I guess it’s about time I get this show running. I wanted to have something “showable” other than lines of code and colored cubes that made no sense, so I’ve been holding out on content for you guys. My bad!
But the pieces are finally coming into place so that I can actually show something. Weee!
Every Wednesday for now on I’ll drop by here and talk about Game01. I may end up posting random stuff about other parallel projects, but Wednesday is the day you’ll come here for all the awesomeness of the game with the generic codename.
So, what is all that about rinse and repeat?
Game making is about trial and error. Well, you could say the same about nearly everything (aside from nuclear bombs. Trial and error there might be a bit complicated). It’s part of the business of making games that you’ll do something, then realize it sucks or simply doesn’t work, then you’ll have to go back to the drawing board and try something new.
Something around 18 months ago I decided to take some of my work time to develop game ideas and prototypes. I did 6 half-decent prototypes during the following three months, not all of them full games on their own. But they were ideas worth exploring further. One of these prototypes was Space Station Ullinah.
The original version of SSU was basically a tower defense game. Your objective was to protect your space station from space pirates that would come and go from all directions in a fixed-camera 2D top down map. The twist here was that your profit came out of merchant ships coming and going through one of the four jumpgates on the edges of the map. Every time a merchant docked or departed the system, you earned credits, which you could use to place minefields, turrets, launch interceptors or simply blast everyone out with a fusion bomb.
It was a decent game, and I had it up on Newgrounds for a mobile HTML5 jam. At least I’d get some feedback.
I took it offline after about 3 weeks up. The main reason was that, while I had some interesting feedback about the overall game, more than half comments were about people who said the game was impossible. I contacted a few players, I read between the lines of their comments, and I realized that the main issue was that no one understood how to use the game’s main weapon: a slicing laser. The idea was that, once you activated it, you’d slide back and forth on the tablet screen to damage incoming ships. But players apparently didn’t get it. They’d tap on targets, and rage furiously that that damage was too low.
It wasn’t their fault. It was mine.
I left that game on the freezer for several months while working on other projects. Maybe some day I’d be back to it.
A couple of months ago I decided to separate part of my work time to actually make games. My first real solo project was a small adventure game using 19th century paintings in which you, the player, was a necromancer with the ability to see and speak with the dead. The twist? You are a heretic, so going about the city using your powers mean drawing attention. Draw too much attention, and you’ll be executed.
Now, that game will come out free as part of the advertisement for my next novel (an African-inspired fantasy novel) soon to be released in Brazil, so after the game was on beta, I had to hold on for a while, waiting for the call from my editor to say, yes, get that game out there! (Sorry, portuguese only for now!).
What is a game designer supposed to do when his current game project is on hold? Well, he creates more games!
I got SSU’s game design doc back out of the freeze and started sketching ways to improve it. The thing was that I wanted to use what I learned from that adventure game on my next project. Could I do that with a tower defense game? Well, maybe.
First I needed to take a step back and think: what is this game about? Understanding that would help me figure out what mechanics it needed. I also went back to what feedback I had for the first version of the game. How could I improve it? What needed to be changed?
I built a new prototype during the next week. Things were a bit different now. Instead of placing objects in space, you needed to build modules on your space station and research a sort of tech tree. You didn’t buy individual interceptors: you’d allocate one of your available squadrons and send it out to patrol sections of space or attack enemy targets. It made sense, even if it wasn’t the same game anymore.
And then I added the adventure content. There would be a main storyline and random sidequests that would popup on the map. The player had to make decisions that would have long-lasting ramifications. Do you send a science team to investigate that derelict alien ship or do you just salvage whatever you can and blow it up, in case it is dangerous? It sounded like an awesome idea!
But it sucked.
The fact was that the game mixed fast-paced action with complex decision-making. While I did see potential there, I also saw a conflict of play styles. Do mixing these two styles made sense? Well, it could if I did it right. RPGs work like that, right? You have exploration and combat, then dialogue with NPCs coupled with decision making.
Then came other issues. Handling units with the engine I was using was extremely unreliable, keeping check of the ongoing storyline became complicated and balance proved to be a mess, especially since I was running on a (very short) budget. Worse of all: I wasn’t sure if that was the game I wanted to make.
What was I supposed to do?
I drew from inspiration. What was it like in Babylon 5 and Deep Space 9? What other games (video games and board games) are there around this theme? How can I do something different within my budget?
I came up with something new. It wasn’t a tower defense game anymore, but neither was it really an adventure game. It was still a game about a space station on the edge of the universe, but it wasn’t the same anymore.
During the next few weeks I’ll tell you more about what is Space Station Ullinah (aka Game01) and reveal more of the ongoing development process.
See you next Wednesday!
PS: Here is a screenshot of the current build just so you don't call me an ass.
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