September Production

It’s been 10 days since the last update here, which while too long, could not be helped. Due to other work, development on Templar Skies has almost stalled.

Development in the second half of September has focused on tightening the whole game, and focusing on getting a finalized version of everything ready. The main problem with the whole process is I spent about 4 months too long on pre-production tasks. This 6 month period of prototyping, pre-production and reducing scope should never have happened – I should have had a much smaller scope from the outset and just focused on building that.

Well, I’m at that point now. The past couple of weeks, I’ve been finalizing required art assets,  finalizing the scope to the release version, and working on a new version of the game. This is all in aid of producing a beta/release candidate version and get the game released as soon as possible.

Engine. I’ve restarted with a fresh TGE/AFX/Gryphon installation, and added the bare minimum of code functions and assets from previous versions of Templar Skies, as I added and tested the small number of final features. This was needed as every month the Templar Skies codebase gets quite bloated and unstable from the constant development and evolution. The main reason I used the Torque engine is for a stable, complete base to build on top of. So I got back to basics for the latest build to ensure the final product was as small and bug-free as possible. All the subsystems I was adding back in were the tried and tested ones which I knew worked from previous development. A lot of features were cut from this final scope simply because their implementation wasn’t 100% reliable.

Assets and content. These are the most expensive parts of game development. I’ve spent more than I’ve intended, for what has turned out to be experimental development, rather than experiment with basic art and wait until final production to spend on art properly. I believe in doing things properly, and the art produced has been fantastic, but the problem lies with the ever changing scope, and old specs which should have been updated before the artist started working on them.

Level content has been a problem also. I haven’t found a level layout and architecture style I’m really happy with yet, because I’m the one working on this, and I’m no artist. I also have no budget for this part of the project. It just takes so long to do a proper job, and that’s something I don’t have. I’ve narrowed down what elements the levels need, and the basic layouts, and the number of levels etc. Now just to get them build and running smoothly.

Design Document. The design document has been undergoing a major revision, and is almost complete for the final specification. I need to submit it to the Dream Games competition for the September revision, so it should be complete later today. It is much shorter and concise than the original, and a lot more specific. Most final issues are covered, there is still a little bit of specifics to be added over the next couple of weeks.

Overall, Templar Skies has the potential to be a solid title. Features and code arn’t a problem, it’s money for final assets, and level design & content which are the final problem. After that is promotion, marketing, sales etc, which I’m looking forward to. I’m also considering approaching some indie game publishers to help with the funding of more art, and marketing of Templar Skies. The help a publisher could provide could be the difference between a mediocre indie title, and a polished successful one.