I’m not a superstitious person, but as a businessperson I’ll hedge my risks wherever I can.

According to a Japanese prophetess, I’m due to have a “medium bad-luck year” in which I must take great care with any new endeavors I start.

By her same divinations, 2010 was a “peak good luck year”. That was the year I graduated at the end of a two-year educational ordeal and launched the Dark Acre. I suppose the execution of that leg of the journey could be construed as the result of “peak good luck”; personally I’d put it down to careful planning and a ton of hard work.

But like I said, I’ll hedge the risks.

So what does that mean for production at the Acre? As some of you may know I’m currently engaged in three major projects: Zero Zero, Prevengeance, and the Child. Recently, as a result of limited success with Unity 3D’s “Flash in a Flash” competition, a 3rd prototype awaits further development in the form of CHASSIS.

All four of these projects were planned and started prior to January 1st, putting them outside of the range of the evil prophecy. I’m not entirely certain if the stipulations of my doom include continuing work on them, but I owe it to my current partner on Prevengeance to ship that particular bird regardless.

Mana from Heaven

It’s no big secret that I haven’t collected a paycheque since October 2008. I’ve gotten used to it.

I worked in a Japanese restaurant when I was younger, for most of my late teens and early 20s. My boss would constantly talk about how the shop was like a life-raft, adrift in turbulent economic seas, and to quit without preparation would be like casting yourself at the mercy of those waters. The thought of “leaving the boat” was almost nightmarish.

That’s why I scrimped and saved and pinched every single yen I could for 5 years before embarking on this grand indie adventure. I wanted to build as solid and dependable of a life-preserver as I possibly could.

Until winning the TELUS contest back in November, the Acre hadn’t yet seen any real financial return. That was the first big cash influx, and those funds have been earmarked for Unity 3D iOS deploy licenses. That win pushed Dark Acre’s capacity ahead by at least a year, possibly more. In the original plan I’d intended to spend the first 2 years pooping out little projects here and there while getting comfortable with the whole process of making and deploying games, hoping to gain small amounts of income from web-deployed projects, eventually earning enough to cover the costs of Apple development.

Well, there’s been a second “windfall”, this time in the form of private investment. It’s not a massive sum, by any means, but it’s enough to allow the purchase of a second, state-of-the-art computer workstation and full licenses for 3D rendering software.

The thing that I feel will end up distinguishing what Dark Acre produces from the majority of other amateur independent releases will be the quality of the presentation. While many independents are finding great success with sprite-driven and “chip-tuned” 2D projects, the Acre wants to focus on offering the highest level of 3D visuals and full-suite audio. Modeling, texturing, animation, music, and sounds all need to be of a quality worthy of the player’s time and money. This only serves to enhance and amplify the quality of the overall game design. It’s not a binary equation of either/or. I firmly believe that, if the developer believes they have the capacity for it, why not produce the most lush experience possible for their players?

To that end the bulk of 2012 will be spent in intensive training targeted at gaining mastery over software packages like Mudbox, 3D Studio Max, and Motionbuilder. Additional training in Allegorithmic’s Substance Designer and close work with Quixel’s nDo2 will round out the visual production. More time spent composing audio in FL Studio X alongside Retronyms stellar TableTop will boost audio quality. And weekly practices releasing small projects for the Darkade will keep the Unity3D skills tight.

2012 is going to be a long year in terms of training. While we might not see many big game releases it’s important to understand that Dark Acre is running a marathon, not a sprint. We’re watching trends and keeping a strong grip on the pulse of the industry, picking our battles carefully and waiting for the right moments to take whatever opportunities come our way.

Thank you for your continued support. I hope you’ll follow us through whatever channels you use, be they Twitter, Facebook, or Google Plus. (You can also follow/list my personal Twitter if you want some deeper insight into the mind of a solo independent game developer)

Stay tuned, and expect big things.

I present a completely arbitrary, subjective, and biased opinion of the game I enjoyed the most in the year of twenty and eleven. I do this because every gamer does this and I’m a sucker for fitting in and fostering a detached sense of belonging.

The Opinion

For me, this title (and franchise) has been both bane and boon. In my year at Vancouver Film School I heartily railed against its success, as futile an exercise as any, puzzled by the amount of money that gamers were spending to shoot the crap out of each other.

Stupid, really. The answer is that it’s tremendous fun, and the team(s) that have toiled on this franchise over the years have done an exemplary job of crafting as visceral a man-shoot as you could want.

Certainly, certainly! DICE has pushed the technical envelope further with their penultimate team-based shooter Battlefield 3. You’ll never get me to argue against the digital glory that experience provides, both visually and sonically. However, the damn thing won’t run properly on my machine, whereas MW3 boots in a handful of seconds and without complaint.

