Blog for Bryan Edds at GarageGames.com

Life, Unright-Sized

Bryan Edds — 2006-02-12T12:32:31+00:00

Well, it looks like those experienced indie pros were right all along - right-sizing your life is absolutely necessary.

Now, initially, I thought I could circumvent this truism by answering back with "right-size your GAME!" So I kept scaling back my game, smaller and smaller, until it was the tiniest thing you ever saw.

But...

I still don't have enough time. Between working full-time and going to college almost full-time, there's just nothing leftover. Sure, I could work on my game now and again... but at ths rate, it's take another year - to finish a game that should be done from start to finish in 4 to 6 months. I've already spent eight months.

So, it turns out, in the end, they were right. Right-size your life. You can shrink your game all you want, but if you don't change your life to fit your game, you generally can't do it.

As it is, I'm almost through with college, and I certainly can't give up my day job (eating really is my favorite part of the day), I'm just going to have to wait until I'm done with school, which will be another good 6 months or so.

... so what do I do in my mean-time until I wait for my life to be right-sizable? Well, I still design games on paper. I actually just finished making one that's even smaller than my current game and just as much fun. I think it's rather brilliant. So I do a little in my spare time to feed my creative addictions.

It's very difficult having the patience, but at least I know that if I do good in school (the thing I actually hate most in this world) I can get back to the one thing that's important to me - indie development.

So, right-size your life, and keep the scope of your game as realistic (minimal) as absolutely possible. Try not to fall into the same trap as I with a half-finished game on indefinite hold. It's a horribly uncomfortable position to be in.

Seriously.

Puzzle Gaiden Gets Neglected

Bryan Edds — 2006-02-01T10:12:54+00:00

Well, hopefully this isn't a terribly depressing .plan, but it will feel good for me to get this off of my chest.

I have recently done a tiny bit of rethinking on Puzzle Gaiden, and I've decided to take the emphasis on the game's story almost completely out. All of the RPG and strategy elements remain, but the big story had to be removed. It was just too much work - it had to be scaled down and the story was the most ripe for the plucking.

I've also gotten a lot of feedback about the game. What have I learned? A VERY major, important lesson - people hate reading text tutorials. They hate it. Even if it's just a couple of minutes of reading, they absolutely don't want to do it. Even if they find they don't understand the game without reading it. They will stop playing the game altogether before they read the tutorial. That's just the way it turns out.

This was very unexpected for me. I was totally blind sided. The solution is of course simple, but also labor-intensive. If you want someone to go through a tutorial, you better make it three things - interactive, relavent to their current scene in the game, and quick. You can't just unload the entire game's tutorial on the player at once at the very beginning, You've got to give it to them in digestible chunks and have the tutorial teach only how to do the current task at hand.

So, that's a lot to do - especially for an indie. But it's what must be done - no way around it.

So, that's all great and fine and dandy, but the current problem with Puzzle Gaiden is that it's suffering from a large degree of neglect. Unfortunately, between contract work, college, and the game itself, I just don't have time for everything. I have had to basically put one of these three things on the back burner, and PG was it.

So that's bad. The gut-wrenching thing is that PG is sooooo close to being finished. All it need is one more big push to make it out. But it won't get it, at least not any time soon. It's like being half-way through giving birth, but not having time to finish.

So what's this .plan all about? Well, lamentation I s'pose, and me intellectually coming to grips with the reality of it. Unfortunately, it's ixnay on the icturespay on this one. I guess I should at least be happy to be working in the games industry and going to school... Eventually I'll be done with college and I'll have a lot more free time then. I just have to make it. But I REALLY don't want to wait two more semesters before being able to start finishing PG....

....

But I guess I have no choice.

Puzzle Gaiden Makes Progress and Pre-Demo is Released Privately!

Bryan Edds — 2005-12-28T15:08:34+00:00

Puzzle Gaiden has made more progress! I have just recently released a private pre-demo to a few people, and have gotten a small amount of feedback on it. If you would like to request a copy, just give me an e-mail at the address in my profile or contact me in the #garagegames IRC room if I'm in there (would be quicker). I just ask for some feedback in return for a copy of it since I really, REALLY need feedback!

As for progress, there have been some major overhauls recently. Foremost, the story outline has been totally redone. While the original story of the game was interesting, it was somewhat convoluted and it didn't really seem to go anywhere. The new story is much more interesting and the characters are much more varied. It's a big win!

Following this, the whole overworld map was redone. Only one of the continents has been finished though. This one is the mountainous / foresty continent for those familiar with that old RPG standby. The other continents will be painted with ice, desert, and other themes once I get around to it. Here's a pic for ya!

Also, the game's flow is now more non-linear than before. Of course, the story is linear, but now you are able to explore almost any place in the world so long as you are powerful / skilled enough to get there. So you have a choice to advance the story or explore the world and gain power and special items. It all depends on what you are in the moode for.

Here's some screeshots take hopefully garner interest in the game.

This is the first scene in the game where you are woken from a dream -

Here's a shot of your first encounter with the world map. You'll need to beat the practice battles to get access to new places on the world map!

Here's the character setup screen where you can configure up to twelve characters you will eventually in in the game!

