Long Strange Trip, Part 4: Burnt Down Fell Over...
by Paul Dana · 10/30/2011 (3:46 pm) · 9 comments
Long Strange Trip, Part 4: Burnt Down, Fell Over, and Then Sank Into the Swamp
This is part 4 in a series of blogs that documents the wondrous journey of Plastic Games as we learned the hard way how not to make games. Part One is here
We last left you, dear reader, at the end of Part Three. We had gone crazy adding features to our prototype thinking this would magically make the game fun.
Droids from May 2003
After much messing around I asked Joe Maruschak and others to play the game again and gave me feedback. It wasn't good. Nobody understood what to do. Nobody thought it was fun.
Disappointment Landmark One
So Sad!
This was disappointment landmark number one in a series of such landmarks. It will take several installments of the Long Strange Trip to outline all the disappointment landmarks on the journey from 'Droids' to 'Bit Shifter'. There were more in store for me than I knew when I wrote the last installment. The astute reader will notice the six year gap between the previous installment and this one. Each landmark was a let down but also a huge learning opportunity. I will talk in a bit about what we learned from our first crash and burn. But first lets move onto the good news which is that, against all odds, this game is going to be finished early next year and we have already submitted this version to the 2012 IGF competition (along with 580 other studios. gulp!). [ Edit Apr 2014 - we did submit, but that version was not very fun. Was a good screen shot tho! ]
Play BitShifter Alpha right now!
BitShifter IGF 2012 entry
Visit the BitShifter page for a video and a link to the Desura page where you can purchase the current Alpha version. Available for PC.
Despite the many years and the ups and downs of winning best single player game at a 2003 Garage Games Indie Games Conference and yet continually not being able to either finish the game or make it understandable, despite the countless times we thought we had given up on this game, it is nearly ready. [ Edit - remember - it was not really ready.]
Keep in mind this game uses the original Torque Game Engine, not T3D, when evaluating our 'retro'; art style. :-) The games main page has a Facebook link you can use to post your comments or you can post them here.
Birth of BitShifter
After this first disappointment landmark we did what we had been avoiding - we improved the flight model. In fact we would continue to alter the flight model several times over the next six years trying to get it right. But we also made a more radical change in the game play and *poof* Droids turned into BitShifter. Here is how that happened.
One main complaint we heard, from people who were told or finally did figure out what they were supposed to do is that they didn't care. We had given them no motivation to save the Droid robots. We should have simply improved the feedback of the game we had to make you care more, improved and simplified the flight model and finished the game. We did not do that. Instead we made a whole new game premise that was more compelling to begin with. We said OK your not saving these robots, you and the robots work together to clean out their world of a VIRUS that is spreading.
This original idea came from Joe Maruschak. 'How about these robots are in a computer and you must save them from the virus'. We thought about that, and as noobies, expanded on it and added more to our plate by saying the robots would be our army. Joe suggested they should be called Bits and the game should be called Bit Shifter.
If you go to our site and see the video or, better yet, buy the alpha for PC and play for yourself. You will see where that thought finally ended up eight plus years later, which is:
Standard Blurb
Love those Bits!
Bit World is under attack. Virus is spreading. Only you can save us! Pilot the Scan Disc, deploy Bits to fight the Virus, and keep those Bits alive!
BitShifter is an action strategy game by Plastic Games. Fight alongside an army of robotic 'Bits' as they clean the virus as you battle the enemies emerging from the virus. Sixty two levels, eight environments, five weapons, two power ups, and one bad ass Bit army!
Next Time on Long Strange Trip...
So that's it for this installment. The next installment You Win Some you Lose Some talks about the game we made from May of 2003 until September 2003 when we went to the Garage Games Indie Conference and won best single player (and 3rd best overall) with Bit Shifter, and yet, over the next two years, failed to finish the game or make it more comprehensible or more fun. It was a better game than Droids, no doubt, but was just as incomplete.
Please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube:
Twitter: twitter.com/PlasticGamesLLC
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BitshifterGame
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/PlasticGamesLLC
This is part 4 in a series of blogs that documents the wondrous journey of Plastic Games as we learned the hard way how not to make games. Part One is here
We last left you, dear reader, at the end of Part Three. We had gone crazy adding features to our prototype thinking this would magically make the game fun.
Droids from May 2003
After much messing around I asked Joe Maruschak and others to play the game again and gave me feedback. It wasn't good. Nobody understood what to do. Nobody thought it was fun.
Disappointment Landmark One
So Sad!
