I Can Do Science Me / Deadline v2.0

Lots of good stuff going on recently. I'll start with the newest.


- My Post Mortem is scheduled to be published by Game Career Guide on Friday. That's awesome. Finally some of what I write will be read by game people. I mean, you may be reading this, but I write this as if nobody reads it but me (hence the title). The article though, that's for everybody. It's a condensed Campbells soup version of the 3 weeks of grinding blogs during the final push for the Thief Demo. I'm proud of the article, but more proud that it will put all of our hard work in front of more people and that's the whole point isn't it?

-Right then, had a meeting with the Artist again and we're zeroing in on a look for the game. Once we narrowed down the stuff I don't like (like 4th wall stuff) or things I don't know how to do (like Alpha Channel stuff - I have no idea what that even means. Is that transparency?), we arrived at t he conclusion that anything animated is very easy. So it seems like the backgrounds will be hand drawn (or look like it) and have animated bits like swinging cages, candles, lamps and torches and small things like fluttering bats and seagulls. So I'm happy with the look in my head now and we should have some concept stuff started around Tuesday when the artist gets the list of things to do.

- Science! Or rather, the application of the Scientific Method to arrive at a conclusion is being done now. Like I said previously, I've sent out my email messages to the HR departments of studios both large and very indie to see what kind of degree I should be working on. So we'll see how that goes. I hope I get a few responses so as to make my sample size large enough to remove biases, but really, any push in a direction would be appreciated by myself.

- Finally, we have a deadline now. November. Probably the beginning of it for well, IGF. The Pro version now though. I think with the extra time and the vision of what the game will be, I think that we may have a sporting chance of showing or at least doing well. At least well enough to give us a boost and maybe publish on an downloadable service. That would be tre cool.
So that means the art has to be done by October, which means the levels have to be blocked out as early as possible. Then we'll have a month for playtesting, interface designs and that kind of stuff. With the time I think we can do this and we'll avoid the 1st problem the development of the Demo had. So, as Producer I need to plot out milestones to get to that seem reasonable. That also means that I can't lolly-gag and I've got to get back to work, like, yesterday.