Red Thumb Games 2nd Anniversary Blog

===============================
RED THUMB GAMES 2nd ANNIVERSARY
ANNUAL REVIEW BLOG
===============================

CONTENTS:

::: WELCOME
::: ABOUT RED THUMB GAMES
::: PARTNERS IN CRIME
::: ABOUT ME
::: HELP WANTED
::: GARAGEGAMES & TAP
::: NOTABLE DATES
::: YEAR IN REVIEW: THE GAMES
::: WHAT'S NEXT
::: REMOTE TEAM
::: CONTRACTOR TIPS
::: INDIE PRODUCING
::: MY PRODUCTION TOOLS
::: NEW PRODUCER TIPS
::: BIG MISTAKES
::: COMPANY PHILOSOPHY
::: CLOSING THOUGHTS

#

::: WELCOME

Yup, it's that time of the year again! Red Thumb Games ticks another year on the odometer. Shameless self-promotion henceforth spews forth. If you missed the one from last year, check it out.


::: ABOUT RED THUMB GAMES

Red Thumb Games is a game development house with all games produced and directed by Joshua Dallman.

All artists, programmers, consultants, and other talent is outsourced and may vary from project to project depending on development needs.

RTG is west coast and indie.

www.redthumbgames.com


::: PARTNERS IN CRIME

R-T-G would be spelled N-O-T-H-I-N-G without the irreplaceable invaluable contributions of the independent studios and contractors making art, code, and other bling for its games. Everyone's contribution is greatly appreciated.

Extra thanks to Gary Preston, lead programmer for Shelled! for over a year. That's a long time! Extra thanks also to Brian Richardson who did large chunks of key features for Shelled!. Thanks guys!

Though contractors are paid for their work, almost everyone worked above and beyond what was expected, and I just wanted to make special mention to recognize that. Thank you.

Studios that have done contract work for RTG titles (partial list, in no particular order):

* Figment Games (http://www.figmentgames.com)
* Frogames (http://www.frogames.com)
* WiT Entertainment (http://www.witentertainment.com)
* Design Studio SRL (http://www.designstudio.ro)
* Knowhere Studios (http://www.knowhere.net)
* Daykamp Creative (http://www.daykamp.com)

These studios all come highly recommended for outsourcing needs.


::: HELP WANTED

Independent contractors are always needed for projects!

Top needs include:

* Torque programmers with C++ knowledge (TGE)
* Torque 2D programmers
* 3D modelers with DTS export knowledge
* 2D artists with GUI, HUD, logo, website experience
* Level designers (no FPS)
* Concept artists with fresh ideas
* Musicians, SFX engineers

Please use email to contact. If you have the right stuff, you will be invited for future project work.

All team members are paid upfront as independent contractors.


::: GARAGEGAMES & TAP

GarageGames is not a partner per se, but without them, their engine, or their community, the road to RTG's first games would have been a lot rougher, longer, and costlier. Big thanks to everyone there for their vision and daily work. You're enabling the dreams of people like me to come true.

GarageGames is the company behind the award-winning Torque Application Platform, a suite of game engine technologies available to developers to license for their games. "If you choose to build your gaming efforts around GG products, you are in good hands. GG is committed to the future, and our products reflect that." - Jeff Tunnell, GarageGames Co-Founder

For the second year, RTG is dedicated to develop on the Torque Application Platform exclusively.


::: NOTABLE DATES

May 2004 - Red Thumb Games formed

Oct 2004 - Represented at the 2004 Indie Game Conference

May 2005 - Studio turned one year old

Oct 2005 - Shelled! demo playable at the 2005 Indie Game Conference

March 2006 - Represented at the 2006 Game Developers Conference

May 2006 - Represented at E3; Shelled! and Sploidz betas to be released; studio turns two

June 2006 - Will be represented at the 2006 Casuality Conference in Seattle, WA


::: YEAR IN REVIEW: THE GAMES

Last summer development was going strong for FOUR games: Shelled!, Snappy, Nutcracker's Revenge, and Shellstack. Create a portfolio, right? All four games were presented at the Indie Game Conference (IGC) in the fall. With resources limited, Shelled! became the focus after IGC, and Snappy and Nutcracker were promptly stopped.

Having no place in Shelled, Shellstack was cut. However, it irked me that so close to a fun little mini-game was getting trashed, so I changed the shells to gems and re-branded the game Sploidz. Novice game-makers would be wise to make their first game as un-ambitious as some kind of gem game -- it is astonishing how much polish, refining, and work even a simple game needs to take form.

