Plan for Justin Mette
by Justin Mette · 10/06/2001 (6:49 am) · 4 comments
21-6 Productions
An opportunity for Justin to work full-time has arisen this past week and there is a very high probability that he will take it. This event would mark a major milestone in the dream of creating a company in the entertainment software industry. For years, we have been attempting game development on the side, along with day jobs. Having full-time employees only helps to ensure our success.
Dave has been acting as our HR department, searching/interviewing designers and artists to fill the job openings on our team. There have been some great candidates and we appreciate all of the applications we have received. It is our pleasure to introduce Don Toledo as a new team member of 21-6 responsible for artwork on the Myrmidon project. As well, we are excited to be giving the role of assistant designer to Marlo Carpenter.
We have initiated contact with Mr. Tunnell (and crew) at Garage Games to start discussing the process of publishing Myrmidon. We hope to involve our publishers very early in the design and development of the game in order to ensure the best chance at a retail release. As well, the GG team has an amazing background in the industry, which we hope to learn from as we move forward.
The team is still struggling with the best way to protect the unique game features of Myrmidon from getting stolen. We are definitely paranoid about the subject and have held off on releasing very much public information about the game due to this paranoia. We are still working on getting a comfort level reached via things like an NDA or some kind of patent of the key distinguishing features. Once we do, we plan to publicize much more about the game to start gaining more interest (even though we have been getting lots of forum posts and email supporting us already thanks folks!).
21-6 Web Site
Justin continues to tweak the web site / forum software in order to meet the team's needs. Changes this week include:
[*] Integrated Security System. There are protected areas of the site that are for 21-6 team members only. This security context is now passed down to the forum software so that users don't have to sign in twice.
[*] Visual Enhancements. Many visual enhancements to the forums were made that help with navigation and ease the pain of submitting a post or reply, for example.
[*] Manual Back-up System. This system will back-up all data for 21-6 and Myrmidon, include source code, the web site, the forum content, and the design document. Back-ups occur weekly and CD's are burned monthly. This system will soon be automated.
[*] Task List. The online task list for the team is under construction and should be completed this week. This will be a secure area of the site that team members can use to track their tasks or see what else there is to work on.
Camera System
A few bugs in the Myrmidon camera system were fixed. As well, the camera is now reset to its original state as you enter each mission. This was a tough decision but resulted in a cleaner, less confusing experience for the gamer we hope.
Design
Dave spent a large part of this last week on designing the attribute/skill system for Myrmidon. After some major vision statements were agreed upon in the previous week's design meetings, Dave was able to start generating a lot more detail about the actual attributes and skills that a Myrmidon can possess. There is some real inspiring work going on in this field that will surely make Myrmidon a unique and fun gaming experience.
Don has already started challenging the team to think more about how a Myrmidon looks, as he is creating some concept art on this subject as his first task. We have been using the forums to clarify some of the more detailed aspects of the origins, capabilities, and customization of the Myrmidon characters.
Dynamic Mission Elements
The random object placement algorithm for interiors can now support "terrain holes". This allows randomly placed interiors to penetrate the terrain as appropriate. This new feature can be seen in the latest release of Myrmidon see if you can find the randomly generated base!
Static objects that are placed randomly can now be configured to use the terrain surface normal as a filter. This works great for static objects that really cant be placed properly on steep terrain like trees. Of course, this simplifies the configuration of "random generation areas" in a level.
Due to the dynamic nature of most levels in Myrmidon, randomly generated missions need to be lit each time they are loaded instead of reading from a cached ML file. The appropriate changes were made to the mission loading code to force mission lighting if random elements exist.
Mission: Research Station
We had some problems expanding the "squareSize" of a mission with respects to water placement and "terrain holes". Because more research really needs to be done in this area, we have reverted back to a square size of 8. Therefore, a new terrain heightfield was used to generate the terrain for this mission. All randomly placed objects in this mission were upgraded to use the new "terrain holes" and "terrain Angle Limit" features introduced this week.
Mission: Matrix
A new mission was created for experimentation. A good deal of work has gone into the Research Station and it's not as easy to "play around" with ideas in there anymore so this new mission was created for just that purpose. This mission consists simply of a flat grid terrain and a flat grid skybox.
