a Cyclone, called Category 5. EDIT Here is a quick shot of the current title screen.

(The houses in this shot are REALLY bad! In the final game, I will have at least 5 different structural designs, with a few different colour variations so I can create a whole street and not have the player notice there are only 5.)

I am also working on an adventure game, currently using the codename Planeteers, and the plan is to create an online virtual universe, where players can do anything, ranging from settling down in a village with a husband or wife, to travelling through space visiting worlds and performing a multitude of quests.

EDIT
In my original post, I forgot about a space game I am working on, that will allow students to learn about the planets by visiting them and collecting samples, take photographs, etc.

(Yes, I know the earth is way too big.)

Oh yeah, as Joshua pointed out, i forgot to mention that all of these games were

As many of you will no doubt realise, I am using art from current content packs by Tim Aste, Todd Pickens, Evi "Cubix Studio" and Bravetree, as well as some other content providers. I am primarily a programmer, and although I am capable of producing art myself, my art lacks the polish of the art produced by the artists mentioned above. One day, (when I get used to the "outer body experience" of drawing with my new Wacom tablet) I plan to develop my artistic skills and techniques further, but at this stage I am happy with the current crop of content packs. Thank to all names mentioned, as well as all other content pack providers. You guys make it possible for guys like me to make games. Speaking of current products, I am also using Torsion, and I must say that I now could not live without it. It rocks! If you are serious about your scripting, you NEED it!

Before I sign off, I would like to take this opportunity to say a big "G'day" to all other GG community members, and I feel privileged to be a member of such a fantastic community where the calibre of talent is so high.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read my first blog!

Regards,

Daz.

EDIT

I almost forgot. I made this little game during third year at University, and I thought I would share it.

Download Galaxy Fighter

Unfortunately it was written using DirectX 9, so you need Windows to run it. Do'oh!

/EDIT

Submit your own resources!

Tom Bentz (Apr 13, 2007 at 03:14 GMT)

Cool stuff!

Affectworks (Apr 13, 2007 at 03:23 GMT)

Nice stuff! Me and my colleague had the wildlife idea about 6 months ago and I wrote up a preliminary design doc on it for game ideas stored in a cool dry place and it really sounds like we had pretty much the exact same idea.

Anyway.. welcome to the community!

Fredrik S

Todd Pickens (Apr 13, 2007 at 03:26 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Great game idea and very nice use of the content packs!

Ian Roach (Apr 13, 2007 at 03:27 GMT)

Excellent work, and good to see a fellow aussie on the site :)

David Higgins (Apr 13, 2007 at 04:18 GMT)

Daz -- looks like you've got some great work -- good job!

Daz (Apr 13, 2007 at 04:20 GMT)

Thanks guys.

@Affectworks - Great minds think alike!

@ Todd - Thanks for sharing your skills with the community. Your art rocks! (And my stuff would look extremely crap without your artwork!)

@Ian - we should plan a game on Xbox Live sometime. My gamertag is M1R4GE. (You are on my friends list, but we never seem to be online at the same time.)

@ Tom and David - Thanks for the kind words.

Edward Smith (Apr 13, 2007 at 07:59 GMT)

That's some great looking games there, outback adventure looks really good :-).

codename Planeteers also has a nice look to it.

Good idea on the Cyclone awareness game.

Good luck!

Corey Punches (Apr 13, 2007 at 11:36 GMT)

Nice work! It's nice to know us "lone wolf" types can actually produce something :)

Leroy Frederick (Apr 13, 2007 at 12:05 GMT) Resource Rating: 4

Nice stuff Daz! As Todd said, great use of the content packs (it's not what you use, but how you use it!), and nice concept/screenies. It's good to remember that even though people here may be familiar with some of the content, many others (not here, future players/customers) aren't ;0)

Michael Perry (Apr 13, 2007 at 12:25 GMT)

Awesome progress. I love a lurker's first blog, especially one that's been around for a few years. Very impressive stuff, and keep up the good work.

Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Apr 13, 2007 at 13:42 GMT)

That's quite an introduction :)

Joshua Dallman (Apr 13, 2007 at 18:13 GMT)

Wow nice projects! You forgot to mention...

Educational is a great niche to focus on, Torque-made math game Dimenxion has gotten great press and coverage, and of course Torque-made Venture Africa has been a great success (both games are in our game store in the Edu section).

Glad to see you're leveraging content packs etc to get your games done.

Thomas Buscaglia (Apr 13, 2007 at 21:39 GMT)

Nice work. I like the focus on education. :)

Daz (Apr 13, 2007 at 22:49 GMT)

Thanks to all for the kind words.

I have edited the original blog slightly to include a few more shots, one from Category5 and 3 shots from SpaceCamp.

BTW, if anyone is curious why I have so many projects going at the same time, it is because sometimes after a big (all nighter) development session, I can't look at the game I was working on for a week or so. (Not always, but it does happen). So instead of just not being productive, I switch to one of the other projects and it's like a fresh start. That way I can always work on something and still have fun.

Kevin James (Apr 13, 2007 at 22:52 GMT)

Much better than my first blog . . .

Haha, looks like you got some great work going, Daz, keep it up!

Joshua Dallman (Apr 14, 2007 at 03:48 GMT)

Space camp, cool idea! And don't forget to put Galaxy Fighter up on GGE, it's the natural home for such things.

Christopher Dapo (Apr 14, 2007 at 08:04 GMT)

Nice games you got there. I understand, talk about how time flies on those all-nighters. ;)
- Ronixus

Leroy Frederick (Apr 14, 2007 at 09:31 GMT) Resource Rating: 4

Quote:

BTW, if anyone is curious why I have so many projects going at the same time, it is because sometimes after a big (all nighter) development session, I can't look at the game I was working on for a week or so. (Not always, but it does happen). So instead of just not being productive, I switch to one of the other projects and it's like a fresh start. That way I can always work on something and still have fun.

That's fine Daz, as long as it doesn't stop or prevent you from actually finishing them, as the old non-Chinese proverb goes 'Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof' (In modern english: It's better to finish something then to start it)

Daz (Apr 14, 2007 at 11:43 GMT)

@ Leroy - Excellent point, and although I completely agree with the quoted proverb, I must stress that many great ideas are lost in the abyss of forgetfullness. If I didn't stop everything and work for 5 hours whenever I got an idea that I thought was cool, I would probably only be showing screenshots from MathFighters in this blog.

To target the point you were making, I would guess that MathFighters will be finished within 3 months. Space Camp shortly thereafter. Outback... may take a little while longer, as I may need to purchase a commercial license for this one, and I can't afford that right now. Cat5 should be finished by the end of the year and my adventure game... well; when it's done!

@ nobody in particular (everyone) - Interestingly, my wife has expressed concern with the amount of time I spend working on this stuff, given that I work full time as a network adminstrator and techincian and I also fix computers on the side (not to mention lecturing part-time at the local University each year during second semester), and as I result, I can really only work on this stuff between the hours of 10pm and 4am. That's cool though, because the "develop games after hours" approach has worked before. Just look at id Software during the early days at Softdisk.
Edited on Apr 14, 2007 12:02 GMT

Matt Grosse (Apr 14, 2007 at 14:21 GMT) Resource Rating: 4

Nice to see so many promising projects cooking all at once! Keep it up and I wish you the best at completing them. Very inspiring.

Leroy Frederick (Apr 14, 2007 at 23:02 GMT) Resource Rating: 4

Quote:
I must stress that many great ideas are lost in the abyss of forgetfullness. If I didn't stop everything and work for 5 hours whenever I got an idea that I thought was cool, I would probably only be showing screenshots from MathFighters in this blog.

Fair enough Daz, I hope you ace your deadlines ;0)

Levi Putna (Apr 16, 2007 at 10:51 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Daryl forgot to mention that he helps out at the local university, and started many a young developer off with there passion for Toque, including myself.

Keep up the good work mate your games are looking amazing.

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