Shelled! changed sharp directions after IGC. The first change list had so many broad, sweeping cuts to the game code and art that lead programmer Gary Preston said he needed a pint of ice cream and a box of hankies after reading it. Cut, cut, cut! Art, code, features... literally thousands of dollars and months of time. It was brutal. But in destruction there is creation, and what was wavering between casual or hardcore turned resolutely in the direction of casual, accessible, and fun.

These iterative changes continued on through the fall and early winter, producing in March a build both near completion and near the original vision and inspiration for the game in the first place. I could have easily detoured again with additional game modes, more game features, better everything - but the mantra was keep it simple, get it done, work on the core. Further refining and polish has brought it to a beta (this week!) and imminent release around the bend. Now the battle is only half done!


::: WHAT'S NEXT

Aside from selling a billion copies of Shelled? Well you might see a gold or plus edition of Shelled!, perhaps by IGC time, but I promise nothing. Depends entirely on sales. Sploidz was a blast to do, so you'll be seeing another promoware mini-game. So what's the next "big game" I have planned?

Nutcracker's Revenge is a 3D game where you must dance classical ballet steps as a dead zombie teenage girl to kill demons, rats, and the Sugar Plum Fairy gone bad, and free imprisoned Nutcracker soldier spirits, with play mechanics resembling that of a skateboarding game. Nutcracker's Revenge will be the next "big" RTG game.

The whole point of being indie for me is to have total creative freedom, even from my audience, even if it means having a day job to be "indie"! I've paid my dues with a game that has mainstream appeal - and I love that game, and I'll make more like it - but now it's time to make something I'm even more passionate about, a risky and challenging game that I can learn even more about game design and game producing from. We'll see how it goes, or even if I have the budget to do so - the biggest factor of all.


::: REMOTE TEAM

Having an entirely remote team introduces special challenges. Chief among those are communication, asset management, group work, adequate cross-pollination, team morale, individual momentum, and language and culture differences, to name a few. Tackling these challenges requires excellent communication skills, empathy, organization, team building skills, optimism, self-motivation, patience, and luck. That's all I'll say on remote teams from a producer view - there's a lot out there on the subject already.


::: CONTRACTOR TIPS

So you're a programmer, artist, or other game talent, you're just getting started, and you're looking for work. Here's the view from here on why I'm interested in or pass on contractors that apply:

DO: have a website, even if it's a one-page deal, even if you're only a programmer and not an artist

WHY: it separates you from the rest (few have them even in 2006!) and shows me you're serious about building a portfolio and including me in it

DON'T: email me attachments of your work

WHY: don't force me to download your work - instead, let me go to your work (i.e. website) when I want to and am ready; also, higher chance of the email not going through because of some virus scanner or what-not blocking the attachment

DO: use proper spelling and grammar

WHY: a few mistakes aren't noticed or cared about, but if your intro is sloppy and unprofessional, I assume that you are too; a bigger issue if you are a programmer, artists are more forgiven

DON'T: use a form letter to introduce yourself

WHY: doing that makes it all about YOU; don't tell me about you, tell me what you can do for ME, that's the whole point of why you're writing in the first place and why I should care about you as a total stranger; it's also impersonal and smacks of spam and will likely only be scanned over and not read

DO: have relevant work

WHY: if you're an artist and all I see are 500,000 poly models, forget it; if you're a programmer, it's fine to have only worked on business apps, but make sure I can see what your C++ experience is, and make sure to have SOME kind of game experience even if it's just as simple as having applied TAP community resource code to TAP or participation in Game In a Day events, community resource additions, even MOD work

DON'T: mix your portfolio site with your personal site

WHY: I don't want to know you personally, at least not yet before we've built a relationship; if your beliefs or values differ too greatly from mine, or your blog makes you look like a drunk or a nut, I may pass on you when I may have otherwise hired you (first impressions count, and ignorance is bliss)

DO: say stuff like this: "Although I've never worked on a published game, I do have a great deal of programming experience from my day to day work." (actual submission)

WHY: upfront honesty about experience while still being positive about relevant experience will get you work

DON'T: say stuff like this: "i've never done this exact work but i have played a lot of video games haha" (actual submission)

WHY: unprofessional and insecure, it tells me this: if you're insecure about your work why would it be good enough to pay for? if you're not taking the potential work seriously, why would you take the work itself seriously?


