Argus Computer Entertainment

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 19:26:26 -0400

As you all may of read in last weeks Dev Note Fridays, Puffer the Pufferfish has been suspended.

In the mean time we are continuing to evaluate a course of action to continue this project, being understaffed and not able to meet deadlines is a main focus of discussion as how we plan to compensate for this.

We are looking over all our options and taking aggressive measures to see these things through. Our company itself is well, but our project is in danger as the scope was meant for a small to mid size team.

One of our options is to work on a new project, an app of sorts to provide others with solutions to their needs. We are taking a focus to this area currently.

As we are software developers, web designers, musicians and artist we also can provide any number of these services to others. So we are currently looking into private clients to work with.

News and information is constantly coming in as we are being careful to delegate all our options.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 20:47:46 -0400

Hello everyone, it that time again for another Dev Note Fridays.

For the most part, Puffer the Pufferfish has been a slowing project as we have hit several snags that as evidently caused some major set backs. Because of these setbacks, our original plans and set deadlines to reach certain goals are no longer valid.

This is quite unfortunate as it will take a great momentum to get rolling again. It is almost like Murphy’s Law, what ever can happen will happen. In our case it has been a series of events that has set us back. Our artist have left due to medical reasons, one of our main computers failed due to a power supply, and it is for these reasons and more that the project have taken quite a hit.

We are still very much a company and still very much adamant about our Project but things will be quite slow if not stagnant till we can re-evaluate the situation and put a new plan into action to finish this project.

The key to any good start up is that you do no incur any debt, our debts have been quite minimal, which is a good thing. As the saying goes, don’t quit your day job. Argus Computer Entertainment and Puffer the Pufferfish has been very much a project of itself and a huge undertaking. We are a quite small company, 5 at the most, which is nice as we normally can work together and quite quickly. But small teams have its disadvantages as well. Many of these disadvantages are when things go wrong.

An employee becomes ill, it becomes harder to replace them; a computer breaks down; now you are spending the funds to repair it; there are allot of things which makes small teams a really big chore and undertaking for anyone managing it or on it. Of course, many of the reasons for this to be such a large undertaking is due to how young our company is.

Argus Computer Entertainment is very much in the Seed phase where most seeding is coming from the three F’s, Family, Founders, and Friends. Again, why you don’t quit the day job. Our efforts have been to move from this stage and into the stage which will be to crowd fund our project. Though as we have hit a few snags this, at this time, isn’t viable, which is why we are looking at the alternatives.

We will, as always, keep you all posted on any changes and any updates to our project. We might have to suspend activities for a while till we can build our momentum again, at least with Puffer the Pufferfish.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 07:52:33 -0400

The couple of weeks have been a trying time as we all here have been working diligently to finish up our final steps in finishing this milestone. We still have many ways to go before we can call it complete and progress has been slow at times.

This comes with the territory of being a small team as when your resources are stretched thin, it becomes harder to get work done.

With the Holidays coming up, so is the cold and the worst of it is flu and cold season, already a few others outside the team have fallen ill with head colds, lets hope the team doesn’t catch any of it.

We only have a few animation sets to finalize for the video part of the trailer video to be complete, then we move to the audio side. Our next milestone will be to try and kickstart our project then we will move to finish developing our game to fit multiple platforms.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 15:17:03 -0400

Due to recent events in Charlotte, our business has taken a hit as we lost a week due to high tensions in the area as well as many other local businesses. We try to operate online most of the time though with so many of us stretched across the United States, when one person is affected by local events, we all are affected.

We have tried to make back lost time and it hasn’t been easy. We are pushing for deadlines and every bit of delay is not helping our efforts. It has been one step forward and two steps back and this we are trying to overcome by putting in the extra effort to try and pull forward.

Our current video project is currently making some headway as the character animation for Puffer in scene 2 is complete. This is good news as it took three weeks for our team to finalize. Our next steps are to finalize the background art for the scene as well as with scene 1.

The efforts we all have been putting in is exhausting but we hope to have this video out soon so we can move towards the next major milestone.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 16 Sep 2016 02:57:14 -0400

When you are putting together an animation sometime one will forget exactly how much work it takes to set up a scene. It is when you get caught in your work when sometimes you can also not see some errors staring one right in the face. This is how this week has been around the office as it has been quite a challenge working to getting things done and not stepping back once in a while.

Some times you really do need an objective eye no mater how experienced you might be, having an outside eye has really been insightful into catching problems before they become any bigger.

We still have allot to do and we are still making do as much as we can till our lead artist returns. We have many parts of Scene 2 completed but we still have scene 1 which is being worked on now and one other minor part in scene 7. Minor might be an understatement as nothing in animation is minor.

