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.

But you can rest assured that I will return to both Sludge and Frasse. Neither is abandoned. Maybe I’ll get some things done tomorrow…

Happy Easter!

Progress was made for a while, but then I was hit by serious lack of time somewhere around August, and didn’t resume work on this project until this week. Before this long break, most stuff except the graphics were more or less working. (I say “more or less” partly because there are some things that I know that doesn’t work, and partly because it’s not easy to test things without any graphics.) Today I made a bit of a breakthrough on the graphics front: While there’s still a lot to be done, I can now see the backgrounds of Frasse (at least the non-scrolling ones) on my MacBook. Yay! This gives me new confidence – I now know I’ll be able to make it run properly eventually. It’s just a matter of time.

Then we will be able to play Frasse and the other good SLUDGE games on our Macs. Maybe even Bad Timing, eventually. Erwin is also slow with his game making, but I’m looking forward to seeing if the game will be able to match my (high) expectations for it.

That’s it for now, but I hope it won’t be quite long until next time I have news to share.

Don’t expect it to be released any time soon, though. Frasse and the Peas took me around two years to make. While I now have some experience that’ll help me make the game faster (and hopefully better), I am now busier than I was then. I will use the same engine – SLUDGE – so I don’t have to learn a new tool in order to make the game, but SLUDGE is now open source and I have started to explore the source of the engine. My plan is partly to help with the maintenance (bug-fixing and so on), but also to port it to MacOS.

(I also have plans for a third - and final? – part in the series.)