Here you are shopping! How candid!

Here are some pics of the early battles in the game -

Well, that's about it for now. Until next .plan!

Thursday Sep 1 2:56

Bryan Edds — 2005-09-01T02:56:08+00:00

Puzzle Gaiden - After a temporary slowdown, back on track thanks to Nauris Krauze!

Phew, finding artists is tough. Especially if you're just promising royalties, etc. I've gone through a few artists who couldn't pull through. So, after wasting a couple months with that, I decided it was time to put up some cash. I figured there was no way I was going to get the art in within the next decade unless I paid someone. Fortunately, I found a great artist who, although not free, was better than I could have even hoped. Most of you know him - Nauris Krauze.

Fast forward a bit to a few weeks working with him, and I've got most of the overworld art into the game. Cue screenshot -

Looks great eh? And the art here only uses a small amount of the tiles I have thank to Nauris. I have desert, beach, mountain, snow tiles as well. Soon I hope to have town and cloud tiles too :)

So, after wasting a bunch of time, I've finally gotten things on track. If there's a lesson here, it's that it's good to pay for work. Even though $15 - $30 an hour sounds expensive, if you get an artist that works as fast as Nauris and your game is properly small (like an indie game should be IMO) you can get all you need for a very reasonable amount of money (and this coming from a guy who make $7 an hour working part time and going to college).

So, spending money might just be worth it. I know I personally could not continue wasting my time with artists who won't pull through.

An now, for some more screenshots :D

Here's a shot of the move equip menu. It's going to have character pics in the future.

Here's the gear equipment menu. Kinda bland, but totally functional.

Here's a shot of an improperly sized and organized battle screen. Didn't have time to fix it for the .plan :D

Well, that's it for Puzzle Gaiden for now. Things are going well, and I hope to have the whole of scenario 1 finished in a couple weeks. That will probably be enough to release a demo, though I'd rather wait for release before releasing a demo since so many things will probably change in the final.

Thanks for reading my .plan, and especially thanks to Nauris for getting this project back on track :)

Sunday Jul 3 14:33

Bryan Edds — 2005-07-03T14:33:57+00:00

My (probably ineffective) ideas for GG to help indies pump out more TGE / TSE games PLUS Bonus Rant! This .plan is in response to Pat Wilson's .plan here.

Here's my idea for making TGE / TSE pump out more games -

Refactor the engine so that everything can be done from script just like T2D. If we could make TGE as easy to use (though admittedly much larger) as T2D, I think indies will have a FAR easier time pumping out games.

My biggest problems with TGE has always been when I had to go into the source. When I could stay in script, it was great - but that often wasn't a possibility...

Of course this suggestion may not be the most productive (seeing as how it would be a MASSIVE undertaking), but that's what I feel would be a great boon to its users' productivity. In fact, I'm sure GG has already considered this, but I felt I have try to contribute something to this discussion if I can.

Overall, though, I feel T2D should be the model by which TGE is refactored if it were possible to do so.

Another good thing for produvtivity would be video tutorials... The more better tutorials the better. And the more and better the docs the better. But even that will take several years if not more... It's just a long... slow... not-immediately-profitable process.

Another thing TGE / TSE developers need is more asset packs. Many many more. Many many many many more. Too many is not enough.

Also more genre code packs. RTS pack is a good start, TBS, RPG, etc would be a great continuation if the RTS pack turned out to be profitable (meaning sustainable). I believe that these types of middleware, if profitable, will be what turns a DOA project into a DOAble project :D

(... god that was silly...)

Better script debugging with, perhaps, an editor that is able to parse TScript. All these little things - all more and better.

Really, it's easy to see how TGE / TSE could be improved to make it more productive for indies... but the hard point is that the efforts needed to create / better these things must be sustainable (EG - profitable) to those who make the effort. I'm not sure if this is the case or not. I figure if it was, then we would see all of these things and more coming at a very high rate of speed. If these general efforts are not profitable, the fruit thereof would only come on a slow, mostly charitable basis. Is that what we have now? I rather think it's more than that... What do you think? What is the market signal saying to us? Is it asking for more, or is it asking for less? Or is it happy with how it is right now - slowly but ultimately surely rewarding some of our best efforts on a limited, highly discriminating basis?

What is the market signaling to us indies? That is the key question. That is what I think we should study. Are we being rewarded for our efforts in general? Is the market asking for more, less, or about the same as what we're doing? I really do think that is the key. Perhaps we should not start by asking what GG can do to help indies produce more games, but ask what sustainably profitable efforts GG and all indies can make to help indies produce more games.

Let's not ask only what can be done to help indies produce more games... Let's ask what can be done to help indies make more games which ALSO is in line with the market's reward system. Only by satisfying both ends will the efforts made be sustainble and fruitful. If we ignore the market's signals and listen only to one side of the story (that is, what the users want), I fear we may not maximise our chances for success.

PS - Sorry for editing this post so often - I didn't think it would be up until it was approved which I figured would take a couple hours :)

Friday Feb 11 4:39

Bryan Edds — 2005-02-11T04:39:54+00:00

Uhhhhhh....

