Frayed Knights: Going Alpha
More tales of the development of Frayed Knights, the comedy RPG. Or more specifically, the Frayed Knights Pilot - The Temple of Pokmor Xang!

This Week
I could tell you what I worked on this week. Which is to say, a little bit of everything. Just getting it so that the game could be completed from beginning to end without any major weirdness or bugs, up until the final "end game" menu (including stuff happening in town). I just got some new music AND a new tavern model, which required me to re-arrange everything in the tavern to suit. I really like the new tavern. A lot.


Last Minute Changes
I took Friday off, both for getting this alpha out, and for attending a wedding of two close friends of mine. This has turned out to be a good thing. Between the alpha and a bit of personal business, I ended up pulling an all-nighter, until past 6 AM. Most of the time was spent working on some major inventory screen bugs. I missed them back when there was only about a dozen things in your inventory, but with there being actual loot in the dungeon now, I discovered some problems.

I also devoted some effort to fixing odds and ends, and prepping the whole thing for alpha. I had to make some dialog changes (and I don't think all of the revisions actually made it into the alpha... oops!). There were way too many "known issues" that I just couldn't get to, but I needed to get people on the alpha. Some of the changes thrown in during the wee hours of the morning were pretty significant. I made some changes to how resting is handled that I still don't know the full impact of. And I know for sure the feedback mechanisms for some of the mechanics are woefully inadequate.

Getting the download size down from 120 megs to 71 megs was part of that effort. Writing something by way of instructions was another.

But the first alpha - and the invitations to the alpha test group - went out at the 5:00 hour. My apologies to the people who aren't in the first alpha group, but I really want to hold people in reserve as "Kleenex testers" for future alpha versions. Testers, check your private messages in the forum, and check to see when you get access to the Frayed Knights Testing and Feedback forum. Some people have it already.

The Road to Alpha 2!
Some things topping out my list for alpha 2 include such minor luxuries as actually having the item screen tell you what the item really DOES, so that you don't have to guess whether the iron mace or the broadsword does more damage. And having a visual display of how your maximum endurance drops over time would be kinda... I dunno... less confusing? And then there's the fact that players can get stuck inside of doors. That's not a happy thing. And some fixed combats end up taking place with the opposing forced practically across the room from each other but still swinging melee weapons. Yeah, that might be good to fix.

And actually implementing the weapon and armor proficiency restrictions might make the different character classes more interesting. Oh, and having the big bad evil boss guy actually USE the spells he's got in his arsenal... that might make a difference in combat. And the priests are actually supposed to drop loot once in a while. Now the operative word is only, "once."

This kind of torturous, bug-riddled gaming is what I subject my friends to. I am a bad man.

Development is going to continue at its previous pace for the next month, easily, so Alpha 4 should be pretty different from Alpha 1. My goal is to have each alpha released Friday-ish throughout March. Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 will be the public release date of the Pilot.

Placeholder Content FTW!
And just so all the testers know, Kevin wanted to make absolutely sure that they knew that the revised Tavern roof texture is only a stand-in.


Well, I managed to sneak in about three hours of sleep between 6:30 and 9:30. I have an appointment to meet someone in a couple of hours, and then I'm gonna try and get another nap in before getting ready for the wedding.

Have fun!

Labels: Frayed Knights, programming, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:00 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Reviewed
Fer Real - a review of 4th edition, now that the NDA has been lifted. On Aint It Cool News:

"Let me just say this upfront. I. Love. 4E. And I didn’t want to. Much like many of you out there, the 3.5 partial reboot just five years ago pissed me off... Just 2 weeks into playing 4E, I boxed up every non-fluff heavy book (of 3.5E) I owned, drove down to Half Price Books and sold them for as much cash as I could get. I knew I would never, ever, touch them again. Yes. 4E really is that good."

Yes, it's very positive. Yes, I'm very skeptical, still. Read it yourself - though it's part one of a three parter that will have additional installments Friday and Saturday:

AICN: Massawyrm Has Played Dungeons And Dragons 4th Edition!!

I'm sure there are lots of details out there for interested parties. Me, I'll check it out in June. But... again... I'm skeptical. To me, it still sounds like they were trying to make the game a poor-man's MMORPG.

UPDATE: Here are the other two parts of his review:

D&D 4E Review Part 2

D&D 4E Review Part 3

Important note: "It is very dependant upon maps, terrain and miniatures. That’s great for guys like me with a closet full of toys. But for others, especially those who like to play much more esoteric games all through discussion rather than using maps and positioning – they’re going to find it a lot harder to covert over to that style of play than 3.5. Most abilities and classes are built around their existence on a map grid. And a lot of the abilities just don’t translate to the abstract. I’m not certain why percentage of players out there still play this way – but they’re going to have the strongest argument against converting to 4E."

So... umm.... I guess there you have it. The fairly-unsurprising (since 3.5 has been going that way) business plan of WotC... using D&D to sell a steady supply of collectible miniatures.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:20 PM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Ya Gotta Have a Gimmick
I found myself staring at an ad for a science fiction first-person shooter. In fact, that's all I'm gonna call it - a science fiction first-person shooter. The ad was colorful, with a cool battlefield scene. Explosions and machines of war from an obviously futuristic era. And I found myself thinking, "Wow, you know, in a world without Halo 1, 2, and 3, Unreal Tournaments, Gears of War, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, F.E.A.R., Project Origin, and dozens of other science fiction first-person shooters, this might be really exciting to me."

I cast my mind back, and vaguely recalled the heyday of fantasy RPGs, and I remember feeling about the same way towards the RPG of the week. Ah, those youthful days of yesteryear, when RPGs were rolling out a-plenty, and we always thought we'd be swimming in abundance, and we got to pick and choose among a tremendous number of titles that would be released faster than anyone could possibly play them.

Mind you, many did suck back then, too. And as a poor, starving college student during that time period, my picking and choosing was more of necessity than out of snobbishness. But in a crowded field, in games as much as anything else, you gotta have something that makes you stand out. Or as the song from Gypsy goes - ya gotta have a gimmick.

