And nearly a year later....
by Tony Richards · 09/05/2006 (9:51 pm) · 6 comments
... and I still don't have a game under my belt. But no regrets.
Renegades aka Volitant Assault aka Ascension is still under development, but I've not contributed anything to it since last November... don't ask, don't tell is my philosophy. Don't worry, though... they've still got Calsa, Byte, Novanix, etc and they're slated to be finished soon enough.
But, honestly, I'll tell a little, and hopefully my friends at RenWerX won't hate me too much. I had a decent job interview with EA games, but the timing was wrong... they needed someone for their upcoming Superman game and I wasn't available at the time. I wish things had gone differently... I still kick myself everytime I see a pre-release box of the game.
Since then I've changed jobs, moved from Dallas, TX to New York (New York City!?!) and I've been caught up re-juvinating the hardest hit company of 9/11.
It's a far cry from my last job when I worked at home and had no life... it's literally impossible to live in Manhattan without having at least some sort of semblance of a life. :P
My passion is sailing and I've literally sailed for more hours than I've been in a car since December.
Yup, that's me with the long hair at the tiller... spectacular sailing in that harbor. Turn around and you'll see the emptiness, though.
Ok, so back to the topic... I used to play games at least 40 hours a week... that's dropped to 2 - 4 hours on average... and that's including a few 8 hour Saturday marathons... ack! So, I decided to have a game ready for publishing by early October, but then I had an incredible excuse not to make that deadline (anyone care to guess?). No need to say that I'm not going to make that deadline... oh well, it was a cute goal.
But, having the same excuse (I'm too busy) isn't really going to cut it, so, in the past two weeks I dusted off all the artwork, content packs, models, sound effects, ambient sounds, musical instrumets, game engines, etc that I've purchased over the past 5 years and decided to piece together a game... my only learning curve was Torque scripting and it turns out that it's easier to script than code C++... who would've thunk? :P I'm actually starting to enjoy it.
The game is almost finished... all I need is a C++ coder, scripter, GUI guy, modeller, sound effects person and PR person to finish off my team... anyone up to it?
----
Just kidding! What a load of crap.
----
No kidding about the "enjoying it" part... just the "I need..." part.
I don't need modeling, artwork, scripting, game engines,etc... GG et al have provided plenty there... what I need is a mentor. What I need is someone who'll look at what I have and say "hey, that's not fun" or "nice progress, but you should spend more time on flgiht control because it's unwieldy."
Where are the mentors? I know it's tough... there's 10000 to 1 newbies to veterans (maybe more!), but surely there's someone out there that's published a few games or that's been part of a team that's published some games that might be willing to post some thoughts.
And I'm willing to pay... as much as ${censored} / month depending on your published titles... and honestly it'll probably be less work than one might think... it's kinda like a membership to a gym. You don't really gain much unless you're paying someone to tell you that you're fat... lol.
Please, serious interests only... send me an e-mail with resume and hourly (8 hour / month average) rates.
Renegades aka Volitant Assault aka Ascension is still under development, but I've not contributed anything to it since last November... don't ask, don't tell is my philosophy. Don't worry, though... they've still got Calsa, Byte, Novanix, etc and they're slated to be finished soon enough.
But, honestly, I'll tell a little, and hopefully my friends at RenWerX won't hate me too much. I had a decent job interview with EA games, but the timing was wrong... they needed someone for their upcoming Superman game and I wasn't available at the time. I wish things had gone differently... I still kick myself everytime I see a pre-release box of the game.
Since then I've changed jobs, moved from Dallas, TX to New York (New York City!?!) and I've been caught up re-juvinating the hardest hit company of 9/11.
It's a far cry from my last job when I worked at home and had no life... it's literally impossible to live in Manhattan without having at least some sort of semblance of a life. :P
My passion is sailing and I've literally sailed for more hours than I've been in a car since December.
Yup, that's me with the long hair at the tiller... spectacular sailing in that harbor. Turn around and you'll see the emptiness, though.
Ok, so back to the topic... I used to play games at least 40 hours a week... that's dropped to 2 - 4 hours on average... and that's including a few 8 hour Saturday marathons... ack! So, I decided to have a game ready for publishing by early October, but then I had an incredible excuse not to make that deadline (anyone care to guess?). No need to say that I'm not going to make that deadline... oh well, it was a cute goal.
