I thought I'd share some updates, as it has been one year now. First off, me and Johan are doing just fine. In fact partly to do with the success of Foamzilla, and partly to do with a lot of good luck, we've both gotten jobs in the game industry. I'm working at BioWare now as a level designer on Dragon Age, and Johan is working at Surreal Software as a world designer on "This is Vegas".
Foamzilla has been nominated TWICE now! Once in the Independant Games Festival (IGF):
http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html
And a second time for the Elan awards (Student Game of the Year):
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/news/17075/elan_awards_announce_student_.php
This is very exciting for both of us! I'll be seeing Johan at GDC this year when I go to the IGF awards. And some other familiar faces. I won't be able to make the Elan awards, but I believe Johan will try to be there.
I have to say, neither of us is earning millions of dollars in the industry, I never thought it worked like that anyway. We both still struggle with student loans just like everyone else, but we are lucky enough to be working at our respective dream jobs. And this is something that can't be said for a lot of people. I love going into work every single day.
Finally not much has been done with Foamzilla. We both knew after the project ended updates would be sporadic at best. Johan has prepared some minor bug fixes so Foamzilla version 1.2 is up on the website. (I will try to shove everything into a nice single installable patch soon.)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
So this is it.
I'm guessing there will be one more blog post after this. I'm not a natural blogger and especially over the last little while you may have noticed I haven't had the chance to get many blogs up. The project has gone well and Foamzilla is now availible at:
http://www.foamzilla.com
For those that don't know yet. We do have some plans for writing another patch version and continuning it on, but I'd better be conservative and say there's no guarentee on that. Tomorrow is our industry presentations. The big day. I'm totally excited about the game and I can't wait to present. It's amazing how fast the time has gone.
Any changes or updates will certainly be posted on Foamzilla.com. Plus we will post at least a postmortem here, (if not continue on more Foamzilla news in general.)
Thoughts at the end? A few weeks back we couldn't see anything but the bugs. With some time and certainly some polish the game is impressive. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next!
- Mark out.
http://www.foamzilla.com
For those that don't know yet. We do have some plans for writing another patch version and continuning it on, but I'd better be conservative and say there's no guarentee on that. Tomorrow is our industry presentations. The big day. I'm totally excited about the game and I can't wait to present. It's amazing how fast the time has gone.
Any changes or updates will certainly be posted on Foamzilla.com. Plus we will post at least a postmortem here, (if not continue on more Foamzilla news in general.)
Thoughts at the end? A few weeks back we couldn't see anything but the bugs. With some time and certainly some polish the game is impressive. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next!
- Mark out.
Friday, January 26, 2007
5 Days..
Not much time left at all. Production on Foamzilla has nearly stopped as we get materials ready for the presentation. All the printed material is coming together nicely but our actual presentation still needs a lot of work. Over these past few months we've become very good at buckling down and making very good out of very little. I'm certainly not the type to depend on it, but I am confident everything will turn out great. We've come a long way, we certainly feel like we've earned it and we are going to be plowing through any other bumps in our way. No promises on pictures or videos for this last little bit..
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Yay! Pictures!
It's been a while since I posted any media content. I feel bad, but not too bad, I've been seriously missing out on sleep just to get basic stuff done. I really have been too busy.
The game is looking good. That last 10% makes the difference between a 4.0 and a 9.0 on metacritic I swear. The focus is still on the presentation but every day we try to get a little bit more done on the game just to patch up any areas we feel aren't as strong as they should be.
They'll be tons of areas we'd like to patch up at the end, but what we get for final will still be something I personally will be very proud of.
Talking about packaging yesterday, and me and Johan aren't agreeing on it. Usually games are distributed in DVD type boxes made up to look like actual game boxes. Previous students have done an excellent job. Johan would rather try something new and distribute the game in one of those toy bags you get plastic dinosaurs with. I admit it gives it a new spin, I'm just concerned there will be some extra problems with it that we haven't considered. Johan wants Foamzilla to stand out from the rest. So he's going to mock the toy idea up. I will admit it would be cool to get one of those pills that turn into a dinosaur for it.
