Plan for Justin Mette
by Justin Mette · 05/20/2003 (12:14 pm) · 5 comments
Yes, I saw the Matrix and will see it many more times no doubt. What an awesome movie! The blatant rip-off of the movie title for this plan, however, is also inspired by the evolution of our game studio. Allow me to explain...
Many of team at 21-6 has worked together now for over a year and a half on projects like Myrmidon, Cyclone, and Orbz. During these past 19 months we have learned a great deal about how to develop games, maintain a strong team, and most recently we are learning how to turn our hard work into revenue. All the while, we have built a strong network of relationships with many in the games industry.
Using the knowledge and foundation we have built, it has come time raise our game (pun intended) yet again and take 21-6 to the next level. In essence, we are "reloading" our arsenal for another assault. To this end, I would like to take a few moments and describe what the future holds.
The next set of games and products for 21-6 will benefit from all we have learned so far with Orbz and Cyclone. If all goes well, we could see as many as 3 more games released in 2003. Here is a quick summary of the projects under way (note most of the projects are code-named at this time):
Draggle
A 2D word/puzzle game that was mostly written late last year but Orbz took priority and most of our resources so it was never finished. We are now coming around full circle, wrapping this game up, and using our connections to try and get it distributed all over the net.
BlockFest
This is 2D arcade/puzzle game based off from an old classic board game. Essentially it's a game where you slide pieces around a puzzle board attempting to get a particular piece out one side. Very logic/puzzle feel to the game and it should do well on the casual game distribution sites like Real Arcade and Yahoo.
HoverWings
Race hover bikes in different game modes like checkpoint racing, tag, hunter, and a few others. The racer is awarded money for winning races which they can use to upgrade their bike in both single and multi-player modes. We will be focusing on building a community around this game and hope to debut an alpha version of the game at IGC in October. This game is being built with Torque.
Elements
From the mind of Dave Calabrese comes a great single-player strategy/puzzle game being written with Torque. This game has great potential to reach a large audience of puzzle gamers.
Torque Discovery Kit
This is a collaboration project with Jeff Tunnell and GarageGames. Together we are going to create a kit that young game hobbyists and indies can use to learn how to build a game from start to finish with Torque. The kit will contain a book and CD filled with all the content and shareware tools needed to build a first-person shooter. Other modules, like a real-time strategy game or racing games, will follow afterwards.
GuiControl Content Pack
During the Myrmidon project and also during Orbz, we developed a set of GUI controls for Torque. Enhanced features like full support for skins, advanced shell controls, alpha fading, animated positions, etc all make this pack worthy of sale. We will be packaging up that code, throwing a little documentation on it, and selling it on GG.
Game Services
We built some great server-side features into Orbz like Message of the Day, New Version Notification, Usage Counting, Unique Naming, and Community High Scores. These are staple features that most games would benefit from and so we will be packaging these up and hopefully selling them as a pack, or service, on GG.
Team Site
The 21-6 team uses a web site we developed and affectionately call the "Team Site". This web site is meant to help manage a remote team and has features like document management, task management, time reporting, image galleries, and forums. Over the next couple of months as we use and refine the site, we will productize it and sell it to small remote teams that could use an organizational tool such as this.
To accommodate all of these projects, we have had to increase the size of the team. In recent days, we have been joined by Dean Whitlock (also works for HomeLAN, a large game hosting service), Pascal Bos (fantastic artist from the GG community, worked on ThinkTanks), Matt Mitman, Paul Scott, and the return of Chris Byrne (of Myrmidon fame). More team additions are expected in the near future as we prepare for the journey ahead.
All in all, 2003 is going to be a big year for our team and we hope to both create some fun games and also provide some useful development tools for the community.
Many of team at 21-6 has worked together now for over a year and a half on projects like Myrmidon, Cyclone, and Orbz. During these past 19 months we have learned a great deal about how to develop games, maintain a strong team, and most recently we are learning how to turn our hard work into revenue. All the while, we have built a strong network of relationships with many in the games industry.
Using the knowledge and foundation we have built, it has come time raise our game (pun intended) yet again and take 21-6 to the next level. In essence, we are "reloading" our arsenal for another assault. To this end, I would like to take a few moments and describe what the future holds.