So far we have accomplished allot and we are working diligently to continue to work on and prepare our video trailer.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 09 Sep 2016 09:20:22 -0400

We have been working to finish the last remnants of our video and trying to finalize all the scenes we are still not quite done with it and our only hold backs at this point are trying to finish a few key art assets for the video itself.

Of course we then will be going over the audio segment of the video as well which that portion is already underway as we are nearing completing this video. It won’t be released just yet as the timing for the video’s release will coincide with our kickstarter campaign.

We are also in the mists of putting together our kickstarter page and it is always a good practice to re-iterate several times and then iterate some more. After we think we have iterated enough then we will select a small group and share with them our kickstarter page and you guessed it, iterate even more. This will all go up to the final moments just before launching our kickstarter.

On other news, Gamemaker is on the Humble Bundle this week! We were able to nab these tools and assets for our team and given that each of us gets GameMaker Pro along with key exports, this is a value that can’t be beat!

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 02 Sep 2016 07:16:10 -0400

Here we are another Friday and we have been working on finishing the last scenes of the trailer video. We have about two and a half scenes to go just about and we are making progress even if it is a bit slow. Our lead artist is still out on medical leave so we each been working with all the skills we have to do what we can in the mean time.

We come to realize as well that we are killing two birds with one stone, figuratively speaking, no actual peacocks were harmed in the making of this video. In the sense,the story we are telling in our trailer will be told in our game. In other words we are recycling the footage for our cutscenes in the game. This gives us allot of flexibility but also adds in the benefit to tell our story in an inviting way.

After our video portion is finalized then our trailer will go off to audio which we will then add in the music, sound effects and any voice over work we might add, though this part will move along faster than the video part for sure.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:18:38 -0400

4 out of 7 Scenes in our Trailer video is finished. We have 3 more to go and there a bit longer and complex than the others.

This trailer is for Puffer the Pufferfish, our game as we understand videos are everything. In fact, videos account for 80% of your pull. Even Kickstarter themselves recommend a video for this very reason, so you can see why we too are creating one. This video will be re-purposed and retooled to how we feel fit, so we are really taking care to make our messages heard and understood.

It has been one crazy week too, we all been working hard at creating new assets not only for this video but for our game as well and rest assured we are making some great progress.

When we reach the end of this milestone in creating our video we will breifly refocus on our game, see what there is that we can do that we can squeese in, then we will focus on preparation and launch of our kickstarter. We have a bit of a ways to go before we get there, but we are ever so much closer to this next goal than what we were.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 09:14:00 -0400

This Friday has been long hours and hard work rendering minutes upon minutes of video and we still aren’t finished. One of our renders took hours to complete just due to the detail in animation we been doing.

Upon all the footage we been also taking various shots of game play footage and been preparing the footage by editing, splicing and stitching together the footage to create new scenes. There are a total of seven scenes not counting the opening and outro to our short trailer video and we have currently two and a half scenes completed. We hope to get anywhere from one to two more scenes finished by tonight. We are strongly pushing to get the video wrapped up by this weekend and we know that is quite a stretch.

Our focus is mainly on this video and consolidating all our plans for our kickstarter as there is allot that goes into building a strong campaign. We have over come two major milestones, that is putting together our demo, putting together our website and now we are in the mist of creating our video and then running our kickstarter.

We have come a long way from the beginning and from our project start have had allot of bumps along the way, as we could expect in any start up. It has been officially two years since the start of our project. Our company was founded a year after. We have had many join us and many leave as well, but we have stayed the course and are stronger than ever, even if we are small.

Puffer the Pufferfish will get an update sometime after we finish the video as we are trying to keep focused. We will get out the demo version which will have the option to change the language of the text in game, will have full animations on puffer himself as well as the angler fish and we will have a few other things in store as well.

There have also been a few people who commented about sea life and not enough in our demo, we understand that. Our game starts off in the abyss and our first boss encounter is an anglerfish and she is quite hungry. The abyss is a scarce place mostly devoid of much food and even oxygen. As Puffer explores more areas of the ocean there will be a change is sealife and it is all dependent on the area.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:43:02 -0400

Videos and the Learning Curve

Videos are fun, and they are even fun to create. This week we have all been working around the clock working on our own video, or may I add videos, for our game trailer. It is always exciting when you work scene by scene and start piecing it all together. Unfortunately, as with anything, there is very much a learning curve to be overcome when it comes down to anything outside our major field of expertise. As we mentioned before, we all have back grounds in the industry as we have come from working with many others in our time, mostly other indie companies.

