Archive for the 'Game Development' Category
July 29th, 2010 by Juuso
This biz idea keeps coming to my head: spotify for games. I’ll briefly explain what spotify is for those of you who aren’t familiar with the service. Basically, with spotify, you can listen to music for free (with some ads here and there) or you can buy monthly subscription for $9.99 (or so) and listen to all the music without ads. There’s tons of music available – possibly everything you can imagine.
Now, I was thinking this same concept for games. We could start with indie games if you wish. Bit like WoW except you get to play tons of games.
Basically, for a monthly subscription (let’s say $9.99) you can play any games you want as long as you keep subscribing to the service. It might be possible to have a lite version which would show ads here and there until you get so annoyed that you want to (1) stop playing or (2) buy the subscription (or (3) more likely: find a hack)
The revenue share could go so that major part of the pie would go to developers (let’s say 70%), rest of it would be split between publisher (10-30%) and perhaps with affiliates (20%). These figures are just in top of my head.
How would developers share the pool of money? I’m thinking that the playing times (and/or downloads) could be tracked. The more downloads/playing time one game gets, the more money that game earns.
Just thinking out loud.
What you feel about this? Part 2 – “spotify for indie games” continues here.
July 28th, 2010 by Juuso
I just read the five golden rules for new indies from winterwolves blog.
I’m adding sixth one:
6. finish your game
By finishing games, one learns how to finish games. That’s a crucial thing in this industry. It’s okay to prototype and it’s even okay to drop projects, but if you follow the fifth rule (“no epic projects”) then you should also focus on this rule.
What’s the next golden rule in your opinion?
July 26th, 2010 by Juuso
Game development has given me possibilities to do tons of mistakes. Here’s some of the most stupid mistakes I’ve done during these years. Like they say in tv ads: do not try these at home.
Mistake #5 – Getting a development team
Around 2001 I was working on this “MMO” game which started from the idea of “having this dark island where guy moves with a cool torch in his hand”. That’s not a bad start for a MMO, but the worse idea was me getting this “development team to work on profit basis”.
Okay, I eventually found a good friends (this part of the MMO was not a mistake, Tim) but other than that it was a huge mess. I remember taking aboard some people who didn’t have a clue on things. One guy was saying he was a “texture ‘expert’”. Which meant he shot (or “loaned”) some photos of some ancient museum swords. That’s like pretty nice, but spending 2 months to some helmet images that will never get in the game was not such a smart move.
I was thinking that “the more people get in, the better the result will be”.
Now I realize that “the more people got in, the bigger the trouble I was facing”
Okay, maybe some “we’ll share the profits later / do this thing for free” team can prove me wrong, but I thought it was heckofa mess. Fun mess though.
Mistake #4 – Not getting a development team
The other alternative (after realizing how big mess it is to have tons of people around) was to try do everything related to my big idea on my own. This was perhaps a slightly smarter move than getting a huge group (at least for people like me) but then it became obvious that I need more time & donuts to get the ball moving.
Alone, with not enuf skills (modeling, programming, designing, mapping, sounds, music… you name it) it sort of became obvious that this path won’t work.
Well, good news is that from this mistake I learnt that outsourcing and purchasing 3rd party stuff can be a solution. And also the smaller the project scope, the bigger chances for solo survival there is.
Mistake #3 – Choosing a bloody long company name
The reason why I always direct people to gameproducer.net is instead to my company site (polycountproductions.com) that my company name is so bloody long that I just find it easier to use a shorter name. This means my company stuff is “somewhere in the back in the papers” and I haven’t even updated the site for long.
Not such a bad mistake, but still annoys me after 5 years and I keep thinking “I should change the company name”.
Mistake #2 – Starting about 17 projects simultaneously
I’ve improved my skills on this area, and nowadays I have only 1 game project going on simultaneously. I still get new ideas for games and simply write them down or discuss them a bit with my friends, and then write them down. Earlier (long, very long time ago), I might have got several game ideas and plans going on. I still have several side projects and things going on/fading away here and there (it’s just so fun to start new things), but I’m getting better at focusing on one main thing and getting that finished before new stuff.
Mistake #1 – Not making enough mistakes
During the last 5 years in this company gaming thing I’ve been doing more mistakes than ever in my life. I’ve probably learned more than ever in my life. Mistakes are good. Gotta keep doing more of them.
Somebody has said “if you aren’t failing ever, then you are not fighting in the right league” (or something like that, I might have made a mistake here).
Me likes that attitude.
See also 10 worst game production mistakes (article written 3 years ago).
