Another week, another diary. Without wanting to sound like a World War 1 tactician we are still in the middle of “The Big Push” at the moment. Work seems to be progressing at an accelerating rate, which has bought other thoughts to the forefront of our minds. Not QUITE as exciting as Game Development thoughts, but exciting nonetheless.
These thoughts focus on the actual business side of our group. At the moment, Adarakion is merely a “collective” of like minded folk who want to work in the games industry. We have the technical ability, the focus and the drive to make that happen, however what we don’t have is a business which is a legal entity. What happens as and when we start to sell our wares? How do we split any cash? Who gets what etc. Whilst these thoughts are for issues which will occur in the future, it seems like the next logical step in our planning. We can’t leave decisions like this until the last minute, or they will be rushed into and hastily cobbled together which could be a bit of a disaster! Likewise, we are all in full time employment. Not one of us wants to jeopardise that until such time as we are able to make a living from producing games. We all have families to support, bills to pay etc. and whilst some would argue that its better to chase dreams and fail than to not chase them at all, simply put that’s unrealistic in our current situation, so these things have to be approached with an element of caution. Having said that, we realise that at some point we will have to take some risks or this will never happen for us. That’s the whole thing about going into business for yourself – its all about calculating the risks, and reducing them down to such a level that they are acceptable for all concerned. I believe the decision as to whether or not we actually do go ahead and make a proper go of this will depend on the initial sales figures for our first project (and subsequent project). So in a way, I guess its down to you, the playing public as to whether or not we are able to follow our dreams (so no pressure on you lot then)!
In terms of our progress we are currently building on the working prototype I mentioned last week. The basic game works fine in terms of mechanics, scoring etc. and we are now building in the various other functionality, along with all the spit and polish you’d expect of a modern game. Our master musician has delivered his first “tinkling” on the background music for the game which fits the brief perfectly (I personally can’t wait to hear it “in game”).
Personally I’ve been tackling the subjects of polymorphism, inheritance, interfacing, pure virtual functions and deriving of the various classes within the game code. Yeah. Gives me a headache when I write it, let alone try to get the flipping thing working as it should. To be honest, the concepts aren’t really that complicated, the hardest part (for me personally) is applying them in the correct manner to the code I am producing. Whilst I KNOW I will crack it in time, I just need some time to practise and think about it! I’m really lucky to have a couple of technical genius’s (or should that be genii?) on the team who are able to explain the various concepts to me and allow me to progress. Once I’ve created all the outline code for my bit of the project I can quickly and easily add new items to it, thus speeding up the development overall (although to get to that point will be time consuming, but I’m making definite progress).
Announcements regarding our second Project will follow as soon as we have broken the back of the polish side of things. What I’m hoping will happen is that things will move really quickly once the announcement of the project is made – so from announcement to release in a few weeks (once we have sorted the distribution channel side of things of course… assuming that Steam want us .. they’d be mad NOT to want a slice of the #RoChain though wouldn’t they)?
I know, I know. Some of you are reading this hoping to find out what the hell a #RoChain is. Here are my thoughts on that matter. Should #RoChain trend on Twitter then I will tell you all, if it doesn’t, then you will have to wait till I’m ready to tell you!!! There, I’ve laid down the gauntlet for you. If you want to know what #RoChain is then simply tweet (or Facebook, I’ll settle for Facebook) the following phrase:
“I want, no, I NEED a #Rochain”
And follow us http://twitter.com/Adarakion . That’s where any announcement will be made. Get tweeting, and more importantly, get your friends tweeting too, get a #Rochain going!!