When we decided to move away from the droning selective work of working under others, it not only has allowed us to pursue our own interests but allowed us to also explore and expand on our own skill sets as well. We all went from game developers to video editors, artists, musicians, business managers and leaders and in a short amount of time. It has been really interesting to see how far we actually came since the beginning of our project and really interesting to see where we are heading.

Having the freedom to learn and create has always been the greatest highlight in our company and learning new things has really benefited us as a team here at Argus Computer Entertainment. But learning and training always comes at a price. That is the price in time. The more you spending on teaching yourself and others the more time you take away from other projects that can be done. But training isn’t a bad thing. In fact when you can work with others and teach them you build greater bonds with your teammates as they are also eager to learn as well. And there is no greater reward than the satisfaction of achievement. You learn something, you do something and you look back at the result and every time; it is like landing a rover on mars for us.

We are a small company and as such it allows us to work closer together as a team, but the drawback is not everyone is an expert in everything. So we work hard and work together every day of the week to learn and expand our knowledge and skills and ever so more whenever someone might be out of the office, especially when they may fall ill.

Our Kickstarter Campaign

When our videos are finalized we will share them on all our social media channels and then we will fall back to our first milestone (our game itself) just to give it a glance over because our last milestone is kickstarting our game itself. As this will take in the most time and the most pull, and for obvious reasons, we are doing everything we can do to prepare us for the long journey ahead.

With Kickstarter campaigns, there is always a risk and as such we are planning everything as a contingency in case our Kickstarter fails. And of course we are also planning out everything if we are successful as well. Our primary goal is to get our game onto every mobile platform there is. This is Windows, Android and iOS. That being said, we don’t want to leave anyone out nor behind. Our secondary goals are to also hit the PC markets, Windows and Mac. To achieve these goals it will be ever so important that we run a successful Kickstarter campaign. As we near this next milestone we will be sharing more and more with everyone through all of our channels to keep you all up to date on all our progress.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 05 Aug 2016 16:59:33 -0400

Don’t you just hate it when your internet is slow? We do too. Very hard to get work done when your entire infrastructure is based around the internet.

This week we have been working hard to get our trailer put together and putting together all the scenes that we need. There is still allot of work to be done and allot of animation that is going into this trailer. This is only one of several planned videos as we are in planing for our kickstarter as well.

The Downloads for Puffer has sort of plateaued which is expected but never the less we will have a new build soon with our launch of our kickstarter and our videos to go along with it.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 21:11:16 -0400

This Friday we have been working more on our video trailer and piecing that together. As with last week we shared a glimpse of what we are working on, we are continuing to work on and touch up before releasing in officially.

There are still a few other things we are looking back on as well with other aspects we can improve. Along with the release of our trailer video we also plan for a new release of our game Puffer the Pufferfish which will include many new features, as we are steadily shaping our demo to reflect our vision.

An official announcement will go out soon after the video release which we will announce when we will be launching our kickstarter for Puffer. We are steadily making progress towards this goal as we need you and everyone who has been following us to give us your support so we can continue this wonderful project of ours.

We thank you all so much for liking us and following us and hope to continue to do what we love and what you all love too. Making fantastic games and content!

Dev Note Fridays

Sat, 23 Jul 2016 14:51:35 -0400

This is another Dev Note Fridays.

Due to recent world events this blog post had been delayed out of due respect to the incident which occurred over night in Munich. It is always tragic when ever we hear news like this, so we only wish to give our respects to those affected by this.

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This week we have been working hard in touching up our videos which we plan to release upon its completion. From our promotional videos to our campaign videos, both need to be well crafted, edited and finalized. Currently we are in the process of crafting the videos now.

After our videos are finalized we will then move to our final milestone, having our game Kickstarted.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 10:39:11 -0400

We have moved to pre-planning of our kickstarter campaign for Puffer the Pufferfish and preparation of it. As we continue to work on our visual materials, videos and other art assets, getting everything in order is our main goal.

There is still quite allot of work to be done before we reach our final milestone, after which our next major milestones will be set. There are many stops along out journey and many miles to go. We are almost at our first stop which our really journey will begin.

In other news Argus Computer Entertainment will be looking into the possibility of starting a Summer Internship program and will be looking working with colleges and schools with programs in Video Game Development. This will be in efforts to reach out and try to encourage the next generation of game developers. The details of this is still being worked out as it is still something we are looking into. Selection will be limited to only a few new members at this time through the colleges and schools we are trying to work with.

