Blog for Terence Tan at GarageGames.com

Big Bad Robots is hiring....

Terence Tan — 2008-09-24T02:36:49+00:00

That's right we are hiring for people to work on our Online Multiplayer game based on the Honor and Money world....

I should first apologize if this blog ends up being a bit of a rant or even lacking in any coherent thought cause I am feeling under the weather . The only reason I dragged my sorry butt to the office is because we have a meeting with the government today to discuss our 'MSC status.

Ah yeah..hiring...you can check our website: www.bigbadrobots.com/jobs.html

Hiring for a online web programmer/game programmer, and 2 or more artist...Right now they are fulltime positions here in Malaysia but...if I can't seem to find the right people ...then I guess I will have to contract out the artwork...

It's getting harder and harder to get people here in Asia with big companies down in Singapore grabbing anybody who can put two pixels together. Getting competent people is even harder. So far my efforts in recruit has netted me all of 1 resume and 1 person applying for a position that doesn't exist...

Hmm...10 minutes before I have to leave...Time to start learning how to model properly I guess..(If this doesn't sound like an old man complaining...Young people these days...hrumph)

Updated Honor and Money website

Terence Tan — 2008-07-29T02:30:40+00:00

We recently updated our website for Honor and Money so that we can start looking for a publisher for the game. Right now I am relighting the levels so that we can store the light maps with the game if need be. I worry that they are pretty big and it will make the download package fairly bulky. The alternative is to let the game relight itself, for some levels that would be OK but for other more complex levels that could prove to be a turn off.

Umm..oh yeah back to our website. We put quite alot of images and a few videos which will give you a better idea of the game. You can check it out at www.bigbadrobots.com/honorandmoney/. Let us know what you think of it. I started look at the multiplayer version of Honor and Money. Have a couple of cool ideas but need to fiddle around with TGEA 1.7 a bit.

Hrumph...Have to go downtown to pickup my new monitor...actually its my replacement monitor cause my LG LCD broke down and after 3 weeks..they finally decided to get me a new one.

New website and content packs

Terence Tan — 2008-06-19T04:28:17+00:00

We put up a new website today, both because our old website was getting a bit ...well..old and also to put up some new content packs our guys have been working on. Some of the packs were put on the back burner while we finished up Honor and Money, and we finally got a break to get them ready.

We call them Robot Kits and they are based around a 'Space' theme. Hope you have as much fun using them as we did making them.

Honor and Money, our first game is coming along nicely with work being done on game balance and audio. We should talking to people to see if they want to distribute the game soon AND also to give us feedback on the product. The final leg of the journey is always the toughest because it is like saying good bye to an old friend but the excitement of new things over the horizon beckons.

Check it out at: www.bigbadrobots.com - Edit: Added website

Honor and Money, Proteon Corp (Merry X'mas)

Terence Tan — 2007-12-19T01:25:50+00:00

It's been a while since I talked about our game. We have been quite busy getting the next few level ready for it and are happily heavy into production. I finished the first lighting pass at one of our early levels for the second stage and it looks awesome.

So this is a pre-christmas peek at the level. It looks ALOT better running in the game with the precipitation and sea animations going.

Landing pad at proteon corp

Entrance to proteon corp

Have your self a merry x'mas and happy new year. Big, Bold things are happening next year.

Gameplay Videos & UI for Honor and Money

Terence Tan — 2007-10-11T07:27:09+00:00

It's been a while since I last posted about Honor and Money. The great thing is that alot of the major level design is done with the game. I still worry about if the amount of content is enough. Our major hurdles are over, now it's just tuning gameplay, polishing features and getting the game ready. All that said and done, it will take several more months before we are at a state where we will be happy with the game.

www.bigbadrobots.com/honorandmoney/screenshots.html for the videos. They are currently in DivX format. might look into converting to Quicktime later.

We have also did a first pass UI for the game. It is a draft look a feel pass with some functionality.

