Since last post, I’ve found a writer/designer that’s currently busy writing the outlines of the plot for the game. The auditions for singers/actors has also been a success, with many great people willing to voice characters in our game. We’ve selected a cast of 13 (five male and eight female), and I’m really looking forward to be writing music for them.

I’m also happy about finally be making another game. It’s been a long time since I finished Frasse, and besides a few attempts to get started on something new that never got started, the only game related thing I’ve been doing since then (besides playing games) has been game engine programming. This is great!

It’s also a bit scary to have so many people involved in the project. I’m leaving a lot of control of the game to someone else, and that’s slightly scary, but from what I’ve seen so far of the game designer it’ll turn out great. I feel confident that I made the right choice there. The other thing that’s slightly scary is the 13 actors. They’re not scary, but they’re really good, and I hope I won’t let them down. I want this to be something that everyone involved can be proud of.

I’ll certainly do my best.

A big inspiration is Deirdra Kiai, and her upcoming game Dominique Pamplemousse. Do check it out! It’s quite original, and looks as if it will be great. It also needs your help. It’s only halfway founded, with only eight days to go. For only $5 you’ll get a copy of the game, but if after looking at it (there’s a demo you can try out, too) you’re as excited about it as me, you’ll pick one of the higher support levels. Go there now and pledge your support! You can come back here and read the rest of the post when you’re done with that.

Ok, then. What about my game? I don’t have that much to say about it yet. I’m currently trying to improve SLUDGE, the game engine I used for Frasse, to improve the sound support (which obviously is quite important for a musical) and the animation system. I’ve also posted a call for voice actors on a voice actor’s forum. Once I have voice actors for the game (if you think I do things in an odd order, I try to explain why in the linked post) and I’ve made sure that the game engine will be useable for this (or, if that fails, pick another game engine to use), then I’ll start properly on the game design. It’ll be in my head in the meantime, and if you’re interested in being my co-designer (or even lead designer) on this project, let me know, and we’ll talk about it.

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!

Me, and my first snowman of the year

You can click these later images to see larger pictures. They look better.

The second snow creature I made was a dragon.

I’m pretty happy with how this dragon turned out. Snow is fun!

Here's the dragon from another angle.

And finally, a snow woman

I didn’t get much else done today. A bit of tuba playing, and a bit of packing (I’m leaving my parents tomorrow, to go back home. Christmas is more or less over now.), and that’s it. But it was worth it!

Note the icy nose.

I took a few more pictures after it got dark

Here she is, standing next to the guest house.

She looks a bit scary.

The snow man in the dark.

The dragon in the dark.

The dragon is guarding my sister's shop.

It feels good to have finished the almost two year long work on it, but this does not mean that I’ll leave it. Nor have I completely given up on making another game with it. We’ll see what happens.

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.