But, having the same excuse (I'm too busy) isn't really going to cut it, so, in the past two weeks I dusted off all the artwork, content packs, models, sound effects, ambient sounds, musical instrumets, game engines, etc that I've purchased over the past 5 years and decided to piece together a game... my only learning curve was Torque scripting and it turns out that it's easier to script than code C++... who would've thunk? :P I'm actually starting to enjoy it.
The game is almost finished... all I need is a C++ coder, scripter, GUI guy, modeller, sound effects person and PR person to finish off my team... anyone up to it?
----
Just kidding! What a load of crap.
----
No kidding about the "enjoying it" part... just the "I need..." part.
I don't need modeling, artwork, scripting, game engines,etc... GG et al have provided plenty there... what I need is a mentor. What I need is someone who'll look at what I have and say "hey, that's not fun" or "nice progress, but you should spend more time on flgiht control because it's unwieldy."
Where are the mentors? I know it's tough... there's 10000 to 1 newbies to veterans (maybe more!), but surely there's someone out there that's published a few games or that's been part of a team that's published some games that might be willing to post some thoughts.
And I'm willing to pay... as much as ${censored} / month depending on your published titles... and honestly it'll probably be less work than one might think... it's kinda like a membership to a gym. You don't really gain much unless you're paying someone to tell you that you're fat... lol.
Please, serious interests only... send me an e-mail with resume and hourly (8 hour / month average) rates.
About the author
I am the founder of IndieZen.org, a website dedicated to the Indie 2.0 Revolution where a number of Indie game development studios and individuals collaborate and share a suite of custom built open source game development tools and middleware.
#2
09/05/2006 (10:46 pm)
So you're looking for a personal trainer, in game development? Interesting ...
#3
beta testers I feel are very important. Of course it's important to have a clear plan of what you want to accomplish with your game going into it, not just throwing things in as you go. But once you've got all your pieces assembled you need to know if it works (is it fun?).
you might even want to consider alpha tester (of course they need to understand that they are testing how the game plays, without all the bells and whistles)
The main point though is that you need someone(s) that can give constructive criticism, and might be able to give you ideas you hadnt thought of, to help your game move forward.
09/06/2006 (5:37 am)
having someone who's actually finished a game/had it published is nice for tips on getting it finished and published. That's not necessarily gonna mean they know good gameplay (or that they're wasnt something they didnt think of while making it). but it sounds more like you need beta testers or a creative consultant to bounce ideas off of.beta testers I feel are very important. Of course it's important to have a clear plan of what you want to accomplish with your game going into it, not just throwing things in as you go. But once you've got all your pieces assembled you need to know if it works (is it fun?).
you might even want to consider alpha tester (of course they need to understand that they are testing how the game plays, without all the bells and whistles)
The main point though is that you need someone(s) that can give constructive criticism, and might be able to give you ideas you hadnt thought of, to help your game move forward.
#4
ahhh, from the shot, you look a lil bit south of the route... you should be safe :)
why not make a sailing sim or adventure, seeing as you share a love of boating...
i find that developers tend to transfer their real time hobbies into a virtual experience
that they can enjoy when the real life version is put on hold due to wx or various other
commitments...
having said that, a sailing sim might not be the easiest thing to get done in TGE/TSE... but
i do remember seeing this not too long ago...
... so, who knows :)
anyways, i've been with the license for over a year myself, and i'm just getting to the point
where i feel that i know a lil bit about the engine to try a real game... so don't think you're
alone...
good luck...
--Mike
09/06/2006 (6:13 am)
Tony... keep an eye out for that water taxi goin' back and forth to the city... :)ahhh, from the shot, you look a lil bit south of the route... you should be safe :)
why not make a sailing sim or adventure, seeing as you share a love of boating...
i find that developers tend to transfer their real time hobbies into a virtual experience
that they can enjoy when the real life version is put on hold due to wx or various other
commitments...
having said that, a sailing sim might not be the easiest thing to get done in TGE/TSE... but
i do remember seeing this not too long ago...
... so, who knows :)
anyways, i've been with the license for over a year myself, and i'm just getting to the point
where i feel that i know a lil bit about the engine to try a real game... so don't think you're
alone...
good luck...
--Mike
#5
09/06/2006 (3:52 pm)
*waves at Tony*
Associate Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314)