Back in the Saddle again...
by Brandon Pollet · 12/19/2006 (2:40 pm) · 6 comments
I'm back, although most of you probably never noticed that I left. I've been around the forums though, I've posted a few threads, working through some problems, I've just never finished a game. Although, I think alot of us are in that position, we have great ideas, big dreams, lots of energy, but we can't get it done. This isn't all our fault, game development is HARD and indie development is even harder, but we all keep trying and thankfully GG keeps making it easier for us.
When last I left you I had started a game dev company that consisted of 4 people I knew from Grad school. We were coding on TGE and TSE, we had beautiful cel shading implemented on our zombies both in shader form on TSE and after some effort, in the graphics belly of TGE. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves when we realized.... we had no artists, and the art we could cough up wasn't anywhere near good enough, not even close. There was hope though! I had a call with a certian member of GG, who shall remain nameless, that was very promising. The hope was that they would be able to help us with our art problems by matching us up with artists in the community that could share our vision. The only problem is... the call didn't go so well.
I want to say up front that I am in no way upset or bitter at this person or Garagegames. The entire community, and especially the guys at GG, have been nothing but helpful to us and to me especially as I have struggled with Torque. But I was told that our vision was to grand, our project to large, and our experience to small. I was told that my postings on the forums and other places had led them to believe that I understood what it ment to be an indie and that I would be able to share in the keep it small, keep it simple, keep it fun idea. Our project was none of those things.... and you know what? He was right. We were over-reaching and we paid the price for it. The bills piled up, there was no income, and I had student loans that were coming due. It was time to get a job and leave the dream behind.
Well, I'm not done that easily! I'm back, and it's time to do this for real. I've been working on various things over the last year. One of them, a website called Klipboardz www.klipboardz.com which is based on the idea of sharing the internet with your friends, is nearing completion and it has sparked something inside of me. I think it's the feeling of actually completing something, actually following through on a project that you care about. It's a great feeling, and it only makes me want to finish a game even more.
So this post is all about new chances and starting over. I'm getting the band back together, as the Blues Brothers would say, and we are going to make it work this time. I'm not going to let feature creep distract us from the fun and simple gameplay that we know will be great, I'm not going to get bogged down in polishing the game before we have a playable prototype, and I'm not going to try and go it alone. When a helping hand is offered I'm going to grab hold of it with two hands. Hopefully, a year from now, I'll be making a blog post about my finished game instead of my finished website.
Here's to being back in the saddle!
P.S. It also helps that the Wii has completely rekindled my love for gaming. ;)
When last I left you I had started a game dev company that consisted of 4 people I knew from Grad school. We were coding on TGE and TSE, we had beautiful cel shading implemented on our zombies both in shader form on TSE and after some effort, in the graphics belly of TGE. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves when we realized.... we had no artists, and the art we could cough up wasn't anywhere near good enough, not even close. There was hope though! I had a call with a certian member of GG, who shall remain nameless, that was very promising. The hope was that they would be able to help us with our art problems by matching us up with artists in the community that could share our vision. The only problem is... the call didn't go so well.
I want to say up front that I am in no way upset or bitter at this person or Garagegames. The entire community, and especially the guys at GG, have been nothing but helpful to us and to me especially as I have struggled with Torque. But I was told that our vision was to grand, our project to large, and our experience to small. I was told that my postings on the forums and other places had led them to believe that I understood what it ment to be an indie and that I would be able to share in the keep it small, keep it simple, keep it fun idea. Our project was none of those things.... and you know what? He was right. We were over-reaching and we paid the price for it. The bills piled up, there was no income, and I had student loans that were coming due. It was time to get a job and leave the dream behind.
Well, I'm not done that easily! I'm back, and it's time to do this for real. I've been working on various things over the last year. One of them, a website called Klipboardz www.klipboardz.com which is based on the idea of sharing the internet with your friends, is nearing completion and it has sparked something inside of me. I think it's the feeling of actually completing something, actually following through on a project that you care about. It's a great feeling, and it only makes me want to finish a game even more.
So this post is all about new chances and starting over. I'm getting the band back together, as the Blues Brothers would say, and we are going to make it work this time. I'm not going to let feature creep distract us from the fun and simple gameplay that we know will be great, I'm not going to get bogged down in polishing the game before we have a playable prototype, and I'm not going to try and go it alone. When a helping hand is offered I'm going to grab hold of it with two hands. Hopefully, a year from now, I'll be making a blog post about my finished game instead of my finished website.