::: INDIE PRODUCING

There is confusion and misunderstanding even among longtime indies on this subject. To some, producing seems to bring to mind slick Hollywood players long on money and contacts and short on skills and vision. Or conversely, people think it's "da bomb" job that's all fun and games with no hands-on or drudge work. So to provide some insights into real day-to-day indie producing, I drew up a list of everything I do as an indie producer in order of time spent:

1. GAME DESIGN
designing and re-designing the game blueprints and face; constant refining and decision making, both low level and high

2. TECHNICAL DIRECTION
working with programmers to build the code, manage bugs, and overcome challenges; deciding on technology to use/exclude

3. ART DIRECTION
designing a visual style and working with all types of artists to achieve it; managing art assets; bridging art/tech

4. QUALITY ASSURANCE
testing each new build for gameplay, art, technical, and business requirements; documenting and tracking problems

5. FINANCE
anticipate future needs for game completion, find ways to cut costs & get most out of least, manage overall game budget

6. TECHNICAL WRITING
writing the game blueprints; writing production documents; writing end user documentation; non-tech written game content

7. MARKETING
finding creative ways to tell communities and individuals about the game; refining the message that's told; trial version, website copy

8. WEBMASTER
designing, writing, running, updating game and studio websites

9. AUDIO DIRECTION
deciding on music and sfx and working with licensees or contractors to compose and implement it

10. HUMAN RESOURCES
headhunting for contractors, evaluating them, starting a contract with them, firing them, giving recommendations

11. SYSTEM ADMIN
setting up and managing CVS, web, FTP, bug, and game servers

12. TECH SUPPORT
being the first point of contact when any of the team has trouble with anything related to the game or its dev

13. PUBLIC RELATIONS
attending conferences, speaking to and tracking press, blogging, finding speaking engagements (i.e. schools)

14. INTERN
ordering business cards, getting lunch for the boss, and other shit work like coming up with 1,000 bot names or spellchecking 5,000 word blog posts

15. ACCOUNTING
paying contractors via multiple formats, paying licensees, recording expenses

16. LEGAL
keeping everything legal with NDA's, contractors, game engine licenses, licensed music and art

17. SALES
researching and seeking out portals and publishers to sell through

18. EXECUTIVE
assume all responsibility and liability for project & studio; keep up with current industry, trends, tech, culture; high level business decisions; business development

Designing is absolutely (and happily) my number one area of time consumption. There's some overlap here with QA, but design is a much more active and proactive stance than QA, which is more reactive, hence the separation.

Technical and art direction are easily the next two, it's the bread and butter of making games - code and art, lots of communication and management going on there.

QA makes a non-surprise appearance at number four. Oh game testing how I love thee. When it's my game.

Making a surprise appearance after QA is finance, a separate category from accounting, which is pure book balancing. Finance is something more than that - it's more akin to financial planning - and when you're an indie on a tight budget, by god you better be putting energy into planning. I open and work the budgets for my games almost as often as I open and play the games themselves.

Many roles I'd love to hire someone else to do. Less time webmastering means more time crafting the game. However, things like HR will always be things I do personally, no matter the studio size or budget.

So there you have it - what one particular indie producer does. Producers bring it all together and make it happen. I cannot encourage people enough to get into producing; I cannot do enough to publicize the role. I want to shout from rooftops: PRODUCE, PRODUCE! We need more indie producers to get more indie games completed and out the door.


::: MY PRODUCTION TOOL NOTES

This is not a de facto list of my production tools, but rather some comments about some tools I use, in no particular order.

TOOL: PEN AND PAPER
WHAT: instruments for recording
WHY: Just the simple act of navigating thoughts onto a computer can be immediately confining. I do all my design work on paper first. It's more free a medium and allows for more creative experimentation and connections. I keep binders stuffed with notes. Even blogs have been known to start on paper! ("paper" here meaning "bar napkin")

TOOL: GMAIL
WHAT: Email service used for the company's address (my personal address)
WHY: I give my personal address on my cards and on the RTG website because it's more personal than some faceless series of addresses at the RTG address (sales@, support@, etc). Using the google address reinforces that it's my personal address. I'm small but I'm embracing that, not trying to hide it under a cloak of professionalism and soulless addresses.

TOOL: MS EXCEL
WHAT: Financial and project planning.
WHY: This is both my financial planner and my project planner. Expenses are tracked, project completion is tracked. Simple and standard program and I format my spreadsheet how I like.

TOOL: CVS/CVSDUDE.COM
WHAT: Project builds and notifications.
WHY: CVS is well known to developers, allows multiple coders to work on the same code, and keeps me in the loop when live updates are made via automatic emails. CVSdude specifically has been a great service provider of CVS.

TOOL: RENTACODER.COM
WHAT: Finding contractors to complete art, code, sound, QA, just about anything (much more than just coders on RAC).
WHY: The service on this site is consistently terrible, likely the result of the sheer volume they do. The excessive hoops they make you jump through to complete simple transactions make this site worthless to a producer or manager looking to cut time, not bloat it with administrative red tape. I formerly used RAC but no longer recommend them and am will experiment with other sites and recruitment methods. Pros include excellent project management tools, built-in legal forms, pool of thousands of contractors from different disciplines (art, code, sound), escrow service. Give it a try if you're just starting out and looking to get a better hands-on feel for project management, but otherwise not recommended - this service is still young and having growing pains, though keep an eye on them in the future.

