Blog for Sam Bolton at GarageGames.com

Woot!

Sam Bolton — 2006-02-24T02:16:28+00:00

That's right, ladies and gentelmen, project Mute is underway. I hope this game to be at least decent. We're doing a lot of research on various things for this game and hope that everyone will like it. Hopefully it will be enjoyable and people will talk about the storyline of it, tell their friends and everything. I hope it to be a great game that people will play. I'm not gonna' release the storyline just quite yet, I don't want people stealing it....so I want to get the storyline down and then get some business stuff down.

Damn, it's expensive!!

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-27T14:04:36+00:00

Hey guys,
Thought I would put up on here how things are going as of now. We are really close to getting our story down, and then will immediately begin storyboarding and getting concept art and start modeling. Since we're so scrunched for time, we may not be able to do everything that we want to, but that's the price I guess.

I've been looking around for an easy to use modeler and animator and found that this stuff is expensive as shit. I was lookin' at Lightwave and I really like the program, but the program is $900 dollars!! I'm un-employed, so I really can't afford this kind of pricing. If anyone knows of a program like this, or something that will help me do the same thing in a sense, but cheaper, it would be much appreciated. Also still looking for programmers and 3D modelers. Anyone interested, we can't pay you, but we will mention you and give you credit for everything that you do.

So yeah, we're probably gonna' be comin' up with a project name soon and then will begin diving into everything. It's slow and coming right now, but we're getting there. If anyone has some advice, quick ways to cut-down time but still have good results, programs that I could use, anything like that would be much appreciated. Hope to hear from some of you.

Really moving!

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-23T13:50:07+00:00

Hey guys,
I've been a little busy so I haven't been able to post my plan so far. Thought I would put up some stuff and let everyone know where we are, and get some feedback. We ahve some initial sketches of our main character now, they look awesome, and I'm really happy with it. I would post them up on here, un-fortunately my scanner is not working properly. Our architect is working on designing a kick ass collisseum that we can use in our opening scene. Our car designer is starting to work on a street racer's car in the game, basing it off the new GTO's. So I'm looking forward to what they come up with. We have our artist coming up with new sketches, and everyone is coming up with great ideas. The only part that I'm kinda' freakin' out with is programming. I've never programmed a game before, and my other programmer kinda' quit on me, so it's just me. If anyone wants to help out, your more then welcome. Also I'm not sure how I wanna' work the battle system. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. But yeah, our story is almost set, and we are gonig to start storyboarding within the month. Then we're gonna' be kicking it off to a writer for scripting. Start having our 3D artist start animating some stuff. So it's all goin' good for now. Can't wait to read what some of you guys have to say. Thanks.

Thoughts on some things.

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-13T14:04:52+00:00

I have some ideas that i would like to run by you guys. What if I made it so that you could level up your skills with what weapons you used. Like not just leveling up your character, but also leveling up her sword ability and pistol use ability. So that different animations would play at different weapon levels? Think it would keep the player intrigued? Also, I've never really liked the idea of magic being in a game. What do you think about psychic abilities? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks a lot guys.

Thoughts about a story idea?

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-12T13:39:58+00:00

Hey guys,
I'm still workin' at my game thankfully. more determined then ever, and I had a story idea, that I kinda' liked, but I would like to run it by you guys to see what everyone thought. This is just the beginning of the story, so anyone that's lookin' forward to playin' the game when it comes out (which I'm assuming is no one so far), this will not ruin the plot line for you. I'm just gonna' copy down what I wrote in my notebnook, so if it seems kinda' jumpy and has really bad grammar, sorry. Also it may seem to jump into the story really fast, but this is just the beginning of the game. I plan on a lot of stuff being in-between my jumps. So here we go....

Keri's (Our main character) parents only being able to afford to send her to the new colonies which had to be made after the 5th world war. Earth now in a radioactive cloud They sent her with a wiseman who agreed to take care of her. On their new planet and nearly 20 years later, Keri is renoun (Not sure about spelling) throughout the galaxy for her amazing feats of physical activity. Doing various extreme sports as BMX, skateboarding, snowboarding, deep dea diving, sky diving (High altitude), etc.

Her guardian/mentor ahad made a good living forging crafts for those who wanted. Occassionaly making swords as a hobby and teaching Kari how to use them, since she showed such an interst earlier in her life. During the move to the new solar system we found new races which had been living there. These reaces seemed to be as friendly as we were and made agreements about living on planetsnear one another. The only problem was a race that laid waste to random points of this galaxy. They would come and destroy everything that they could. Like a plague on the universe this race would take prisoners and as far as anyone knows they would torture them for hours upon hours until the prisoner was dead. As far as we can tell they do this out of their sick enjoyment of hearing our screams.

