More Crunch and more Presentation

Wow, so the last post was about a month and a half ago, there goes my new years resolution :)

Anyway, a lot has happened since that last post.
Well, not a lot, but quite a bit.
I'm posting this after the most hectic work week I've had in a long time, probably the first since my university days.

After the last post we started working on our beta delivery, about a month of work, give or take.
This time around, after the shocker in the alpha stage, we decided to focus on one task and one task alone, and that was to actually show some gameplay.
We actually divided it into nice and small portions, so we could digest it properly.

One setback was the art, we got some pretty gruesome comments on the graphics, and we had to redo it.
So, first couple of weeks we redid what we actually already done in the alpha stage.

My portion consisted of creating a skirmish manager on the server side, and creating a simple AI on the server for simulation of our task.
The manager seemed pretty easy, at first, but as a I progressed it became harder and harder, lots of code, for a pretty simple thing.
Plus, PHP is a pretty crappy language when it comes to keeping a state.
Everything is getting erased all the time, from load to load during one session, and you have to constantly find those pitfalls, and save them.
The manager was done about two weeks ago, that's when I started on the AI thingy.
I wrote a bunch of code, and about a week before the delivery, I started testing it.
Suffice to say, it ran into an endless loop, corners had to be cut and features had to be removed.
On Saturday last week, I finally had it finished and working.

On Monday this week, we had a beta delivery deadline for the school project (sounds kinda kindergarteny, but I had no other name for it).
We worked ourselves to the bone, starting from Saturday last week until the deadline.
I can honestly say, I'm running on fumes.

Integration began Saturday last week, not exactly last minute but pretty damn close, again, apparently I haven't learned anything from the points I've noted to myself the last time.
This time I gave the client developer the messages I was going to use, before hand, hoping it will shorten the integration process.
Suffice to say, it didn't help much, this time the messages did not go through all that well from the server side.
Lots of work was put into the integration, (Sunday ended at 5:00AM), lots of feature cuts were done, but we had something to show, gameplay-wise, at the end of said Sunday.

Come Monday, we showed the "end product" to our tutors and they actually thought it was pretty good, they gave us some notes, and let us go home to catch up on our sleep.

The next deadline was really close but, it was today, the presentation.
As a part of the college's open day event, all projects of the program were displayed for the crowd to see and get an impression of the program.
There were also a talk about investors coming to find some new ventures, but I think it was mostly bullshit.

Anyway, on Monday we constructed a plan of what else we need to do to make it look better for the presentation.
My workload was quite a passive one, supervision of the client development, and fixing server bugs on the way.
If the weekend was hard, the weekdays were even harder: a full work day(9-6), then coming back home and heading out to work on the project.
Every day ended at 2:00AM/3:00AM and I woke up at 6:30AM the next day to go to work, It was a really rough week.

But all and all it was worth it, when today came we had a good looking version of the game to show in the project presentation.
I arrived late to the scene, everything was all set up, each project had its own table, and people were walking around and asking questions.
Our game did not get the most "traffic", but we did manage to interest some kids, which is always a good sign.
We got a lot of good feedback, plus, watching people play the game, we got an idea of what we should focus on in the coming months before the end of the school year.
Plus, it was really cool explaining random people about the concept of the game, and what it will be and its potential, people seemed genuinely interested, which is a good sign as well.

Uplifted I finished today with a big gasp for air, but at least this week is over.
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Now playing: David Gilmour - I Can't Breathe Anymore
via FoxyTunes

Crunch Time for Us

Well, we've handed in our alpha of the game.
It was a miserable defeat, our standard for the alpha was not even close to the teachers' standard.
But we promised ourselves, that this won't deter us from completing the game, or a good portion of it.

The alpha was due Monday (of this week).
All through the weekend before the alpha, I worked my ass of and the backend code, it was finally finished Saturday night.
I checked it in to my nifty little SVN, and uploaded the code to the actual site, where the game runs.
Then I went out for a drink and went to sleep a happy camper, not aware of what's going to happen the next day.

Sunday came along, some of the classes were canceled so, we had a good head start on the integration of the client and server, at that afternoon.
We started connecting stuff together, messages from the server were getting in and everything looked pretty good.