This was disappointment landmark number one in a series of such landmarks. It will take several installments of the Long Strange Trip to outline all the disappointment landmarks on the journey from 'Droids' to 'Bit Shifter'. There were more in store for me than I knew when I wrote the last installment. The astute reader will notice the six year gap between the previous installment and this one. Each landmark was a let down but also a huge learning opportunity. I will talk in a bit about what we learned from our first crash and burn. But first lets move onto the good news which is that, against all odds, this game is going to be finished early next year and we have already submitted this version to the 2012 IGF competition (along with 580 other studios. gulp!). [ Edit Apr 2014 - we did submit, but that version was not very fun. Was a good screen shot tho! ]
Play BitShifter Alpha right now!
BitShifter IGF 2012 entry
Visit the BitShifter page for a video and a link to the Desura page where you can purchase the current Alpha version. Available for PC.
Despite the many years and the ups and downs of winning best single player game at a 2003 Garage Games Indie Games Conference and yet continually not being able to either finish the game or make it understandable, despite the countless times we thought we had given up on this game, it is nearly ready. [ Edit - remember - it was not really ready.]
Keep in mind this game uses the original Torque Game Engine, not T3D, when evaluating our 'retro'; art style. :-) The games main page has a Facebook link you can use to post your comments or you can post them here.
Birth of BitShifter
After this first disappointment landmark we did what we had been avoiding - we improved the flight model. In fact we would continue to alter the flight model several times over the next six years trying to get it right. But we also made a more radical change in the game play and *poof* Droids turned into BitShifter. Here is how that happened.
One main complaint we heard, from people who were told or finally did figure out what they were supposed to do is that they didn't care. We had given them no motivation to save the Droid robots. We should have simply improved the feedback of the game we had to make you care more, improved and simplified the flight model and finished the game. We did not do that. Instead we made a whole new game premise that was more compelling to begin with. We said OK your not saving these robots, you and the robots work together to clean out their world of a VIRUS that is spreading.
This original idea came from Joe Maruschak. 'How about these robots are in a computer and you must save them from the virus'. We thought about that, and as noobies, expanded on it and added more to our plate by saying the robots would be our army. Joe suggested they should be called Bits and the game should be called Bit Shifter.
If you go to our site and see the video or, better yet, buy the alpha for PC and play for yourself. You will see where that thought finally ended up eight plus years later, which is:
Standard Blurb
Love those Bits!
Bit World is under attack. Virus is spreading. Only you can save us! Pilot the Scan Disc, deploy Bits to fight the Virus, and keep those Bits alive!
BitShifter is an action strategy game by Plastic Games. Fight alongside an army of robotic 'Bits' as they clean the virus as you battle the enemies emerging from the virus. Sixty two levels, eight environments, five weapons, two power ups, and one bad ass Bit army!
Next Time on Long Strange Trip...
So that's it for this installment. The next installment You Win Some you Lose Some talks about the game we made from May of 2003 until September 2003 when we went to the Garage Games Indie Conference and won best single player (and 3rd best overall) with Bit Shifter, and yet, over the next two years, failed to finish the game or make it more comprehensible or more fun. It was a better game than Droids, no doubt, but was just as incomplete.
Please follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube:
Twitter: twitter.com/PlasticGamesLLC
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BitshifterGame
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/PlasticGamesLLC
#2
Then your game is probably the only one submitted in the last few years that will be finished in a reasonable timeframe. ;)
10/30/2011 (9:44 pm)
6 years, gah ...Quote:
this game is going to be finished early next year and we have already submitted this version to the 2012 IGF competition (along with 580 other studios. gulp!).
Then your game is probably the only one submitted in the last few years that will be finished in a reasonable timeframe. ;)
#3
@ Steve - rofl, no kidding! This was a big topic of discussion with us. How much will the judges appreciate the polish & completeness of the game versus a really interesting and innovative game mechanic on what is basically a prototype? Even we don't know what the right answer is there.
The six years does seem a lot but is also merely the gap between my last installment of The Long Strange Trip and now! The total time of game development is more. I think by the time we have it for sale (first or second quarter next year), it will be nine years.
However people should keep in mind we have not been working on it continually for that long. We have put it down for years at a time only to pick it up again. So many times we got a version of the game ready to show people only to find out we had fooled ourselves once again, that our game still had huge flaws in it. When that would happen we would have a flurry of angry changes "we'll show them...". We would fix the flaw...and then....we would fizzle out.
It was a weird but consistent pattern. Since we fixed the previous problems and yet never showed them to anyone eventually we would pick the project back up, get excited again, and repeat the pattern.