Assuming 2007 was no fluke, the field is going to get a little crowded again for computer role-playing games. Maybe not late-80's, early-90's crowded, but it's still going to be interesting to say the least. While the titans of mainstream duke it out with dueling Diablo-clones, the indies are - thankfully - providing quite a bit more variety to the landscape. But indie games enjoy a longer shelf-life, too, which means last year's hits will still be competing head-to-head with this year's new offerings. You could spend a whole year just playing Spiderweb's Avernum and Geneforge series, and because they don't chase the mechanical technology rabbit, the difference in quality is more of that of the developer's improving skill.

While time may be a bit of a premium for me these days, I have no problem at least trying to play all of these awesome indie games! I just need a reason to believe that the game I'm going to play is in some way unique - that it's not something I've played before. Or, like the generic science-fiction first-person shooter, I may just kinda chalk it off to being something so similar to what I've already experienced that I can't even generate enough enthusiasm to download the demo.

So - how are these games going to distinguish themselves? What kind of gimmick will they adopt? Of the recent releases I've played, Eschalon: Book 1 suffers the most from feeling too generic. Fortunately, its strengths (so far) lie in being very polished, well-marketed, and an unapologetically turn-based western-style RPG. Fifteen years ago, that would have buried it in a sea of similar games, but today those are definitely stand-out qualities. It is the first game of a series. I expect that, over time, it will "find itself" and develop a stronger sense of style. After all, many of the "classic" RPGs of the golden era started the same way.

But as a player and fan of indie games, I'd strongly recommend that developers really focus in on what makes their games unique and stand-out. If you don't have one, come up with one! Give me a hook, a gimmick, something to help me notice you. Don't be like the aforementioned generic science fiction first-person shooter. YOU know your game is special. Tell me why!

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:04 AM (Permalink) 5 comments links to this post

 
Nine Paths to Indie Game Greatness
David Marsh wrote a very poorly-titled, but otherwise excellent, article at Gamasutra called, "Nine Paths to Indie Game Greatness." The reason I feel it is poorly titled is because "paths" indicate separate, mutually exclusive options. These aren't. In fact, if you are serious about making an indie game, you would be well-served to follow most of these points of advice:

Gamasutra: Nine Paths to Indie Game Greatness

My inane commentary:

1. Efficiency In Design - More game for less cost. Making a single-player exploration-based game like an RPG is stupid. Oh, wait. Oops.

2. Utilizing Free, Cheap, or Open Technology - Don't save your nickels for the Unreal III engine. You won't be able to take advantage of it anyway, and your game will look and play no better than one created in Ogre3D, C4, or Torque which costs less than 1/1000th as much.

3. Distribute Digitally - a pet peeve of mine. Some newb indie developers refuse to look out of the box, and are still about the "box deal." Not that digital distribution need be your only solution - but as an indie, anything else is icing on the cake.

4. Develop On Open Platforms - boy, if I had a dime for every time a prospective indie declared that they wanted to make a game for the XBox 360 or the DS, and sneered at making a game for the PC or (gasp!) the Mac... They just don't seem to get it when I tell them, "if you haven't created a game yet, you aren't gonna get it on the consoles." While that's not strictly true, it's close enough.

5. Collaboration - Ka-CHING! Yes, that's supposed to be the sound of cash. This can take place on so many levels, from trading services (which can save both companies money in terms of taxes), to cooperating on marketing efforts, to running affiliate sales deals,to sharing resources, or simply exchanging ideas and techniques.

6. Consider Less Traditional Monetization Methods - And ad-based revenue is quickly becoming traditional.

7. Redefine Success - I think we are at the point now where the break-even points for mainstream games are mock-worthy, anyway.

8. Use Alternate Sources of Funding - What? Begging for Vulture Capitalists and Publishers to take all your real assets to help you make payroll isn't the be-all, end-all?

9. Get Personal - This is actually the Big Idea for big companies nowadays, too. Small companies have no excuses to NOT do this.

Labels: Biz, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:08 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
How Piracy Can Break An Industry - A Case Study
GameProducer.net puts things on the line about the impact of piracy in Brazil, in an article full of sobering anecdotes, statistics, and links. In a nutshell - it's gotten so bad most game companies have given up trying to sell anything there. The vicious cycle is mature there, where people are forced to pirate because they have no legal means to obtain products. It's ugly.

Local game developers, according to the article, "have only four options to survive as developers: subscription-based online games, mobile gaming, advergaming or exporting."

After the rest of the world follows in Brazil's footsteps, the fourth option will be unviable for everyone. Then what? That's the multi-billion-dollar question.

As a gamer, I personally do not relish the idea of having to either pay a monthly fee to play my favorite game (or having the game become unavailable after it gets "too old"), nor do I want to have to endure a bombardment of marketing messages in order to play a game.

There has got to be a better solution.

But as the article indicates, waiting for the government to jump in and help is useless. I think that applies as well to any other government as Brazil. Nobody's going to wave a magic wand to make the problem go away. This one is firmly gonna be in the hands of the game makers and the customers to solve.

GameProducer.net: How Piracy Can Break An Industry - The Brazilian Case


(Vaguely) related shallow thoughts:
* The Real Cost of Piracy?
* A Better Way to Fight Piracy?
* A Pirate Story
* PC Game Publishers: Please Hurt Me Some More!

Labels: Biz, Politics

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:00 PM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
Game Announcement: Band of Bugs
I recently added another excellent NinjaBee game to the Rampant Games Strategy & Puzzle Games section.

Band of Bugs PC, by NinjaBee

Band of Bugs is a game of turn-based tactical combat, called a "tactics game" in the console gaming world. If you are unfamiliar with the term, but have played some "old school" RPGs with turn-based movement in combat (the old D&D "Gold Box" games like Pool of Radiance are a great example), or games like "X-Com," then you are familiar with the gameplay if not the genre name. Tactics games tend to be faster-playing, friendlier, and a bit easier to get into than the old warhorses like X-Com. Beyond that, Band of Bugs it is full of NinjaBee's trademark cartoon humor. It's an ideal game for newcomers to strategy games.