At about midnight, we uploaded the offline-working client to see how it works online.
It had some bugs to say the least, some stuff we haven't considered, etc.
Fix the bugs, re-upload, more bugs, rinse and repeat.
At about 1AM we actually made some really big changes to the code, it wasn't a really good idea, but things seemed to work after that.
At about 2:00AM we decided to try and access it from all 3 of our computers, simultaneously.
It didn't work, well, some of the computers works, others didn't, a pretty shitty situation considering this is an online multiplayer game.
We bashed at this problem until 3:30AM with no solution, we then wisely decided to leave it and come back to it in the morning, the hand in was at 11:00AM...

On the morning of the alpha hand in, we checked the game in the computer lab...
Same thing, some work some don't, eventually we just gave up, we decided to show the game from a computer that the game worked on and that's it.
As I said before the it wasn't pretty...
We were not very pleased with the outcome, it was pretty depressing to see all that dedication go to waste, but we will soldier on...

As for me, a few lessons were learned:

1. Don't leave the integration and deployment for the last day
2. I have to learn how to deploy a site
3. Put the goals of the project in relevance to the time given
4. If the project's milestones are not reached at their time, remove some features, don't continue as if nothing happened
5. Showing the core gameplay is very very important
   

anyway,

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Now playing: Silje Nergaard - Beachcomber
via FoxyTunes keeping on...

Actual Work Being Done

I'm glad to say that, the development on my game project for this studying year has commenced.
We (the team) have divided the work into parts, currently we have the following positions filled:

• Project Director
• Designers
  
• Art Director
• Server Programmer
• Client Programmer

Of course since this is a no-budget project, most of us are wearing multiple hats.
And let me tell you, it's not easy balancing those hats on top of your head.

a Little bit of History
We were 3 guys at the beginning...
We all started out as designers, trying to put the main game concepts in place, that took a couple of months worth of sessions.
Then we built up a work plan, already divided up into the relevant parts, and we started working at those parts.

Since we're all new to online-development, we started out by learning our subjects and consulting with our teachers on the best approaches to the game.
As we were studying (me and the client programmer), the 3rd guy was busy recruiting and directing the whole thing.
Later, our art department came to be with a 4th guy joining in the fun.
As he began getting art assets out, we actually started to see the real game, and all of a sudden we were in it.
We cut our studies short and we dived in, everybody had their niche and we began to really work (that was about two weeks ago :) ).

My Two Cents
My main position is the Server Programmer, so when I say coding was done, I don't mean I was programming any cool 3D graphics.
No, it was a pretty basic user access module, that I've written.

But I have to say that, even though it's just a boring little module, I was excited when I was writing it.
The reason being, it's our project, the same project that started as a thought, that we talked about in cars driving home from college, the same project we tinkered with weeks at a time.
And now, it was getting its first lines of code, that will eventually make it a reality.
The game we wanted, the game that will be!

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Now playing: Chorus of Tribes - Inception
via FoxyTunes

AAA Dreams

Recently I've been thinking of ideas for new games.
Just something I tend to do recently, probably all the inspiration and mind opening, I get from studying the subject.

The problem I'm facing, is that I can't stop thinking in AAA titles concepts.

What do I mean?
Every game I come up with has to be a AAA title, or it'll never work. It has to have the graphics, the sound and the environments in order to sell/succeed.
And that's a problem, mainly since in my little country, there're no resources for these kind of games.
But let's leave that aside, let's say I moved and I get the money for this AAA title.

The main problem in my opinion, is the fact that I can't come up with a novel concept or even a good one.

What does this have to do with the title?
This has everything to do with it, since in my opinion a good concept works with any graphics be it 2D or 3D, cheap or rich.
If the concept is fresh and good, then you don't have to distract people with shiny graphics, since the game itself is fun.

What are the conclusions?
Well, first of all, finding a new idea, innovating, is difficult and is not done very often.
What most designers do is iterate an old idea, and make it look new.
That's nice, but also requires a new mechanism inside the new game, that makes the new iteration better than its predecessor.

So I think I'll settle on thinking of a new mechanism on an old game concept for now, as an exercise, see where it leads.