Honor and Money website, closed testing

Terence Tan — 2007-07-13T01:20:59+00:00

We are still hard at work on Honor and Money, taking short breaks to work on external projects for several clients but still doing our best to keep things moving with the game. We have a final draft of the Game Design pending focus group testing and feedback. We have also sat down, developed most of the story and plot points of the characters.

As such, we are soft launching the Game website at www.bigbadrobots.com/honorandmoney/. We are looking at expanding our focus group tests soon, so people who are interested can email me and/or register on our forums.

Right now, I am working on building out the rest of the game levels. We are essentially feature complete except for the Multi-player portion of the Game. Even with Torque's excellent network support, there are other considerations such as additional level content and gameplay balance to consider.

Whooo..Purty!

Terence Tan — 2007-04-17T09:17:46+00:00

Hard at work here at Big Bad Robots. We finally got most of the 4 levels we wanted for stage 1 complete and have started to add some special effects to the environment. My initial pass at putting down proper gameplay for our levels didn't go too well as the game ended being too hard for most people. When your down in the trenches, it's hard to figure out a proper gameplay scale.

My second pass seems better, and we are gameplay testing it right now with a few people to give us a basis for measurement. Alot of design work remains, with the new weapons we want to add to the game plus the next pre-production design for the next few stages. It is hard to find good testers as everybody is an expert when it comes down to gameplay but getting QA testers being able to getdown to specifics are even harder.

I leave you with a screenshot. It's a generator, in game it is animated (the electric sparks that is).

Honor and Money Stage 1 almost done

Terence Tan — 2007-03-24T02:48:54+00:00

We have been working hard to meet our first production milestone at the end of this month. It's been a fairly long and exciting road but things are coming together nicely. We have finished most of the assets for 4 levels of our game which make up a stage. Gameplay on the first two levels are close to what we want it to be and we did a video taping of gameplay yesterday to give us some needed feedback.

So far the first two levels give us a good 20 minutes of gameplay which is pretty close to our target. The first level was a quick 5-10 minutes tops, getting you quickly into the game while rest was spent on level 2.

Our game is a top down shooter, and we decided to do it in 3D because of the possibility of using the space in gameplay was very enticing. Our next plan is to gameplay test the current stage and start on prototypes for the next stage, which is going to be alot of fun.

'Enuff talk...Here are some screenshots:
Gameplay:

In game Render, we couldn't resist:

Naughty monkey! You can take a look at more screenshots at our website: www.bigbadrobots.com/gallery/

Happy Chinese New Year (Open for Contract work)

Terence Tan — 2007-02-14T09:52:11+00:00

Gong Xi Fah Chai!

Or

Happy Chinese New Year

Or

It's the Year of the Boar(Pig) soon. It's the big holiday down here and we get to take some well deserved time off. All of us are finally going to have time to play/finish some games, see our loved ones again and relatives. We get to collect Ang Pows (for those who are single). We also hope for good luck, prosperity and better business.

In that line, we are officially announcing that we are open to contract work on Torque as we have finally come to a level where we are comfortable with it's nuances and power.

We should be posting some more screenshots once we hit our milestone later next month. We should have 4 levels built and fully playable by then.

Off to AGDS Singapore, and some HnM screens

Terence Tan — 2006-12-06T12:15:24+00:00

Well I'm off to AGDS(www.agdsummit.com) in Singapore which is turning out to be biggest game developers event in the region. Who knew that when I started it last year it would grow so big. Brings a tear to my eye sob...sob...All of it should be worth it if it helps the local game dev community grow, highlight the talents we have in this region.

Yes and beer and meeting old/new friends as well and hanging out is in the cards as well.

We have been working hard on Honor and Money for the last month. I am posting some quick screenies for you to look at. Hope you like it...I need somebody to help me hit the CTRL-P to take the screenshots but I'm at home...will post some better ones when I get back from AGDS.

Whoo look nice friendly monkeys

Come and get it you evil monkeys

Fight out at the wrecked transports