Ramblings of BlackLamb

STO Train Coming

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:30:00 GMT

Another game in the shoot. Well my second MMO in one year period is coming out in less than a month and boy is this a big one not just in expectation but also in size, over 8 gigs. Thankfully the second game is much easier to get out because the platform is all ready made and most of the work is in content. It also means most of the launch kinks are done with.

The cool thing about this game is I am really a fan. I have loved Star Trek my whole life and now I have been given the change to be part of its history. I just hope we don't make a mess of it. One thing about making games is you look at your game so much from early levels to finished product and you start to fail to see how good or bad it is. So one word of advice to inspiring game makers is to let others play your game as you get close to being done and listen to there advice. This will help you fine turn your game.

Wow!!!

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

I am no way an artist though my wife is. Looking around on the XNA forums tonight I found this video of someone modeling a ship in ZBrush. All I can say about it is WOW!!!

Whiteboards at Game Studios

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:45:00 GMT

I was reading a article on Joystiq were they has some photos of a tour of Blizzard and they had a few different photos of some of the whiteboards in the office and it made me realize that art all over every whiteboard is a universal game studio thing. The last few studios I have been at have always had similar art all over any unused space on the whiteboard mix in with complex data structures. So for my current office i thought I would share one such board.

Assets

Mon, 11 May 2009 00:15:00 GMT

Getting assets you can use free and clear in your game is always a little tricky and an area where lots of independent game makers mess up. For Raptor Revenge I am lucky that I can get all the art done in house. But that leaves me with two other asset types I still need to buy or find free royalty free assets, they are sounds and fonts. Yes fonts, you can't just use the fonts on your PC they are not licensed for redistribution so you either make your own, yuck, or thankfully Microsoft has some that are licensed just for XNA games. As for music I found a site with a good amount of free music but also inexpensive CDs of loops I can buy for my projects. They are called Partners in Rhyme. The last part about assets in your indy project is look closely at the tools you are using most of the student and free versions are just for learning and your not allowed to use it on a commercial project. Rights about assets are always a tricky area and it is best to keep your nose clean when using them because it sucks to be sued and have your new game pulled down for copyright infringement.

Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects Download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia project today at Partners In Rhyme.

Raptor Revenge Alpha

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:15:00 GMT

Sorry this is about a week late but last Tuesday Raptor Revenge hit what I consider it's Alpha state. That means all the game play elements are in, they may not be skinned and it may currently only have 4 levels and one placeholder cut scene but code wise all the major parts are in. Other than the platformer engine we have the ability to control the game flow like loading a cut scene at the end of a level then when it is done the next level loads. We also put in a High Score board the will connect if your logged in to xbox live and pull in high scores from others all around the Internet. Another item is Awards that you can earn for actions in the game. And of course we have the game state code all in for menus and attract screens and buying the game if it is in demo mode. So now we will start marching to a Beta level release of the game where 90% of the content is compete and same with all the levels. After Beta we will be going into polish mode to make it the best game we can.

Raptor Revenge

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:15:00 GMT

The game has a name Raptor Revenge. All I have to say is revenge from what? Also the progress is going well on this even though we are only a two person team living under one roof we still use source control and a ticket/bug tracking system. This has helped us track our progress to the first alpha milestone (basic gameplay and features) and also the longer term goals (beta, story complete, code complete, asset complete) Seeing the little green bar move as we get closer to the deadline helps a lot and encourages us to keep going. I look forward to talking more about this as we have more done.

Working on a new side project

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Well I have started making good progress on another side project game that I may release on Community games. All I can say about it is it has Space, Raptors, and Hamsters. I have a very good proof of concept done and I'm currently working with my wife for the art and level design. Stay tune on this blog to get updates on this new game. We hope to have a beta out by the end of the month.