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Now playing: Chris Botti - Back Into My Heart
via FoxyTunes

Thoughts on Online Projects

Recently I learned that the leaders of a long running project, I was a part of for a short period, openFrag, have stepped down due to lack of productivity.
Although the project is not officially closed, my experience tells me that, without the leadership it won't live on, and that's a real shame since the project was in an advance stage.
(if there's anyone out there interested in leading a great group of people, head on here).

I also learned that another project I was following, Project Wish, has closed its doors after 4 years of development, again a real shame.

All these events have triggered a post in my mind.

I'm a veteran of more than 4 projects like these, most of them ended in the same way.
I always looked to other projects to see if they are fairing better than my failing projects, and yes there were some that were still out there fighting to survive.
But now when I look at these projects and see, that they have crashed and burned just like all my projects it makes me wonder:
Do these kind of projects have any chance of making it?

Well, the answer is complicated, it all depends on your definition of "making it".
If your definition is creating a game and making money of it, than the answer is mostly "no".

On the other hand, if your definition is creating a finished product, then the percentage is higher.
We just have to look at The Silver Lining project, a project to create continuation to King's Quest, which is looking at a release date soon.
Is there a key to their success?
Well, I don't know, but form a purely observational point of view, their key to success is their project management, the project is lead by some very motivated individuals.
They put emphasis on community and from what I understand keep a tight shift and schedule, which gives its results.
Not to say that the team hasn't got anything to do with it, they're too motivated and passionate about the game's origins and it's current route.
But since the team can change during the lifetime of the project, it's important to keep a motivated and dedicated leading staff.

Getting back to our discussion...
I think that the best way to define "making it" in these kinds of projects, is by the learning experience.
Because let's face it most of these projects don't make it to a final product, the project depends on so much people form all corners of the world, it's tough keeping them in line, so they stop participating, they stop communicating and the project just stops.
So, I think these projects are a learning experience at best, if you get out of the project with a new thing learned, then you've made it.

So go out, find a project and join it, it's fun, you meet new people, and you learn new things.
Just keep the expectations from the end result low.

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Now playing: Norah Jones - Sunrise
via FoxyTunes

Global Game Jam 2009 Impressions

It is now 12:00 and I officially quit the global game jam.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about an explanation follows.

The global game jam is a worldwide event, in which game developers meet in different parts of the world, for a 48 hours session of game development.
The objective is to make a working prototype/game in the said amount of time, utilizing no sleep what-so-ever.
This is the first year it is held worldwide and in turn the first time it's held in Israel.

I decided to join this event thinking, I can really make it and have a finished game by the end of the jam.
Here's the problem, I don't know Flash or any other rapid prototyping platform, which is a problem when your are trying to create a game in 48 hours.
The only thing remotely similar to that which I know is Silverlight.

So innocently I tried to make a game in Silverlight, I had a graphical designer on my "staff", but that didn't help since Silverlight sucks at creating games.
There were a few problems I encountered:

• Silverlight doesn't have any movie clip component, that means that key frame animation is out of the door.
  Although eventually I did find an open source code that gives that ability the other problem killed me.
• Silverlight doesn't have an absolute coordinates system, another important feature for a game, especially the one that I tried to make which was a platform game.
  a Gaame like that involves a lot of collision detection, which is hard to do when you have no normal way to know where your objects are.

After battling with the game for about 27 hours, I finally decided to quit (the graphical designer quit a long time before I did :) ).
I'm still gonna hang in there till the final stretch, completing some homework I have, just to see the end results of some other people.

What did I learn in this event:

• I have to learn Flash
• I hate Silverlight
• Creating a game in 48 hours is tough
• Not sleeping in that time is tougher

In coclusion, the event was really cool, about 50 people came, a really large group for such a small country.
But, it was really frustraing not to get any real game done.

Maybe next year...

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Now playing: Dream Theater - Erotomania [Instrumental]
via FoxyTunes

SVN hosting, why not?

So lately I've been working a bit with my OpenGL project, it's pretty simple, compared to other projects I worked on.
But since I'm working from my laptop and my main computer simultaneously, I find the task of synchronizing between the two PCs every time a bit too boring and time consuming (yeah, I'm lazy).

So I thought:
- "Why not have the project source controlled?"
but then I thought:
"It's such a small project, why should I use a great big hammer like source control on it?"
But I also thought:
- "What the hell, I'll look for a free one if it's out there I'll use it, plus it gives me time to stop working" (did I mention I was lazy?).