Band of Bugs goes even further with a rich storyline that develops as you play, not just in cut-scenes between battles. The campaign follows the young bug hero Maal as he joins the royal army of the Central Kingdom under the guidance of mantis warrior Tiernan. As Maal grows in understanding and ability, he commands more powerful heroes in larger groups on his way to saving his Queen and defeating the menace that threatens his kingdom. Strategy is everything to young Maal, for his every command will determine whether he succeeds and saves the kingdom, or he fails, taking the kingdom down with him.

As it was originally released for the XBox 360, you'd expect Band of Bugs to feature really gorgeous visuals, and it does. Besides being fast-playing, pretty, funny, and easy to get into, Band of Bugs really does have some deep strategic elements. Go figger! So there should be enough depth for you hard-core gamers who like min-maxing your D&D characters and plotting out every move with miniatures and stuff, but the game definitely takes the extra effort to help out the newbie to the genre and bring them up to speed quickly.

I did note that it was a little bit confusing to play with just a mouse, so be prepared to actually touch the keyboard on this one. I think this was an area where the translation from console controller to mouse came out a little weak, but as with Aveyond 2, I found I prefer keyboard controls anyway.

The real fun of these kinds of strategy games - even "light" strategy games like this one - is playing it with friends. While the AI is great, there's nothing that compares to playing with a real, live human, especially someone you know. Band of Bugs was built with a strong online multiplayer capability from the get-go. It includes several multiplayer game variants like "Escape," "Capture," "Elimination," and the more open-ended and relaxed "Spider Hunter" mode, which allows up to 8 players to come and go as they choose.

Band of Bugs rounds things out with a map editor so you can create and share your own custom battlefields.

As some of you know, I was working at NinjaBee while this game was in development, so I got to see its evolution first-hand. And I've mentioned it before. I wasn't on the development team, so I never got the chance to get sick of it. :) That DOES make me a little more biased towards that game, so feel free to take anything I say with a grain of salt. Good thing indie games come with free demos so you don't have to take my word for it, huh?

Oh, and Band of Bugs was an IGF 2007 finalist for technical excellence.

So who would I recommend this game to? If you enjoy turn-based strategy games or RPGs, this one is definitely a game you should look at. If you liked Outpost Kaloki, another awesome game by NinjaBee, then you probably already started downloading this game when you saw the top link, and it is probably done downloading by now. In fact, unless you REALLY have some kind of allergic reaction to turn-based games, or you already own the XBox 360 version, I can't think of why you shouldn't at least give this game a shot.

Band of Bugs PC

Labels: Game Announcements, strategy games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:14 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
The Acquisition Shuffle
So the big buzz these days is all about Microsoft trying to acquire Yahoo.

In the video game community, we were still reeling from EA buying Bioware and Activision merging with Vivendi (er, should we just call it "Blizzard?"), when EA announced that they are attempting to acquire Take Two.

UPDATE: Oh, yeah, and the rumor of Microsoft Buying Epic. I guess Gears of War did very, very well for the 360. Thanks Anonymous for the reminder!

But that's not all! In the more casual / downloadable game space, the big shake-up is that RealNetworks is acquiring TryMedia.

In related but slightly less auspicious news, Rampant Games has acquired a stick of gum. The gum had no comment on the buyout at this time.

And in completely unrelated news except for the painful fact that it was peripherally responsible for the content of this post (and my distressed, obsessive frame of mind), never ever try to do taxes right before going to bed. I will not be making that mistake again.

Labels: Biz

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:23 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights - Alpha Candidate Close...
Wow. I just did a play-through of the Frayed Knights Pilot. It took a while. Granted, I had interruptions, but... it took longer than I expected.

And it was pretty dang cool.


There's a nice, long list of issues I've assembled - I guess you could call this an "alpha test," but I'm not releasing this one out to testers yet. I'd like to clear out as many of the issues that I *DO* know about so the testers can concentrate on the ones I do not know about.

But aside from that frustrating feeling of knowing there's way too much to get done and not enough time, it's - at least at this moment - overshadowed by the realization of how this whole dang thing is actually coming together. I'm astounded.

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:45 PM (Permalink) 7 comments links to this post

 
Free Game - Titans of Steel: Warring Suns
I just got this last night from local indie author Eric Peterson, letting me know that his mecha combat game (with RPG elements!) Titans of Steel: Warring Suns is now available as a free download.

He writes:

Titans of Steel: Warring Suns now a complete free download. If anyone wants to know what its like to sit and pull at your chin whiskers this is the game for you. Servers have had overload problems which in a small way has made me happy.

http://www.gamershell.com/pc/titans_of_steel_warring_suns/

I dig giant mecha battles, as an old Battletech / Mechwarrior fan, and I dig turn-based, hex-grid combat just fine, so I'm grabbing myself a copy. You can also get it from other mirrors listed at the publisher's site, Matrix Games.

Grab it now, and rip off a mecha's (er, titan's) arm in full top-down, turn-based glory today! (Can you beat a titan with it's own torn-off arm in this game? I'm sure it's cool either way, but hey... you KNOW you were gonna ask...) It's a 300 meg download, so you'll need to give yourself a few minutes of head-start time.

Labels: Free Games, strategy games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:34 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights - GUI Kablooey
The indie RPG of comedy and fantasy, Frayed Knights, continues development - here's the story!

GUI Re-Glued
A major overhaul of the UI is in progress. The former UI was something only its programmer could love. The new UI isn't done yet, but it looks at least ten times better. Here's a spell being cast in combat. The character portraits haven't been re-done yet, and the buttons on the scroll are just stand-ins for now.

I can't tell you how many iterations we went on the interface. We came up with ideas, metaphors, slick systems, and then discarded them. Besides the obvious cosmetic differences, the button panel and entire combat interface has been massively overhauled. The new system doesn't rely on nearly as many pop-up windows or as many mouse-clicks, which is a Really Big Deal. Really. Even as a programmer who has the UI sense of a medieval torturer could tell it was Bad Design, but I wasn't sure how to fix it.

What we've got now is a cool little pendant-looking thing that now acts as the button panel. It operates in two modes - combat and non-combat (yeah, I know, "Gee, whiz!"). The sections highlight when the mouse passes over them in a really slick low-tech awesomeness, and the icons on the right-hand side change in combat mode. I'm kinda proud of it because it is very non-Torque feeling.

