Two persons left. Both of them had a game idea.

The first of those was quite different from Frasse. More serious in its tone. I liked that, as it’s the kind of story I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write myself. But he hadn’t seen Frasse yet, and when he got around to looking at what I’d done before, he realised that he doesn’t think that my style (which, particularly when it comes to graphics, is limited) would suit his game.

The final game idea is also something that I hope will become a game some day. It is a bit interesting and show some promise, but after a lot of thinking I turned it down anyway. Partly because it’s too similar to Frasse in style, and partly because I’m dumb. The proposal was for a one-room game that would sort of be like a demo for a bigger game. That’s a very sensible idea, and it’s probably the best, most intelligent way to approach a collaboration like this. “Start small” is also the most common advice given in game making forums. But somehow it doesn’t appeal to me.

That leaves me alone, which means that my next game will be the not-quite-sequel to Frasse. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my notes for that game along with me on my summer vacation because I was expecting to start on a collaboration instead, so I won’t be able to get to those until I get back home in August, but I do have the basic idea in my head and I can reinvent the rest, so the plan is to get started now anyway.

I can also use this time to work on the SLUDGE engine, practice my animation skills (or lack thereof) in Plastic Animation Paper (a really good program that I’ve finally purchased) and do things that are not related to game making. (Such as practising on the clarinet. I really need to do that, as my clarinet playing skills are far behind those on bassoon, trumpet or tuba.) And I should mow the lawn.

But my thoughts keep drifting back to the topic of a collaboration… I would like to do a collaboration project, and as I’m currently between projects I’ll throw the question out there: Do you want to design a game for me to make? I haven’t done a successful collaboration yet, but I have proved that I can do the work needed to finish a game, and I’m making sure not to bite of more than I can chew this time. I also have an idea for the division of labour the would make the project manageable.

I’m looking for someone who wants to do the story and game design. Then I’ll take care of the implementation of it.

The game should be an adventure game (and not in 3d). That way I’m confident there won’t be any technical obstacles. I have a game engine that I know well.

Serious? Weird? Whimsical? Traditional? A bit experimental? I’m open to most suggestions. You don’t have to have any game making experience. If you don’t have anything to show what you can do, you’ll have to have a better sales pitch, but please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’re interested!

Send me an e-mail if you’re interested! Questions can also be put as comments to this post.

Today I’ve spent some time on a piece of music from Frasse. This time it’s a piece from the last part of the game, so if you’re afraid of minor spoilers, read no further.It’s the music playing in the princess’ room, and this is what it sounds like in the released game: Flute Concert (old version) Here’s what it will sound like (unless I change it further) in the Special Edition: Flute Concert (new version). I think you’ll agree that it sounds a lot better, even though it’s almost exactly the same notes, and it’s still played by a computer.

Update: Oops. Encoding it to MP3 caused both versions to lose clarity, so I’ve now re-uploaded them in higher bitrate.

My first attempt (in 2002) at making a game with the SLUDGE adventure game engine was a collaboration.

A scene from Mathias Ferguson, Crime Scene Photographer

Mathias Ferguson, Crime Scene Photographer was designed by a man calling himself Ashikaga that I met in an adventure game forum (comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.adventure on Usenet). He was to design the game and I would implement it. We got a few scenes done, but in late 2003 Ashikaga found himself too busy and suggested we put the project on hold.

At this point, I started on Frasse (after looking around a bit for another collaborator without success). In 2006, after I’d released Frasse, I wanted to pick up development of Mathias again. Ashikaga was not only still busy with other stuff, but he’d also stopped playing adventure games, so he was not interested and instead gave me permission to do what I want with the game. (Even though we never got far with it, I still would like to pick it up again one day, maybe with another collaborator.)

I then made contact with Deirdra Kiai, asking if she would be interested in a collaboration after she was done with TGTTPOACS. When the reply came a few days later that the game was almost finished and she would indeed like to make a game with me I was thrilled. Not only am I a big fan of her games, we both had a track record of actually finishing games. Surely this time the collaboration would result in something great? We thought a while on what kind of game to make (a platform game? a kart racer?) and decided to try a small one-room conversation-based 3d adventure game. Deirdra would do the design and model the room, I would do character graphics and for the rest I don’t think we had a clear division.

Character concept art for Bob, one of the main characters.

But as St. Edmond’s Second-Best Coffee hasn’t been released, it’s clear that something went wrong this time, too.

Concept art for Child of the Warriors, the other main character

Bob again. This time as a model in Blender.

As there didn’t exist any ready-to-use engines for 3d adventure games, we looked around a bit and decided on Ogre3d. Learning to use that wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, and it was made even more complicated that I had bought my first Mac and I wanted to make it cross-platform. Trying to learn Mac-coding and Ogre3d at the same time was not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Add to that the fact that Ogre3d wasn’t as well supported on Mac as on Windows, and you see what we were up against. We never got the engine to a state where we would be able to start making the actual game.

