I had a completely unexpected but brilliant success in releasing Prime Minister's Questions: the Game. Downloaded a little over nine thousand times, it was in print in the Guardian, covered by Rock Paper Shotgun and even Tom Watson MP tweeted about it. As a gamer and a politics nut my life should quite categorically be complete.
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| PMQs in the g2 supplement |
The same half that I took my finals at university. In contrast, I spend the second half of the year unemployed - besides eight hours a week at 'the UK's second largest home retailer' - and bored, and, in terms of games development, I achieved exactly nothing.
This year, this failure needs to be rectified.
I will start with another confession: The Longevity Gene should have been released by now. In September I went down to London for the Eurogamer Expo and met up with Dan Marshall, a long-time internet acquaintance and stalkee to my sixteen-year-old self, for a couple of pints. He is a man you can always rely on to tell you it straight. Discussing The Longevity Gene he declared "you could have it finished in a couple of months", especially "with all that free time you now have." He was right, so what stopped me?
The main problem with The Longevity Gene is that it is inflated, heavy and full of rubbish and at the moment it does not even tell the story that I want it to. All the best bits of the story - where it reflects on technology, society and personality like all good science fiction should - is locked up in the 'part 2' which I know I'll never want to make. Add to that the issue of me having written the majority of the game two years ago - when I was stupid at making games - and you've got yourself a sizeable hurdle to jump.
So, what's the plan of action?
Well, step one is 'get The Longevity Gene finished'. I have bought myself a notebook, I am half-way towards writing all the interesting story into what I have now, I have mercilessly cut a load of crap out and Adventure Game Studio is booted up every evening after work. I owe it to all those people out there waiting for it - I'm looking at you, Igor - and I will get it done.
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| One of the animations cut from TLG |
Step two is to get Prime Minister's Questions re-developed - it has already been redesigned - and released on iThings. Nearly every person who I showed the game to said immediately "this should really be on iPhone" and I have to say I agree. Sometime in the near future I want MPs playing it in the chamber. Not even kidding.
And in case you hadn't guessed yet, I will be doing all these things proudly under the banner of Bit Sharp Games.
And that's it, really. The State of the Games Address, 2012. Not as exciting as Barack Obama's but, not unsurprisingly as I'm not running for office, a hell of a lot more frank.
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| Another cut animation - they just happen to be some of my best |
1 comment:
This is a response to this post and your latest one so bear with me.
Firstly - Bit Sharp Games - wow, this is very exciting news! I look forward to seeing more of your releases under this branding and more posts here. I hope 2012 will be a good year for you.
Secondly, I can empathise with a lot of what you said about having projects languishing on paper or in your head. I've been to uni, i've studied games design, i've even made some inconsequential games as coursework, but I graduated over a year ago now and haven't brought any of my personal ideas to life. I've done nothing with AGS save for a few walkcycles and backgrounds.
Motivation is key, like you said. I'm ashamed to say i've been working on a friend's iPhone game since I graduated and even now it's in development hell.
I started with the best intentions, and progress was initially good considering I was learning a new language and a new platform, but slowly life got in the way. Days went by when I didn't work on it, which turned into weeks, and months..you get the idea.
My friend should hate me right now but thankfully he doesn't. He's all but given up on the game really. He's pursuing other projects of his own which is good. Personally I want to draw a line under it and get it finished. I've been putting off a lot of personal projects until I do and I wouldn't trust myself to do anything collaborative again until i've got a couple of releases under my belt.
I've started this year with some new ideas, and i'm scribbling down things here and there, trying to convince myself I can be productive. We shall see.
I wish you the best of luck for 2012 and don't feel too bad about TLG. You've obviously grown during development and that will show in whatever you release.
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