The graphics of MW3 might be a little dated, if you care about such things. What I care about is getting heads under crosshairs and watching bodies hit the ground when I squeeze the trigger. That’s the core loop for me, and MW3 has that locked down to a science.

Unlike the majority of folks that outright dislike and criticize the franchise, I was capable of following the plot of the series. While the ultimate conclusion left a little to be desired, it had to end somewhere and as far as endings to video games go it was utilitarian. But it did end the narrative, and that’s worth noting.

As a somewhat intelligent middle-aged guy, I enjoyed Modern Warfare’s story for two main reasons. First, at every turn it provided reason for the violence. Not everyone requires rationale to deal death in video games, and to be honest I don’t usually go looking for excuses either, but when a game is presenting reasons, and trying to inform the player of the world beyond the scope and bang-bang of the core game loop, I think that it’s important that those reasons make sense.

Second, despite carrying the stigma of being a formulaic, uninnovative, yearly cash-grab, Modern Warfare has always taken chances with its single-player campaign narrative. From the protagonist switching and killing, to the plays on time (done exceptionally well in the mission that uses post-modern devices to show the player the future and then take them back 20 minutes), to the morality juggling mission decisions. Yes, it’s heavily scripted, and yes you are led by the nose for much of the story, but the scripting is some of the best ever produced for a video game, and the action is consistently intense and engaging.

So, yeah. I liked Modern Warfare, and I liked the third iteration the best. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of the people who have taken up opposition against it without even trying it would enjoy it as well, if only they could get over themselves long enough to pull the trigger.

The latest testing version of the software that I use to make games with can make a version of my games in Flash.

The rationale behind this is to get away from the stigma of installing the Unity webplayer plug-in. Some users have big reservations about installing additional web software to make things work in their browsers. The reason Flash gets so much love is that it’s been around forever and has a huge install base because of its longevity and widespread use.

Regardless of reasoning, Unity is holding a two-week long game development contest with a grand prize of $20,000 USD.

Why?

Having just come off of a very successful Ludum Dare 48, I felt like the timing was right. My engine was hot and with the Project Prevengeance artist/designer otherwise occupied, the timing couldn’t have been better.

Plus, I like money.

When?

Completed and awaiting judgement. The contest ended 1 month, 12 days, 18 hours, 14 minutes, 10 seconds ago.

How?

Of course I’ll be using the usual tools, and keeping it as simple and stripped-down as possible. You can follow the progress by subscribing to my YouTube channel or coming back here and watching as more progress videos are added below.

I’ll be keeping this as the top post here on the Acre until the contest runs its course.

Day 0

• Built a “stress test”.

Day 1

• Decided on an overall game-type.
• Divided build into two play sections.
• Started work on the first section, the Shop.

Day 2

• Labor.
• Labor.
• More labor.

Day 3

• By the end of day (post-video) Shop Mode was functional.
• Started on Battle Mode.

Day 4

• Pushing hard to get to gameplay.
• Got basic movement pathing working.
• Build -> Battle transition working.

Day 5

• Improved pathing based on chassis movement limitations.
• Army piece placement based on army point limitations.
• Modeled the tier 0 particle cannon.

Gameplay 0

Day 6

• Refactored selection/indication scripts.
• Improvement movement path handling.
• Set individual movement paths on a per-piece basis

Day 7

• Played Eclipse!
• Refactored flag system, tightening up pathing entry.
• Created collision for weapon targeting and damage.
• Finalized “commit” mode, starting movement and causing damage.

Day 8

• Enabled 2 player hot-seat play.
• What, that’s not a day’s worth of work?
• Fine. Also enabled battlefield camera movement.
• Happy?

Day 9

• Fixed path-setting for 2-player mode.
• Saw quickfingerz early entry video.
• Cried a little.
• Resolved to keep doing the best I could and see what happened.

Day 10

• Closed the game loop.
• Added accounting functions and “game over” conditions.
• Started modeling/particling.

Day 11

• Particle systems in.
• 1 robo set modeled and animated.
• Weapons systems improved.

Day 12

• Developed overall accessibility.
• Improved GUI and visual cues.
• Modeled more stuff.

Day 13

• Started on the post-mortem.
• Put some audio in.
• Expanded the accessibility.
• Labored.

Day 14

• Finalled the game with a lot of help.
• Joshua Kaplan of Open Heart Sound crafted two gorgeous tracks, “Title/Resolution” & “Deploy”.
• Jordan von Trask built an excellent military-march for the Build Phase.
• Sven Bergström, a.k.a. FuzzYspo0N, rendered the amazing background images.
• Sundry bug-fixing and deploying.
• Submitted on time.

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Screenies

Collected screens I’ve been posting to Twitter:

Flash in a Flash

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