I had some experience with looking for a free source control site, and I knew it wasn't easy, but things change.
I also knew to search for SVN hosting, since it's the most popular form of source controlling these days, overthrowing CVS.
Right off the bat I found this link, that sums up the top 10 free SVN hosts, and the coolest one was xp-dev.com, 1.5GB storage, issue tracking, and project management all for free, plus everything's private (not that trivial). That's pretty cool for a free service to say the least.
Anyway, I'm just starting to use it but it's pretty easy to use, so giddy-up!

Since the project is written in Java with Eclipse, I had to integrate the SVN source control into Eclipse, quite an easy task right now, thanks open-source community!
Anyway, the plugin I use is Subclipse and it does the job for me.

I'll be happy to hear about other services/plugins you might have for me.

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Now playing: Silje Nergaard - Diner
via FoxyTunes

Happy New Year 2009!!!

Well, I did it, I made it through another year of blogging.
I looked back a little and found out I started this blog in 2006, wow, that seems like ages ago.
Although 2007 wasn't a very bolgy year (no posts at all), 2008 was year of the blog in my book, I've made the most posts in this passing year.

The Reviews
The reviews started pouring from my keyboard this passing year, already 2 reviews in a non-reviews blog, that's quite an achievement.
It's a real achievement for me, since I'm quite a lazy person. So to write a review, not even a lengthy one, is quite an achievement for me.

And what about my goal? becoming a game developer, remember?
Well, this year I destroyed some more internet-based game development projects, with my bare hands!
Just joking, I did participate in some new projects this year, although none of them really took.
The major break in this direction is me going to study game design, although it's not the "MSc abroad" I wanted to go for, but for now it's OK, I'll take it slow.
Now I'm working with other people on a game, in person I might add, and I'm writing a mini-game of my own.

Game of The Year
Well, a lot of games have been made this year, I only covered two of them in my blog, but I played a lot more, and choosing just one for this year is a bit hard.
I know GTA:IV just came out and I just started it, so I can't judge it.
So up until now I can say that the best game was Call of Duty: World at War, I won't elaborate, it was just beautifully executed, that's all.

Blog Music Artist of the Year
I don't know if you noticed or not, but I keep putting the FoxyTunes tag at the end of each blog post, that is to keep track of what I'm listening to, and to give some publicity, to FoxyTunes and the artists (like they need my publicity).
So the artist most listened to while posting is.... Dream Theater, congrats.

New Years Blog Resolution
Well, for the new year, I want to keep blogging at least at the currently achieved rate, which is not that high.
Plus, I'd like to get some audience, I keep thinking that there are people reading this blog, although I'm pretty sure there aren't any, well if you are out there, sound off damn it!

From me to you, have a great New Year!!!

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - On the Mend
via FoxyTunes

Wiki for the Masses

I've just created a wiki for the project I'm working on.
This is a very useful tool I picked up on the Assyira project.

The new host I've found is Netcipia, it's a free wiki host (or wiki farm as Wikipedia refers to it for some reason), it gives a 2GB storage in the site, unlimited collaborators, a decent WYSIWYG editor and private wiki support.
And that's the key, the private wiki, there are many free wiki hosting sites out there, some even give you more storage, but most of them are designed to give access and share information.
But, since this is a private project, whose data is not for sharing, at least not at this point, private wiki is a feature I was looking for.

As a project tool, a wiki can be very useful, it's mainly used as a place to put all your thoughts in and collaborate on documents and ideas.
I believe it's a must, when the project is internet based, like most of the projects I worked in up until this point, since people are not in the same place and need to collaborate in some other manner, think of it as a virtual office space.
When people are in the same place, like the current project, it's a great advantage, since all meetings are written down in the wiki and there's no need to keep track of constantly updating documents, no need to send the documents, just log-in and get all the updates.

I find the wiki helpful especially in the design phase of a game, it gives you a place to store all design ideas, design documents drafts and finally the design documents themselves in their final form.
After the design phase, the design part of the wiki can give you a great start for the public wiki, a place where people can get more information about your game.
This public wiki is created for some games, that usually contain a lot of information that can't be all put inside the game.

Anyway, from my current experience a wiki can be a great tool for every project that has a team of people working on something all together, and I recommend it.