Options Dialog
Ryan checked in the first release of the new Options Dialog for Myrmidon. The dialog opens along the right side of the screen and will provide access to all the options in the game. This first release includes the ability to change your graphics settings, including: screen resolution, video driver, bit depth, full screen toggle, and vertical sync control.
Player Selection
Dave continues to chug away at player selection when he isn't designing the skills/attribute system in Myr. There are some philosophical questions about how best to accomplish this feature in the game engine and therefore we have engaged Tim Gift in the GG forums who has been helpful in understanding a bit more on how to correlate server objects to their corresponding client "ghost" objects.
An opportunity for Justin to work full-time has arisen this past week and there is a very high probability that he will take it. This event would mark a major milestone in the dream of creating a company in the entertainment software industry. For years, we have been attempting game development on the side, along with day jobs. Having full-time employees only helps to ensure our success.
Dave has been acting as our HR department, searching/interviewing designers and artists to fill the job openings on our team. There have been some great candidates and we appreciate all of the applications we have received. It is our pleasure to introduce Don Toledo as a new team member of 21-6 responsible for artwork on the Myrmidon project. As well, we are excited to be giving the role of assistant designer to Marlo Carpenter.
We have initiated contact with Mr. Tunnell (and crew) at Garage Games to start discussing the process of publishing Myrmidon. We hope to involve our publishers very early in the design and development of the game in order to ensure the best chance at a retail release. As well, the GG team has an amazing background in the industry, which we hope to learn from as we move forward.
The team is still struggling with the best way to protect the unique game features of Myrmidon from getting stolen. We are definitely paranoid about the subject and have held off on releasing very much public information about the game due to this paranoia. We are still working on getting a comfort level reached via things like an NDA or some kind of patent of the key distinguishing features. Once we do, we plan to publicize much more about the game to start gaining more interest (even though we have been getting lots of forum posts and email supporting us already thanks folks!).
21-6 Web Site
Justin continues to tweak the web site / forum software in order to meet the team's needs. Changes this week include:
[*] Integrated Security System. There are protected areas of the site that are for 21-6 team members only. This security context is now passed down to the forum software so that users don't have to sign in twice.
[*] Visual Enhancements. Many visual enhancements to the forums were made that help with navigation and ease the pain of submitting a post or reply, for example.
[*] Manual Back-up System. This system will back-up all data for 21-6 and Myrmidon, include source code, the web site, the forum content, and the design document. Back-ups occur weekly and CD's are burned monthly. This system will soon be automated.
[*] Task List. The online task list for the team is under construction and should be completed this week. This will be a secure area of the site that team members can use to track their tasks or see what else there is to work on.
Camera System
A few bugs in the Myrmidon camera system were fixed. As well, the camera is now reset to its original state as you enter each mission. This was a tough decision but resulted in a cleaner, less confusing experience for the gamer we hope.
Design
Dave spent a large part of this last week on designing the attribute/skill system for Myrmidon. After some major vision statements were agreed upon in the previous week's design meetings, Dave was able to start generating a lot more detail about the actual attributes and skills that a Myrmidon can possess. There is some real inspiring work going on in this field that will surely make Myrmidon a unique and fun gaming experience.
Don has already started challenging the team to think more about how a Myrmidon looks, as he is creating some concept art on this subject as his first task. We have been using the forums to clarify some of the more detailed aspects of the origins, capabilities, and customization of the Myrmidon characters.
Dynamic Mission Elements
The random object placement algorithm for interiors can now support "terrain holes". This allows randomly placed interiors to penetrate the terrain as appropriate. This new feature can be seen in the latest release of Myrmidon see if you can find the randomly generated base!
Static objects that are placed randomly can now be configured to use the terrain surface normal as a filter. This works great for static objects that really cant be placed properly on steep terrain like trees. Of course, this simplifies the configuration of "random generation areas" in a level.
Due to the dynamic nature of most levels in Myrmidon, randomly generated missions need to be lit each time they are loaded instead of reading from a cached ML file. The appropriate changes were made to the mission loading code to force mission lighting if random elements exist.
Mission: Research Station
We had some problems expanding the "squareSize" of a mission with respects to water placement and "terrain holes". Because more research really needs to be done in this area, we have reverted back to a square size of 8. Therefore, a new terrain heightfield was used to generate the terrain for this mission. All randomly placed objects in this mission were upgraded to use the new "terrain holes" and "terrain Angle Limit" features introduced this week.