While Keri is pre-pairing to do her high altitude dive the scurge race come. They attack the planet and Keri must get to her adoptive father. After reaching her adoptive father without incident she equips herself with a sword. Though not very proficient with it, she manages to fight them off enough to make it to one of the escape pods. During the escap one ship followed the small groups escape pod. After a rather abrupt attaching to the escape pod, the escapees must arm themselves as best as possible before the scurge race penetrates their hull. Keri and her adoptive father must lead the small group against the ship, leaving Keri and her father (adoptive) worn out and injured.

Everyone else had been gruesomely murdered in the fight. the captain however, before being defeated said "You have the information that we seek." This single sentance burned through her mind. What did he mean? What could she know that they wanted? Is it that information that the scurge attacked the planet? Is that why that ship followed their escape pod? Is that why everyone is dead, becasue she has some information -she- doesn't even know about? Looking around to the dead bodies and upon seeing a child that dies in her arms, she raids the ship for supplies, weapons, and armor so that she could attempt a one man assault against the scurge to find out what information she knows.

That is my idea for a story. There will be much more after this, much much much more. But this is how I was thinking to get the character involved. A little past history on the person and the galaxy. Let me know what you guys think. I'm trying to stay away from something that's all ready been done. So if this is copying something, someone please let me know. I would like to know what you all think, so I hope to hear from a lot fo you. Thanks a lot.

Everything's goin' great so far!

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-09T13:38:11+00:00

Hey everyone,
The game is going very well. We are starting to get a very good story going and everything has been going very smoothly. We are starting to get some very good concept drawings of our lead character. Since we are trying to get out of the usual happenings of game making in the RPG genre, we wanted a character that no one has seen before in an RPG.
Our lead character we're thinking is going to be a extreme sports junkie. Their gonna' be sky diving, BMX, Skateboarding, Snowboarding, etc. We think that this will add a realistic sense of why the character can do so much. We're also making the character a female, because we can't even remember the last RPG where the lead was a woman.
We felt that having a female lead character will have a gap with the males that play this game however. So we thought that we would make the main character bi-sexual. This would allow us to show something that hasn't been seen before in an RPG (At least not that I can remember). We felt that this would allow a lot of different people to relate to this character then. However, we will not be emphasizing her sexuality at all. We may mention it, or have her flirt with a guy then later in the game flirt with a girl or something and let the player come to their own conclusion.
We're going for a futuristic sense kind of game, not too far in the future though. I would really like to see this game made well, and everything, so I would appreciate some feed back on what you think about what we have now. I'll psot more up so that I can get some more feedback from everyone. I really appreciate any kind of suggestions that people have on this. I did have a story set up, but it felt like the story I cam up with was copying something and it just felt wrong so I'm starting over. I'll hopefully hear a lot of suggestions and stuff.
Sincerely,
Sam

My first 3D game!!

Sam Bolton — 2006-01-08T18:37:19+00:00

Hey everyone,
Here I am, a kid with a dream. I'm sure that's pretty damn normal on here, but for me it's something special. Ever since I can remember, I've been contimplating how I can leave my mark, or how I can get my message across. I've always wanted to touch every person that had to go through some of the stuff that I had to. So I realized a way that I could get through to the kids like me, I could make games. Whenever I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of friends or anything like that, not much of a social life at all. But I always had my games. My games were my touch to myself. Everytime you play a game that is well made and the characters are well developed, you see what they do and you build your own personality by piecing together the characters personality kinda'. I mean, that was the only relevant kind of moral standpoints I could get in life. They always ask you to question yourself about the really big important things in life. Not stuff like "Will I be rich in life?" or "Will I have a hot woman to live with for the rest of my life." But instead the really important questions like "Will I have some of the best friends ever in the future?" "Will my wife be the best person that I ever meet?" "If it came down to it, would I give my life for a stranger?" "Will I make anything out of my life?". Those are the important questions in life and questions that I have found answers to for myself via playing video games. Whenever I play and see a cut-scene with something like that in it, I know if I'll do what that person did. I would give my life for someone that I never met before, because I believe that they will go on to better things then I will. I know that I will go for personality in a woman before looks. I believe that I will have some of the best friends ever in life. Video games aren't just a means to blow stuff up, shoot some people, release some anger, or showing that you can play Madden better then your friend. Video games are a means of escape from the constraints of reality. They are the only thing that keeps some people sane. It's a neccessity for some people, becasue dammit, sometimes these kinds of things are the only kind of salvation that we have from the brutality of today's cut-throat society.