Plan for Jeremy Alessi

I've been meaning to post a .plan for the past few days because there's just so much going on and it's an exciting time for sure!

First off, this past Monday I had my 5th career shadowing. Dylan got a first hand glimpse of some Oust character interaction debugging. If anyone at IGC remembers ... there were times that the characters would apply huge impulses to each other. What was really happening were multiple collisions being detected and forces applied. A simple bit of timing code limiting such force applications to the same recipient within a certain number of milliseconds solved the problem. We made a decent amount of progress and the game is feeling more solid.

This career shadowing actually pushed me to go out and buy another new PC as well. I had been testing Oust between my Athlon 64 machine and an old 850MHz Athlon which just wasn't cutting it. For some reason that PC was ridiculously slow and then one day it just didn't want to play over the network while I was in the middle of adjusting Oust's collision response. The new PC is a 3200+ Semperon Processor with an ATI Xpress 200 on board chip. Runs Oust well enough to enjoy playing it so I was happy and it was a cheap quick solution so that I could properly demonstrate the title.

Now Oust is by far the most ambitious title I've worked on. It's gameplay is simple ... but making a really solid game around the concept is going to be very challenging. Everything will have to feel just right. I realized then why Nebula Wars has become so important to me. I want to take a simple concept and make it mind blowingly fun and addicting. The old space ship flying around shooting stuff is the oldest game concept in the book just about. To take that super simple concept plus a hook of my own and balance it to perfection and get people really hooked is a great test for me personally.

Although I've produced some fun games that some people really love and have written to tell me ... I've never really produced a game that's just a must play ... for a lot of people. I guess it's a really rare thing to produce something that millions (heck I'd settle for thousands) of people don't want to put down but that is the goal ... no?

Oust has that potential but the title requires so much beyond my own efforts. Nebula Wars is another True-Vol for me. A single person project ... only this time my goal isn't to get published ... it's just to make something that people really really want to play. I don't think that's ever been my primary goal and that sounds really strange I know.

I've always aimed to make fun games ... don't get me wrong. However, way back when ... every game I made were mostly technical challenges ... what can I program sort of things. After I had a pretty firm grasp on that side of things I began thinking of what can I make as a marketable project. My goal was still to make a fun game and something a little out of the ordinary ... but still my primary goal wasn't to make a game that people just didn't want to put down. I don't think I ever realized all of this until this week!

I've gone from complete newb, to technically capable of creating a game, to capable of creating a polished title that people buy. I want to become a respected designer who creates games that everyone wants to own and no one wants to put down! I haven't achieved it all together yet. Oust is this title that will represent a culmination ... a new beginning really into my full time career as a developer. However, before I complete that venture which will require new technical abilities, unseen levels of polish, and a supreme level of balance for addicting gameplay that will be very tricky to reach ... I need to create a game that plays that balancing act perfectly in a super simple environment.

Nebula Wars is so amazing to me because it's so simple ... and yet balancing it is so incredibly complicated. Tweaking one tiny number changes the game entirely ... but there's a balance to be struck that will make the gameplay irresistable. All I can say is ... Kevin, if you thought Nebula Wars was like crack before ... you're going to OD on the final product!

Now to step away from my own drama ... has it ever been a better time to be a gamer. There are several amazing games out there on every platform. I'm currently loving GTA on PSP (blows me away more than anything in a long time to hold a city in the palm of my hand) and the new Mario Kart on the DS (online Wi-Fi play is very nice). Then there's next week and the launch of Xbox 360. It's truly amazing to think that we'll all be playing Marble Blast Ultra and hopefully dozens of other independent titles along with millions of console players around the world. I'm almost thinking of just getting my 360 and buying only Live Arcade games! Of course there are a few cool looking boxed titles as well so I think I'll have to splurge. This is a great time to be a gamer that's for sure ... but thinking about the 360 I must admit it's an even better time to be an independent developer!