Inactive

This blog is now inactive. I’m keeping it here as a record of the development of the Inspire project. The only update that may appear here in the future is a post-mortem – due to my schedule this will take longer than I anticipated.

My main business and development site is at clockworkrhino.com

That is all.

Sound of Silence

Announcement coming soon…

GarageGames September Update

My September update for GarageGames is now live. You can view it here. Go have a read, it is a concise summary of where Templar Skies is at.

First Quarter Points Tally

The points tally for the first quarter of the Dream Games competition were released today in an interesting IRC meetup for contestants and interested parties. Inspire’s official website got an honourable mention for being so orange and ended up at number 6 on the list. I’m quite happy with this position, as I have put a lot of work into keeping up with the contest, and really admire the teams who made up the top 5, they are doing a great job and a couple were my personal picks. It’s only the first quarter tally however, so there’s still a lot of work ahead, and a lot of points to be gained. Everyone on the list is in with a chance.

For me, Inspire is about making a commercially viable game. The contest was good timing and a great way to keep focused on development, and be part of a community all developing. Winning the contest would be a nice bonus, and I’m going to do everything I can to meet the points criteria, however I am aiming to launch Inspire as a commercial product well before the deadline.

Here is the points tally, congratulations to the top 5:

Isles of Midgard: 6400
Frayed Knights: 6200
Arcanoria: 6100
Pelorea: 6050
Fantasci: Hidden War: 5950
Inspire: 5900
MMORPG (Working Title) 5100
Neoastra: 4850
SmokeJumpers: 4600
Foundations of Hope: 4600
B.r.a.v.e: 4550
Bit Battles: 4120
Aeges Road: 3900
Docoto Defense: 3800
B.A.L.L.S.: 3755
Exodus Project Online: 3600
Watcher: 3100
Legendary Journeys: 2100
Forsaken Sanctum: 2100
Rifts MMO: 1950
Game of Builder: 1900
Solar Battles: 1800
Forbidden Dawn: 1550
Last Ancient: 1500
Combat Robotic Games: 1500

Server Migration

A quick announcement: the hosting provider for the main website for Inspire is migrating servers next week, and so inspire.clockworkrhino.com won’t be available sometime on the 9th & 10th GMT+10. Thankfully I maintain a separate blog here, which will continue it’s regular program.

Clockwork Rhino and Inspire Toolbar

Thanks to the automated community toolbar creation at conduit.com, you can be alerted to Clockwork Rhino and Inspire news, messages, links and more as they happen. It’s a great way to have quick access to related links. Inspire news will be updated there first, and it has some other handy tools like google search and an email notifier. More features will be added soon, chat is a possibility.

Get the toolbar here – http://ClockworkRhino.OurToolbar.com

Welcome to Inspire – Take 2

With the recent business and design changes, I thought I’d have another go at introducing and explaining Inspire.

Inspire is a 3D, side-scrolling platform multiplayer game. Inspire has elements of action combat, role-playing, and tower defense games. Its focus is casual and accessible action gameplay. Inspire invites everyone to play together with no traditional levels or classes, and uses a freeform feat system with which the player can tailor to their situation and preference. Players arm their warrior avatars with heavy armor and weaponry crafted from collected resources. Inspire has a variety of game modes – defend fortresses from invading demons, build towers and strategic positions, or take part in an all out assault on demon bosses. Meet others in the community lobby, and join them in instanced scenarios, or set up a private game to play with your friends.

Pod Radio

Pod Radio is kindly providing free banner hosting for entries in the Dream Games competition. The banners are rotated randomly, and Inspire has a banner there now. A big thanks to Pod Radio for this promotion.

Pod Radio is your resource to the independent game development community.  Its voice so to speak.  We are here to help all those interested in making their own games find the resouces they need.  We are here to put the little guys out there and make it known that even though we don’t have millions for a budget that we are still a force to be reckoned with.

Pod Radio is dedicated to bringing you the latest news in independent gaming and the best music.  Feel free to sit back and relax while our tunes play or jump in and join us in our irc.  We are on the irc.coldfront.net server channel #pod-radio.

So check them out at pod-radio.net, look out especially for the interview with Dave Young of Dream Games.

Forums

Forums have gone up at the newly reconstructed official site. They are not complete yet, but feel free to make an account. Might not be too much action there until the game opens up for testing.

Contest Rules

The contest rules have been posted for the $10 000 Dream Games contest.

• Points awarded per weekly blog: 100 possible per week
• Points awarded per monthly game update blogs on GG site: 400 possible
• Points awarded for creation of game associated website: 2000 possible
• Points awarded for GUI design: 1500 possible
• Points awarded for Ingame Art: 2000 possible
• Points awarded for concept art: 1050 possible
• Points awarded for cross-site promotion and hype-building (fanbase/community): 1000 possible
• Points awarded for adherance to design in final result: 1000 possible
• Points awarded for launch process and response to player feedback from alpha phase: 1250 possible
• Points awarded for community response to the final result: 3000 possible
• Points awarded for game documentation: 1000 possible
• Points awarded for originality: 2000 possible
• Points awarded for sound design: 1000 possible
• Points awarded for technical merit: 1000 possible
• Free Points reserved by judges for valorious merit (ie to be used at our discretion): 2000 possible per project
• Points awarded for design document: 5000 possible (reminder these are due in within 30 days of registering, with a loss of 25 points per day thereafter until it’s in)

So how will I go with this criteria?

• Ok with the weekly blog, I tend to do a few posts a week, normally all at once when I’m in the mood.
• I still need to do my first GG post. I was waiting on some more to show, but I think that can wait until next month.
• Got a website for the game, but needs updating with more content. Here.
• I’m not sure how I’ll fare in gui design, given that I’m aiming for something very simple and minimalistic.
• In game art is promising. I’m aiming for a simple, but good looking style. More coming soon.
• Concept art I’ll prolly fall down on. I’m doing this mainly on my own, so I don’t use a lot of concept art, and I don’t have many game objects that need it.
• Promotion and community. This is really important to an MMO, but an area I need to get a lot more experience in.
• I still need to finish my design document and get it submitted.
• Launch Process? Still 2 months away, at least.
• Community Response? We shall see.
• I’m good at documentation, so this shouldn’t be too difficult. Especially since my game doesn’t have too much to document.
• Originality? Full points for game style, no points for story.
• Sound design? I knew I was forgetting something.
• Technical Merit. What I’m doing is quite simple, but I’m hoping to have it all work quite elegantly.
• Valorous Merit – Full marks for my fun, light, accessible game! I hope.
• More design document points. See Above.