Check out the new teaser I have been working on for two weeks. Be kind.
Getting rid of bugs
We are less than 10 days away from when we will submit to IGF and we are fixing bugs. Bug fixing sucks. When you fix one, you can introduce more...and when new people play the game I am almost sure they are going to find yet more bugs. We have broken off Hansoft for the last little bit as it is nice to have people ALL in the lab for this.
Behold -- the list
Behold -- the list
CyberCast Episode 1
Zac and I have started a vlog about the game. We will taking viewers through the gameplay mechanics of the game step by step and also document the games development. Lastly the vlog will highlight one of our team members. Please watch the first episode and then meet our great leader --Jake Muehle
Cyber Heist Gameplay Video
I am feelng a great deal better about the name. It does serve our purposes quite well and everyone seems to react very positively to it. We have to embrace and brand it though.
We have our first gameplay video that people can see. This is Jake Muehle and Chris Rawson playing. The game is coming along and the hacker side is so much more advanced than the one we showed at EAE day last spring.
We have our first gameplay video that people can see. This is Jake Muehle and Chris Rawson playing. The game is coming along and the hacker side is so much more advanced than the one we showed at EAE day last spring.
A new name -- Cyber Heist
The game's name was tossed into the trash and a new one emerged. This happened as a result of Dr. Jose Zagal trashing it on the basis that it didn't reference gameplay or explain anything about what the game was trying to emote......True. But Cyber Heist? Why not just call it HacknHide. It would be less clichet. Trying to fall in love with this name and I sure I will as I get used to it but dude....did we just travel back to 1985?
New Pipeline to try maximize efficiency
We have created a new pipeline to try and make sure things get done as fast as possible and that mistakes are not committed to the build. Engineers will:
The new workflow will require us to make bids on jobs before we deploy for our sprint. Work will then be submitted for a producer review. If it passes it will be forwarded to Chris for an Engineering review. All of this will be handled through Hansoft courtesy of the great Zac Truscott. We are truly benefitting from his experiences at EA.
We also took many hours to create a two sprint backlog. Here it is also:
EA Salt Lake likes our game
The great and talented Zac Truscott finished his internship at EA this week and that afforded us the opportunity to demo the game for some of the producers, artists and engineers at their Salt Lake office. We presented our game and got some great feedback. For starters, they want the hacker to have a quicker link system to move in a hurry. Second, they love the map editor and encouraged us to make that a selling point in the game.......Not sure i agree with that point but it was an honor to be able to show them the game.
Here Brittany is playing the game with Chris commenting.
Production updates
Status updates for what team members are working for the game. We are changing our process a little and trying to operate to an agile system. It isn't.....because we are designing and building simultaneously but there is more accountability. Take a peak. We are working on some incredible things
Kiran Nair
Kiran Again
Saurabh Pendse
Chongze Yang
Chris Rawson
A new semester....A new hacker
The semester is underway and the game is already radically different than we went in. Jake Muehle and Chris Rawson have re-designed the Hacker part of the game to create a game that feels less like an interface and more like a game.
They have come up with a hacker than interfaces with a hex grid attached to nodes. The function of the hacker remains the same. He opens doors, keeps the thief safe and deals with problems that arise in the world. The new system Chris constructed is incredible and already functional. He has invested hundreds of hours of work into it and I think it will work great.
Compare it to the Hacker gameplay in the previous post and you can see a big difference
They have come up with a hacker than interfaces with a hex grid attached to nodes. The function of the hacker remains the same. He opens doors, keeps the thief safe and deals with problems that arise in the world. The new system Chris constructed is incredible and already functional. He has invested hundreds of hours of work into it and I think it will work great.
Compare it to the Hacker gameplay in the previous post and you can see a big difference
Sprint 4 - Done.....sort of.
We finally got ahead of schedule a little bit and we completed our tasks but we have a ton of bugs to work through. For instance, if the point man looks up while crouched, he falls through the level. Does that sound like a problem to anyone? We are quickly trying to fix that bug as well as several others in time to show the game at EAE. When the game does work, its great.