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Now playing: David Gilmour - Cruise
via FoxyTunes

More real then game

WOW, long time no posty...
That's mainly since I was busy doing some RL stuff, which obviously do not interest you.

On the OpenFrag front, I'm trying to get back into it after a short recess, nothing new here.

On the RL front, I'm currently trying to sign up to a college in Israel, that provides a Game Design studying program, hope I get in.
It might be a good starting point for a gaming career, I should've done it ages ago, but better late than never, right?

Anyway, hope to keep blogging soon, for now, cya.

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Now playing: Dream Theater - Pull Me Under
via FoxyTunes

Work Work

Just a quick update...
Still working for openFrag, if you were wondering, which is pretty fun.
I've been largely working on designing and inserting GUI elements that are needed in the game, which is probably the best thing I can offer at the moment, sort of an out-of-the-box experience :)

But I'm planning on moving on to different bits of code, soon, I hope, as soon as I finish up the rest of the much needed GUI elements.

I can honestly say that, I was really happy when I got to commit an actual change into the openFrag game.
This is probably due to the fact that up until now, I wasn't really programming/developing a game, I was researching, leading, planning and probably every possible thing except actually developing a game.

Anyway have a good week...

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Now playing: Grand Devil Opera - Survivalism
via FoxyTunes

Quick Plug

Aside from being a part of openFrag, I'm also a part of a small team with a guy from work, in the development of a cool LAN based WPF poker game.
This game utilizes .NET 3.5 and it's new GUI framework named WPF.

In this game I dabbled in my other passion, graphic design, it's also a part of my game design craze, but a smaller part.
Anyway, I did the graphic design for a lot of the stuff in the game, especially the card designs and the main game screen design.
I think it looks pretty good, and we put a lot of work into it.

We are trying to win a contest with this project, so if you are reading this go and download the game, it's totally free. This way you'll help yours truly and help me win a contest.
Thanks in advance...

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Now playing: David Gilmour - Out Of The Blue
via FoxyTunes

Open Frag

I joined the openFrag team two days ago (didn't take me long to move, huh?).

The fact is I found this project some time ago, when I was looking for help with Yake.
I contacted those guys, as they are probably the only project that really uses Yake.
I was watching the progress of the project ever since, and they had quite a progress.

Anyway, the openFrag initiative is a really cool place, they have quite a lot of projects going simultaneously.
The main one being an open source game engine and the first game on it will be their own Broken Alliance.

The entire project is open source so it's a bit chaotic, not really structured like I'm used to, but they manage, as they told me.
I'll start by helping them out with GUI stuff, which I probably can help most in, but I hope to branch out later on.

Anyway, that's the update for now, have a good weekend.

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Now playing: Eric Clapton - I Ain't Gonna Stand For It
via FoxyTunes

I QUIT!

Well, not entirely, but definitely from Assyria.

As you might have noticed, I haven't been really working in the project lately, and to tell you the truth the entire project wasn't moving all that much.
Anyway, a few days ago the project leader announced he found the funds to open up a real studio in the UK.
The plan is to put Assyria on hold, create a casual game, to pay for more stuff there and then continue with Assyria.

Personally, I don't really see myself participating in that, maybe if I was in the UK, I might have gone for it.
So, I wished them all the best sent in my leftover code, and parted ways.

Now I'll be looking for the next project, I already have some projects in mind, but none that hired me yet.
Wish me luck...

Time for reflection

Hey all...

It's a va-ca time, it passover this week, and I have a week off.
Happy holidays to everybody.

Project Assyria is not progressing at all, and I'm quite worried about it.
But, it gives me time to reflect on my current situation, maybe look over some possibilities for a new project to participate in.
Definite candidates I'll be looking into are: openFrag and Project Wish.
Two very promising projects, which I've been following for quite some time.
They both are in very progressive stages, so it's time I kill those projects :D
Just joking, of course, I'll be looking into them, because they'll give me a good chance to just get some experience under my belt.

Plus, lately I've been tossing around some game ideas in my head, so I want to look into those too, see if there's a real game in there somewhere.
Maybe it's time for me to start my own project, maybe, I don't know yet.

Aside from all that, I've been obsessing over Assassin's Creed lately, a really good looking game, and an interesting one as well.
I might throw in a game review for that one on my next post.