The next set of games and products for 21-6 will benefit from all we have learned so far with Orbz and Cyclone. If all goes well, we could see as many as 3 more games released in 2003. Here is a quick summary of the projects under way (note most of the projects are code-named at this time):
Draggle
A 2D word/puzzle game that was mostly written late last year but Orbz took priority and most of our resources so it was never finished. We are now coming around full circle, wrapping this game up, and using our connections to try and get it distributed all over the net.
BlockFest
This is 2D arcade/puzzle game based off from an old classic board game. Essentially it's a game where you slide pieces around a puzzle board attempting to get a particular piece out one side. Very logic/puzzle feel to the game and it should do well on the casual game distribution sites like Real Arcade and Yahoo.
HoverWings
Race hover bikes in different game modes like checkpoint racing, tag, hunter, and a few others. The racer is awarded money for winning races which they can use to upgrade their bike in both single and multi-player modes. We will be focusing on building a community around this game and hope to debut an alpha version of the game at IGC in October. This game is being built with Torque.
Elements
From the mind of Dave Calabrese comes a great single-player strategy/puzzle game being written with Torque. This game has great potential to reach a large audience of puzzle gamers.
Torque Discovery Kit
This is a collaboration project with Jeff Tunnell and GarageGames. Together we are going to create a kit that young game hobbyists and indies can use to learn how to build a game from start to finish with Torque. The kit will contain a book and CD filled with all the content and shareware tools needed to build a first-person shooter. Other modules, like a real-time strategy game or racing games, will follow afterwards.
GuiControl Content Pack
During the Myrmidon project and also during Orbz, we developed a set of GUI controls for Torque. Enhanced features like full support for skins, advanced shell controls, alpha fading, animated positions, etc all make this pack worthy of sale. We will be packaging up that code, throwing a little documentation on it, and selling it on GG.
Game Services
We built some great server-side features into Orbz like Message of the Day, New Version Notification, Usage Counting, Unique Naming, and Community High Scores. These are staple features that most games would benefit from and so we will be packaging these up and hopefully selling them as a pack, or service, on GG.
Team Site
The 21-6 team uses a web site we developed and affectionately call the "Team Site". This web site is meant to help manage a remote team and has features like document management, task management, time reporting, image galleries, and forums. Over the next couple of months as we use and refine the site, we will productize it and sell it to small remote teams that could use an organizational tool such as this.
To accommodate all of these projects, we have had to increase the size of the team. In recent days, we have been joined by Dean Whitlock (also works for HomeLAN, a large game hosting service), Pascal Bos (fantastic artist from the GG community, worked on ThinkTanks), Matt Mitman, Paul Scott, and the return of Chris Byrne (of Myrmidon fame). More team additions are expected in the near future as we prepare for the journey ahead.
All in all, 2003 is going to be a big year for our team and we hope to both create some fun games and also provide some useful development tools for the community.
About the author
Recent Blogs
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#2
Look forward to the gui pack btw.. I'm definitely going to buy that.
Phil.
05/21/2003 (11:46 am)
Justin, I like the idea of a team manager site setup.. We're using microsoft Team manager site manager whatever right now. Its pretty funky. I'd recommend checking it out :) of course, you can always sell to the anti-microsoft crowd :)Look forward to the gui pack btw.. I'm definitely going to buy that.
Phil.
#3
05/21/2003 (10:58 pm)
Great to see 21-6 pushing forward Justin. Good luck with all these ventures...
#4
05/22/2003 (6:13 pm)
Whatever happend to Myrmidon, anyway?
#5
In developing games like HoverWings and Elements, we hope to learn the skills necessary to take on a bigger project like Myrmidon. Until then, we continue to evolve the story and brainstorm ways to complete such a big game on our minimal budgets.
Myrmidon will have it's day in the light, of that there is no doubt.
05/23/2003 (7:26 am)
Ah yes Myrmidon, our first true love. We took a good hard look at Myr before starting the games described above. Although it was a tough decision, we still feel we have to mature as game developers before making that project worth the effort. In particular, Myrmidon requires a great deal of Art assets (something we are still learning how to do well) and is steeped in story. We have also learned that a single-player experience is the key to maximizing sales potential which means even more work that originally anticipated. In developing games like HoverWings and Elements, we hope to learn the skills necessary to take on a bigger project like Myrmidon. Until then, we continue to evolve the story and brainstorm ways to complete such a big game on our minimal budgets.
Myrmidon will have it's day in the light, of that there is no doubt.
Torque Owner Dan MacDonald