Hacker Video
As expected, the Hacker side is a lot less cumbersome than the prototype version. The IR indicator for guards means that you don't have transpose a spacial sense from a camera and convey it to the other player. I wonder if we went to far the other way though. The Hacker side is a lot of clicking and it seems you can get anywhere on the board you want. We'll have to see how that plays tomorrow at EAE Day.
Sprint 3
We should have a playable build before the end of the week. The level has been uploaded. The guards have a very simplistic AI and the networking between the two players is working. We need to get a lot of the hacker stuff done still before we can play including:
- Infrared detectors
- Hacker EMP
- The password system
- Ping UI
As expected, we will have no time to iterate before EAE Day. We will have a playable build virtually simeoultaneously.
Sprint 2
Things are going very well. The guys finished every task on sprint one and they adopted Hansoft. It seems to be a very effective means to communicate and hold everyone accountable. It is particularly useful since we are using Unity and only one person can have the scene checked out at any given time.
This week is heavy on the Hacker side. Nikhil, max and Chris are putting together the node system and the functionality of security system. The guard AI is still being put together as expected it is very difficult. But the engineers are up to the task and everything seems to be flowing.
The producers are actually pitching in with art assets. Zac and Jake fly through them while I work very slow. I have make a couch......feel free to be amused.
This week is heavy on the Hacker side. Nikhil, max and Chris are putting together the node system and the functionality of security system. The guard AI is still being put together as expected it is very difficult. But the engineers are up to the task and everything seems to be flowing.
The producers are actually pitching in with art assets. Zac and Jake fly through them while I work very slow. I have make a couch......feel free to be amused.
Sprint 1
The one week sprints are working. The engineers are taking the game docs and are building the game at record speeds. We have a teams for the guards, hackers and the thief but there is a heavy week 1 emphasis on the hacker and the guards.
The thief team is working with basic movement and should easily be able to complete their tasks before the end of the week.
The guard team has a much more difficult task ahead of them. They are coming up with a plan to implement AI for the guard and there are many things that have to be done including:
The thief team is working with basic movement and should easily be able to complete their tasks before the end of the week.
The guard team has a much more difficult task ahead of them. They are coming up with a plan to implement AI for the guard and there are many things that have to be done including:
- guard tracking paths
- guard cone of vision
- change of state (detects thief and not)
- opening and closing doors
Max and Chris are working on level building
Have to kick into Gear
We are back from GDC and now everyone is freaking out that we are less than a month from EAE day and we virtually have nothing done. Today we developed a plan to get everything included we need for Alpha in 4 sprints of a week each. I sat down with the engineers and negotiated the tasks(more like refereed). They have agreed to what they will do and we have begun.....many concessions were made.
The biggest question I have about agile as it pertains to games is what angle to you build it from. Do you build with items from the backlog that are features or do you build from a engineers perspective. The engineers resisted greatly doing it in a very granulated way with a feature list. Instead, they want tasks broken down from their perspective. I caved completely as I need their good will a great deal more than I need to win an argument(I barely offered one). The upside is they are finally on our side. The downside is we will have nothing to show for this game until it is virtually done. There will be no iteration before EAE day.
May fortune favor the foolish.
The biggest question I have about agile as it pertains to games is what angle to you build it from. Do you build with items from the backlog that are features or do you build from a engineers perspective. The engineers resisted greatly doing it in a very granulated way with a feature list. Instead, they want tasks broken down from their perspective. I caved completely as I need their good will a great deal more than I need to win an argument(I barely offered one). The upside is they are finally on our side. The downside is we will have nothing to show for this game until it is virtually done. There will be no iteration before EAE day.
May fortune favor the foolish.
GDC Day 3
The last day of GDC was the most productive as far as networking. I had a very productive conversation with the guys from Arena Net and CCP. The trip illuminated just how far I need to go before I'm viable as game producer in the industry but I feel validated that its possible. I like process and I like removing obstacles and there is a place for people like that. I definitely have to become more familiar with the industry and I have to become for familiar with development tools. But it was a great trip. I'll do it differently next year and I'll do it better.
