When game development goes right

Okay, so that game I mentioned before that sold about three copies in Germany? That was a bit of an understatement. Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea how well it did overall except to say that you’d be hard-pushed to find any real information about it on the Internet.

If you can recognise the game from this screenshot, I'll give you a Jelly Tot.

However, the whole project was an utter joy from start to finish. And while the finished product may not have been the greatest thing on the planet, I’m still immensely proud of what we acheived.

In a nutshell, here is what we had going for us:

1. Our own room

This might not sound like a big deal, but when there were various frictions happening elsewhere in the studio at the time, having our own room meant that we were sheltered from that. Our office had our own vibe. It was cramped, cosy and friendly. Everyone was together, programmers, artists, the designer and the producer – all working and having fun.

At a small company, people are so frequently hopping from project to project that it’s rare to get everyone working on a game sat closely together. If you shuffled everyone about every time teams changed, you’d be forever moving desks. It’s a shame, because it doesn’t half make a difference.

Various room layouts were tried at the studio over the years. Having separate art and code rooms, having clusters of artists mixed with clusters of programmers, mixing absolutely everyone up… They all have their pros and cons, but none of them are as good for the game as simply putting the entire team together in one place (providing it’s a relatively small team, of course).

2. A great team

And I mean really great. We lucked out big-time here. The team was tiny, seriously tiny, but since the company was expanding at the time, we were able to hire staff which we thought were especially well-suited to the game, both in their skills and personalities. So our little team of ten (four artists, four programmers, a designer and a producer) was awesome. Art-wise, we had me as lead artist, the art manager (which was a boon), and a character artist and an environment artist who were both new additions to the company and fabulous.

Code-wise, well they were ace too. None of them seemed to mind that we were playing the national anthem of the Soviet Union extremely loudly pretty much every day, either. Even the chap who was, well, he was your typical insular-but-talented programmer-type seemed to come out of his shell somewhat and actually turned out to be a right laugh.

The designer was enthusiastic and passionate if horribly jaded. But you couldn’t blame him for that. At the end of the day, he was the only one out of all of us who started the project with something grand and only ever saw it getting chipped away as time limitations became a bigger and bigger factor. Plus he was more connected to things taking place outside of our room than the rest of us were, given that he had to deal with the publishers to a much greater extent than us. However, in spite of that, he was great fun and never took issue with us for slicing huge swathes out of the documents.

Note: One of the things that got the chop was the complex storyline since we didn’t have nearly enough time to do all the cutscenes it would have required. So if anyone played the game and wondered why the story made no sense what-so-ever, that’s why. Sorry 😉

We were also extremely lucky with who our producer was. He was relaxed, even-tempered, and kept studio issues and interference well away from us which allowed us just to happily get on with it.

3. Everybody on the same page

We were all feeling good about the project. We had a heavily character-focussed game here and, for the first time, no limitations from existing IP. We could concept these things however we liked and have a bit of fun. Since the team was so small, there was no need at all for strict lead / manager roles, so instead we simply divvied up the work and all took an even share of the fun stuff.

This also meant that there was an element of good-natured competition since we all wanted our characters to be the best. This did result in some slightly silly moments, of course – you’d be working away on a 4-hit combo animation for your character, glance up, and see your mate doing a 6-hit combo for theirs. So you’d add a bit on the end and making it a 7-hit combo including a mad-ass somersault, and then they’d… etc. Before long, you’ve got a character who’s utterly impossible to defeat.

But that was the exception. On the whole, the friendly competition just meant everything ended up a bit better than it would otherwise have been.

So, that all sounds pretty promising! How come we didn’t end up with the World’s greatest game and make millions?

1. A tiny team

While the small team meant we were a lovely little happy family, ten people wasn’t really enough to make a massive blockbuster title. We figured, however, that if we scored an average of 6/10, we would be extremely happy. That wouldn’t be bad going at all!

2. A short timeframe

Yeah, so as well as having hardly any people working on it we also didn’t have particularly long to make it. I can’t remember the exact project length but it was in the 8 – 10 months vicinity.

3. Our own room

I hate to admit it, but we did, er, lose a little bit of time due to this. On the plus side, we made a spectacular little re-imagining of The Lord of the Rings using C64 cassette tapes as the steps of Khazad-dum, the Soup Dragon as the Balrog, E.T as Frodo, and a dancing pig wearing a paper hat as Gandalf.

But in all honesty, the small amount of time lost to pissing about just meant that we worked harder and happier the rest of the time. So this doesn’t really count as a negative unless the publishers walk in while you’re gathered round shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” while waving a pencil. Which they, ahem, may have done at one point.

4. New technology

The game was built around a completely new controller which, at the start of the project, only existed as a prototype. But the chaps who built the thing were, at least, extremely passionate about it and were awfully keen to see something cool made with it.

But as with any new tech, there’s a whole bunch of fiddling around with code that wouldn’t be necessary in a regular project. And with time of the essence, that inevitably leads to less time being spent on gameplay and polish than would have been ideal.

The other problem with having a game built around a new peripheral is that obviously when it comes to getting gamers to hand over cash for it, you’re having to sell them both a game and the device it comes with. If either fails to win them over then you’ve got no sale especially given that as with any peripheral, the cost is greater than a regular game.

5. In-House technology

While having your own cross-platform engine is obviously pretty great, the problem comes when you have three projects being developed simultaneously all of which have different requirements. The limited number of engine guys (at one point, it was one person) can only do so much and if you’re representing the smallest budget game, you’re probably going to lose out to the big one happening next door.

As with everything, towards the end things started getting a little rocky as the pressure mounted up. But it was still the greatest single development experience I’ve ever had. I’ve made bigger games and smaller ones, but none of them have come even close to this one in terms of development joy.

And in the end although the game was not widely reviewed, where it was we scored anywhere between 5/10 and 9/10, so on balance I’d say we easily hit our 6/10 ambition.

The main thing I’d like everyone to take from this, is that playing the Soviet national anthem every day doesn’t half get you motivated to work.

(And having a character artist who can do a cracking impression of Gandalf should be mandatory at all game studios.)

5 Replies to “When game development goes right”

  1. It’s Dark Wind I believe. I actually played it a few years back while completely hammered in a pub in Leamington.

  2. When I worked for OPS2 I remember Dark Wind and the first Gametrak coming in and I played it until the sweat was rolling down my forehead. The neoprene fingerless gloves I remember were especially hot and sticky.

    But it’s the only, *only* game I remember playing on Gametrak, and the only *only* one that ever captured my attention and seemed to use the device in an exciting way. I’m sorry for you guys it didn’t do better, because it at least deserved to be the game everyone with a Gametrak bought. Nice to have had a chance to see behind the development curtain : )

  3. Thanks Ben 🙂

    I not 100% certain on this, but I believe the only other game which ever came out for it was a golf game which came with a little mini club thing to hold. There were all sorts of lofty plans for the device that the guys who made it told us about, mostly focussed around sports games – but there was an interesting sword / lightsaber tech demo too.

    I was really hoping it would take off if only so we could make a bigger and better Dark Wind sequel.

    Perhaps a case of right idea, too early..?

    1. Just think, if you’d been working on it two years later it might have been *the* Wii launch game that everyone picked up instead of that Red Steel rubbish.

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