Consulting, Moving, Surviving, Making Games · 1061 days ago

Sometime…oh about November… I said to myself that I would stop posting devdiaries for a while until there was much more to show of the game. When I started this part of the site, I wanted to make sure that If I do post messages there’s some real useful, interesting (to some one!) information in the post. Some actual things that are happening now for UnEarthed Games.

Consulting….

So around the same time after watching my coffers dry out over a year, I became aware of this tugging in my gut. I had to get some money coming in, just a little, or risk losing my nerve to keep this business going. I started with small things here and there for other GarageGames folks. I started cheap…dirt cheap, one little hit and run coding/ scripting job at a time. With each one I set out to double my rate until I reached some sort of breaking point where the work would stop coming in. I don’t think I’ve reached the breaking point yet but I’m at a comfortable level where I can work enough to get by and still have 4 days out of the true week to work on UnEarthed Gods.

This is certainly one of the good points in choosing the torque engine to work with, completely regardless of the quality of the engine: It is an engine that’s getting a fair amount of use by people with money who need people who know how to make stuff work with it (I know that sentence was crap). If I had been using The Nebula Device, as much as I love it, I wouldn’t have had some of the consulting opportunities I’ve gotten.

But a little dose of honesty tells us that the only reason I really have the contracting jobs now is one word: Contacts. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some wonderful people in my life and without them I’d be nowhere fast. It’s really strange to look back over your life and see yourself young, inexperienced and then see yourself now. At each point I remember thinking I knew so much, but I didn’t know a thing. Ahh… but you’ve heard this all before.

So to those who have been consulting with me and sending some of your hard earned dollars to UnEarthed Games, I want you to know it’s very very very much appreciated.

Moving….

All two of you who come to this site may have noticed a change in address recently. Last December Alyson and I picked up and moved to Santa Barbara. We did it for the housing prices. We were really looking for a place we could never afford to buy a house…no that’s not true. We did it to be closer to family and because Santa Barbara is one of the few tolerable places to live in Southern California.

So yes, moving. I don’t recommend it to those thinking about saving money, and making progress on your games. I was surprised exactly how much time I’ve lost working on UnEarthed Gods between consulting, moving, and holiday vacations.

Surviving….

The move is done. I’ve got a little money coming in. I’m still making steady progress on a great game. Still enjoying life. Still feel lucky to be doing what I’m doing. Life’s not too bad eh?

Making Games….

Back to the important things, the rise and fall of gods, their rebirth and the eventual destruction of all that we know in a froth of chaos. Or what we used to call in the time before the fall: video game development.

I went back to Union City, TN recently to bury my Uncle Bud. He had been sick for a long time. We always played a lot of games over at his house with my Aunt Anne and the rest of the family, mostly Uno and horseshoes when I was a kid. After the funeral we all went back over to their house and ate. Then the games started to come out. We had two groups going, one at the table playing Texas Hold ‘em and another on the couch and floor playing Scene It. We had a great time. Nothing is more fun than getting together with a lot of people who enjoy playing games and having some friendly competition. We were on our feet laughing, jumping up and down, talking over the other group louder and louder.

It made me wish I was making a multiplayer game. I’ve been forced to support multiplayer by the Torque Game engine, and I’ve been telling myself that I could maybe add co-op play eventually. Maybe I’ll look into that in more detail. It really is a shame that there aren’t more co-op games out there.

But I also spent a lot of time reading lately. And that reminded me how much I enjoy solo play. The things that one person can create alone with their own imagination are absolutely wonderful. It reminds me how great it is to get one person’s view on something. If you compare it to most games, you are dealing with teams of 50+ people creating it. Sometimes one person’s ideas really shine through but usually it’s dulled and hammered down by many people coming to an agreement. There’s something satisfying about the raw views of a single person.

You see this in some of the freeware games out there. I really hope that a lot more indie games stop copying major game industry games and really use their one benefit. Have something to say and say it, stop censoring yourself and stop letting the market be the sole drive of your game’s features and story. Of course, these are all notes to self.

While I was in Tennessee I got to show the game to some of my cousins. I always feel like I have a lot more done, but each time I show it to someone new, I realize exactly how little is finished. It’s a long haul. I was also mildly surprised that my little cousin really really wanted to be able to cut off the heads of everything she killed. So do I give her beheading ability? Or, do I make corpses vanish. Maybe I string her along and make most of the corpses vanish but then let her behead one really bad guy later on. How far should I let her defile the corpse? It’s pretty morbid isn’t it? But I guess most play around death is morbid. Death is real, I guess there’s nothing inherently wrong with a child wanting to pretend to behead a dead monster. Vanquishing evil is good right? Tough decisions.

I went ahead and posted a couple of the early concept art pieces for the main character to the screenshots section. I find it really hard to come up with the look I want. Neither of these quite get it, but the one in the clouds comes close. I think if I dirty him up a bit; like he’s been trekking across the wilderness for a couple years it’ll be more like it. Maybe desaturate the hell out of him.