Johan and I have a good working relationship. We certainly don't agree on everything, but we are always great at working things out. I can tell if he feels passionately about something, and he can tell the same for me. And we both respect each other enough to try something that the other really would like to try. It wasn't all peaches and cream, but when this is over, it will have definitely been a pleasure to work with him, and I will miss it.
Here's some pics of the tutorial areas:
I don't know if I'll have any time to fraps some videos for the blog, although I REALLY REALLY would like to. Development has come a long way, and those ragdolls are just a blast!
- Mark out
The game is looking good. That last 10% makes the difference between a 4.0 and a 9.0 on metacritic I swear. The focus is still on the presentation but every day we try to get a little bit more done on the game just to patch up any areas we feel aren't as strong as they should be.
They'll be tons of areas we'd like to patch up at the end, but what we get for final will still be something I personally will be very proud of.
Talking about packaging yesterday, and me and Johan aren't agreeing on it. Usually games are distributed in DVD type boxes made up to look like actual game boxes. Previous students have done an excellent job. Johan would rather try something new and distribute the game in one of those toy bags you get plastic dinosaurs with. I admit it gives it a new spin, I'm just concerned there will be some extra problems with it that we haven't considered. Johan wants Foamzilla to stand out from the rest. So he's going to mock the toy idea up. I will admit it would be cool to get one of those pills that turn into a dinosaur for it.
Johan and I have a good working relationship. We certainly don't agree on everything, but we are always great at working things out. I can tell if he feels passionately about something, and he can tell the same for me. And we both respect each other enough to try something that the other really would like to try. It wasn't all peaches and cream, but when this is over, it will have definitely been a pleasure to work with him, and I will miss it.
Here's some pics of the tutorial areas:
I don't know if I'll have any time to fraps some videos for the blog, although I REALLY REALLY would like to. Development has come a long way, and those ragdolls are just a blast!
- Mark out
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
That last 10 percent..
Makes all the difference in the world. We've been spending the last few days polishing foamzilla as best we can. And although it won't reach a polished state in line with industry standards, we are a student project, and have decided to put our best foot forward making gameplay a fun and complete experience.
The two last features we implemented; ragdolls and soldiers screaming and saying stuff when thrown about have upped this game's fun level but crazy amounts. I'm glad I spent the day to get ragdolls into the game, and the few minutes it took to put the sounds it. It sounds insane, just spending a little to get so much more fun in the game, but thats the trick. When you are working on a project you are considering everything. Including incomplete things like the menu is, how the background just doesn't work, how textures aren't aligning. And although all those little pieces do add to the game experience, those core fun areas have to be focused on first. It's an easy thing to say but VERY hard to do. I dare anyone out there who hasn't made a game to try it.
I've been terrible on the picture / video front as well. I'm going to devote some time to doing that this week too. We have technically reached final. Although we are doing little tweaks here and there. And even those little tweaks are increasing the fun of play but leaps and bounds.
We both now have to prepare for the industry presentation, and that is another whole large project on it's own. We'll do what we can, and after seeing what we did with Foamzilla, I know we will do something great.
Notice I'm not so unhappy about the project anymore? Like I said before, it's that last 10 percent. As well, I've tried to take it a bit more easy in these last few days. It really helps one's perspective on things, and having a good perspective can sometimes be more important than having the perfect product.
Pictures and video soon.
The two last features we implemented; ragdolls and soldiers screaming and saying stuff when thrown about have upped this game's fun level but crazy amounts. I'm glad I spent the day to get ragdolls into the game, and the few minutes it took to put the sounds it. It sounds insane, just spending a little to get so much more fun in the game, but thats the trick. When you are working on a project you are considering everything. Including incomplete things like the menu is, how the background just doesn't work, how textures aren't aligning. And although all those little pieces do add to the game experience, those core fun areas have to be focused on first. It's an easy thing to say but VERY hard to do. I dare anyone out there who hasn't made a game to try it.
I've been terrible on the picture / video front as well. I'm going to devote some time to doing that this week too. We have technically reached final. Although we are doing little tweaks here and there. And even those little tweaks are increasing the fun of play but leaps and bounds.