Mission: Matrix
A new mission was created for experimentation. A good deal of work has gone into the Research Station and it's not as easy to "play around" with ideas in there anymore so this new mission was created for just that purpose. This mission consists simply of a flat grid terrain and a flat grid skybox.
Options Dialog
Ryan checked in the first release of the new Options Dialog for Myrmidon. The dialog opens along the right side of the screen and will provide access to all the options in the game. This first release includes the ability to change your graphics settings, including: screen resolution, video driver, bit depth, full screen toggle, and vertical sync control.
Player Selection
Dave continues to chug away at player selection when he isn't designing the skills/attribute system in Myr. There are some philosophical questions about how best to accomplish this feature in the game engine and therefore we have engaged Tim Gift in the GG forums who has been helpful in understanding a bit more on how to correlate server objects to their corresponding client "ghost" objects.
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#3
While I don't believe story elements should be put together by any Joe off the street, many studios work exactly that way -- without a single professional, semi-professional or even an amateur writer on board.
Publishers strictly care about execution. Can you do the job on time with the expected level of quality and within budget? That's what they care about. They don't care if your main character is a demon-elf from the 8th planet of Neptar who drives a Space-Cadillac while saving the universe before VJing on MTV. They don't care if you have killer plot twists or interesting characters.
They care about product and they care about your team being able to make that product.
Everything else is secondary because without a finished product, all of your unique ideas are meaningless to them.
As example, just look what Cryo Interactive did to Hellboy and Dusk Til Dawn. Those were fantastic properties (especially the former) but their execution was flaccid.
So I wouldn't worry much about your ideas being "stolen". Feel free to protect the most important "groundbreaking" game features and the storyline secret if you want to but please realize that there are thousands of other people out there who've probably had the same or a similar idea long before you did and there will be those who have it after your time has passed. And everyone else has their own ideas as well. Ideas are a dime a dozen. If you can't make something out of them they are irrelevant.
Good luck on your project. :)
10/06/2001 (3:23 pm)
As anyone who's made it into the industry will tell you, ideas are irrelevant. Execution is what matters most.While I don't believe story elements should be put together by any Joe off the street, many studios work exactly that way -- without a single professional, semi-professional or even an amateur writer on board.
Publishers strictly care about execution. Can you do the job on time with the expected level of quality and within budget? That's what they care about. They don't care if your main character is a demon-elf from the 8th planet of Neptar who drives a Space-Cadillac while saving the universe before VJing on MTV. They don't care if you have killer plot twists or interesting characters.
They care about product and they care about your team being able to make that product.
Everything else is secondary because without a finished product, all of your unique ideas are meaningless to them.
As example, just look what Cryo Interactive did to Hellboy and Dusk Til Dawn. Those were fantastic properties (especially the former) but their execution was flaccid.
So I wouldn't worry much about your ideas being "stolen". Feel free to protect the most important "groundbreaking" game features and the storyline secret if you want to but please realize that there are thousands of other people out there who've probably had the same or a similar idea long before you did and there will be those who have it after your time has passed. And everyone else has their own ideas as well. Ideas are a dime a dozen. If you can't make something out of them they are irrelevant.
Good luck on your project. :)
#4
And rest assured, we are not a group of inexperienced newbies who don't know anything about delivering projects on time/budget. The founders are seasoned software developers - we know what it takes to deliver. Of course, any constructive criticism or advice is welcomed. That's part of the reason why we're here on GarageGames - the community. The other reason is the tacos. ;)
10/06/2001 (4:45 pm)
We agree with you Eric. This is actually a mantra that we have taken up during discussions with people we were recruiting for the project. We do need some guidance on how best to reveal information about the project and the timing of those revelations. It is not something we are losing too much sleep over at this point, however, as we still have a considerable amount of work ahead of us. And rest assured, we are not a group of inexperienced newbies who don't know anything about delivering projects on time/budget. The founders are seasoned software developers - we know what it takes to deliver. Of course, any constructive criticism or advice is welcomed. That's part of the reason why we're here on GarageGames - the community. The other reason is the tacos. ;)
Brock Ferguson