Games are to be finished by the end of the month, and will be played through at Club Floyd. (I can recommend a visit to Club Floyd in general if you like playing Interactive Fiction. It’s fun.)

Thanks to Tuve for letting me know of the bug, so I could fix it!

This blog entry is a bit more bloggy than usual, and consists of me thinking out loud for a bit. It’s been a while since I last posted an update here, so I thought it’s about time to do so. Back in June, I announced that I’d start on Kejick 2. Not much has happened with that since then.

In fact, I’ve barely touched the game at all, and I have for the first time started questioning if I really should do this, or if I’ll abandon this game-making hobby. It’s fun to make games, but it’s also completely disconnected from the rest of my life. I’ve never met a person that’s played Frasse. Not one person. I have shown it to some family and friends, and at best they sounded vaguely interested and said that they’d try it out, but nobody ever has. (Or if they did, they didn’t like it, and never told me.) If you’re reading this, then it’s likely that you’re one of the strangers or sort-of-friends-that-I’ve-never-met that have played my game, and maybe even told me so. That’s appreciated – I still occasionally get an e-mail from someone that’s played the game and liked it enough to take the time to write a few lines. That’s great.

But the main reason to make a game is that the actual process of creation is fun and rewarding. It’s a good feeling when things come together, or when a bug is located and fixed. To create, to be creative. That’s great.

I do have other outlets for my creativity. As a music teacher, I work with people and music, two things that require creativity, and I’ve been spending a large part of what free time I have doing music. It makes sense. Not only will it hopefully make me better at my job, it’s also fun, and people around me understand it. Ten weeks now, I’ve been spending some hours after church each sunday recording a song (by myself, playing various instruments) and mailing it to my parents as a weekly greeting. I couldn’t do that with a computer game.

So, does this mean that I won’t make any more games? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get started and maybe I won’t. What I do know is that I’ll continue to hunt down and fix bugs in my released games if anyone finds such things and let me know about them. And I’m not about to abandon SLUDGE yet either.

That was probably all I had to say right now, so I’ll stop typing, and press the “publish” button.

/ Rikard

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.

The new version of the game runs on Mac OS X as well as Windows (and even Linux, but then you’ll have to get the game engine separately). It also has added voices, improved music and some improved graphics. It still isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for me to be proud of what I’ve made, and now I can move on to make my next game. (Unless someone finds any bugs in this one.)

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think of it!

I’m still working on the Special Edition of Frasse and the Peas of Kejick. The main reason that I failed to meet the deadline I’d given myself was that I hadn’t received all the voice recordings from other people (I’m still waiting on two persons), but that wasn’t the only reason. When I realised that it would be impossible to finish the game on schedule, I didn’t push that hard to finish the things I could have finished either. And now that I’m waiting I’ve also started to go through all the background graphics, updating them to take advantage of the unlimited colour palette in the new version of the engine, and touching them up a bit where I find things that I can improve.

I’m now really looking forward to when I’ll finally be able to wrap up the game and finally call it done. (This has gone on a lot longer than I originally planned.) I can’t make a new estimation of a release date today. As soon as I have the parts created by others that I need to finish, I’ll put it together as quickly as I can, but until then I’ll keep making small updates all over the game. I just hope the end will come soon, so that I’ll be able to move on.

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.