Plan for Jeremy Alessi
by Jeremy Alessi · 09/06/2005 (9:27 pm) · 9 comments
So IGC is in one month and quite frankly I'm a bit nervous. I've been working on this concept for a decent part of the year but it's still in its infancy. My plan was to have a great demo for IGC ... something that everyone would just keep playing and loving. My best dream is seeing everyone just eat it up and play into the wee hours of the night. Conversely, my worst nightmare is to go and witness the game getting ignored because it stinks.
At the moment I know the game can be really really fun. During playtesting I've had these moments where I briefly could see the potential of the game shine through brilliantly. Yet I know that at this point in time it's mostly me getting glimpses of the final product and that not everyone will interpret the game as I do.
For the past month much of my time working on the 'game' has actually been spent battling the technology. We've got a new art pipeline working with Torque and it's an area where I can't always get help because it's a custom component. The way I'm seeing this component is that it'd be amazing if it worked as quick and stable as the rest of Torque. However, it's doesn't ... and that makes me uneasy because I know the actual game isn't getting attention because of it. Of course I also know that just about any game at this point in my career isn't worth doing ... unless it does something different and good ... if not great. This means that I must stay the course and get this stuff working ... even if it means that the game isn't all pieced together as I usually like to keep things.
I'm not sure how other people work ... but I essentially like to always have something stable and playable. Right from the get-go I put a demo together with gameplay. Then I slowly add/subtract whatever is needed to make it a better game. Whenever I hit a stage where something isn't quite done yet and the game is unplayable I feel like I'm drowning or suffocating ... the playable game is the healthy air that I need to breathe ... and if it's not stable and fully playable it's like taking in a nice big fresh breath of smog.
So here I am a month till IGC. We have the base of a terrific art path, the beginnings of a great gameplay mechanic, a half-playable demo, and the tenacity of a bull dog on crack. Any bets on whether this game is going to be entertaining in a month?
At the moment I know the game can be really really fun. During playtesting I've had these moments where I briefly could see the potential of the game shine through brilliantly. Yet I know that at this point in time it's mostly me getting glimpses of the final product and that not everyone will interpret the game as I do.
For the past month much of my time working on the 'game' has actually been spent battling the technology. We've got a new art pipeline working with Torque and it's an area where I can't always get help because it's a custom component. The way I'm seeing this component is that it'd be amazing if it worked as quick and stable as the rest of Torque. However, it's doesn't ... and that makes me uneasy because I know the actual game isn't getting attention because of it. Of course I also know that just about any game at this point in my career isn't worth doing ... unless it does something different and good ... if not great. This means that I must stay the course and get this stuff working ... even if it means that the game isn't all pieced together as I usually like to keep things.
I'm not sure how other people work ... but I essentially like to always have something stable and playable. Right from the get-go I put a demo together with gameplay. Then I slowly add/subtract whatever is needed to make it a better game. Whenever I hit a stage where something isn't quite done yet and the game is unplayable I feel like I'm drowning or suffocating ... the playable game is the healthy air that I need to breathe ... and if it's not stable and fully playable it's like taking in a nice big fresh breath of smog.
So here I am a month till IGC. We have the base of a terrific art path, the beginnings of a great gameplay mechanic, a half-playable demo, and the tenacity of a bull dog on crack. Any bets on whether this game is going to be entertaining in a month?
About the author
#2
09/07/2005 (6:32 am)
I agree with Joshua. Just bring what you have to IGC and show your peers, talk about what you are learning, and where the game is going. You will get alot of ideas and inspiration from the experience that will help the game overall. Looking forward to meeting you and checking out your works.
#3
09/07/2005 (8:02 am)
I will chime and and say I agree with Justin and Joshua.. bring what you have. Our first IGC, we brought a half finished build of thinktanks with no sound and boxes for explosions.. a subsequent IGC had a REALLY UGLY build of BoomBall being the underground hit of the show (those that could see past the graphics really liked it). Don't kill yourself to get it ready, do what you can and get plenty of rest so that you can be ready at the show to talk to people, show it to them, and get feedback. This is not so much a marketing opportunity as it is a place where you can get direct feedback from your peers.