Anyway, cya around...

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Now playing: Eva Cassidy - Bridge Over Troubled Water
via FoxyTunes

Small Update

Well, today I got the notice, that I did not qualify to become a beta tester in The Silver Lining.
Oh well, never mind that then.

On to newer and better things.

Hard Times

I'm tired...
Assyria has been in a stuck state for about 2 months now, wow, time flies.
Anyway, I've seen this state before, too many times :)
This is the sound, a dying project makes, I know, I've been through a few as you can tell.

The main problem, as I see it, is miscommunication (the usual).
The problem is that, the management thinks they can communicate in IM all the time, and everything will be alright, but timezones definitely don't allow that to happen.
The obvious solution is to use e-mail, but although I tried it some times, it's not catching up.
I hope the project is not dead, but it might be dead to me, since I can't just sit around doing nothing.

I did manage to create some scripts for the project, but it seems like it's not going to be used.
Another strike and I'm out.

Anyway, currently I'm waiting for this situation to resolve itself, or get resolved by the management.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to get into the beta test of the highly anticipated (at least by me) game, The Sliver Lining, hope to get in, maybe that will be my next project.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I hate moving all the time, it sucks.

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Now playing: Gary Moore - Left Me With The Blues
via FoxyTunes

Delay in Development

This weekend I didn't get a lot done...
That was mainly because it's holiday season here in Israel, and I celebrated the coming of the new jewish year all weekend with my family.
It was fun, but as I said before I haven't got much done.

I did manage to create some logos for our company, only to find some logos were already created...
Well, I'll see what will come of that.

Anyway, tomorrow I have a day off work, so I'll try to get as much things done as possible, so I'll keep up with the schedule I've set for myself...
Hope to have another post tomorrow.

Trainging Continues

When I joined the FarFallen team, my first task was to pick a game engine that will suit the needs of the game, the engine that I picked out, from the vareity of open-source engines out there, was the Yake engine.

One major flaw in that engine, is the fact that it's relatively new and does not have proper documentation and manual.
Due to that fact, I started learning about the Yake eninge and how it works through different examples and its code, which is a rather tedious work.

The first task I set for myself, was to learn everything I can through one of the examples provided with the engine and write it up in a document.
Meaning, I don't just go through the example and see what it does, but I also try to go as deep as possible into the core of the engine and see what makes it tick.

Although the example itself is a pretty basic one, it's taking a long time to finish it, since everything in it is new to me, and everything has to be looked into in-depth.
The writing of the document itself is also taking quite a while, since I want the document to be as informative as possible and yet easy to understand.
I'm writing the document that way, since I want it to serve as a first reading material for any new programmers that will join the team, plus it might serve some purpose for the Yake community.

Yesterday, I continued my work on the document and made some noticeable progress, I hope to finish it soon, since it's taken a long time already in my opinion.
Well, I'll go back to work now... ;)

First Post...

Hello to all readers...

This is my first post in my Blog, I just wanted to say something about this blog and myself...

I called this blog "Game Developer in The Works" since this what I consider myself to be at this point in my life...
Recently I've graduated from University and got my B.Sc. in Computer Science, and I didn't know what to do next.
Up until that point, my life was pretty planned out, "go to school, got to university, get a job" and now I actually had to think about what I'm going to do with my life...
Well, I decided to merge my interest in video games and my profession and decided to become a game programmer...
As I found out becoming a game programmer is harder than I thought, especially due to the fact that I live in a country where games are just not developed, that's a problem right there...

But I decided not to give up on my goal, so now I'm working at a full time job as a programmer in a mainstream company, gaining experience and cash, hopefully I will eventually
have enough knowledge and cash to move to a place where I can pursue this goal...

Meanwhile, I'm not just sitting around waiting for the game industry to come up to me and ask me to join them, I'm trying to do the best I can from where I'm at...
I've recently joined an Indie-Game development company named FarFallen, I'm a Lead Programmer in that company and I hope to learn as much as I can while I wait for my opportunity...

So this blog will follow me in my attempt in making it as a Game Developer, it will also serve as an inside look into my side in the development of FarFallen (without disclosing any inside info of course :) )

I hope that some readers will stay along for the ride...