The interns that we do hire will gain a great experience and will get full credit for all their hard work and contributions.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 08 Jul 2016 17:02:47 -0400

It is another Friday and that means another day to tell all of you what we been up to this last week,

Storyboarding, Writing, and Editing. The little things that go into making a great video for our game. As we shared many of our milestones with the general public, we do so not only to tell you what we are up too but be encouraging to others to be creative in everything they do.

There is still allot of work to be had as nothing has been finalized just yet but we will hopefully be sharing a ton of new content quite soon. Puffer the Pufferfish, we have allot of plans for and as it is our first game, we want to make sure we put in a good effort.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:47:15 -0400

So This is another Dev Notes.

In case you lost your memo Https://www.ArgusComputerEntertianment.Com is our new website and we are doing our best to make this the new home for our news, blogs, and dev notes as well as our home for all our games and game content.
We want all you to visit and continue to do so as we bring you the latest content here first.

In other news we are working hard to create a video and we are putting together our campaign for Kickstarter which we hope to have very soon.

Puffer the Pufferfish is our first video game as Argus Computer Entertainment and so we want to encourage all of you to spread the word, like and share with all others. As this game is still underdevelopment we are listening to everyone’s feedback and taking all the suggestions to better improve all our games and products. We would like to be involved with the community just as much as have them involved with us.

This is why our demo is free to play right off our own website to encourage all your feedback. We will hope to set up many more channels to make it easier for your suggestions and feedback in the future and we are moving to be more engaged quite soon.

Our next big phase is our kickstarter so it is still a matter of getting all our ducks in a row and we are doing the best we can since our lead artist had become quite ill. We hope for her speedy recovery.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 03:55:04 -0400

Well it has been a long couple of months but it is finally here. https://arguscomputerentertainment.com

Our website! How Exciting. We hope with our site we can create a home for all of our video games, and entertainment as well as software. We have big plans for it so we hope to grow along with and that you will join us here to grow along with us.

Up dates to our games and content will be provided though our website as well as the latest news on all our development though our news page.

We have a Newsletter!

That is right fellow Argus Fans. We have set up a mailing list just for you! Each week you can receive via email a newsletter with all our latest news, change logs and beta releases for all our products. You will get the inside scoop of what we are up to as well as what the future holds for the many products and services we offer. It is completely free and you can opt out at any time.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 07:49:32 -0400

This has been an unexpected week.Soni, our Artist is on medical leave while our programmer is out sick. Meanwhile we are trying to pull together to get as much as we can with the limited resources that we have.

When you are a small team of developers, it is very important to wear multiple hats. The issue comes down to the pinch that is felt when one is picking up the work for others and this is what eventually slows down the work flow. Things will pick up again though will take a bit of time before hand.

In the meantime we are continuing to build the website and check for all the details before launch, which is very close. A bit of double checking is in order then it is sending it off to be indexed and making sure our efforts are bringing us good response. In tandem we are creating a video for the site as well as in preparation for our kickstarter. With so much it has been a slow grind in our efforts but none the less making great progress.

Dev Note Fridays

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 09:30:52 -0400

Once more it is Friday and here at Argus it has been quite promising as we prepare for the launch of our website. We are going over all the bugs that might be lurking in our site and trying to weed out any thing that might not function properly. This iteration is not our final iteration of the site as we plan great things for it in the future. This will be the desktop version as we will go back and create a mobile version as well.

Our next steps will be gearing up for our kickstarter and launching our campaign, of course this can not be done desultorily. Our progress have been diligent and forewrought in this matter even though at times it has been slow. We all are researching and putting together a plan which we will be following through quite soon.

Dev Note Fridays

Sat, 04 Jun 2016 00:37:45 -0400

Having a few computer issues today which is never good. Recently the local thunderstorms have also been quite problematic as well as there is Bonnie off the coast, even though it hasn’t been much an issue the afternoon TS storms have been brief but severe.

Tumblr has also been quite slow for us, we don’t know why just know that it has lead us to instead write here. We normally keep all dev notes on Tumblr as it is easier to archive and keep a blog.

As we move further in development of our game, we are ever so preparing for our kickstarter and we try to keep everyone updated as much as we can to where we are and of our plans. If you like our game, do help support us by spreading the word. We will greatly appreciate it.

Our website at this momment is near complete but we realize we can’t put a nail in it just yet. Most of our time with our website is in creating of the pages layout as much as programming all the links and navigation and we have o double check to make sure everything runs smooth. Then is the matter of SEO. What good is a website if noone can find you? So we will have to take care of all this and more.

Next is the video, this is not only a simple pitch as we prepare our kickstarter but also to show everything we been working on. This is our companies first game so we want it to be a hit. We can’t thank you all enough for your continued support and is why we need everyone more than ever to see our project though.

Thank you.