Area 161

Darts Update…

// October 11th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // First Game, Game Dev, iDevBlogADay, Partnerships

I like patterns, so for my updates on game dev, I’ll use the pattern I set forth today where I call out the section and what progress was made in the section. Not like you really care, but hey, patterns are comforting to me. LOL

Code

This was probably our weakest area this past week. The lack of improvement was entirely on me because I’m the lead (and only) developer on the game. The reason why I slacked though was a good one in my eyes. My folks came to visit the fam and I hadn’t seen them for quite awhile. We did a lot of hanging out, dinners, lunches, board gaming, etc. They ate a lot of my time. Plus, Smiley came down to my neck of woods in Arizona, so of course our kids had to hang out.

In addition to that, my main dev box went into the shop. Therefore it was pretty hard to dev when the machine I’m most comfy with wasn’t around during my core coding time. I even missed a beta testing deadline that I really felt bad for, but hope to make up.

Concept Art and Character Development

I’d like to point out something before I go into the update. Smiley was sorta tasked with art originally (along with other responsibilities). Although technically, we both could step up to the job since we were both really good artists in High School and College. Here’s the thing though, we’re both way rusty. Smiley wanted to step up though, so I gladly handed off that task, knowing full well coding would eat up more than its fair share of time as my primary task. Thing is, art skills take awhile to de-rustify. Meanwhile, we ‘re sorta pushing for this whole end of October deadline for PoV’s Challenge. What to do? Well, my dad was here visiting and he’s an artist. Therefore, I asked him to whip up some things.

See, a lesser partner would be insecure and come back with, “Well, that’s my job. Your dad can’t do it. I don’t care of his stuff looks better than mine or not, it’s still my job!” Smiley took a look at some of my dad’s concept art for the darts and was like, “Uh…yeah, that’s way better than what I’ve been working on. He’s hired!” With the responsibility (and I’m sure stress/pressure) off of Smiley to produce art, he was able to focus on game design. We chatted about various dart types and another aspect of the game that we’re not ready to reveal yet. (It’s not that it’s wow-amazing, but rather we’re not ready to explain the reasoning behind it quite yet).

Therefore, while the code didn’t progress much, we pretty much nailed down the design of the game itself. Once I get the basic mechanic in place, Smiley will be able to test it and make adjustments as necessary. Another cool thing is when I had a question about how to implement the mechanic, Smiley was there with a quick and decisive answer. That was nice. One thing I hate is when I can’t decide on how to do something. Being able to ask the game designer, “Which way do you envision it?” and get a quick answer back makes my life and internal stress level go down.

Corporation/Business Stuff

Another thing that finally got settled down is a lot of the mundane business stuff: business licenses, incorporation docs, getting our corporate dev account (I’ve been using my personal one up ’til now), etc. On the one hand, it’s not very glamorous or even impressive. But on the other hand, it definitely helps to make everything seem more solid, etc.

The nice thing about incorporating is that we have talked about all the things partners should talk about but tend to avoid. We talked about splitting up, how things would end, what if things go south, how do assets get divided, what if one of us dies, etc. Yeah, it wasn’t pleasant. LOL But, it’s a great relief because we’ve had those discussions so when we go to draft up documents to lay it all out, there won’t be any uneasiness.

Sound/Music

I’ve been spending a lot of brain cycles on sound and music. I’ll likely make the soundtrack in, well, Soundtrack. LOL A few years ago, I wrote a song for my son’s video and I think it turned out rather well. It took me like 3 days to “write” it when I made it. I’ll likely spend a few days next week dusting off Soundtrack and laying out some basics tracks.

I like music, but I have no idea how it works. LOL For instance, here’s a great start to a song of mine (flash required), but you can see where my lack of training starts to show near the end. I like what I hear and often hear songs in my head, but I should get properly schooled in the art of music. I tried to learn guitar last year, but didn’t get far. I’ll have to pick that up again so it’ll hopefully help me translate music from my head into real, audible compositions.

As for sound effects, Smiley and I can already “hear” the sounds in our heads, but we’ll have to figure out how to get them into a format you all can hear.

Moving Forward

Well, that’s it for the update. Sorry it wasn’t as grand or as much as we hoped it would be. Smiley had a sister-in-law getting married and I had my folks. Not to mention, we’re not a true indie shop: we still have dayjobs. All in all though, I think it was still progression towards our goal and that’s always a good thing. ‘Til next week!

It’s Amazing What Focus and Excitement Can Do

// August 30th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Game Dev, iDevBlogADay, Partnerships, Purpose

We’ve had the idea for Area 161 since about January, I think. I didn’t really have any time to focus on it until April, when I officially left 360|Conferences. Since then, there was a lot of talk, but not much action. I attended a few sessions at the April 360|iDev (THE best iOS Dev conference!) and had a full schedule of sessions at WWDC in June. Smiley didn’t really get jazzed until he got his iPad in August.