Moving and how it affects my game development

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Last week my wife and I moved to a new apartment closer to my office. The nice thing about this new apartment is the living room is much bigger and has allowed me to move my desk and computer into the living room behind the couch. The nice thing about this new setup is it allows me to be out in the living room and hanging out with my wife while I code. I realized why I was not getting any traction on my projects and that was because I hated being in my office alone after a long day at work and never sat down to code on a nice computer with a big monitor. Instead I was cramped up on the couch with my laptop and would start to hurt with any large amount of typing.

Stay tuned to this blog because I hope now that I have this new setup I will start making games of my own again soon and will start talking about my adventures on this site.

XNA Community Games Numbers

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

Gamasutra has posted some of the numbers different small developers have given them concerning the revenue they have gotten for the games they have made on the Xbox Community games. I can's say that I am surprised by how small the numbers are because I don't think a lot of people know about them and weeding through all the crap games on there also make it hard to find. You can read more about it here.

Public Beta Tests

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:30:00 GMT

Public Beta Tests of MMO's are a weird thing. They are part marketing, part load testing, and a small part real bug testing. I think most of the players do not realize that there job is not to find bugs, that's what the QA department is for, but rather to stress the servers and give gameplay feed back. One other thing I see is players complaining that the developer are not reading what they write in the forums. They are they really don't have times to respond to all the posts and also a lot of companies have policies in place that keeps them from responding as well. Hopefully I have cleared the air a bit on what is going on during games beta testing.

How to get your start

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:00:00 GMT

I thought I would start writing a little about what my typical day is like as a Associate Producer. I'm sure there are people who want to get into the games industry who may find this interesting and maybe some others who are at other studios who also my wonder is there job is any different. I plan on trying to write these for every day in the work week but we will see, I do hate writing some times :) With that said I give you Monday:

My typical Monday

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Motivation

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Motivation is something I have been having a hard time finding when it comes to making my own games and programing. I believe a lot of this is work. As some if you may or may not know I work professionally on games all day, and some times into the evening :) I hope when both games I am currently working on for "work" ship then maybe I will start to have time to work on my own stuff for fun. I mean I pay $99 a year to play on the 360 so I should use it right. Anyways I hope to start writing more and maybe talk more about what I do for a living, with out giving out details that will get me in trouble at work.

Long time no post

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:30:00 GMT

I know it has been a while since I last posted on this site, with the hunt for a new job and them cramming tons of new information into my head so I can do the new job has keep me from writing on here at all. So were does this leave me and what have I done on my projects. Nothing really sadly My Space RPG has been put on hold for now and I am instead going to help guide my wife in making her own game instead. As soon as she has some good ideas we can post I'll be sure to share them here and hopefully make progress on this project.

Space RPG Game

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:45:00 GMT

I love what Microsoft is doing with XNA, I remember sitting in the front row of the Seattle convention center the day that Microsoft announced that they where releasing a game development framework that would allow home hobbyist the ability to build games that would run on the Xbox console at home. At the time this fit into the business plan, of a casual game company, I was writing for school and possibly going to use for a real company.

Fast forward to today, I ended up not doing my business plan when i graduated because I decided I needed more experience working at real game studios to build connections to the industry. Now I'm finally working on a game for the community games initiative that Microsoft has coming out soon for the Xbox. The game I have decided to make is a old school 2D RPG game kinda of the original Zelda style, but instead of the typical fantasy story we will have a Sci-Fi theme. I am hoping that I can get this game done before the official launch of XNA community games. I thought I may document my progress on this and start it off with my early design specs.

Space RPG Game (working title)

Use the RPG starter kit as base
Fit in the 150MB limet for XNA community game
Model characters in 3D then save out as 2D sprites
Hevely modify base engion to add side quest and forked quest trees
Posibly add multiplayer
4 to 5 hours of game play

Welcome

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 15:00:00 GMT

I welcome any one who stumbles upon this site, my name is Brent and I have decided to start writing about my insights, experiences, about games and the games industry. I may also go into other subjects from time to time but this will mostly be about games. I also am planing on making this a site that will have lots of links to XNA related information as that has been something I have enjoyed playing with since it came out. Again welcome and enjoy the ride.