TOOL: EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE
WHAT: Back up game and studio files.
WHY: I have heard countless stories of hard drives dying and work being lost. If you think it won't happen to you, it's only a matter of time.


::: NEW PRODUCER TIPS

There's not much I can offer to artists or programmers in the way of tips. I'm not in the frontline trenches of those jobs. The person that I can really speak best to is the person who is like me - an indie producer.

So this year's top five are my top five new producer tips, from one new producer to another, in no special order:

#1 -- Get some cash together!! Nobody makes an indie film for zero, so why do we think it's ok to try this for games? Scale back. Make one level. Take one game component, isolate that, and make THAT the whole game. Whatever it takes. But please, please, please stop thinking you can make a game for nothing out of thin air. Heck, even if you have $10k your game might not happen!!

#2 -- LEAD.

#3 -- Don't fear mistakes, even big ones, even great-big boy-did-I-mess-up ones. You're gonna make mistakes, it's the cost of admission - but it's one hell of a ride. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Without that room, you won't have the space needed to succeed. Success is try and fail, try and fail. If you cut out the fail part, you cut out the try part, which is the same as not making games at all!

#4 -- Create value and communicate it. If you don't create value, you're just making empty calories for all involved. If you don't communicate it, you're relying on the other person to do all the work.

And last but most certainly not least...

# 5 -- You need patience and determination in bucketloads, and then some, and then some more. Never give up, never surrender! Making games is like growing plants, they don't grow overnight. You water, and wait, and feed, and wait, and water some more, etc. And even once you get a plant maybe it's just a wee small plant!


::: BIG MISTAKES

Here's the three biggest non-title specific mistakes I've made in the last year, aka "How NOT to do Indie Game Dev":

#1 -- No separation of pre-production and production stages. This means going from the design document straight into production with unproven concepts and even full polished art. This is a "guns blazing" strategy and it's a mixed bag; on one hand it got the games done, but on the other hand there was wasted time in experimenting with a production version of the game instead of a pre-production demo, wasted art in cutting unused features, and over-adherence to the all holy design doc. From now on, there will be no more design documents (a complete waste of time for the types of games I make), more time spent in pre-production, and NO art created until final production.

#2 -- Too many projects. Pretty simple: time, money spread too thin when getting even one game done is hard enough. Too much desire to give ALL projects love and end up finishing none. From now on, one project at a time (with one mini-game on the side permissible).

#3 -- Too little public playtesting too late. Every time I watched a human physically play the game in person, I learned something. I should have done this more. I should have gotten basic game mechanics working earlier and tested earlier. There's no such thing as too much feedback. From now on, I will start public playtesting from the earliest feature and art incomplete preproduction proof of concept demo.


::: COMPANY PHILOSOPHY

A culture with RTG already exists. That culture has grown seemingly by itself and unnoticed by me through the fodder of team email communications, design decisions, in-person conference attendances, financial decisions, and personal style. Over time, every studio, even remote ones, develop a company culture. It's not a good or bad thing by itself. But it happens, and we would do well to first recognize and be aware of it, and second to shape and direct it.

Here's what I want the RTG culture to be and how I try to practice:

#1 -- Artistic expression supercedes business expression; not always, but as majority favor. As soon as business decisions dominate artistic ones, my studio has lost its way, and I've lost the point of what I'm doing.

#2 -- Process and goal are not two. How we get there matters. Lazy development is not acceptable, but I want every last person on the project to take their time and have fun with it, even if it means making less of a game in the end. As soon as I stop having fun myself, my studio has lost its way.

#3 -- Never get too professional. Nothing kills the joys of the freedom of being indie like taking it too seriously or being just a faded copy of the big industry boys. This shit's fun, let's keep it that way!

#4 -- Games should have as few barriers as possible to play. This means considerations for those with audio, visual, or cognitive impairment; making games that will run on computers many years old; having game prices accessible to all.

And last but most certainly not least...

#5 -- Always stay indie!!!


::: CLOSING THOUGHTS

As with last year, it'll be a trip to see where I am with this a year from now. Being so close to release for my titles, I hope things speed up from here, not slow down. I love the line that it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Well I don't know about you but I want to rock and roll, and if it's a long way to success by that route then so be it as long as it kicks ass getting there. And so far kick ass it has.

Stay indie and keep making killer games everyone!

Josh