Earlier, whenever you attacked or cast a spell, you then had a pop-up to determine what your target was. This, on the whole, sucked. Especially since you usually keep whittling away at the same enemy until he drops. Now an enemy target is always selected by default in combat, which you can change with the pendant. In the case of spells targeting friendlies, a default friendly target appears in the spell menu, which you can change.

While the switch-over isn't complete yet, it has already made things run much nicer. Not to mention look a ton more polished. The character displays are also in the process of being overhauled, but I'm not done with that yet. It should look a little bit like the mock-up James did down below (though I have since switched some of the icons around in the non-combat pendant). And I still have to finish up the combat interface. It's still not quite to the full level of functionality of the older version - I think I'm about two hours of development away from that.

One Week Until Alpha
SHEESH! We're gonna be handling the first wave of alpha testing uh... like... next week. In only days. I'm scared. Hold me.

We just got a rough draft of the "Frayed Knights Theme" music this week from Mike "I Am Ominous" Nielsen, which will be iterated on over the weekend. The rest of the pilot chapter will use stock music, and I expect to have plenty of stock music in the full release.

There are a couple of secondary systems that just aren't there yet. And may not be by the beginning of alpha. Like... uh... saving and loading the game. D'oh. Yeah, it's a suck. But right now we're surrounded by odds & ends that we're trying to get fixed up and cleaned up before real testing starts and we get 5,000 bug reports about the same dang broken features. Each.

As I've mentioned before, we're staggering alpha into groups. So even if you are in alpha, you may not be brought on until the end of alpha. Or the middle. This helps keep people from getting burned out on the first version and never playing the later ones.

The game really is a game now - albeit one that has a very rough ending and some severe balance problems. I haven't had time to give it a full play-through in a couple of weeks - I guess that'll be fun for me during the alpha, too. Maybe next week that's the format the update will take... my playthrough. Complete with bugs.

During alpha we're going to be frantically improving and fixing things, changing the Frayed Knights website a lot, putting together a questionnaire / survey for players, and so forth. I expect the game will change a LOT between each iteration (which should be weekly).

Don't forget to sign up for the alpha if you are interested. You'll get to play before everyone else - albeit a possibly buggy, broken version!

Looking Forward
The beginning of alpha is a huge deal. The release of the pilot chapter in less than six weeks is an even bigger one. Our focus is almost exclusive on this release - but we're starting to look ahead to the rest of the game.

In a way, the full release will be "Frayed Knights 2," but we're not thinking of it that way. I'm pretty much gonna keep right on rolling in April, May, and beyond. I've already invested some time and money into what's coming next, and we've discussed ideas as a team to cement the rest of the game. The story is set, the upcoming quests have at least a general outline, and we've even begun putting together assets. I PRAY that they'll be faster /easier to put together than the Temple of Pokmor Xang, as there won't be so much necessary on the coding / engine / system side to do.

While the pilot chapter is largely self-contained, there are going to be some hints here and there as to the larger mystery and storyline going on. Although one of my fears is that the players will figure out the whole story, the upcoming plot twist, and everything else right off the bat in just the pilot episode. Then I guess I would have telegraphed things too well.

Naturally, some of what we have planned will be changed. Your feedback is going to be key. It's hard to imagine, but I expect in four months I'll be looking back on this time and chuckling at how naive I was, and how much easier things were. But I really look forward to hearing what you have to say about the pilot!


(Vaguely) related drivel:
* Frayed Knights: Pilot Prep
* Frayed Knights: Prologue and High Concept
* Cartographic Incompetence and Dirk's Interview

Okay Heroes - Let's Chat On the Forum Thread!

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:13 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
2008 IGF Winners

IGF 2008 Winners Announced

Extra-special congratulations to Kloonigames with Crayon Physics Deluxe. The guy's been cranking out approximately a game every month for a while, now. I guess that goes to show how actually making and finishing games will make you better. One of his games proved to be really strong, and now he's been making a deluxe version of it which totally rocks... and he now has a little bit of extra funding and lots of extra press.

I finally played Audiosurf last night. Way cool game. Who woulda thought that "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" would make such a fun race-track? Sure, its a gimmick. But it's a clever and fun gimmick - and the best part is comparing your score with other people who apparently have the same musical tastes as you.

Desktop Tower Defense won the new "Gleemie" award. While it was definitely deserved, I was still disappointed that the awesome RPG Depths of Peril didn't place in the top three.

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:58 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Indies On Consoles - For Real, This Time?
I am not at GDC, so I missed the announcement. Microsoft is finally opening up the flood gates for REAL indie developers to release content

But - for indies - this is potentially very, very big.

Announcing: XBox Live Community Games

XBox Live Community Games, the Most Important News In Gaming, Ever?

GDC Keynote: Microsoft Reveals Community Features for XBLA

XBox Live Community Games FAQ

The big question is about selling. How is this going to work? Apparently, that's not been entirely resolved yet. According to the FAQ: "We are still finalizing the business models and revenue sharing details of Xbox LIVE Community Games at this time. More information will be available closer to the retail consumer launch this holiday."

So all you guys who "wasted" your time playing with XNA... your efforts may just pay off after all!

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:34 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Questions for Indies Part IV
This article is the conclusion of the "XFire Debate Club Annex" that Corvus Elrod and I have been doing for the last month. In this series, we took a bunch of questions that were asked in the audience participation chatroom that didn't make it to the actual debate, and we're giving our best answers. At least, trying to mask our stupid looks and ignorance.

This week, we've got four questions about the business of making indie games. These are fun, because ... while I have answers for them, I don't have "THE" answers for them. There probably is no "real" answer. But these are based on my own experience, and that of other successful indies that I have had contact with.

I should have a permalink from Corvus soonishly, but he should soon have his response to these same questions: XFire Debate Club Annex, Part IV

How do you start making indie games? What kind of education do you need?
I'll start out by answering the education. You don't need any kind of education, but you need to be educated. Does that make sense?