In five months, we prepped a logo, knocked around a few game ideas and figured out our business. We dug deep to find out what we wanted in a company as well as what we hoped to gain out of the company in the end. I wouldn’t say that it was “wasted time” because all of that was good stuff, but it certainly was a sparse time of activity.

Excitement is Contagious

This is the great part of a partnership: excitement. Being excited about an idea, concept or notion all alone doesn’t make for much productivity. Without someone to share and help grow the excitement level, a lone person will find that excitement fades after a day or two.

When Smiley got his iPad (I still only have iPod Touches), it was a life changing moment. His entire family began to understand why he wanted to build games for the platform. They understood that it was truly a “magical” device. They began to ask questions like, “Will your games be as cool as these?” Our answer: “We sure hope so, that’s sorta the point of the business.”

Smiley was pumped full of excitement, so naturally he turned to his partner and said, “So are you programming skills up to snuff?” He didn’t ask like that, but that’s how my mind translated it.

A Partner (and/or Friend) Can Bring Focus

It wasn’t like Smiley was tossing down game art and full fleshed out game ideas that needed prototyping. However, that’s still no reason as to why I wasn’t prepared after 5 months to technically start whipping out prototypes. Part of my problem was that I started backwards. I went from Flash to iPhone Dev Kit to Objective-C. I was getting by and with some help from the great David Whatley of GeoDefense fame, I had even whipped out a small prototype using Cocos 2D.

Learn the Basics, It Really Does Pave the Way

I realized that if I was gonna take a serious stab at this, I needed to go down to the basics. I needed to learn C, then Objective-C, then Cocoa, then Cocoa Touch, then Open GL ES. I pledged a book a week, mainly the Apress series mentioned in my last post. In the month of August, I got through the C, Obj-C and half the Cocoa book. I’m at the point now where I can figure out how to build an app in Cocoa without following an example.

In ONE month, I gained more knowledge than the previous FIVE months due to focus and excitement. This despite the fact that I probably worked more hours in my day job in August than any other month. Time is not your enemy and there is ALWAYS time to get your learn on. Don’t fool yourself with silly lies. Stay up later AND wake up earlier. Most of my study time this month was 8:30 pm to 11:30 pm (aka until I passed out) AND 5:30 am to 6:30 am (after I showered and did personal development time). I was pretty much working all the other hours of those days. Yes, it was hard. No, it wasn’t easy. After spending 12 hours on a computer at work, the last thing you want to do is spend another 3 or 4 at home and after you wake up on the computer, but I did it.

Don’t Forget to Treat Yourself

With hard work comes great rewards. I’m not talking about riches and all that crap. I’m talking about little presents you give yourself. Like tonight for example, I gave myself a reward for my hard work. I took Smiley’s mom and little boy to a baseball game because he was busy. That’s why this is going to barely make the deadline. Yeah, another 4 hours on the Cocoa book woulda been great, but sometimes you have to remember: You can’t just work and live for the future good times. You need to stop and enjoy the current good times as well. This weekend, my wife and I watched over two boys that match my two boys in age. Sure, again, it distracted from my studies, but it was great fun.

Life is the reason we do what we do. Therefore, let’s not be stupid and let it pass us by while chasing “the Dream”. Because, we all know that if we catch “the Dream” but no one is around to share it with, the chase will be for naught. At least, it would be for me.

3 lessons learned from my last company

// July 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Company Related, iDevBlogADay, Partnerships

Thanks to @chrismwaite‘s post, I realized that I have some start-up knowledge that may help some people. My last business, 360|Conferences, was a partnership with John Wilker. It is also the host of the 360iDev conference, which has quickly become the de facto event for iPhone indie devs.  While vastly different from game dev, each one is a business. This means they have a product, they sell said product and profits need to one day surpass expenses. If you never achieve profit, then my tax man says “You have a hobby, not a business.”

Apple wants you to succeed, but you have to bet the house.

// July 5th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Game Dev, iDevBlogADay, Partnerships

I attended a lot of game sessions and spoke with people in the game support divisions of Apple last month at WWDC. The resounding message I picked up on was this:

“Please, don’t make the same old tired games. This is a new platform with a new set of rules. Innovate, not duplicate.”

In our intro post, we talk about the purpose of our company. One of the things we talk about is innovative ways to play games on iOS platform. Therefore, Jobs and his minions pretty much let us know that we are on the right path. Not only are we on the right path, they’re doing everything in their power to make it easier for us to be successful. Easy, that is, if you do one thing:

Bet the house on the iOS platform.

I’ve talked to many that have been successful on the iOS platform. While all are not actively porting, a lot say they’re not counting out the possibility.  To me, this is counter intuitive for a variety of reasons.

Note of Caution: Before I proceed and expound upon these reasons trying to sound authoritative, you have to remember two huge holes in my credibility: First, I’ve never published a game on any platform. Second, Smiley and I intend to keep both of our jobs as we publish our first few games. If you think those two items make my points worthless, then I’ll thank you for reading this far and hope you have success doing opposite of what I suggest. If you can overlook those holes, I think I have some valid points.

