I do game development on the side and my project Wormhole Ventures was long ago greenlit for Valve's Steam platform. Yet, I also work a day to day job as a senior network engineer where I am on call 24/7.
In development of the game I had instantiated a random map and tweaked it so they look quite nice. I've had playable older versions, but this takes it to a new level and I was focusing on making sure it is multiplayer.
To this extent I wrote my own network handling routines and I had the maps and such synchronizing across machines. I was at the point where I needed to start instantiating the player ships and actually making it move, and testing to make sure it works properly over the network.
Then the project was greenlit. This came as a pleasant surprise. I got access to the powerful Steamworks API which is only available behind the scenes and has a big NDA we agree to on it.
This resulted in me going back and changing a lot of my networking.
I have been at the point where I needed to instantiate the player ships for months now. Yet this particular point is much like tossing 100 balls into the air at a time and juggling them. The blip of an IM, or a hangout chat from work, or a family member coming in and talking to me and all of the balls fall to the ground. After that is over I begin tossing them into the air again with the hopes of being able to focus.
I actually planned several weekends to do this on. Every single one of them was interrupted.
I have taken the next three days off as vacation, and instead of actual vacation I am going to go nuts trying to power past this barrier that has been stalling my development for many months. This means no distractions. This means I likely won't look much at steemit except near bed time or something like that for the next few days.
The exception to this will be after I manage to power past the 100 ball juggling problems. It should be smooth sailing and much more interruption tolerant at that point.
So for those of you that pay attention to such details... that is why I am likely to be far less present for a few days.
Steem On!
This is really cool to hear and I hope you do not get too distracted. I get like that when I'm trying to write. Good luck and power on. :)
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I have a bit of experience playing pre-release etc. If you need any help playtesting or something while I'm intentionally not working, let me know. I sent you an invite on steam. I was looking to see if it was purchasable in early access to support the development but I guess that is what you are working on now. :) Good luck homie.
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Yeah I won't release it on early access until it is at least fun.
We talked about potentially releasing it on early access once we have the multiplayer random map stuff working.
I have plans for an interesting single player game that will double as the tutorial as well, so I likely wouldn't release anything until I had at least the basic tutorial part of single player done as well.
Early Access before it is FUN can really kill a title on Steam. I likely will go early access though.
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I'll also keep you in mind for the testing. If we take you up on it you'd get at least one free copy and name in the credits as a tester.
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I'm sure you know more about when and how to release than I ever will . :P Just let me know if I can help, from what you've shared on here I feel like you are probably one of those game devs that cares more about putting out something fun and enjoyable than ripping people off and bailing on halfway finished products. I still have games I chose to support on EA release that have been in development for years now. I think some of these small scale games focus too much on people pleasing and grandiosity than just making something fun and simple. The Binding of Isaac is probably my current highest rated value to investment game I've ever played. Good indies blow these stupid AAA remix every year releases out of the water.
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Oh and I was never in charge of a release until now. I always was part of a team and had to meet deadlines. I was part of the DLA team that made "The Wyvern Crown of Cormyr"... we would submit builds to Bioware. They would test them. If they were fine with it they'd send it on to Atari. It'd get tested there. If they liked it then it'd get sent on to Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) since they controlled the D&D intellectual property at the time.
One time most of our team including our project lead and several other people went to the GENCON convention which was a plane flight and staying several days for them.
Bioware came back saying "This and this needs to be fixed by tomorrow, or we're cancelling the project".
Most of our team was gone. We were given 24 hours notice. Myself and our main QA guy crunched on it. Between the two of us we fixed it all in 8 hours.
I've felt deadlines before. That's actually why Bioware flew me and my wife to Edmonton to interview for Dragon Age: Origins - Multiplayer Tech designer...
I have some ideas for Multiplayer in a game like that which no one has fully managed to do. Yet, as you likely know DA:O had no multiplayer. :)
They contacted me and I wrote a bunch of the scripts in the final Neverwinter Nights patch 1.69.
That's pretty much it.
I am the true definition of Indie. I have a full time job that pays my bills so I do it because I love it. Though my son who holds some of the shares in the company and does a ton of the art would likely appreciate it if I'd get off my ass and finish it so he can start getting paid for it.
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I believe you will make something great out of it. Just do what feels right and you can't really go wrong.
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I tend to aim for VERY big projects. Perhaps too big. This one actually started as a simple idea. One of my simplest.
It has evolved into something more complex over time and I'm pretty excited about it.
There is a crux in my designs. Juggling the multiplayer/networking aspect of my games ramps up the complexity a lot. If they were simple ideas it would not.
If I had done this single player I'd have finished this game a long time ago. All of my hold ups are related to the multiplayer and networking code.
My demos were all single player. I cranked out 5 versions of the single player as builds before getting to this version 6 build which I approached as multiplayer from the ground up. Even single player will still run functionally as multiplayer that no other human players connect to.
I also aimed for some complex tricks in hopes of further optimizing it. These are things most people won't bother with that adds to the time.
I built a map/scenario editor that will still need more done to it. So this version 6 build ramped up the complexity quite a bit.
I wish I'd simply stuck with single player. I have ideas to make a good single player experience and story with this, but I did promise multiplayer and I believe it could be a fun multiplayer game so I'm trying to keep my promise.
It was inspired by the game MU.L.E. which is colonists on a planet. Ships periodically come to that planet and leave. I decided to zoom out and view a similar game from the perspective of the various systems and the ships traveling between them but still make it a very economic real time strategy game with a board game feel. Then I kept adding to the complexity. It basically has two phases... the space phase which you spend most time in, and the trading phase which in the demos is very much like M.U.L.E. That method will be going away in this build. We've thought of our own way to approach trading which we hope will be more engaging.
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All I care about is making things that are not like something already out there, and that have good game play.
If we can make it look good in the process that is a bonus. If the game play sucks then no amount of fancy graphics can salvage that.
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I have enjoyed your games for over a decade. You are one of my favorite game devs of all time as you have helped to create the most memorable experiences I have ever had in a game.
I am anxiously awaiting the result of your next few days!
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Yeah, I appreciate it. If things go well with this THAT game you used to play with us, we may actually be able to bring something like it to life. :)
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