So the obvious failure here was that we bit off more than we could chew. Even though the scope of the game itself was deliberately small, the technical side of it turned out to be too hard for us. That was definitely the biggest reason for the death of the project.

But there’s more to it than that. The thing that broke the project was once again lack of time, but this time that lack of time was mine. A hobby has to take second place to paid work and other stuff, and when (after a long period of slowly making very little progress) I ended up unable to work at the game at all, the project died. (I don’t remember the exact details, but I think it was something like that.)

I also suspect that the vague work division was a bad thing.

(Deirdra then made Pigeons in the Park. It has some of the spirit of St. Edmond’s Second-Best Coffee even though it’s a different and smaller game, so play that game if you want a taste of what could have been.)

I’ve also played a smaller part in the creation of some games that actually have been made. I’m thinking of Handyman Wanted and 8 Squares in the Garden in particular, where I made the music. It was fun, but I’m not 100% happy with my contribution there. If I get to make music for someone else’s game again, I want to have more control over how it sounds in the game and not just mail some MP3 files to the game maker and then become surprised by how it actually sounds inside the game when it’s released.

I’m still hoping to be part of a collaboration in the future. Feel free to contact me if you have an idea.

Since my last progress update, I’ve been busy. First with work: End of the semester and such. Not much time for anything else. After that, I went to the south of Sweden for a week to play and learn more about Jazz and World Music. (Yes, that’s me in the picture with a cornet in hand, trying some livelooping.) Great fun, and inspiring. (Some sound clips from the course are also available at the site I linked to, in case you’re curious. It’s me trying an improvised cornet solo in the middle of the Arabian 7/8, and playing the bassoon in the Tango.)

But now I onec again have time for a bit of programming, and am making progress. I’ve been reading the Cocoa programming book by Aaron Hillegass that I mentioned in an earlier post. It’s really good, and I understand why it’s recommended as “the book” to read for people who want to learn Mac programming. As a result, I’m starting to grasp how Mac programming works, and I’ve added an options window for Sludge. I also find Mac GUI programming so enjoyable that the thought of porting the development kit too, and not just the engine, is looking more and more appealing. The idea of maintaining the Windows port is at the same time becoming less appealing, so I’m hoping that someone else will show interest in that department, but if that doesn’t happen I won’t let the Windows port fall behind (much) either.

I’m still waiting for Tim Furnish to add me as a developer at Sludge’s SourceForge site (he said that he would, when he found his password), so that I’ll be able to upload the things I’ve done with the engine.

I may also become sidetracked one weekend. I visited a site related to Allegro (the game development library I used to make Rocket Duel), and learned that there’ll be a new speedhack coming soon. Speedhack is an Allegro programming competition run over three days (starting July 10th), and I’ve registered intent to participate. It might be fun. (The rules aren’t completely known until it has started, but I’m hoping that it’ll be fun, and a bit challenging.)

Having said that, I have been tagged in one of those blog things, and decided to play along this time. These kinds of things can be fun sometimes. If you find it boring, please stop reading now and move on to something else. So here’s some answers to some questions:

5 Things Found In Your Bag

The bag I’ll look into is my MacBook-bag, but since I’m typing this on said computer, it’s not to be found there.

• The Double Reed, vol 30 no 4. It’s the quarterly journal of the International Double Reed Society. I’m a member.
• Some sheet music. (Ellington’s Caravan in an arragement for brass quintet by Øystein Baadsvik.)
• An Owner’s Manual for my Zendrum.
• A copy of Illustrerad Vetenskap (a popular science magazine) that I bought once on a ferry when I was bored.
• Some CDs. I may return to that topic if I make more posts under the bloggery topic in the future. Let’s just say that they’re probably not found in any top seller lists anywhere, but they’re great.

5 Favourite Things In Your Room

I’m sitting in my kitchen at the moment, so I’ll pick five things in here.

• An E-flat tuba.
• A freezer. (That’s a great invention.)
• Pasta.
• Paper.
• A music stand.

5 Things You Have Always Wanted To Do

Five things I’ve always wanted to do? That I don’t know. I don’t even know if I could think up five things that I haven’t done that I’d like to do. Most things I’d like to do are related to things I have done or am doing.

5 Things You Are Currently Into

Listing five things I’m into isn’t easy (how could I get the time to be into five things?), but here’s an attempt at some kind of list of things I’m working on. If it looks ambitious and focused, it’s only because I couldn’t think of better things to write.

• Becoming better at playing the musical instruments I play.
• Becoming better at my job.
• Becoming a better musician.
• Frasse 2.
• Becoming a better person. (That’s beyond my skill level, but I try, and pray for help.)

5 People You Want To Tag

I choose not to tag anyone. If you read this and want to tag yourself, feel free.

So, there it is. My first “bloggery” blog post. More will probably follow, but not in any sort of regular fashion.