kedaunglandlord

Note: This story is biased but it isn't a hatchet job. IndieGoGo may have promised something they couldn't deliver, but e veryone I dealt with was personable & pleasant to work with and  I believe they did what they could to help the campaign succeed within the constraints of the platform. IGG a good platform for a lot of projects - just not gaming projects. Decisions, Decisions The trailer went live and I thought to myself, I believe this game has a chance. Time to crowdfund. The question is which platform? Kickstarter, or IndieGoGo? I knew Kickstarter was the 'default' choice but I'd also contributed to successful gaming campaigns on IGG, like Ghost of a Tale and Darkwood . And I knew FRONTIERS had some global / casual appeal, which could make IGG a good option... hmm, decisions. In one of those weird (not-so) coincidental moments, I got a phone call from IndieGoGo. They'd seen the trailer and wanted to extend a helping hand. They made a pitch that involv...

The one question I get asked more often than Can you build structures in game * is How can you make a game this big by yourself?  Or, if phrased less diplomatically, Dude there's NO WAY you can make a game this big by yourself. Crash and burrrrrrn, that's all I'm sayin! Part of the reason I'm running the crowdfunding campaign is because, frankly, they're right - I need to outsource some art and writing and possibly programming tasks to get this thing done by January. (Thank goodness the game is modular enough to permit this.) But in another sense they're wrong, not because I'm somehow doing the impossible but because the game isn't 'big' like they think it is. Oh the scale of the world is big - I've said so repeatedly - and there's a lot of stuff to find, and I've already talked about the structures, etc. But the game is 'big' in the sense that a basement-sized miniature medieval town made of Legos is big. The size is impos...

Some gameplay videos for your enjoyment. Just a few tidbits to whet your appetite for the proper trailer I'll be releasing in a week or so.

Time for Screenshot Saturday: Click to Embiggen Click to Embiggen Click to Embiggen Click to Embiggen

Expect a gameplay video soon. But until then I'll post screenshots every now and then. (Click to embiggen)

Last post: Dec 31st, 2012. What the hell happened? Two things. First, my wife & I moved into our first house - that's part of what motivated my self-imposed Christmas deadline, knowing that I'd lose most of January to the move - and second, I got busy on the newer 'leaner' Frontiers. Last time I posted I said I achieved my goal of a playable game by Christmas, but not without cost. Remember how Frontiers started as a Minecraft clone with a dynamic terrain engine, with survival elements built on top? Well around November I realized that if I was going to make this thing playable by Christmas, one of two things had to go - the survival elements, or the sandbox elements. Yeah, sucks huh. After a few tough nights of waffling I decided to ditch the sandbox elements. I salvaged everything else I could - the interface, interactivity engine, survival engine and art - and started over from scratch. The rest - eight painful months of development and an engine that was 80% the...

EDIT: The game has changed quite a bit since this ambitious start, so as  you read this keep in mind that I'm describing a product that doesn't exist any more.  When deadlines began to slip I ditched most of the tech I was working on and started over with an existing terrain engine. Alright. Today I'm  going to spill the beans about the game I'm working on. First, strap on your time travel helmets because it's time for a lengthy flashback. (Spoiler: the game's called FRONTIERS , and if you don't care about origin stories, skip the orange .) Still with me? Sweet. Way back in the early 2000s when I was still in college, I wanted to create a particle physics based game engine. I dubbed it the PPBGE. (Anyone who knows me will tell you, names are not my strong point.) I'll resist the temptation to get into the gory details, because there were only two bits that mattered. First, all geometry would be virtualized; world objects would be stored & manipulat...