Mudtato
Well, I tried
Finally time to share about the aforementioned game project. Like I said, it was a space game.
The initial concept was for a small scoped game about first contact with alien species and how those interactions may play out.
It evolved into a procedurally generated space exploration, crew management sim as well.
At the start of this year I came across the opportunity to apply for grant funding to see the project through to a significant milestone (I was aiming for early access). I had two months to get a game demo ready, as well as all of the grant application documents.
A week after starting the process I had a significant family medical situation come up which meant that I basically gave up on applying for the grant.
About a month later, and with only a few weeks left I decided that I needed to try my best to apply. So I pushed very hard, got some help with finalising the application and was able to submit.
Three months later I learned that I wasn’t successful. Unfortunately I don’t know why.
I’m disappointed about not getting the grant. It means I won’t be able to spend much, if any, time working on games, as I need to make a living. Oh well.
Over that three month period I wasn’t able to put a significant amount of time towards the game, but I was always thinking about it and I decided I wanted to change parts of it, or the concept completely. So not getting the grant wasn’t all bad, as now I’m able to take the game in a different direction.
The overview of the game is that you played as the captain of a ship that was travelling through space on various missions. You interact with the ship and crew through screens.
I used MonoGame which means that everything is basically done from scratch. Sure, Unity or Godot would make life easier, but since when was life easy…
I wanted it to appear that you were looking at screens, so there was a lot of R&D into interacting with the screens with the mouse as if they were in 3D space. That was fun, but would have been far easier if I’d used ChatGPT. I don’t know how I feel about that, but it is what it is.
I’m super proud of what I achieved with it. There are proper crew AI and movement systems. Crew members have roles, tasks, personalities. There are fire systems, a ship builder, interactive screens and maps. There’s so much going on under the hood, but it’s hard to show that.
Here’s a bunch of screenshots and gifs of the game as it progressed through development.
Yes, it’s a new game
Making a fully hand animated, claymation/stop motion platformer is a lot of work. While I was making good progress on the pre-production side of things, the reality was that I just don’t have the capacity to complete that project.
Cliche as it may be, it was in the shower where I had an idea for a relatively simple, systems heavy, graphics light game that I could get out of the door within a much shorter amount of time. So that’s what I’m doing now, and I’ll return to the platformer when I can. After all, I’ve already invested in all of the clay, silicone, armatures, rigs, camera and so on!
I don’t want to give too much away about the new game yet, but it’s a 2D space game.
Progress is slow
I want to quit my job to work on my game.
The problem is… I’m self employed.
(10/548)
Game Asset Workflow
Here’s the current workflow/planned workflow for all major game assets.
Pre-Production
- Sketch out a ton of ideas
- Combine best ideas
- Build a clay maquette
- Create a 2D model sheet
Prototyping
- Create rough 2D animations
- Import animations into game to test
Production
- Sculpt clay model
If it’s an animated character (or needs to be silicone for some other reason):
- Create mould from sculpt
- Build armature
- Create silicone model
- Finish model (assemble parts, paint)
- Animate model
It’s a lot…
I’m currently on step 4 for one of the main characters, and step 1 & 2 for the other character and a bunch of enemy characters. Unfortunately deciding on a main character design is really hard… I’ve gone through so many iterations, but I need to just commit to something or I’ll never be able to progress.
I was skipping ahead to the 2D animation stage, but as I wasn’t 100% on the character design I was hitting a wall. It’s important to stick to the process, so hopefully writing it down will help.
4 pre-prod days gone.
Work officially begins!
Planning for a 1.5 year development time, broken down into the following stages:
Pre-Prod ~3 months (15%)
Prototyping ~5 months (25%)
Production ~10 months (55%)
Post-Production ~1 month (5%)
Prototyping will include 2D animating placeholders and working out most of the game mechanics and some level design.
Production will be modelling and animating assets, constructing levels and polishing the game mechanics.
Post-prod and subsequent work will probably take longer, but we’re off!
It works out to around 550 days, which I’m considering non-consecutive, as they need to fit around my other responsibilities, but I’ve at least planned out how much time I should spend on each stage in order to get this project to completion.
Wish me luck!
