Aeges Road Character Quest

In a constant attempt to get this RPG off the ground, I have been locked in an epic struggle with digital art. I have spent several weeks now reviewing other artists work and critiquing my own against theirs. It has been both educational and humbling. I also broke down and bought a Wacom tablet. It is among the most useful purchases I have made since starting this project.

So to get right down to what I am doing right now, I am undoing several shortcuts I took in order to deliver something by deadline. Of these shortcuts includes the character models. At first, the models were working great, until I tried to decorate them. That is when everything went downhill fast. I had built them wrong thinking I could save time using multiple segments, and essentially shot myself in the foot. I was also disappointed in many of the character animations. The short legs and arms really didn't bring things out in a visually appealing manner. So I scrapped the models and started from scratch, this time with better tools and more experience. The end result is much better. I am playing with animation cycles and working with the model in order to decide whether this is the keeper or not. I like the fact that the model is still cartoon deformed, yet has enough length to accent movement.

Here is a rendered model I have been scribbling over trying to get an idea for the final Illindey. I originally pictured her with a deep brown hair, but decided that green fit her profile a bit better. I also decided to go with a baggier clothing look, basically because I thought it looked cool.   

So I suspect that for the next few weeks I will be scribbling on characters and fine tuning animations. I will also continue work on the storyline. The storyline is progressing rather nicely, and I am able to get full digital prototypes for dungeon floors very quickly now. I am debating working a few simple puzzles into the exploration once I get free of some other to-do's. I think once I get past working on character art, I will get doors rendered and functioning in the game. :-)

Games Have Attitude

It's been more years than I would like to admit. Hanging out with my friends, hacking on an old Packard Bell trying to get shareware games to work. I don't know whether it was a good thing or not, seeing as I wasted a lot of time on this one, but we got Doom to work. What made me think of this was an announcement at IGN about Doom 4 being in the works. Now I know Doom 3 caused quite a stir, but the spoon really didn't get into the cup with me. It was an excellent first person shooter, but something was missing.

Doom was an incredible game. Among the best FPS's ever made, and still to me a better game than most released today. Now I am far from a retro-only gamer, but there is just something to those old games that is lacking in most games today, and I think it is the attitude of the game. The face of the character said it all, especially when he picks up a chain saw. I know there is a story behind this game, but the attitude of, “I'm just here to kill something” would have been enough and is more or less the central theme.

I have not spent the time on the Ultima series that they deserve, but I have been impressed by everything I have seen of them. Ultima 7 especially, was the Curious George of video games. I don't think I got anything right in that game, and I had a blast. “Oh, a cannon, I should wait until the guard walks in front of it to see if its loaded.” It was as if everything in that game was just crying out to me, “go ahead, touch it, you know you want to.” Mischief was afoot, and the only thing that kept me from finishing that game were the glitches.

Finally, I want to touch on the JRPG scene of the SNES era. Some of the most brilliant story-based rpg's came from this genre. They were able to add that kooky attitude and still deliver a solid story. Final Fantasy 3(6) and Chrono Trigger were incredible and overshadowed a lot of other good games such as Lufia 2 that carried this feel.

I could go on for a while talking about Contra and Double Dragon and how the presentation just came across so well. Or how much fun I had playing River City Ransom with a friend, but hey, it has to end somewhere. The attitude of a game is an important concept. Attitudes and eccentrics make it easier to get into a character early on in the game. An attitude has been the driving force behind many games, past and present. Attitude might not be the most important concept in game design, but it can certainly add a pleasant flavor to the game.

Aeges Road, Outside the Box

It is amazing how different a person functions in and out of pressure. I handled the pressure of the contest deadlines poorly and made a lot of simple mistakes. All in all, I am glad I finished what I finished, and thanks to the timelines, I now have a stable base to continue development on.

Now, on to the heart of this post. As soon as I turned in the final deliverable I stepped back to try and figure out exactly what went wrong, and why I failed to finish what I felt was reasonable.

Mistake number one. I made too many platform switches. I spent the first month trying to get the community supported TGB working properly on linux with little success. After failing that, I finally made the upgrade from Windows 98 to XP (no more Fallout 2) and worked on it from there. It had been over 6 years since I worked with windows on a regular basis, and it took a while to break back in and find a productive workflow. Unfortunately, as the game got bigger, errors were harder to recover from, and I spent most of my time trying to reclaim the OS from runaways. I was finally able to afford one of my two platforms of choice (Mac, Linux) that was actually supported by TGB, and I was finally able to find myself truly productive on the project as the game went into alpha testing.

Mistake number two. I spent far too much time learning new technologies. I had never heard of torque until I saw this contest, and thought it was worth a go. Torque script wasn't too difficult to learn, it was just difficult to debug. I bought Torsion about halfway through the competition, and it greatly simplified things. Ruby on Rails is a web application frame work that I have wanted to use for a long time. It is an excellent framework, easy to learn, and surprised me by taking less time to learn than I expected. There are far too many graphics applications, and not enough art talent on my part to deliver a good judgement on viability. I reviewed too many, and got too little done. Finally, I am not an artist, and I am still learning art. This has chewed up a lot of time, and continues to chew through it.

Mistake number three. I allowed too many axis of influence to enter in to decision making. The more I read on RPG theory and expectations, the further I strayed from original design and story. This mistake compounded all my frustrations and made it very difficult to focus.

Getting Focussed (Again)

Ha ha, OK. Now that I am no longer trying to gauge time with task, I have begun to find my center on this project again. One of my big focuses on this project was story, something I failed to truly deliver in the demo. I only provided myself a rough outline, and worked up the first act. The first act was not complete because I did not have enough art content done to deliver properly, so I made the demo too basic in my opinion.

Another focus was on the style of the game. The style I wanted is difficult for me to describe, so here is my best attempt. I wanted to mix a jRPG with a western RPG. It is something I have wanted since I played Wizardry 7 and Realms of Arcania prior to Final Fantasy 3 (6) on the SNES. In my opinion, western RPGs offer better game play while jRPG's tend to deliver the superior story and character graphics that are more to my liking.

There were a few things that I wanted to see in the game, but I am taking a step back from them and getting a bit more traditional. Locks will no longer have a mini-game, just options based on stats. I want to get this game done soon, and my current game needs too much work to try and squeeze it in.

I am currently filling a graph pad with the first Chapter of the game which should be coming soon. It is taking a slightly different direction than I wanted, but it fits the story better than anything else I have come up with. I am basically making a game guide, just with a full story line.

I am spending this weekend reading the last of my favorite blogs for a while. I am going to isolate myself from other influences until I get the story and other core elements finished. I found that many times after reading these were the times I truly got way out in let field trying to please everyone. I just hope I can hold myself to it. :-)

I had made mention in my previous post about possibly doing a side project. I might eventually start this, but in review I determined that finishing Aeges Road would be the best route from this point on. So for the next few weeks, I am going to try and get the story line to a completed state, then go back to work on code and level design. It may be about a month, but I plan on continuing with public alpha releases as I add the remaining elements of gameplay.