In other words, a formal education might help, but it's not required. However, I can't count the number of times I've been asked by someone, "How do I get started? I have a cool idea for a game! But I have no money, no team, no art skill, no marketing experience, and no interest in programming." My answer is: "No chance." It ain't happening.

If you are going to make an indie game, you are going to wear many hats. If you want to be in charge, make your own game, then it means you will need to know a little bit about a lot of things - and where you are lacking, you are going to need help, and you'd better know somebody who can chip in their expertise. But for the most part, you will need to educate yourself about all of these things. Indies don't have the luxury of being paper-pushing middle managers, or sitting in some ivory tower and being "an idea guy." Indies are low-budget, down-in-the-trenches, roll-up-the-sleeves and get it done people.

If you aren't willing to learn and become educated (through OJT), you shouldn't be trying indie games. I'm learning new stuff every week. That's a big reason why I love doing this stuff.

Now how do you start?

You start as simple as possible, IMO. Pick your technology, pick your game, but make it something you can start (and finish) quickly. People ask me "how do you estimate the time it will take to complete tasks," and my only answer is, "Past experience." A hotshot programmer may be able to get something done in a day that takes an inexperienced programmer two weeks. A skilled artist may get something right on the first try, and an inexperienced artist may go through a dozen iterations and end up with something that is merely adequate.

The only way you can learn is by doing. Grab yourself a copy of Game Maker and make yourself a breakout game. Learn Python, grab Python and PyGame and maybe the source code to Hackenslash and and make something out of it that doesn't suck (or sucks less than what I made...). Start building. Try to make something in a single day, if you can. Or a week. Or a month. Just make something you can finish.

Start by getting a screen up. Then get some player inputs working. Then bring in your own custom art, and learn what that takes. Bring in your own sound effects, and see what it takes. Then wire in your game logic. Then finish all the features, menus, UI, and the zillion other tasks that you will discover your need. Then make it FUN. Then polish.

There's no better training in the world than actually sitting down and making a game, start to finish, even if its nothing but a Space Invaders clone. The scale and budget changes, but the basic process remains the same.

How big is your team? How big do you wish it was?
For Frayed Knights, my team is three people right now. I'm the designer / manager / producer / programmer / buck-stops-here guy, and I also do a little bit of 3D modeling and 2D art (where it's simple), marketing, business development (signing contracts, purchasing stuff), and ... well, pretty much everything else. Kevin Rogers is our internal level guy, a very specific task which he is very good at. James McEwan, who also did a lot of the models in Void War, is handling a lot of the 3D modeling tasks, and has also been jumping in to help out on sound design and 2D art. Mike Nielsen is contributing his awesome musical skills, and we've contracted out for other elements like concept art, character portraits, and the title screen. And I've also been imposing on friends to help me with things like writing and editing.

And I've bought a lot of content off-the-shelf.

For a long time, though, it was a team of one. The way I do indie projects, so far, is it starts out as a one-man project, and the team kind of accrues organically.

Team Size: In my dream version of Rampant Games, we have four or five people working on a game in a small apartment-style office. Plus contractors off-site. And that's as big as it gets. Seriously. I don't want a huge team working on the games - that dilutes creativity and personality, and introduces a huge overhead in communication and process. it becomes more of a widget factory all about process than a creative endeavor. And it really increases the cost of a game. Forget that. Small, tight teams!

How do you get funding to make an indie game?
I have a day job. Seriously. Making indie games is a privilege I pay for. I also sell some games from Rampant Games, mostly by other indies. It helps me pay for contractors, buy tools, and license content. And buy the occasional indie game. So that helps pay for the actual cash costs of making the game, and the rest is ... uh, "sweat equity."

Eventually, one day I'd like to be selling enough from Rampant Games so that I could actually devote myself full-time to making and selling indie games. But for now, I work a 9-12 hour day at the day job, commute, spend a couple of hours with the family, sleep maybe five hours, and devote most of the remaining time to doing this. For free. Easy it ain't.

But I'd rather be doing that than sitting around waiting forever for my 'ship to come in' or whatever. But hey - tell everyone you know to buy games from me so I can make that transition faster. That'll help. :)

Do you make indie games to up-sell to publishers, or do you self publish?
I expect to self-publish. If I end up with a publisher at some point, and the deal makes sense to me, and I knew that the publisher was legitimate, competent, and paid their bills on time, then I'd be okay going through a publisher.

And bear in mind there are some small, indie-style publishers out there too. Not every developer is Bioware, and not every publisher is EA (oh, wait, Bioware IS EA now... well, nevermind).

The thing would have to come down to what the publisher is bringing to the table, and to realize what I'm giving up in return. For it to make sense to me, I'd assume a worst-case scenario: The game sells poorly, and that this is a one-time deal. I think too many inexperienced developers happily give away their most valuable assets on dreams of retiring as a one-hit wonder or something. If the publishing deal got me on store shelves, allowed me to retain IP rights and continue to sell directly from my own site (and portal partners), then I'd be willing to talk.

But I don't plan on it when developing a game. I expect to handle all of it myself.


(Vaguely) related visual droning:
* Questions for Indies, Part I
* Questions for Indies, Part II
* Questions for Indies, Part III

Got More To Add? To Ask? Here's a Forum Discussion!

Labels: Indie Evangelism, programming

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:08 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Can Playing RPGs Make You Rich?
I went to an "investors club" meeting of sorts tonight. It was founded in part by an old college buddy of mine - a fellow Dungeons & Dragons player and medievalist who got the bug up his butt about three years ago to get involved in real estate and other forms of investing, and has been doing that full time ever since. He has managed to do pretty well for himself and his family.

The event was... well, it was a whole 'nother world, folks. I was struggling to grasp the jargon at first, in spite of having some basic familiarity in other areas of investing (hey, I listen to some of these books-on-tape while commuting to The Day Job). They discusses strategies, taxes, threw around investment opportunities (many of which had minimum investment levels that were outside of my budget). They asked questions of each other I didn't know to ask, but by the end of the night I was getting a pretty good feel for things and understanding their answers.

In fact, I found it way more familiar than I expected. A weird realization hit me.

These guys are GAMERS.

