Long time no update.

In short: I got a game industry job and will be focusing on that right now. So I don’t have time for nano at the moment, but you never know about the future… I might win a lottery or something and start making my own games full-time again. Who knows.

- Riku

There’s not been posts in the last week. This was because I broke up with my girlfriend and moved house. This really fucked up the whole week, so I didn’t get almost anything done. My week went basicly driving from A to B and moving and buying stuff. And I guess I now have to even start to prepare my own meals… damn this sucks. But such is life

Today I presented a project plan of nano to a panel of business life representatives and teachers. This was the first part of a special vocational degree I’m trying to complete at the same time I’m working on the game. The presented project plan spans a 5 month period, that started in January. So, in the beginning of June I should have a working demo version of the singleplayer game to present to them.

The presentation went pretty well, and the panelists were really nice chaps, but there were some complains about the project plans being a bit fuzzy and about the absence of other ‘independent’ project contributors that have a more significant role in the project. I think they felt a bit that this is not a REAL project (as in business life standards) as I’m doing 70% of the work by myself, and I don’t have to report for anybody. There’s also the fact that we don’t have a real budget and the motivation behind the product is not very commercial. As this is not usually the case in the business world, this project may not meet the standards required by the ministry of education for passing a special vocational degree. But I guess we’ll see how that goes.

The presentation got me thinking about the corporate life again. Certain aspects of all this reporting and absurd spinning of papers to get anything done in the modern world is pretty annoying. Everything is forced into a mold where it necessarily doesn’t fit into. I think that indie games and small developers represent the exact opposite of the highly hierarchical and big software industry. Certain freedom of creativity follows from the more loose plans. Small teams can work with less hierarchy and make things happen instead of spending their time on paperwork.

I know, I know. These thoughts might sound a bit naive. But I KNOW that there’s a lot of people in this world that wish that things were a bit simpler and in smaller scale with more creative freedom. This is what the indie game scene is like, at least at the moment, although some developers have been transforming into a more corporate style cloning factories (mostly in the casual scene). But the heart of indie games is somewhere else. That’s the place where I wanna be.

Now I’m going to have a beer…

I spent the morning coding a system where we can load player ship parameters from a configuration file. This saves some hassle later, because Juho can tweak different ship parameters without me having to compile him a new game build every night. And now I’m trying to add some things Juho wanted to the gun scripting system. That’s the way it goes… Juho thinks new ideas and I work my ass off to make them.

I also started a drawing course. It’s a couple of hours every Wednesday. As I’m pretty crappy at drawing I thought now’s the right time to do something about it…

My first drawing since high-school… click to view a bigger picture of my lovely piece of art… Picasso, here I come!

Nothing much happened with the game today. Upgraded Wordpress to the latest version. That went fine without too much hassle. I must say that this blogging software really is a great piece of work. Only bug I have noticed so far is that the spell-checker introduced in the latest version doesn’t work for me, but it’s not so big deal. Tomorrow I hopefully get a lot of coding done.

I have decided to re-open Bonebroke Games forum. Old forum was originally closed because it gathered a shitload of spam. I hope the new forum stays in better shape. Come there, register and let’s form a nice community. I’ll hope this helps to keep the development even more open to the public. There’s also a Contributions section, if you want to help us building this game.

I hope we can build a nice small community even when there’s not much to talk about at the moment. But I hope later this year the forums will be a source to all nano related material like arenas, gunpacks and other mods! And a great place to chat for all the fans of the genre.

So, join the nano revolution! and register here… http://www.bonebroke.com/forum

I’ll put an official link to the mainsite a little later.

I’ve been running around like a mad dog these few days as I have been very busy, but unfortunately not with the game. In this time of the year one should be able to relax, but it seems this is the most hectic time… All that meat to eat and lot’s of wine to drink Thank god this craziness only lasts a week or so…

All in all it’s been a pretty good year except for my game, which didn’t progress very well until the final month, but I hope next year will change this and I’ll be celebrating the huge success of nano this time next year … You can always dream, right?

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year people, remember to take it easy…

As I’m writing this I have exactly 40 hours left at my current job in a local factory before I quit and go fulltime on this indie thing. I was supposed to only work there during summer, and then try to go back to my super-slowly-progressing university studies, but I decided otherwise. I must be mad. I don’t have a team and I don’t have a big funding. All I have is a laptop and hopefully six months of time before I run out of money and starve to death.

What follows are some random thoughts from different aspects of the indie life and how I see it… These thoughts might change once I find out how it really looks inside. But for now… this is my truth. I swallow the red pill.

