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Busy, Busy... So Busy!

posted in A Keyboard and the Truth for project 96 Mill
Published December 03, 2009
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Greetings folks!

So, lots on my plate these days:

Enjoying the Holiday Season

Gotta have some fun, or whats the point right?

Jacki and I are heading up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire this weekend to get our XMass tree, as we do every year; it is a fun getaway and a great tradition :)


Finishing up Selenite 1.0

We used Selenite very effectively to develop STATIC: Investigator Training ... which by the way has some very fun statistics:

  • Our first game with voice acting

  • Only took a year to complete, our fastest developed game!

  • Actual programming and assembly of the game, only took 2 months!

  • Our first game with live actors and FMV cutscenes

  • Our first game to be developed on Selenite

  • Our largest game ever; approximately 500MB of compressed resources

  • Our first game to use a physics engine

  • The first game, I didn't write the story for

  • ~3000 lines of Lua script code, ~140 Selenite classes and ~160 instances



It is also interesting to note, that the entire development of Selenite took only from Jan. 2009 to around Aug. 2009 less than a year to develop a complete game engine and editing suite.

That all being done, it is time to finish off Selenite 1.0, get it all glossed up and start getting early adopters playing with it. We're hoping to start selling development licenses early 2010 haven't figured out the price yet; but it is largely assumed that if you won't be selling games with it; you wont have to pay for it.

In addition to this I am working on the Selenite 1.5 revision list; which will be put into effect for Morning's Wrath 2 and Grim Arena; the most notable feature being a more flexible GUI... given my GUI rants in the past you can expect some more info on this.

Working on Morning's Wrath 2: Caverns of the North

I was hoping Morning's Wrath 2, would be a 2009 title; but there is no use in rushing it; its gotta be good. I'm working now to solidify gameplay concepts; as a lot of the art has already been done; and story written.

We're hoping for an early 2010 release, but with Morning's Wrath in particular, it will be done when its awesome.

Selenite for the Web and other devices; and casual games
As part of finishing up Selenite 1.0; I am developing ways that we can run Selenite games in a web browser, iPhone, XBLA, etc.

The motivation here is to allow most of our games to have instant web demos; no downloading a demo to evaluate the game, but in addition to that we'll be offering some smaller, free to play casual games based on existing IP and perhaps some new IP; if we can find the right folks they'll be Ad supported; and users can choose to purchase offline versions for very cheap (think 1.99)

Facebook integration is another big thing on our to-do list; sharing achievements and whatnot with your friends.

Reawakening The Lost City of Malathedra

Its been about a year since we finished Malathedra; and I find myself wishing we did more with it; but it took three years to create and all involved were ready to move on. So, while it isn't official yet, I've started converting the S3Engine implementation of Malathedra into Selenite, to create a much better user experience; clear up some known issues, and also add new content and voice acting to really make the game shine; hopefully it'll be another early to mid 2010 offering.

We'll likely offer upgrades for existing owners of Malathedra for 2.95; and we'll be lowering the price point to 9.95 for new players.
0 likes 4 comments

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shadowcomplex
Quote: Original post by EDI
Finishing up Selenite 1.0

We used Selenite very effectively to develop STATIC: Investigator Training ... which by the way has some very fun statistics:

Congrats on getting another game out the door. I'm interested in how large the market is for this type of game and how well you were able to reach it :)

Quote: Original post by EDI
That all being done, it is time to finish off Selenite 1.0, get it all glossed up and start getting early adopters playing with it. We're hoping to start selling development licenses early 2010 haven't figured out the price yet; but it is largely assumed that if you won't be selling games with it; you wont have to pay for it.

I'll be interested in seeing what your tool chain can do and how quickly it can be done. FWIW, you've got some stiff competition with Adventure Game Studio and Unity releasing the indie license (less than $100k in revenue annually) for free. If you can get the web deployment along with the iPhone/XBLA/whatever implemented and offer a reasonably priced universal platform license, you'd have the advantage on Unity in that aspect. I don't envy the challenges you'll face!

Quote: Original post by EDI
The motivation here is to allow most of our games to have instant web demos; no downloading a demo to evaluate the game, but in addition to that we'll be offering some smaller, free to play casual games based on existing IP and perhaps some new IP; if we can find the right folks they'll be Ad supported; and users can choose to purchase offline versions for very cheap (think 1.99)

You might consider micro-transactions as well for your web based stuff (a good direction in general.) It has become a viable business path. If you really get into the web space, you might also look at a model like Blurst, where a $20 for 6 month subscription gets you the download versions of all their web games.

Quote: Original post by EDI
Facebook integration is another big thing on our to-do list; sharing achievements and whatnot with your friends.
and users can choose to purchase offline versions for very cheap (think 1.99)

Best marketing tool for DD games at the moment! We've seen lots of upswings on DD games that came out with a FB game post-launch. It's a very viable advertising/up-sell model.

Looking forward to seeing what you come out with in 2010!
December 04, 2009 10:38 PM
Jason Z
Have you considered using Unity for your games? With their free version, you get similar functionality to your Selenite editor, with web builds already available to you. If you really want to target the iPhone, you could always upgrade to their more expensive iPhone version - although I think the iPhone market is a bit 'saturated' at the moment...
December 07, 2009 11:24 AM
EDI
I've kept an eye on Unity and have considered it.

Unity is certainly VERY powerful; but it also seems to be largely way more complex; I've taken a lot of time to make game development easy with Selenite; at the expense of certain features and with a lot of experience in how to put games together fast.
December 08, 2009 02:42 PM
Servant of the Lord
Quote: Original post by EDI
Reawakening The Lost City of Malathedra

Its been about a year since we finished Malathedra; and I find myself wishing we did more with it; but it took three years to create and all involved were ready to move on. So, while it isn't official yet, I've started converting the S3Engine implementation of Malathedra into Selenite, to create a much better user experience; clear up some known issues, and also add new content and voice acting to really make the game shine; hopefully it'll be another early to mid 2010 offering.

We'll likely offer upgrades for existing owners of Malathedra for 2.95; and we'll be lowering the price point to 9.95 for new players.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Malathedra was incredible - I loved every minute of it. My only complaint was that it was too short; I think I beat it in one sitting (granted - I played into the night, I couldn't stop playing). But judging by the amount of work it must take to create all that art, it's understandable.

If you are going to re-release it, add alot more content. You could definitely added more rooms/areas to the actual lost city itself, for instance. I mean, there was hardly any city at all, no offense.

Re-release it, and call it "Malathedra: Gold" or something, so people are clear it's not just a patch, and wont get upset at being charged for it. I'd pay another $5-$10 if you make it worth it (At least another 2 hours gameplay with item puzzles, and a couple more logic puzzles).

I'd recommend charging $12-15 for the re-worked Malathedra, and offering it for $5 for those who are upgrading.

If you add voice-acting, make sure there is an option to turn it off in the (awesome circular) menu, because if the voice acting turns out bad, I and other users will want to be able to disable it.
January 09, 2010 12:19 PM
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