Day 365 : One year already, and vacations status

It was a year ago today that I started the development of "The Archangel Chapter" using the "Dark Game SDK". One year later I unfortunately find myself with very little to show for in terms of playable demos and such.

These vacations have been the most trying and de-motivating of this project's lifespan. I entered them with the belief that the engine was ready to enter production and that I could concentrate on asset production and integration. Not so. The engine still had big missing or malfunctioning features. In the end I spend 75% of the time doing engine maintenance, feature additions and such, and 25% adding content. As a result, the originally planned milestone of having 1 complete production level with the different menus to lead the players to it not only remained unmet, but will be unmet for at least a few months.

2007 will see a drastic change of direction in the project. So far I've not hesitated to go back and redo things I felt weren't designed properly and with object-oriented optimization. The philosophy has always been to invest time now so that later things will fall in place more rapidly and such. There was also a constant thriving to put as many features in the game engine as possible.

But as a result of this approach there is no game here. No game to be shown and too many rewrites. The game's engine will soon enter a lock-down mode, and the game will be made with whatever features are in the engine (which is already way more than most, if not all, rail shooters I've seen in the independent circuit). Bug fixes only.

To that end I will spend the next few months intensely testing the engine and locking it down. The new milestone for the complete 1 level experience is pushed back 6 months. That's enormous I know, but so far every time I thought I was ready to do production, the truth has been far from it. So I'm playing it safe.

I wish I wasn't alone on the battlefield on this. I've had a few offers for help, but I'm waiting for concrete results before considering them official.

Happy new years to those of you who've followed this little journey. Lots more to come this year. Cheers!

Day 355 : Getting a grasp

Between family gatherings, playing with my christmas gifts, the worst cold I got for the past few years and what seems to be some unfortunate gastric problems that requires me to rush to the bathroom every now and then, I'm now managing to get the upper hand on the GUI and expect good results in the next few days. I don't think my original milestone for the christmas vacations is still feasible, but I'll give it a good shot for the 10 or so days I got left. I shall do my best to put aside my newly received videogames to concentrate on work. I can play once vacations are over. Now that I think about it, in 10 days will be the first year anniversary of the beginning of The Archangel Chapter. I think it's been a pretty productive years, the first few months anyway ;-). Going back to work.