Easy to start, hard to master

I’m now 26 years old. I have been making games for 12 years. That’s a long time. In this time game making has gone from tough to even tougher. Don’t get me wrong. It’s easier to start now than ever. Lot’s of good tools, internet full of information, game-engines etc… All things you just didn’t have 12 years ago. But at the same time the bar has constantly been lifted up. You need more content, better graphics, sound and more gameplay gimmicks than ever to draw attention of the players. This can be seen in both, indie and mainstream industry. Way back on Amiga days, code was the king, but the new king is content. The amount of content needed for a high-quality indie title has been growing steadily. The pain caused by the new king is even bigger to us one-man bands that have to do everything ourselves. Good indie game can be done with small resources, but requires talent and mostly hard work.

Game development is bloody hard.

Passion over money

Passion and money. These two things provide the motivation to most indies. Some have to think more about the money than others, as they have more financial responsibilities (like family to support etc). It’s hard to survive making unique games, so more and more indies move to clone land. A kingdom ruled by portals and inhabited by sub par clones. I understand the need to make money, but not bad games. If you decide to clone, please make sure your game has the highest production values possible. Otherwise you are wasting your time and are in the wrong business.

I’m mostly driven by passion. It’s the mystical thing that, in my opinion, makes games an art form of some kind. I can’t explain it, but all the developers who enjoy making games have that same drive for being creative. I have nothing against money, but I have admitted to myself that my game is probably not going to sell enough to even cover the expenses of making it. Of course there is always the dream that my game makes enough to let me continue as a fulltime developer. But I’m being realistic about my chances. Still many people have overblown expectations when entering the indie scene, beginners for the most. It’s sad, as they’re most probably going to fail as far as making money is concerned. Unrealistic expectations combined with mediocre cloning is bad, okay.

Don’t play this game for quick buck.

Living the life

Ok, until this point we have only had hard times with no money in sight, so this has to be the fun part, right? Well, some of it is. Finally finishing a piece of code or getting a new gameplay element in after a huge struggle is always very rewarding. Or when you finally present your game to some friends and maybe actually hear some good comments about it. That’s great. What’s not so great, especially when you’re exhausted from your workday, are the lonely nights spent on bug hunting. And your girlfriend is pissed at you for not noticing her for many days, because you’re living inside your mind in a weird place full of gamecode. But perhaps the biggest challenge is to stay sharp and motivated without constant feedback. I’m still definitely waiting to be my own boss and see how it goes. If I fail, I have no-one to blame but me.

Indie life is tough, like life in general.

So you REALLY want to be an indie developer?

If someone would say it’s not a very smart thing to do, they would be correct. But what the hell is smart in this life? I don’t know about you, but I don’t care about that so much. I’m going to play by feel. Do this, and see what happens. Maybe later I’ll be wiser and can give different advice, but I think this ride is still unique for everybody, so all I can really say is,

Good luck.

This post was part of the ‘So you want to be an Indie Developer?’ blog project.

You can find the other entries via these links:

Gibbage.co.uk
Cliffski’s Mumblings
GameProducer.net
Lemmy and Binky
Reality Fakers
Zoombapup
Introversion
They Came From Hollywood

I just have to rant here about Mr. Robot. Upcoming game from Moonpod. Just check out the video here. I tell you what it is… pure quality AAA stuff. No fucking match-3, great gfx, beautiful animation, fresh idea and it looks like a working concept. You don’t just see this high-quality indie stuff everyday. I really hope the gameplay is as good as it looks like.

So, one more game I’m waiting for: Mr. Robot (dev diary here)

Making nano has taken a lot longer than I originally imagined. The game I originally wanted to make was just a multiplayer deathmatch. But I saw more potential and the idea expanded quite a bit along the way. It has not become too huge and I have a pretty clear vision of the finalized product and how I want it to play. But it became big enough for me to realize I can’t do it in a reasonable amount of time without going ‘fulltime’. I have to devote myself to it completely for a while. Most of all nano is a test for me. Can I finish a game that is good enough for me. A game I’m satisfied enough to release. That is the ultimate test. I have to do it.

The reason why I was contemplating such things came to me when I read an article about John Romeros overly hyped game ‘Daikatana’ (released 2000), which was delayed many years before release and was a huge flop commercially. The article describes the frustration and difficulties of gamemaking even when you have almost unlimited funding and a big team. Knee deep in a dream: the story of Daikatana. Very interesting read.

The article shows that even pros make huge mistakes and miscalculations. But on the positive side, Romero ultimately got the game done the way he wanted it. But it seems like he definitely went thru hell to do it.