Dev Diary 1:On the Subject of Second Chances and Lessons Learned
The above image is kind of a lie. It is an image that straddles two worlds: the Game That Was Not and the Game That Will Be.
The game in question is ORIGINAL FIN, and it has somehow ended up becoming the vehicle for my thesis.
You may remember something about a game called BADLANDS and mechanical dinosaurs. I'm so sad to let that go because dammit that was a TV pilot I'd been sitting on for two years and I really hoped that story would see the light of day. But as it turns out, the technology and proof-of-concept I developed for my thesis project works best when it's plugged into a game experience that is nothing more than any game you'd expect to play. Of course there is a surprise gooey center when you discover the game has been tracking your actions and profiling you as a player in order to customize the story, but that's beside the point for the time being.
It just made more sense to focus my energies this next six months on the story engine and not take valuable time to design a completely new game.
Especially when there was a totally-designed game that represents one of my only regrets thus far in this program. That damned game should exist by now. And so it is going to. Of course there are some changes.
Making the transition from a gorgeous open-world 3D Xbox 360 game with sexy shaders and physics and crap to a more modest 2D game has caused me to reflect on some of the mistakes we made the first time around and so I thought it would make for a good inaugural installment in what I promise is going to be a more regular series of updates on my progress.
Mike and I gave a presentation at the May semester-end seminar covering some of the 491 class' postmortem thoughts, but some bear repeating and additional discussion. So here we go:
LESSON #1 - On Scope
If you think you’ve scoped your game down to a manageable size… you are wrong. You are wrong, wrong, wrong. The wrongest wrong that ever wronged.
Tracy will tell you that I have a problem with scope. I am trying very hard to fix that problem. What it has come to mean for me is priorities. When I think about what we wanted to accomplish with the 3D game, we wanted constructable weapons, optional violence only, telekinesis, unique conversation versatility, and the majesty of scale and the accompanying thrill of swimming through a 3D world. Only one of these things required a 3D engine. We all deserve a big smack in the head with a frying pan for not seeing that we could have come so much farther had it not been for the hubris of wanting a 3D game like we so loved playing at home.
So now I'm deving in XNA, or really, Torque X on top of XNA and it's going to be a 2D game. Or... really, 2 1/2 D. There's going to be a neat trick with depth that should be ready in the next build. More on that later. And of course, the 3D assets are being used to generate sprites for the game. In fact, the image at the top of this post is compiled from all the assets used to build the new game. I just couldn't resist tilting the camera and rendering out a cinematic angle on it.
Telekinesis already works.Conversation will work by December 11th. Possibly the whole game we intended to make over 9 months will be realized in some alpha form by December 11th. That's the kind of scope lesson that I wish someone had taught me last fall.
Lesson #2
If your game is ambitious in any single way, the one thing you cannot afford to be is an early adopter.
A year later, yeah, you can play your Torque game on your stupid Xbox. Documentation means the world and a user base to help when you're stuck means seven worlds. Of course, we're skating a fine sort of line since XNA and Torque X are semi-new, but to remedy that I've learned one lesson: I picked a platform and looked for help before committing to it. Apart from that, I'm using a 3D engine I'm trained up on to make the assets instead of trying to give myself a crash course in a new toolset while also meeting deadlines.
But let me stress again that you have no business being an early adopter if you have a required amount of new territory t blaze by semester's end. It will bite you. We got bit SO HARD last time. Never again.
Lesson #3
You always need more people than you think you do. Always always always have a backup plan for the critical path
Original Fin was the unluckiest project to ever hit the lab. Every kind of personal and academic disaster befell the project 2nd semester effectively stalling progress for good. I actually had a small breakdown and ended up cutting one of the 491 classes to sit by the water at Newport Beach and eat chowder from the Crab Cooker and get a grip on what the hell could be done when so many people were counting on me to be a leader and have a effing plan.
I have to take this opportunity to apologize to/thank everyone on the 3D game crew, ESPECIALLY Mike, Garrett, Sharon, Mike "always right" Rossmassler, Diana, Harold, and Hans. We deserve to play our game and I have been thinking about how to finish it for a summer already before ever thinking about doing it as a thesis.
I have a much smaller team right now. We're working really hard and I'm very proud of said team. But that's a lesson I've learned but haven't been able to fix this time. Insert my regular pleas for producers, designers, and writers here. You first years especially. I buy lots of beer and food.
Final Lesson:
Have a plan for worst-case win scenario
We had nothing to fall back on when we started to fall behind with the 3D game. Tracy suggested around GDC time that what we really needed was a white room with some white fish and a working conversation that we could at least call an "art game" - that was the kind of idea we needed to have in mind from the beginning. Something thatshowed the part of the game that made us cool and rockstars. Instead (and it's late so pardon the metaphor) we had a bunch of frosting and no cupcake. Always know what your cake is and how you can show people the cake and only the cake in event of a problem.
Shawn the talented and tireless lead engineer has sent me a communique. I have to wrap this up. More soon. Hopefully, this was enlightening.