July 26th, 2010 by Juuso
It’s possible to backup PS3 stuff somehow. My PS3 has 250 gig hard drive. It’s connected to my main router via cable (read the story here and laught at me). I wonder if I could somehow backup my game dev stuff to it?
Anyone tried this?
July 25th, 2010 by Juuso
I’ve used two methods when working with artists. The first one was telling them what to do and then pointing out “flaws” in their work and ignoring their recommendations and then eventually realizing that (1) they have quite a bit more experience on that stuff than I do and (2) this approach doesn’t work. I sort of tried to keep the control over creative stuff, and could not let go. End result: time wasted in communicating the vision back and forth, poorer quality of work.
The next method worked better: giving ideas/concepts/videos/pointers to material that described what kind of style I was looking, and then told them to “use your artistic freedom” to get it done. This has worked wonders: this resulted in much less time needed for communication and more motivated artist who will surprise you with the quality of his work*.
Let the artists do their job. That’s why you hired them.
* Bonus tip: he’ll also surprise you with the “hours spent” sum if you don’t have any control over resources that he is supposed to use on the work.
July 23rd, 2010 by Juuso
How many months (or years…) should game projects take? I’m thinking of calendar months and motivation aspects, not just financials. The longer the project lasts, the more it costs and more chances for lack of motivation will be there. If getting from idea to release takes little time, then it’s just the opposite: you benefit financially and it’s also easier to keep yourself motivated.
What you feel is a good length for (indie or other) game projects? Why?
July 22nd, 2010 by Juuso
During the last couple of weeks I’ve been more or less messing with drawing and sketching and pixeling and with other arty stuff. I must say that this has been quite an eye-opener to me. I have now much clearer idea on why concepts are needed, and why layers are so important in digital painting, how character anatomy is important, and many other small big things that come with art. I’ve also tried drawing using a pencil and scanning, or simply by drawing directly without a scanner.
The bottom line is this: doing art takes time and skill. There’s several moving pieces in this thing. Artists have different skills. Some do concept art. Some animate. Some do something else. Finding somebody to do all these* things (and actually to be good at it**), that’s like 8th wonder of the world or something – it takes tons of skills to become a good artist.
*Interestingly, that’s exactly what I’ve planned to do for The Infected game…
**…but luckily my game is not about having perfect art, but perfect gameplay. Sort of.
By simply walking a mile in artist’s shoes and doing what they do can help dramatically in understanding their point-of-view. (I suppose this works for every other position in the team, coders and composers and everybody else).
Recently draw this sketch (and I have more understanding why the artists talk about proper lights, shadows, limb sizes, poses, leg positions and anatomy and everything there is in doing these things). It lacks certain things (arms are different size, his right leg looks weird, both legs are short, cap in slightly wrong position and so on) so I probably need to re-do/change it to use it for concept. But… I’m learning, I’m learning…
Reference was taken from “100 ways to create fantasy figures” by Francis Tsai
Having pics sort of makes more fun blogs posts too. Right?
July 15th, 2010 by Juuso
I’m spending time on learning doing pixel art. I actually have no plans to be a hardcore pixel artist and I’m willing to skip certain rules or guidelines if it helps make my stuff look nicer. For example, some guy said that image shouldn’t be scaled or that colors shouldn’t be changed using some program or automatic system.
Without taking stance on what is “real pixel art”, it is my plan to do stuff that looks good. The reason why I like pixel art is that it is helping me improve my own strengths. I have always liked drawing, but never got into painting or coloring stuff (especially with computer). I simply couldn’t get things to look how I wanted them to look when I tried smudging and whatnot.
With pixel art, it’s simpler… there’s only a few colors to work with.
Okay, that’s all cool and so on, but what about the practical aspect?
Yesterday I got so into doing this pixel stuff that I didn’t write a blog post. I did this arctic explorer instead:
Now, this is far from perfect and it didn’t quite turn out how I wanted (the snow on top was accidental, also the colors ended up being slightly different from what I planned and so on) but it’s one more piece of art done – and by doing pixel art one learns to do pixel art. And here’s the (quite) important part: how much time it took?
I suppose I could try count how much the actual time of drawing take time and come up with 1 or 2 hours or something like that, but in reality I think a more accurate estimate would be “yesterday evening”. Since that what it took. Okay, there was learning involved and things probably will get easier after I have more experience (bearing in mind this is like my 4th of 5th piece of pixel art), but it’s good to note that doing this art takes time.
So, if doing one frame takes like hour or two, and then 6 frames for one animation (that’s like half a day to day), 4-5 animations (week). And that’s one character. Add 50 objects, backgrounds, other characters… stuff. And you get the picture.