Investing for Munchkins
No, maybe they didn't all spend their college or high-school years slinging dice next to miniatures like my friend and I did. Though apparently some of the people in the group, according to my friend, are avid video game players. But I found myself very familiar the tone of the discussion. I've been in enough game stores,RPG discussion forums, and on the periphery of World of Warcraft raid postmortems to recognize the familiar patterns in the discussions. The questions asked were new to me, the actual jargon was a learning experience, but if you change the words around these guys could have been powergamers (or, to use a less flattering term, munchkins) discussing their perfect character build or raid strategy.

In popular RPG terms, they were level 10 and I was a level 1. They slung around terms as carelessly as hardcore RPG players might sling around terms like "Armor Class," "DPS," "Drop Rate," and "Dex Bonus," which took me a little while to grasp.

They discussed opportunities. They argued risks, historical yields, comps, and the current state of the real estate market in Las Vegas (their term was "interesting," which I gathered was a euphemism for "don't touch it unless you know what you are doing.) They have figured out ways of making money regardless of what way the market goes - up, down, or sideways. Risky, but impressive. The opportunities were thrown around the room much like the stereotypical patron NPCs in stereotypical taverns would toss around quest and plot hooks for the next adventure.

And this made me think some more... could certain games - the stat-heavy RPGs and strategy games, in particular - be good training for the neural pathways, analytical skills, and behaviors necessary to succeed in the investment world? Are those annoying RPG munchkins actually best suited, with some education, to become real estate tycoons? Could those get-a-lifer raid leaders in World of Warcraft be suited to be get-a-lifer currency traders? Could the girl who just kicked your butt in Age of Empires also kick butt in the stock market for real-world stakes? Do those skills translate?

Gaming Skills = Getting Rich Skills?
Maybe. I asked my friend about this, and he agreed. He went over several things he learned from playing D&D (pen-and-paper) that he felt really helped prepare him for investing. He also said that this was the second time this week that someone asked him if Dungeons & Dragons has helped him in practical life.

"D&D is definitely where I gained my comfort with charts and calculations. I think from there I became a wiz at spreadsheets in corporate america. From there I used the same skill to create spreadsheets to evaluate properties once I had established my own Real Estate Strategy," he told me. He then went on how things like creating a character (we won't mention min/maxing here...oops, I just did) helped him both in investing, time management, and as a filmmaker in his previous career in terms of fitting things within budget, and reaching an optimum balance.

"At the same time I learned that absolute strict adherence to the rules could be too 'clinical' and while staying balanced with the rules of the game it was also possible to realize what didn't work for our particular situation and make appropriate adjustments as situations arise," he told me, possibly pulling from some "Dungeon Mastering" experience. "This obviously translated well to my investing techniques. I learned several different 'methods' of investing. Learned the balance of all of them. Then created my own 'techniques' talored to my situation while keeping in balance."

Leveling Up In the Real World
Obviously, it takes more than just playing video games and pen-and-paper RPGs or strategy games. It takes directing some of that passion into another focus. But hey, my friend still plays D&D - in fact, he has more time for it now than he did even back in college.

So, gamers: if you are one of those weirdos who like talking about your characters, game balance, build orders in popular RTS games, your best raid gear or character builds, optimum combat strategies for your party against a Pit Fiend, you may be primed to score the "phat l00t" for real. You may not only be trained to excel in these areas, but you may also find they match your particularly warped gamer sense of fun.


(Vaguely) related applications of my lack of l337 gaming skillz!
* The Secret of Success: It's All In Your Mind(set)!
* Playing to Crush With Life
* The Power of Vision

Labels: productivity, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:15 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
The Monk's Brew
I haven't mentioned it directly on the blog here yet because I was waiting for him to get a few articles up first, but I think it's time I mention Mike Rubin's new blog, 'The Monk's Brew." We talked about this a little bit at the last Utah Indie meeting, and exchanged a few emails about the subject.

The Monk's Brew is very Adventure Game / Interactive Fiction - centric, and is sort of a look at that side of the indie gaming fence from the perspective of a developer (kinda like here). Mike Rubin lends his expertise and perspective as someone who loves classic text-based Interactive Fiction, but also sees new ways to bring the game style to new audiences. You'll find regular updates of his big "magnum opus," Vespers 3D, as well as discussions of other topics and stories from the adventure game side of things.

So... I'll pass it along... enjoy!

Visit The Monk's Brew! Add it to your RSS Feeds! And Have Fun!


(Vaguely) related adventures in topical chaos:
* Indie Interview: Mike Rubin on Vespers 3D (Part 1)
* Indie Interview: Mike Rubin on Vespers 3D (Part 2)
* A Twisty Little Maze of Passages, All Different
* How Do I Get Past the Harpies?
* Utah Indie Game Dev Night, Summer 2006

Labels: Adventure Games, Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:41 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Indie RPG News Roundup: February 18
Have you finished all of 2007's independent computer role-playing games already, and you are looking for more? Here's what I've heard:

Avernum 5
The PC version of the latest in Spiderweb Software's huge fantasy RPG series has now been released - a couple of weeks earlier than I expected! Congrats to Jeff Vogel and the Spiderweb team. You can check out the PC demo (or just buy the full game) at Spiderweb's Avernum 5 Webpage. Avernum 5, available for Mac and PC, includes:

• An enormous world. Hundreds of quests, dozens of dungeons and enemy fortresses, and multitudes of characters.
• Epic storyline. Hunt the assassin Dorikas, while his agents try to trick and waylay you at every turn.
• Many unique encounters. Not just mindless hack and slash. Many unusual enemies that will require clever tactics to defeat.
• Rich game system with over 50 spells and battle disciplines, many character building options, and powerful secret skills to unlock.
• Unique game world. Not just the same old elves and hobbits.
• Experience with previous Avernum games is completely unnecessary to enjoy Avernum 5.