We both now have to prepare for the industry presentation, and that is another whole large project on it's own. We'll do what we can, and after seeing what we did with Foamzilla, I know we will do something great.
Notice I'm not so unhappy about the project anymore? Like I said before, it's that last 10 percent. As well, I've tried to take it a bit more easy in these last few days. It really helps one's perspective on things, and having a good perspective can sometimes be more important than having the perfect product.
Pictures and video soon.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Does it make sense? Or is it fun?
This has been a hard pill to swallow. I've had a personal pet peeve against games that have components just slapped in there for no reason. It doesn't really relate to anything in the game, and in some cases it isn't even funny. On the other hand, games which take the time to place everything in a meaningful way and make sure things are linked up seem so much deeper. And in my opinion, better.
But here's the thing. When it comes to games, it has to be fun first. I suppose I can't remember a lot of games that weren't a lot of fun but made a lot of sense. Either way, games a bit more like popcorn than a movie. They are quick, enjoyable, and bits of them get stuck in your mental dental work, but you don't really care as long as they taste good.
So to those who play the game out there, yes, I'm absolutely aware of every single thing in the game that makes no sense at all, and they drive me crazy every day. But.. the goal right now is to make things fun. And in the context of Foamzilla at least we can bend things (or squish things) a bit more than normal.
Like I said, it's a hard pill to swallow for me. But it's going down... Slowly..
Foamzilla is "almost" on track. Finishing up opening cinematic today. And I've played with some karma ragdolls this morning. With luck we may be able to get those in to final. We'll see. What is hurting the most is just trying to polish up the features we do have in the game and not add others that would make the game 300% better. Thats positively killer. So things were supposed to be done today, but I'm going to push it off one more day for now. The worst case scenario is everything ready on monday. And that would seriously cram us.
Mark out.
But here's the thing. When it comes to games, it has to be fun first. I suppose I can't remember a lot of games that weren't a lot of fun but made a lot of sense. Either way, games a bit more like popcorn than a movie. They are quick, enjoyable, and bits of them get stuck in your mental dental work, but you don't really care as long as they taste good.
So to those who play the game out there, yes, I'm absolutely aware of every single thing in the game that makes no sense at all, and they drive me crazy every day. But.. the goal right now is to make things fun. And in the context of Foamzilla at least we can bend things (or squish things) a bit more than normal.
Like I said, it's a hard pill to swallow for me. But it's going down... Slowly..
Foamzilla is "almost" on track. Finishing up opening cinematic today. And I've played with some karma ragdolls this morning. With luck we may be able to get those in to final. We'll see. What is hurting the most is just trying to polish up the features we do have in the game and not add others that would make the game 300% better. Thats positively killer. So things were supposed to be done today, but I'm going to push it off one more day for now. The worst case scenario is everything ready on monday. And that would seriously cram us.
Mark out.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Monday Beta time
It's back to monday. And after this weekend I'm a bit thankful. Rather, this weekend was a good break. The expo went well. I got to talk to a number of people from the industry while I was volunteering, and I would have liked to chat with more. It still turned out very well. The presentations were excellent as well.
As for Foamzilla, just volunteering for half the day on saturday helped clear the head a lot. Sunday did the same. Johan put together a quick presentation for Foamzilla on sunday and did an excellent short video for it. I was up there answering questions with him afterwards.
Looking at the project right now it's not so bad either. It's really well done for a student project, but I was hoping for professional. One of my instructors kindly told me that the first mistake students make is assuming they will project professional quality products. Yeah, guilty.
All the same we will push it to be as good as it can be for the industry presentation, and then afterwards, we'll continue to polish it up for a version 1.1.
Time to get to school.
As for Foamzilla, just volunteering for half the day on saturday helped clear the head a lot. Sunday did the same. Johan put together a quick presentation for Foamzilla on sunday and did an excellent short video for it. I was up there answering questions with him afterwards.
Looking at the project right now it's not so bad either. It's really well done for a student project, but I was hoping for professional. One of my instructors kindly told me that the first mistake students make is assuming they will project professional quality products. Yeah, guilty.
All the same we will push it to be as good as it can be for the industry presentation, and then afterwards, we'll continue to polish it up for a version 1.1.
Time to get to school.
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