Point is: pixel art (like any art) takes time. If you are interested reading more about this aspect, check out Adam Saltsman’s excellent article on pixel art. It has several very good things.
So, what’s my opinion about this?
I like the retro (indie?) feeling pixel art gives you. I see it kind of like the very much opposite of nowadays AAA shader-whatnot screens. And I feel that’s a good thing. It’s like… totally opposite. I would expect some people to love it, and I somehow also feel that doing pixel art makes people think and expect something different.
For my personal situation, I’ve decided to try & learn this stuff. After I get to do some animation, some background stuff, and some objects… I will see if I’ve picked a too big cake to eat (bearing in mind that I want to submit something to IGF, which has deadline in October).
Pros & Cons
Advantages over pixel art, when I’m doing this myself:
- No money needed for art, I’m using my time instead
- I have 100% control over things and can communicate with the team artist now in pretty well (since I’m now the coder and the artist in my team)
- Retro (indie) feel in art, that’s a cool bonus
- It takes time to do, but with proper planning, not necessarily too much time
And the disadvantages (for me right now):
- My own time needed for art, instead of using money
- Might delay the project (not necessarily)
- Still need to learn quite a bit: animating, lights
I’m sure that pixel art works excellent for mobile devices. I’m sure it can work fine for indie games. Adam Saltsman mentions in his article that scaling pixel art is tricky – you gotta stick to a resolution. I feel this to be very true, although of course you can try scaling the art so that you have 4 pixel dots instead of 1 pixel dots (true scaling, simply making things bigger without losing any details). It makes art more blocky, but I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing. It depends.
Is this now too blocky? Imagine this animated…
I very much recommend checking out Adam’s article – it has tons of pros & cons explained in much greater detail on a general level. I’m focusing quite a bit on my current situation.
So, how to make the decision?
Or: what helped me decide
One most important thing is that I’m doing pixel art because it feels fun to do. In fact, I’ve “waited” years to get to draw something but I never quite got (took) the time to draw anything. Now I have purpose (my game project) so I’ve got my drawing pens back and sketching things now, and they come for a purpose. And it’s fun. Cool.
I’m very much keen to see some donuts after I get this game thing done, and right now I’m focusing on what is fun to do? With Dead Wake I was doing the project perhaps relying more on the rational side of my mind, but with my current project I’m perhaps trying to relax a bit more and go with the irrational side of things.
For example, when I’m thinking “should I do this pixel art for my game? What if it delays the project a lot?”
I have a simple answer: “So what? It’s fun to do”
I mean, the outcome of the project isn’t necessarily so important. It’s also the journey. And if I enjoy the journey, won’t the outcome also be enjoyable?
If I don’t enjoy the journey, won’t that mean that the results will most likely too be somewhat unpleasant?
Famous bottom line
So, I’m learning coloring and doing pixel art. I can see that this has impact on time needed for the project, but since this is fun – I’m fine with it. And of course I can always seek middle ground: I might outsource some art (just gotta make sure the artist can make stuff that fits in). And for IGF, it’s not important to have all the art assets done.
I would say many indie games can do just fine with pixel art. Also, doing the art on my own is cool since I do have some artistic skills and enjoy doing the stuff. Since it’s fun, there’s no really no reason not to do this.
July 12th, 2010 by Juuso
I read some tutorials about pixel art and got my mouse ready to do some painting in Gimp. After spending this day to draw some stuff, I must say that I kind of like doing this stuff. It takes ages to draw, and I have no clue about how to get the stuff look neater… but it’s bloody fun.
Here’s first arctic scientist (don’t know how much time this took… 30 minutes? Hour? Who knows, lost track of time)
After reading some more, and attempting doing bit more detailed stuff, I managed to get this done (in maybe about 90 minutes, including some web browsing in pixel art gallery):
The larger version is bit blurry, depends on your browser capabilities. Okay, scaled these in Gimp.
Next step me thinks is to try and see if I can somehow animate one of these poor bastards. I intend to first try drawing the animation as explained in this tutorial and see how much time that takes.
I believe this will be sufficient at least for the prototype.
Anyone else like to do pixel pushing? I enjoyed this.
July 10th, 2010 by Juuso
I got my first piece of game art up & running for The Infected traitor game, and now there’s just one thing. I would like to hear some tips on how to animate stuff (in 2D). I googled for this stuff, but there was surprisingly little information on this subject. Here’s some that I found:
I found the Anime Studio to be quite interesting, and it has a free trial demo for learning.
If you have some good resources or tips to add, throw them here please.