Depths of Peril
Soldak Entertainment reports that Depths of Peril, the award-winning and (IMO) incredibly innovative and awesome action/strategy/RPG is one of 7 finalists for Wizards of the Coast's/Gleemax's Gleemie Awards. The finalists for “The Gleemie” were selected from a field of more than 170 game submissions (10th Annual Independent Games Festival) based on strategic and innovative game play. I'm definitely cheering this one on, though it's up against some pretty awesome competition (like the incredibly cool "Crayon Physics" game by Kloonigames, not to mention Desktop Tower Defense).

Ethereal Dreams
The 2.0 Demo for Ethereal Dreams was released on New Years' Day, featuring approximately 3 hours of gameplay. This one has been making some slow but steady progress (the 1.0 demo was released a year ago), but it looks promising. It looks to be (currently) a Windows-only release. (Spotted at JayIsGames)

Indies of the Round Table
In case you missed it last week, ten indie RPG developers weighed in on the subject of "Why Indie RPGs?" here at Rampant Games. Panelists included Jeff Vogel, Vince D. Weller, Amanda Fitch, Steven Peeler, Thomas Riegsecker, and many more. It's a huge article, but full of great insight. Check out Indies of the Round Table #1.

The Trials of Soscarides
The Trials of Soscarides, an entry in the November RPGDX "RPG in a weekend" competition, has been completed as a full "mini" (and FREE) RPG available for both Windows and Mac.

The Legacy of Flan: Flan Rising
This free RPG is available from Scott Games. The game is part of a charity fund-raiser for a playground in Afghanistan, and the site is requesting donations rather than charging for the games. (Spotted at JayIsGames.)

Frayed Knights
The Frayed Knights "pilot" is going into a phased alpha test starting next week. Testers will be added in groups throughout March to test weekly builds. If you are interested in exposing your computer to the perils associated with a very alpha build, you can add yourself to the Frayed Knights Alpha Tester list.

The Adventures of Cendah
Carl Carlsson of KingDiz Entertainment reports that his newest RPG, "The Adventures of Cendah," will be released on Wednesday (Feb. 20th). This game promises improved features and better graphics than his previous games. There's a playable demo already available, so you can check it out now!

Darkened Dreams 2
Darkened Dreams is a primarily text-based (with block-maps of color) RPG by Curtis Mirci - a co-worker of mine and member of this community. He's now gathered together some help from some artists who liked what they saw, and they have begun development of Darkened Dreams 2. I'm hoping for some cool sub-title like, "Darkened Dreams 2: The Wrath of Khan" or "Darkened Dreams 2: Electric Boogaloo" or something, but he's been all tight-lipped about it. But you can check out the production blog and see what updates he has to share.

Sonnheim - A Place In the Sun
Version 0.1.6 of Sonnheim: A Place in the Sun was released about three weeks ago, by Rampant Games community member Hajo. He's been doing some very different things with this game, attempting something of a "non-combat" multiplayer RPG. Sonnheim is described as, "a multi user environment consisting of landscape and city like maps. It tries to combine the ideas of socializing and role playing and provides an environment for this."

To the World Tree
While not making the finals in the IGF, To the World Tree continues development, and version 5 of this free RPG was recently released. Primary emphasis on this new version was on improving the user interface. You can check it out at the To the World Tree Website.


Got more news? Comments? You can post here, or for posterity on the Indie RPG News Roundup Forum Thread.

(Vaguely) related tales of attacking bunny rabbits and giant rats:
* Indie RPG News Roundup, February 2nd
* Indie RPG News Roundup, January 22nd
* Indie RPG News Roundup, January 16th

Labels: Indie RPG News, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:22 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Fascinating Links on a Sunday Morning
There are just too many things I've found recently that I felt like sharing:

Psychochild on Designing Attribute Systems - Thoughts on designing attribute systems for RPGs.

Profit vs. Passion Photos from Casuality 2008 - Indie game developer Grey Alien Games posts a report on a "Profit vs. Passion" talk. The take-away from this summary seems to be that games manufactured purely to "cash in" tend to sell worse than games that are made out of enthusiasm for the game itself. Although the most telling example for Reflexive was their best-seller out of the list ... which was, in their view, equal parts profit and passion motive.

The Aberrant Gamer: Getting To The Action - Leigh Alexander explores (as she often does) the topic of sexuality in games. But in this case she hits one of my personal soapbox issues, and takes games to task for dealing with mature topic - specifically sexuality, intimacy, and relationships - in a juvenile fashion. She makes some suggestions for making games that really do appeal to mature audiences beyond the "M" rating. She comments, "An inanimate cube, juveniles holding hands, and the nuances of a complicated adult relationship as seen through the eyes of a youth – the conclusion here seems to be that games are able to create that sense of intimacy by revealing less, not more ... games lose dignity the more decadent cleavage shots and full-body pans they show."

Gleemax Finalist - Depths of Peril was selected as one of the finalists for the new Gleemax "Gleemie" award at the IGF. Congrats Soldak Entertainment!

“Because, uh, but, uh, I wrote a book.” - Rock, Paper, Shotgun (specifically, John Walker) takes both Fox News Network and Jack Thompson to task for pulling the same ol' crap they keep pullin'. In this case, suggesting video games mind-controlled an adult who was nearly 30.

QoL Watch: Beware of Bioware - Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars posts rumors of bad quality-of-life problems at Bioware long before EA showed up. However, a more interesting rebuttal (of sorts) appears in the comments by someone who claims to be a Bioware employee. The rebuttal has a ring of truth to it. It's still not a glowing appraisal of life as a Bioware employee, but it does indicate that things aren't any worse than the rest of the industry. Which, in a word, still sucks, as "death march" is still sort of an industry standard practice. (But, pointing at the second link here, one man's "death march" is another man's "labor of love").

Labels: Biz, Game Design

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:00 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Utah Gives Disney Video Games the Red Carpet Treatment
It's so nice when my state actually shows that they have a clue:

Utah Wooing Disney Game Biz with Huge Tax Incentive

Though it's no wonder my Day Job has started making people sign a non-compete (though they granted me an exception for Rampant Games, a requirement for me signing on in the first place.)

Labels: Biz, Politics

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 11:25 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Play the IGF Finalist Games!
GDC is next week (no, I'm not going), which means the 10th annual Independent Games Festival is drawing to a close. The winners will be announced on February 20th, at the closing ceremonies. If you haven't played (or voted) yet, here are a couple of links. Many thanks to Scorpia for sending me the links!