Here's to being back in the saddle!
P.S. It also helps that the Wii has completely rekindled my love for gaming. ;)
About the author
Brandon earned a Master's of Science in Computer Science from the University of Tulsa in 2005 before they asked him to leave. Since then he has worked in web development and mobile development all while honing his game design/programming skills.
#2
12/19/2006 (3:28 pm)
Haha.. no hard feelings at all. The advice you gave us was good, I just wish we had been in a better position to take it. Thanks! 
#3
Getting to a stage where you give it to yourself and actually LISTEN to yourself is another thing too :)
Good luck on getting things right. We can only keep trying :)
12/19/2006 (3:37 pm)
Hehehe.. taking harsh advice.. man thats a hard thing to do.Getting to a stage where you give it to yourself and actually LISTEN to yourself is another thing too :)
Good luck on getting things right. We can only keep trying :)
#4
In rethinking what we should move to after shelving the MMO, I realized that half the problems I was having getting people motivated and getting my fairly large (for an Indy company) team to pump out quality work, were due to the fact that we hadn't released anything. It was our third shelved project and so I decided to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Thankfully, TXE and XNA made their debut and we're now well over halfway through our first 2D game which we're on track to finish mid January.
12/19/2006 (3:48 pm)
I can relate completely to you as my team's first project was an MMORPG. We shelved the project, but it wasn't actually because of it's complexity and size, but because of a merger in the gaming industry that basically pulled the carpet out from under us and would make our ideas pretty miniscule to what was now going to be built by a AAA company.In rethinking what we should move to after shelving the MMO, I realized that half the problems I was having getting people motivated and getting my fairly large (for an Indy company) team to pump out quality work, were due to the fact that we hadn't released anything. It was our third shelved project and so I decided to KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Thankfully, TXE and XNA made their debut and we're now well over halfway through our first 2D game which we're on track to finish mid January.
#5
12/19/2006 (4:29 pm)
I think we all loose focus from time to time. And its great to see that you have decided to tackle something more managable. Like myself, jsut becasue a game engine can do so much, dosnt mean that its realistic to do so. The realisation that there is no shame in admitting defeat, and the strenght to carry on with less ambitios projects is something that I have had to do, and its heartening to see that I am not the only one. Good luck with your new project.
#6
Yes, that's right, my design had 4 different game styles all wrapped up into one, with so many features and capabilities that even 4000 posts in our team forums couldn't describe them all.
It's been shelved for almost 14 months now, and that was the right decision. Given all that I've learned while being an educator of other game developers during my tenure at GG, I know that I can design and reasonably implement all of the underlying technology, but even so it still would be a terrible thing to spend time on--because it would never be finished as an indie.
I dreamed about that game for 15+ years--all the way back when Ultima Underworld and even Ultima I/II/III were all the rage, I started planning out the concepts. Hell, I still dream about the game, and fortunately some of my support work here at GG has allowed me to work on underlying architecture designs that may some day help me along once again...but right size your life is important, but even more important is right-sizing your projects!
12/20/2006 (12:59 am)
Just to reinforce Jeff's position--when I was an indie instead of a GG employee, I had what has to be the grandest possible super uber large MMO project possible---I wanted, with no funding, to make a 5X MMO-RTS RPG FPS.Yes, that's right, my design had 4 different game styles all wrapped up into one, with so many features and capabilities that even 4000 posts in our team forums couldn't describe them all.
It's been shelved for almost 14 months now, and that was the right decision. Given all that I've learned while being an educator of other game developers during my tenure at GG, I know that I can design and reasonably implement all of the underlying technology, but even so it still would be a terrible thing to spend time on--because it would never be finished as an indie.
I dreamed about that game for 15+ years--all the way back when Ultima Underworld and even Ultima I/II/III were all the rage, I started planning out the concepts. Hell, I still dream about the game, and fortunately some of my support work here at GG has allowed me to work on underlying architecture designs that may some day help me along once again...but right size your life is important, but even more important is right-sizing your projects!
Torque Owner Jeff Tunnell
I hope things work out better for you this time around. You all have a lot of talent.
-Jeff Tunnell, GG