As George Orwell said, in some form or another, 'I write to clarify my thoughts'. So I figures I'll do the same.

Let's get right to the point. There're 3 games I'd like to make -

The first game is a stealth FPS game. It's cool and innovative and fun, etc. There's only one problem - The visual art assets alone will take approximately 771 manhours to get done. Ask around, and you'll find that that's a lot of hours for an indie! If I were to pull this project off, I'd need two artists working for 15 hours a week for 6 months, and that's ONLY if I planned the assets perfectly and there are no delays. Which means it'll probably end up take 9 to 12 months in reality. That's quite a lot. Fortunately, this isn't my first big project, so I have some experience to fall back on, and I can handle all the programming myself. The only problem is getting 2 great artists to stay with me for the duration without them getting any pay up front.

That's what makes this project an unlikely one.

Moving on, the second game I'd like to make is a fun little puzzle game that I can submit to Yahoo games. To deploy this game via Yahoo's online game service, I'd need to code the game in Flash. I had looked into using Java for it, but Java just couldn't handle the speed requirements of an action-puzzle game. Now, I 've never done any Flash before, but I hear it's a fun little authoring environment, especially with it's fully object-oriented scripting language ActionScript 2.0. And while I can't say I'm looking forward to learning Flash and paying the $500 Flash MX 2004 software licensing fee, I am looking forward to making a fun game in what will hopefully be a comparably fast development process.

The caveat? To be frank, I'd rather be working on the first game simple cause I like it better. Ain't that always the case? There's also the problem of the game itself being a dedad-end, but we'll cover that later...

The third game is be a side-scrolling space shoot-em-up (known also as a 'space shmup') with T2D. I think that this game would be extremely viable in terms of development considerations. The hardest and most skilled part about 2D game development, IMO, is animating living 2D characters. Any 2D human or animal animation is extremely costly and time-consuming, especially when it concerns moving the art to videogames. The reason a side-scrolling shootemup is so appealing to an indie like myself is that most of the objects will be static mechanical objects whose animation consists of them turning and winding about without any of the extremely nuanced joint, muscle or tissue animations involved in animating a living character. Further, using renders of a static 3D model from different angles to implement the animations will be a breeze for the artist, and make the game look sweet as a warm juicy Georgia peach.

Mm!

The obvious problem? T2D ain't out yet. So that's on the back burner no matter what. The more subtle problem is my own doubt about the market-viability of major 2D games. Everybody wants 3D-everything nowadays, and they don't appreciate the real heart of a game development - gameplay - anymore. That may be the doubter in me talking, but I can't shake the feeling I'd just be wasting my time - as much as I'd LOVE to do a space shmup... I feel it would be a labor of love and nothing more.

So, these are my oppurtunities and my problems. Maybe you'd like to know what I plan to do about it, this being a .plan and all? Well, I'd like to know too, so hopefully writing this will help me clarify my thoughts on that as well!

I was thinking about simply developing the first two games simultaneously. I know it sounds crazy, but I can't seem to find a better compromise. I REALLY only want to do the stealth FPS game, but the only game I feel secure about being able to get done is the puzzle game. Relying on two artists (maybe 3 if it turns out I can't get them to work the full 15 hours a week...) who will only get paid royalties and partnership is a scary thing. It's even more scary considering the amount of time it will take to get done. In terms of development scope, I would say my game is closer to the first Lore game than the other GG games here - which means I'll be going out on a limb. Of course, I would have a very nice working, fun, playable prototype to get people to join the effort, but will that be enough to attract the requisite talent? What is the price of loyalty in this business? Does it exceed the promises of royalties on a damn sweet game?

This I do not know. can the stealth FPS game really rely on others? It is a risk, and it is unsure, This is what keeps me from developing it by itself. I have to be able to know I can, in all probability, go all the way. When it comes to relying on others, I am usually doubtful. Perhaps unusually doubtful.

In the end, we can only know oncee we try, and we accept the consequences of the riskes we take.

I do have the option of developing for the puzzle by itself (which is the option is recommended to me generally). But the problem is - what do I do AFTER I finish it? You see, because of this games particular design elements, it doesn't lend itself very well to sequal-cashing. Even if the game is a success, I HIGHLY doubt that it will give me even a fraction of the money I'd need to afford 771 hours of art work needed for the stealth game. Worst of all, I don't believe GG will publish it because I don't believe they will publish a Flash game. GG just ain't that kind of publisher from what I hear. So at best, the puzzle game by itself is a dead-end. One might think that I could make yet another puzzle game... but I would argue that it's HIGHLY unlikely. In my 6 years of game dev, I've only thought up 1 and ONLY 1 puzzle game that might be fun. I am just not the puzzle game-making kind of guy. The puzzle genre just ain't mine.

So now you (and I) see what my thoughts are. I'm scared, confused, and my stomach hurts from the Taco Bell. What does I do? For now, I'll do first two games at once... I think. Maybe someone out there can think of something I haven't. Given my limited intellectual ability, I would consider it probable. So, please tell me what you think below. Now that all my contract programming is all gone - I've gotta start doing my own thing again. A kept man I am no longer. :)