If you have FilePlanet access, FilePlanet has hosted all of the downloadable games, and have convenient links to vote and to play the online titles:

IGF Finalists at FilePlanet

There is also the official site, which goes through FileShack, though there are also direct links to the games' websites:

IGF Official Audience Choice Award

I haven't played all of them, but I am particularly fond of Globulos and Battleships Forever (what can I say, I'm a sucker for space combat games...)

Labels: Indie Evangelism

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:18 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Frayed Knights - Pilot Prep
So, did you want to hear a weekly update on the development of Frayed Knights, the indie fantasy role-playing game of comedy and pointless in-jokes?

No?

Oh.

Well, I don't have anything else prepared, so I'm just gonna roll with it anyway.

The Pilot Demo Approaches
This week (this month, really) has all been about the Big Sprint to alpha for the "Pilot Demo." That's the latest name for what's getting released in April. I liked the term, "pilot," thinking of pilot programs and TV show pilots. That really kinda sums up what the April release is about.

Basically, its one big test screening. To see what flies, and what lands with a thud. The engine will be "done." Armed with the feedback from the pilot, we'll build out the rest of the game, fixing what seems broken in the engine or design and moving forward.

It's kind of a cheapski way of making two RPGs, so I can get all my mistakes with the first one out of the way.

The Game Development Life Is Very Glamorous
I spent way too much time this weekend looking at... fonts. Key game elements are still laying half-assembled on the virtual workbench, and I spent hours and hours looking at fonts. And emailing the guys that made the fonts, asking for terms. Because they don't want to give you the terms up-front, in case you are a WEALTHY company like Microsoft who they can charge thousands of dollars to. So I have to play my "poor indie" card.

Interesting point - on one site that had fonts that were "free for non-commercial use" and some other fonts that were "premium" but okay for commercial use - the charge for commercial use of the free fonts exceeded that of the premium fonts. Go figger. We're not talking about extreme price-gouging or anything, but it was definitely interesting.

And no, I still haven't settled on a font yet. The two more exotic ones I tried out were almost universally panned.

Ah, such is the glamorous life of a game developer. It's all action and adventure and excitement and whooping and hollering as the game comes together...

The Game Comes Together?
The frantic final stages are both thrilling and stressful. Remember that scene in "Ghostbusters" when they are talking in the elevator about how each of them is wearing an unlicensed proton accelerator on their back and that they've never actually had a successful test of the equipment? That's pretty much how I'm feeling each time I run the game. The changes are coming "fast and furious," building on a bunch of foundation code that is beginning to get old enough to gather dust, but I'm now calling functions and special behaviors that were never entirely tested.

And I am thrilled with how often they actually work more-or-less correctly. That almost makes up for the times I spend revamping or debugging months-old code that seems completely alient to me.

For example, I spent a half-hour tracking down the reason that a character can wear TWO suits of chain mail at the same time IF they equip the second suit directly from the party inventory, but not if they bring it to their own inventory first. The fault turned out to be a misspelled function name (ah, the joy of typeless scripting languages) that had been sitting around in the code FOREVER, unexercised.

I finally got Drama Star effects implemented. Well, partially. We're in the middle of a massive (and long overdue) re-design of the UI. I can now mix monster types in encounters - so we can have a boss encounter with his guards (a challenge that, for now, is a little on the "too hard" side). And there have been a lot of fiddley bits I've been working on - fixed dialogs, descriptions on spell effects, UI management bugs, and so forth.

Taking Inventory
Oh, and inventory is now working much better. You can actually use activated items now - like potions - both in and out of combat. I liberally sprinkled a few potions of negligable healing throughout the dungeon, which has made an ENORMOUS difference in combat balance during the game. I expected it would, but you never know about these things until the rubber meets the road.

I also disabled access to the party inventory during combat. This is a change that I think will stick with the final version. Previously, I'd designed it so that using things directly out of the party inventory simply incurred a much larger delay between a character's actions. But the delay factor is really abstract - while it doesn't need to be understood to play the game, really big delays would cause confusion and frustrations with players who haven't yet grokked it. Disabling access to party inventory simplified and streamlined things, and also - I felt - made for more interesting decisions. Who gets that potion of healing when supplies are running low?

(I usually give it to Benjamin, who can then heal other party members with spells.)

Combat
Almost all aspects of combat are now functional. The AI aren't casting spells yet, the "defensive" stance doesn't do anything yet (I gotta fix that - it's like a ten-minute job!). And no "active" feats have been implemented yet (nor are they usable by the AI). And I'm not entirely sure weapon ranges are functioning correctly - I gotta run some tests on that this weekend.

But with spells working (and easy to add!), inventory items (both equipped and activated) functional, drama star effects... I'm kinda giddy. Combat has become much more interesting. Not that every random encounter with pus golems is a thrilling X-Com battle level of awesome (if only!), but they are much more fun and interesting than the click-click-yawn-click gameplay of too many "action" games.

That makes me giddy on a level that I suppose only an old-school D&D geek can appreciate. I still have no clue if anybody ELSE will appreciate it - but hey, that's what the pilot is for, right?

Sign up!
If you haven't signed up to be an alpha victim --- er, I mean, TESTER, and you have an unusually high tolerance for pain, don't forget to sign up on the alpha testing thread in the forum.


(Vaguely) related dorkiness:
* Frayed Knights - Bad Text Gone Wild!
* Frayed Knights - The Stupid Stuff Takes Too Long
* Frayed Knights - Please Don't Swim In Our Toilet
* Frayed Knights - Exploding Locks and Other Stories

Got questions? comments? Arguments? Suggestions? Post About 'Em In The Forum!

Labels: Frayed Knights, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:21 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
PC Gaming Is In Disarray? Or Just Gaming?
Epic's Uber-Designer Cliff Bleszinski commented in an interview on MTV Multiplayer on Epic's priorities for future games:

“I think people would rather make a game that sells 4.5 million copies than a million and 'Gears (of War)' is at 4.5 million right now on the 360. I think the PC is just in disa