Point 1: There is a marriage between hardware and software that cannot be denied.

To quote Alan Kay:

“People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.”

That’s why I LOVED when Sony announced the Cell chip. Sony took all their expertise and success of the original Playstation and Playstation2, then thought up a crazy complex, way-ahead-of-its-time processor and plopped that into the Playstation3.  Apple didn’t have a gaming platform to ride on.  However, one thing is clear: Apple is very serious about software and that’s why they make their own hardware.

We’re serious about games. If you’re reading this, you probably are too. What Apple has done for us is create this wonderful platform of software and hardware, given it to us and said, “Make the magic happen.” That’s why I can’t get on board with Droid game dev. There’s no perfect marriage there. Yes, I realize we now have 3 platforms within the iOS world: iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. Yes, there’s various models of each, not to mention past OS versions as well. However, Apple makes it very clear: “Target the latest, don’t dumb it down for the slackers that don’t update.” For a game developer like me, that’s exhilarating. I know that I can target the latest devices and Apple is not gonna punish me for that. If anything, that’ll give them more reason to help me succeed.

Stop looking at the iOS platform as just another screen that wants a d-pad. Making a d-pad on a touchscreen is NOT innovation, it’s dumbing down a platform to fit your old skool way of thinking. Yes, directional pads were sweet in 80s when NES was making it’s name. However, we have something new on our hands. Something the world has never seen before that we can exploit to create some fun games.  Let’s look at 3 top sellers of the iOS platform: Doodle Jump, Flight Control and Angry Birds. (Hmm…it appears having a two word name for your game also helps. LOL)

Let’s examine their basic play concepts:

Doodle Jump – Accelerometer to move and touch to shoot

Flight Control – Touch to draw “flight paths” to guide the planes

Angry Birds – Slide to launch, pinch to zoom in/out

Let’s examine what they lack:

• On-screen D(irectional)-Pad
• First person shooter perspective
• Gratuitous blood
• Scantily clad, big-busted, small waisted woman

The numbers don’t lie. Success is not doing the same old, same old. It’s taking an objective look at the platform and asking yourself, “What can I do here, that I couldn’t do as easily somewhere else?”

Point 2: Partnerships work best if built upon trust and leverage of expertise.

I don’t know how to solder a motherboard. I don’t know how to write a mobile OS. I don’t know how to run an electronic software distribution system. I don’t know a human eye can only distinguish roughly 300 pixels per inch. But that’s the beauty of having Apple as a partner, they do. They spend millions upon millions of dollars to make the very best platform they can.

I’ll share a quote from WWDC that I don’t think Apple will mind me sharing. It was from a Game Design session. The menuing system for the demo game was created using UIKit and then skinned to fit in perfect with the game environment. The speaker said, “Use UIKit. It’s there to make your life easier. Why spend days or weeks building your own internal system, when you can use UIKit and make it in a few hours.”

This is where betting the house comes into play. The biggest reason why you wouldn’t use UIKit is to make porting easier. “Well, if I want to port this to Droid or something else, it’ll be easier if I do this stuff in C vs a native iOS Framework.” Thinking like that makes you a bad partner and thus creates a non-optimal partnership.

Apple needs awesome apps to make their platform (and thus, their company) a success. That’s where they rely on us. They could hire (and have in fact hired) some great game makers that would run circles around some of our meager game making attempts. Time and time again though, Apple has made it clear. “We are not in the game making business.” Steve Jobs knows how a good partnership works (him and Woz) and how a bad one works (him and Eisner). When there’s no trust, there’s no chance of success. When there’s absolute trust, the skies the limit.

Point 3: Constraints are not inhibitors of great ideas. In fact, greatness flourishes with constraints.

Throughout time, great things came from constraints: Shakespeare often wrote his prose in iambic pentameter, while his chosen form of poetry was the sonnet. Donkey Kong was designed by the master Shigeru Miyamoto with the constraint of the hardware being made for a different game, Radar Scope.

There are constraints to the iOS platform. We have 3 killer ideas that we want to do that leverage these constraints. I’m not going to tell you them, because to be honest, that’s what we’re trying to exploit for success.

However, I’ll give you advice on how to find constraints you can exploit for your own purposes:

• Read the documention: There’s so many nuggets of idea gold to be found in what many think are boring docs.
• Don’t think as a game maker: Take an objective look at the platform and look at it for what it is and what it can be, not “how will this device fit my game idea”.
• Dream big: By dreaming big, you’ll find things you can’t do…right now. However, smaller more doable ideas will come forth to fill the void.

That’s all I got. Remember, this is a partnership with Apple and with a partnership comes trust. Just like you (the reader) and I (the writer) have an unspoken trust: You will come with an open mind and I’ll do my best to provide you with ideas to succeed. Just like Smiley (the friend and gamer) and I (the friend and programmer) have an unspoken trust to do our best to create something we’ll both be proud to own. Without trust, this whole thing falls apart and everyone fails. The question for you now is: Who do you trust?