Plan for Paul Dana

Bit Shifter Birthday: How did we get here?

I began coding a project called "Droids" on February 22, 2003. This was to be a "3D remake of the arcade style game: Oids". The idea was to choose the simplest game idea I could think of and just start. Make a prototype and it will inspire an artist to join me.

In April 2003 two artists joined my project: Jason Sharp and Kirk Alberts. It was like magic. We decided we would try to have a playable version of the game to take to the next IGC in Oct. of 2003.

Jason, Kirk, and I made our deadline. Even though the game was basically a prototype still in development, it was well received. We took first place in the Best Single Player Game awards category. The reason was probably the new gameplay we worked on during August and September, where the Bits would "clean up the virus".

But how did we come up with that fabulous gameplay? And how is it we were changing the gameplay in August on a project that began way back in Sep of 2003? What about design up front and our game design document? The answer is we did not have a game design document nor did we do traditional design up-front.

We used a playtest centric style of development. We would only plan out what we could actually build in a week or so and then we would play test it. If it was good we would keep it (for the time being) and try to improve it. If it was bad we would chuck it out.

The important point is that we would let the playtest also determine what we would do next. In other words we let the play testing make the design decisions for us, including what direction to go with the design.

At IGC we gathered as much feedback as we could. What was good? What was bad? What was obvious? What was incomprehensible? Then we proceeded to improve upon this already proven-to-be-fun gameplay. Four months has gone by and we are only now ready for Alpha Testing, in other words we are still not done in our efforts to make our game as fun as awe can possibly make it. We have not changed the gameplay at all. We have not added many features. In fact in our typical fashion we have thrown out more features than we have kept.

In all this time we have never submitted a Development Snapshot. To commemorate my first year of development and the begining of Alpha Testing, and to begin the "buzz building" process leading up to shipping a game I am going to start a series of Development Snapshots telling the story of the making of Bit Shifter.

The first Snapshot will be in a few weeks. It will show screen shots from the very first prototype and allow you to download this prototype and play it for yoruself! We called it the ugly flying UFO tank donut thing. You'll love it! You will also see snapshots of the game in its current state.

Following that, every two or three weeks I will post another Snapshot and provide another download and describe the month or so of work that took place since the previous Snapshot. I will continue like this until we get to the version that went to IGC and won best in the Single Player Game category, and then beyond. By the time the serious of Snapshots is done the product will be close to shipping. :-)