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Plan B

Name:	Mark
Date Posted:	Oct 23, 2006
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Well, the Retravoid project is not looking too good. The main concept guy, while I definitely congratulate him, has been hired by another studio and is now working full-time with them, and can't possibly put his time towards this game.

He was going to be the visual of the entire project, he had great talent, and I can only hope he brings some incredible work to the table of his new job.

So, I have scrapped the Retravoid project. I feel it was too much of a high-scoped game anyway for such a fart-in-the-wind studio. Not many found interest in some purple caped man, we had big plans to introduce such a simple and strange character in a really epic way, but did not get to the point where we could prove it.

Reguardless, i'm not stopping at what I want to do: make games, because of this unfortunate event.

Infact, I plan to soon get the RTS starter kit, and work on a smaller project that I think people will really like, as soon as they take a first glance at it.

I have learned, starting off little is extremely important. I had to prove this to myself by attempting a big project. My advise to future and new Torque owners, start off little, just like they say.

Plan C is TGB.

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Matthew Spindle Harris (Oct 23, 2006 at 07:24 GMT)

Go with plan C. Start small. TGB rocks!

Edward Smith (Oct 23, 2006 at 08:58 GMT)

I think that to get the RTS starter kit going ready for a well working game would be a lot of work and may not suit as a Plan B.
Edited on Oct 23, 2006 08:58 GMT

Stephan (viKKing) Bondier (Oct 23, 2006 at 09:10 GMT)

Mark: you should keep up with RetraVoid. I don't recommend to give up now. You got a basic player to display, so continue on working on the outdoor/indoor stuff. Build levels for your player. Give him an environment in which he can move and not only being a static puppet for development shots. Use Kork as an enemy.
You don't need the art stuff to be completely done to prototype/build your project. Keep it alive now or it will mean you never ever really had faith in it.

My 2 cents.

STef

Pisal Setthawong (Oct 23, 2006 at 09:17 GMT)

If you think the original Retravoid project is too large for your development team, then I suggest an alternative plan, if not, keep sticking with it. Don't give up hope! The main point is persistence!

Regarding visuals, you could try using dummies for the time being. I've been alot of content packs in this website, and its pretty high quality stuff, and that could fill in the void for the moment.

James (Oct 23, 2006 at 10:58 GMT)

Mark, I'm going to echo what others have said here.
Perhaps Plan B is simply scaling back Retravoid and work on a "proof of concept" single level.
So much work as already gone into the project it would be a shame to shelve it now.

Cheers Mate!

Steve M (Oct 23, 2006 at 12:21 GMT)

Never give up!! Just keep pushing ahead!! Reduce complexity if you must.

The purple guy in the cape is something different, we don't need anymore orcs and elves ;)

NewYork Virtual (Oct 23, 2006 at 16:46 GMT)

Is that possible to ask him to do your project as part time job ? and then hire another one
so he can train the new guy to take over. This make me think if we think "my project" as a game
itself, there are some quests in there, "project management", "team management, "marketing",
"beta releasing", "open beta", "customer support", its like we are mapping
"issues or problems" <- to -> "Quests", they are just part of the game, so we will have more
positive attitude about issues, because they are just part of the game.

edit: i must have grammer issue here, dont know where it is, in my "quest" list.
Edited on Oct 23, 2006 16:55 GMT

Mark (Oct 23, 2006 at 18:41 GMT)

I suppose I won't can the project entirely. But I should put it on hold. I want to save all the good ideas for when we can create high quality games

Chris Jorgensen (Oct 24, 2006 at 00:55 GMT)

Keeping it on the backburner isn't a bad idea. You should also always be open to recycling past work. I tried (twice!) to make a web-based, open-ended, dynamically growing 4X game. Sure enough, by myself I couldn't program the game to scale well, I had server crash issues, etc. So I canned it after a combined 2 years of work. But once I discovered TGB, I decided not to let that work go to waste. Some parts of it ended up being a good prototype for my present (much smaller scope) project, and I was even able to move over some of the old art into the new game. My point is -- don't let your work go to waste. :)

Joshua Dallman (Oct 24, 2006 at 05:45 GMT)

Plan B sounds good, Plan C sounds better. Keep us posted with what you turn up in your game experiments, you put a lot of work into Retrovoid and made some great progress. That same energy into a smaller scaled game will surely get it done. Just make sure it's fun and you'll have a winner!

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