All the while we were doing contract jobs for other companies and slowly learning what we had been doing wrong. The method we use now is "the method" as far as I am aware - it is how everyone makes games. And that is the basic theme behind the Long Strange Trip blog series. I am just showing how we learned it at the school of hard knocks. We had a mentor in Joe Maruschak, a talented game producer, but we just consistently did not "get" his lessons. Only years after the fact did that little joe-on-my-shoulders start to make sense as we did contract work for other companies ranging from Hasbro to Disney.
10/31/2011 (8:17 am)
@ Novack - thanks I'm happy to be back. @ Steve - rofl, no kidding! This was a big topic of discussion with us. How much will the judges appreciate the polish & completeness of the game versus a really interesting and innovative game mechanic on what is basically a prototype? Even we don't know what the right answer is there.
The six years does seem a lot but is also merely the gap between my last installment of The Long Strange Trip and now! The total time of game development is more. I think by the time we have it for sale (first or second quarter next year), it will be nine years.
However people should keep in mind we have not been working on it continually for that long. We have put it down for years at a time only to pick it up again. So many times we got a version of the game ready to show people only to find out we had fooled ourselves once again, that our game still had huge flaws in it. When that would happen we would have a flurry of angry changes "we'll show them...". We would fix the flaw...and then....we would fizzle out.
It was a weird but consistent pattern. Since we fixed the previous problems and yet never showed them to anyone eventually we would pick the project back up, get excited again, and repeat the pattern.
All the while we were doing contract jobs for other companies and slowly learning what we had been doing wrong. The method we use now is "the method" as far as I am aware - it is how everyone makes games. And that is the basic theme behind the Long Strange Trip blog series. I am just showing how we learned it at the school of hard knocks. We had a mentor in Joe Maruschak, a talented game producer, but we just consistently did not "get" his lessons. Only years after the fact did that little joe-on-my-shoulders start to make sense as we did contract work for other companies ranging from Hasbro to Disney.
#4
Like us and post you comments at www.facebook.com/BitshifterGame
If you really like us. Please help me advertise the game!
Download our PDF flyer.
Print it up and post it at any bulletin board you can such as; work, campuses, telephone poles, even you favorite bar.
Help us at the grassroots level. Find the Flyer at:
bitshiftergame.com/BitShifterFlyer.pdf
10/31/2011 (8:44 am)
Find the latest PC and MAC Builds at www.bitshiftergame.comLike us and post you comments at www.facebook.com/BitshifterGame
If you really like us. Please help me advertise the game!
Download our PDF flyer.
Print it up and post it at any bulletin board you can such as; work, campuses, telephone poles, even you favorite bar.
Help us at the grassroots level. Find the Flyer at:
bitshiftergame.com/BitShifterFlyer.pdf
#5
10/31/2011 (10:41 am)
I enjoyed the beta test version from a few months back, and thought it was a cool game with great potential. Will definitely check out the new demo. Looking forward to the release!
#6
10/31/2011 (2:13 pm)
@ Michael - thanks! This is a "beta" version as well in that there are still bugs to fix (random crash, time still runs when tutorial is up, scan beam feedback isn't good enough, etc) but this version is feature complete, there are 12 maps that run through both power ups and all five weapons and (almost) all enemies. We think you will like it. 
#7
For those of you who don't know Paul and the guys, you are missing out. I've worked and learned a lot from these guys. Pay attention! ;)
11/03/2011 (1:08 pm)
I nominate this thread for our hall of fame.For those of you who don't know Paul and the guys, you are missing out. I've worked and learned a lot from these guys. Pay attention! ;)
#8
11/05/2011 (6:46 pm)
Great job, Paul! Had to tear myself away from that "Next" button after the first set, that is a FUN game! Have to say I've been partial to BitShifter ever since that first IGC though...
#9
Oh, and I wish the main weapon had a slightly less abrasive sound - it starts to make my ears bleed a bit after playing for a while.
Other than that, very cool, makes me feel good to know you guys dug this one back up and finished it. There is hope for indies everywhere! :-)
11/06/2011 (8:52 am)
In terms of actual feedback: My only complaint is how easy it is to penetrate the retaining force field fence and get stuck on the other side. Happened to me a couple of times. You can get back across but it takes a lot of speed.Oh, and I wish the main weapon had a slightly less abrasive sound - it starts to make my ears bleed a bit after playing for a while.
Other than that, very cool, makes me feel good to know you guys dug this one back up and finished it. There is hope for indies everywhere! :-)
Torque 3D Owner Novack
CyberianSoftware
Good to see you around Paul, and great work with BitShifter!