Adarakion Developer Diary: Issue 38

Hi guys/gals! Liam here! I doubt I will be able to offer the textual driven dose of utopia that Lee provides so please bear with me and my rather odd sense of humour that tends to creep into these sort of things (which is why I stay away from them).

It’s my turn to take up the challenge of writing the ‘Adarakion Dev Diary’. I was quite calm taking it on until I thought about it more and you know what…I don’t think I show enough appreciation to Lee for the time/planning/commitment it takes to do these Dev Diaries. I thought I was busy but Lee really does have a hectic schedule. Yet he dives straight in every week just as fresh faced (albeit several weeks older) as the first diary. To give you an example of what he does (these are, as well, only the ones I know of):

• Family commitments – Truly the most important thing imho.
• Full-time employment – Always a pain unless it was in the game industry then its probably a pain with a dollop of love (good pain though :P).
• Game development course – Need to get that qualification ;)
• Moderator on the game development course forums (someone has to tame us and our rants)
• Monthly Video Blogs for the game development course (they really should start paying him :P)
• Managing Adarakion – We might be small but there’s always something that needs doing
• Development (A lot of) – Whether this be general game development or the programming kind.

To show my appreciation I hereby allow your name to be 1…no, make that 2 pixels bigger than mine in all future game credits. There…done! (Seriously though, thank you!).

Now to turn our appreciation to you, the staff/readers of SixthAxis. 6X Staff: We appreciate the weekly spot on the website, it’s a lot of love to show the indie scene/ourselves and we never take this for granted. 6X Readers: We appreciate your input, comments, love and most of all patience.

Patience…it’s what we’ve asked a lot of lately and unfortunately what we will ask of again. At the beginning it was great that we could really indulge you all with exactly what we were doing, what was being worked on, small/big decisions etc. but as we’ve progressed there isn’t much we can talk about without giving away too much. Project 2 is pretty much at a fully working state. You can load it up, play it. Intro screens, music, sound effects etc.

There’s some ‘temp graphics’ in there that we are using as place holders while the visuals are being worked on/finalised but you can genuinely get a good feel for the game and we really do have the finish line in sight. I don’t really want to say any more as we can’t give too much away. All will be revealed soon enough but lets just say it’s the latest development that has really excited us the most (whilst also making us a little scared). We physically have to prevent Lee from bursting and spilling the beans on everything…he really is that excited. Hold on…I need Matt to get Lee in a headlock so I can carry on typing.

I am still quite shocked at how much has been achieved in the short time especially when we are all pretty new to it all (maybe not so much Matt who appears to be a bit of a guru and someone I kinda look up to). We are just a group of passionate gamers with a love of coding and a drive to create the very things we are so passionate about. In some ways this is what we want the diary’s to be about. To really show that these things truly are possible and as long as you have such passion/drive for something you really can make it happen. Excuse me while I get down from my cliché throne.

I think I’m done!

I do just want to throw out a couple of congratulations. First, most importantly, to Matt and his family on the arrival of his newborn son. Once baby & mum are settled, Lee and I will be sending over a laptop for your son to start coding on ;)

Second, congratulations to ‘Hello Games’ on the release of Joe Danger. My god that game looks like awesome fun! I am really, really jealous of all you PS3 owners (Yea, I’m stuck with a 360). The guys who created it are just down the road *ahem* motorway from me.

Apologies for the short, and not very detailed, diary. Rest assured that Lee will resume his usual Diary role soon enough and hopefully with some further news on the magic* at Adarakion Games.

Toodles!

* We don’t have any ‘real’ magic at Adarakion…unless you count Matts elephant trick where he folds out his pockets and undoes his…oh…erm…