Max Diamond Treasure Hunter Post Mortem

I know my last blog post talked about releasing some game design documents and some free games, but I got distracted. If you want to hear all the story, go ahead and look at my blog at christopherlorenevans.com

First let me say I started my own little game company, you can see my website at morphosisgames.com

OK for those who don't want to read this whole blog (and I understand, it's long) here is the cliff notes version, and then read the last paragraph.

What I learned and relearn while creating Max Diamond Treasure Hunter.

First: Just start a game. Don't try creating the awesome game that you and your friends dream about, start with something simple and easy.

Second: If your working with TGB, take advantage of what they done for you to make your life easier such as, behaviors, custom datablocks, etc.

Third: Everything in game development takes time; programming, art, sound, etc. Plan out what you need, get the people you need to do it, and give them what they need long before your deadline.

Four: Consistence work, is better then binged work.

Five: Record you time, and make notes.

Lets start with a bit of history. I purchased iTGB in November of 2008. At the time iTGB had the license restriction of only one publish game, then you would have to purchase another license. Because of this license restriction I couldn't decide on what one of my iPhone games should I make. Do I just make a game and see how well it sell on the App Store, or do I work on a game that I know will be awesome? I decided to try and make the awesome game first; that was a mistake. After about 3 months I was no where near getting my game done.

During this time I found some contract work, and didn't have time to work on my game. When I was done working on that contract I decided to focus on my iPhone project again. I found out that garage games just changed the licensing on iTGB, so I was no longer limited on the number of games I could make, and because of this I decided to just make a game, and see how it sells. I wanted something that would tax my torque programming knowledge, but still be easiest enough that I could get it done in a few weeks to months. That way I could learn the strength and weakness of iTGB and plan my next games accordingly.

Lesson 1, when your first creating games, start small and work up to the awesome games you've dreamed of.

When thinking of what game I should make, I thought of one of my favorite games on the iPhone, labyrinth. And I thought what if I combined the basic game play of labyrinth and add some moving traps, and items to collect. And I said to myself "self, I think you have an idea for your first iPhone game". So I started writing down ideas and drawing things on paper until I got an idea of how I wanted the game to be. My docs where not the greatest. Looking back I think one of the things I could have done better was to create a complete artist asset list right away, and then find an artist. I will tell you why later.

I started 03/26/09 to work on Max Diamond Treasure Hunter (MDTH), and the game was sent to Apple on the 07/19/09. So the game took about 4 months to create, my first estimates put it about 1-2 months. Yeah, I under estimated the time line.

The first issue that I had with this project, is I did not take full advantage of the Torque Game Build editor. All the work I even done with TGB, was extending the engine to support feature X, or write a torque script module that did Y. And because of my lack of TGB editor experience, I didn't take advantage of behaviors as much as I could have, or even custom datablocks. And at the end of the project I wished that I had.

Lesson 2, take advantage of Torque's engine features first!

At first I was going to have the game use one "HUGE!" (tracks of land) map, but when testing the game on my 1gen itouch (using iTGB 1.0) the movement was really choppy; It is still a bit choppy on the iPhone 3GS but it is better, I haven't check the forums about this, but I will later. So when deciding what to do about this issue, I was thinking about how Half Life handle loading using a portal system, and it hit me. Why don't I just load a small level, and then have entrances and exits to other levels. This changed my game design significantly, but I felt that it was a change for the better. I did spend a good amount of time learning and modifying how torque load levels but it was a good learning experience.

So after about 2 months of working on the game on and off, I was ready to hire an artist and a composer. Now when I got to this point I thought I could have both the art and music done within two weeks. And boy howdy was I wrong. After talking to a few people and getting nothing from them I was really frustrated and was thinking about doing it myself (not a good idea). Fortunately I was talking to my brother about my issues, and he agreed to do some of it for me (for a cheap price). Now I wish I could say he delivered the art quickly but he didn't, after about 2 months I got all the art from him. During this time I found another artist, and he also took longer then we both thought it would. Now let me say this, I am very happy with the art and the quality that I received, it just took longer then what I expected. Also let me say I am not an artist, so I don't really know how long it takes for them to do things. My sound guy gave me my stuff really quickly, but he didn't do as much as my artists did. The slow deliver of the art did cause me some annoyance, because all I was waiting for was the art to be done, so I could send the game to apple.

That is when I learned lesson 3, understand the art and sound you need upfront, then make sure you get the artists working on them sooner then later.

One thing that I did that really helped me get past the art issues, was to create a simple iPhone application. My sister ask if I would make her an application that would help her to fall asleep. I had the time so I agreed and I then created the app, and I called it "The Sleeper". Doing this help me understand what I would expect to see when I ship MDTH out. I would recommend everyone doing iPhone games to take a day or two and create a simple iPhone app and send it to apple.

I wish I could say that I put in a solid 40 hours a week on my game. Or that I even did a consistence 10 hours a week, but I did not. What I did was worked on it for 2 to 6 hours one day and not touch it for another week or two. And what happen is I ended up spending the first hour or two just remember what I was working on and why. Also I didn't keep a time log, or good record of what I needed to get done. Now even though I am done with MDTH I can't give a good estimate on how long it will take me to make my next iPhone game.

There is lesson 4 and 5, work consistently on the game, even a few hours every day is better then 10 hours one day and 10 hours a week later. Either way, keep notes, it will keep you on track with the project, bugs, and anything else you'll need.


I will now get down from my soap box. I am going to sell Max Diamond Treasure Hunter for 0.99 cents. I think the game is easily worth $1.99, but this is my first game, and people buying stuff from the App store tends to think anything over 0.99 cents is to much.

So what do I think about the game. When the game used simple programmer's art I seriously thought about junking the app and moving on to another project. But in the final testing of the game, before I sent it to Apple, I found, to my surprise, that I enjoyed playing it. I don't know if it because it is fun, or because I grown to love the game and hope it does well, or because I see how much progress it has made. I like to think the game is fun and that it will do well on the App Store. I don't think it will make $100,000 or even $20,000, but I am hoping to make around $8,000. Well thanks for reading my blog. I will let everyone here know when it is release. I also plan on putting my application sales data here for everyone to see for the first 3 months. Figure you guys might like to see that.