#4
Your also stressing too much about the collisions, we have 2 decent polysoup sollutions and DIF as a fall back. Believe it or not, creating brushes from a poly soup proxy collision mesh to export to DIF is very easy and will take less than a day of my time, so don't worry about that aspect. 6 weeks is a long time. In my experience when doing these kinds of rush game dev jobs, and I have quite a lot of it, things only really start to come together and look and feel good after the schedule is 70% complete and your at the optimization and polish stage. I expect there will be a pretty decent demo to show for IGC.
I also noticed that your really stressed about getting it up and ruunning on the mac, at this early stage and for a IGC demo, I don't see this as a priortity at all. Not unless there are going to be primarily Macs to test the game on anyway. 5 weeks is a LONG time, enough that I am not in the least bit worried about how the game has progressed. If we had been in crunch, what we have so far in the arena could have been done in a fraction of the time.
I think your lack of first hand experience of developing games to predetermined non self imposed deadlines is your worst enemy. Best thing to do is to press on and not worry about it. From reading your blog, I think were a lot further along than you seem to think.
09/07/2005 (9:49 am)
Jeremy, it's way too early to get stressed. I think your feeling a little insecure because you don't have total control of every aspect of the project. At the moment we only have a Arena and you've started blocking out a environment to make up the initial level of the game. We have about 5 weeks, and an estimate for the level once blocked out in the mission editor is about 5 days of work to get it about 70% to 80% done and another 7-10 days of polish, optimization and clean up.Your also stressing too much about the collisions, we have 2 decent polysoup sollutions and DIF as a fall back. Believe it or not, creating brushes from a poly soup proxy collision mesh to export to DIF is very easy and will take less than a day of my time, so don't worry about that aspect. 6 weeks is a long time. In my experience when doing these kinds of rush game dev jobs, and I have quite a lot of it, things only really start to come together and look and feel good after the schedule is 70% complete and your at the optimization and polish stage. I expect there will be a pretty decent demo to show for IGC.
I also noticed that your really stressed about getting it up and ruunning on the mac, at this early stage and for a IGC demo, I don't see this as a priortity at all. Not unless there are going to be primarily Macs to test the game on anyway. 5 weeks is a LONG time, enough that I am not in the least bit worried about how the game has progressed. If we had been in crunch, what we have so far in the arena could have been done in a fraction of the time.
I think your lack of first hand experience of developing games to predetermined non self imposed deadlines is your worst enemy. Best thing to do is to press on and not worry about it. From reading your blog, I think were a lot further along than you seem to think.
#5
09/07/2005 (9:57 am)
Hmm looks like you can't edit, My aim is to get the entire thing 70% done with a week to spare, and I think consolidating everything into a large single polished level is better than 2 smaller limited levels. Seem's that were already going in that direction, and there's plenty of ways of extending the large locale were working on, in such a way that it it stays interesting and varied enough over several levels. THe story and last email got me thinking lastnight, and there really is a lot of potential in just this one area were currently working on so long as we use it intelligently.
#6
can one of the employees explain the "show off" process? i dont see any info on how that works really at IGC.
09/07/2005 (12:09 pm)
i also have a half-baked prototype to show off, but it's worse than yours, because mine is just the t2d basic tutorial written in C# :Pcan one of the employees explain the "show off" process? i dont see any info on how that works really at IGC.
#7
09/07/2005 (12:11 pm)
yeah, that would be pretty handy to know :)
#8
I've got exactly the same as you - a half done demo, that we are trying to push hard to get into some "playable" state for IGC without loosing face.
Last year I didnt dare install the ultra rough prototype. I vowed that I would not return to IGC without "something" to install in the show off area. So no matter what people think - I'll do it this year.
And you should too! Lets drink a beer and look at each others game! I'll buy one ;-)
09/07/2005 (2:04 pm)
Dont I know how you feel Jeremy.I've got exactly the same as you - a half done demo, that we are trying to push hard to get into some "playable" state for IGC without loosing face.
Last year I didnt dare install the ultra rough prototype. I vowed that I would not return to IGC without "something" to install in the show off area. So no matter what people think - I'll do it this year.
And you should too! Lets drink a beer and look at each others game! I'll buy one ;-)
#9
09/07/2005 (5:23 pm)
Thanks everyone! Going to bust hump over the next month and bring what we can! Mainly though, just can't wait to meet everyone and see the collective efforts of the whole community ;) 
Torque Owner Joshua Dallman
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