See ya San Fran
See ya San Fran
GDC Day 2
I'm learning a great deal about networking at GDC. Evidently the most effective networking happens after hours at the parties. Game developers are tired and are using the opportunity as a vacation. The people working the booths are not necessarily there for any reason other than to collect your resume. My classmates have attended parties and had drinks with people from Zynga, Bioware, EA and many others. Must remember to do this differently next year.
As far as what I did today, I am starting to become comfortable and I am speaking to the booths about myself and about what they do. It is very interesting to see that various companies have a very differing definition on what a producer does. Some consider a producer to be simply the guy that schedules the benchmarks and keeps the game under-budget. Others consider the producer to be an integral part of the creative process. EA even sort of has a job for each.....Very interesting.
As far as what I did today, I am starting to become comfortable and I am speaking to the booths about myself and about what they do. It is very interesting to see that various companies have a very differing definition on what a producer does. Some consider a producer to be simply the guy that schedules the benchmarks and keeps the game under-budget. Others consider the producer to be an integral part of the creative process. EA even sort of has a job for each.....Very interesting.
GDC Day 1
Wow......GDC is huge. Its massive. I believe I understand the general dynamic. GDC is a massive sales program. Software developers sale their tools to game devs. Game devs are selling their games to wanna-be game dev consumers. And the wanna-be game devs are selling themselves to them.
I spent the day collecting swag for my professor who I believe gave me the job in part because he understands how uncomfortable I am jumping in and this gave me an angle. I collected a lot of great swag and I spoke to many game developers.......They are mere mortals. They do not breathe fire. They do not glow in the dark. What they are is a group of talented, driven people who have earned their dues....mostly. It was very encouraging. I felt I had things in common with a few of them. Honestly, their humanity makes what they are able to create all the more impressive.
For my part, I was terrible. I said virtually nothing. But this is why I'm here. I'm here to get past being an introvert and learn the ability to represent myself as well as possible. Today might not have been that day.
I spent the day collecting swag for my professor who I believe gave me the job in part because he understands how uncomfortable I am jumping in and this gave me an angle. I collected a lot of great swag and I spoke to many game developers.......They are mere mortals. They do not breathe fire. They do not glow in the dark. What they are is a group of talented, driven people who have earned their dues....mostly. It was very encouraging. I felt I had things in common with a few of them. Honestly, their humanity makes what they are able to create all the more impressive.
For my part, I was terrible. I said virtually nothing. But this is why I'm here. I'm here to get past being an introvert and learn the ability to represent myself as well as possible. Today might not have been that day.
Welcome to San Francisco
I'm attending GDC for the first time......Very frightened.....Very excited. I'm here to learn how to interact industry professionals, get my name out and try to begin to understand what they are looking for....cause....I have no idea. I am a game industry noob. I work hard, I study hard but these are things I don't know and I'm looking forward to learning.
Things I will do in San Francisco:
Things I will do in San Francisco:
- Get out of my comfort zone and actually speak to the pros.
- Push my thesis game and start to get out there.
- Get reaction to my resume and begin to figure out what they are looking for
View from San Francisco
New Features
The biggest hurdle we have to overcome is how the thief and the hacker communicate to each-other. Currently, the hacker has to take information from a top down view and convey that information to the thief so it useful in a first person view. That is really hard to do on the fly. You have to transpose the spatial relationships.
To try and cope with this problem, we are adding a infra red view for the hacker so he doesn't have to look back and fourth from the camera to the top down view and we are installing a ping system so he can simply click where the guard is for the thief. This should simplify the burden of communication greatly.
To try and cope with this problem, we are adding a infra red view for the hacker so he doesn't have to look back and fourth from the camera to the top down view and we are installing a ping system so he can simply click where the guard is for the thief. This should simplify the burden of communication greatly.
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