Making an RPG --- In Public

Many moons ago, while shooting off my mouth on these very forums about how you didn't need a big budget and premium tools to make games, Tom Bampton called me on it and dared me to do just that - in a week. I not only took him up on it, but I did one better. Not content to simply make a Space Invaders clone, I decided to make an RPG. A really crappy old-school RPG, as it turns out, but the whole thing was done using all-free tools (including the programming language - Python), with no pre-built game engine. I did it in 40 hours - a "work week" (though in practice it took me two real-world weeks, as I could only work on it part time).

And I decided to document the whole process. I wrote it up in an article for GameDev.net entitled "How To Build a Game In a Week From Scratch With No Budget." I was surprised by the positive response. Because - as I said - the game wasn't all that good (hey, I was LEARNING PyGame as I wrote the game, too!). I still come into contact with people who said they really enjoyed the article and it helped inspire 'em. I don't consider myself that inspiring of a person (maybe something of an instigator, I guess), so that makes me feel pretty dang awesome.

I think it helped me out, too. It helped me look a little more carefully at where I put my time, at what approaches I should / could take, and to really zero in on what was important given a very limited amount of time. It helped me measure my productivity and work habits. And I got to play around with making a roleplaying game! Even if only a very poor one. But it really inspired me to crank it up several notches and see what I could do given more time, a real (albeit small) budget, and an existing game engine.

More recently, I had some followers of the Tales of the Rampant Coyote offer up feedback on a screenshot for my game-in-alpha, Apocalypse Cow. They gave me some really great suggestions, many of which I was able to address and help improve the visuals and theming of the game.

It was incredibly helpful and fun experience, and I began thinking to myself, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool to do an entire game this way?" I thought I'd combine both experiences into one with a weekly diary and forums to discuss a game's development almost from day one (well, actually pretty far into the design process, but meh....) all the way through to its release. It'd be an ugly but interactive "development with the curtains open" from the get-go. Something that feels utterly and completely WRONG to me, with my background in mainstream game development with all of its NDA's, trade secrets, and carefully measured-out information trickles designed by marketers to have the hype peak at exactly the right time.

I imagine it'll be pretty ugly, showing the development process warts-and-all from the get-go. It'll be pretty embarassing, I'm sure, as it'll show just how terrible of a game developer I really am. Hopefully it'll be of value to readers, especially someone who's not been through the process before, as they'll get a glimpse into what it takes and some of the nightmares that inevitably occur during development. And if I fall flat on my face, you'll be able to see why and how that happened. And, assuming I don't fail miserably and in public, you'll be able to have some influence on the whole process.

From my perspective, I gain several benefits assuming the risk pays off.

First of all, the new game is an RPG - my favorite genre and the direction I want to take Rampant Games. While I'm a fan and have some experience in the pen & paper industry (some editing and writing for a D20 publisher and a gaming magazine), my past game development experience (well, my released commercial games) has been all action games. While I'm full of ideas, I know that, like everyone else, many of my ideas are crap. It's very useful to have several people to bounce ideas off of and get feedback and review BEFORE the game actually goes out with me asking for money for it.

Secondly - there's a community of really smart people and experienced indie game developers at Tales of the Rampant Coyote who have a lot of experience and who may have great ideas and advice for improving my process. I don't have enough pride to be ashamed to ask for help in this regard :)

Thirdly - and this is a big one - this represents a way of me "throwing my hat over the fence." Knowing I've got some accountability (even if only one person even bothers to read the updates) on what I said I was going to be doing will hopefully help me stay on track and motivated. If I throw my hat over the fence, I'm going to have to over the fence to pick it back up again. The fear of public humiliation might be a good motivator for me. So I guess I still have some pride...

If you are interested in participating (or just watching to see how badly I screw this up), you can come visit here:

The Frayed Knights Website (yes, the game already has a website - how crazy is that? My mainstream-game-developer paranoia is totally kicking into overdrive here.) This will include my weekly development diary and anything else related to the game as it goes from design to production to preparations to release, and eventually post-release.

The Frayed Knights Discussion Forum - where you can jump in and discuss the weekly happenings, critique, sound off, call me a total moron (it's okay, I already know that), and whatever else.

Public Display Of Game Making is my more detailed explanation of What Is Coming Up.

Frayed Knights Dev Diary: Prolog - The first part of the series. The first few entries will be about "catching things up" and background on the design before I go into full production. It'll start a little slow, as I'm still finishing up Apocalypse Cow.

I've gotta be outta my mind. But we'll find out soon, won't we?