Oh goodness no, it’s the “someone’s come back from holiday” post.
[Lost content: likely a vlog of my time in Japan or a related YouTube video.]
I do this because sadly I have little in the way of content reporting on the current works in progress at Dark Acre.
Here’s what’s known:
It only looks lean on the game development side, but from the inside it’s been non-stop action since I woke from my whiskey and jet-lag catatonia.
31 days since Ambia was added to. That’s one of the downsides of using Google Docs to create ongoing content, in that it reminds you of the last time you gave your babies any love.
Well there’s been love aplenty in the past few days, starting with a refreshing review of the first 20K words that proved very insightful. The work is solid, and to my eye required only a few minor tweaks. I’m excited to be back in the saddle and piling on the words again.
Furthermore, the revised edition of Tale of the Madeus is nearly complete, and I expect to release it with Ambia.
A second week with no code updates (I used to post a lot to GitHub, but destroyed it all in the Dark Acre Purge of 2015. –Ed.), but I have been teaching an apprentice the very basics of C# with Unity, so at least someone’s been getting an education. I’ll endeavor to update this section with something a little more sustaining than apologies and shame next week.
I leave you with access to the slideshow of my winter adventures in Japan, and hope you find something there to amuse you. Also, a heartfelt hello and thanks to all of the new Followers and blog readers that have joined me on this incredible journey through the wilds of independent game development. Let’s keep in touch.
[Lost content: a slideshow of pictures from Japan, 2011.]
Another week passes without a substantial progress video! Apologies!
Bullet-list of things that are happening:
A regular working groove has been obtained following recovery from jet-lag, and a lot of work on paper has been done in regards to plotting out the additional levels planned for Ball of Steel. The division of overall production time between the pre-existing Projects and the new collaborative effort have stretched things a bit thin around the Acre, though. So for the first time since opening the doors here I’ve extended a regular production schedule. Still working out ways to formulate a proper time-management system for juggling an internal and an external project, so for the time being it’s all being flown by the seat of the pants.
By next week, though, there should be some substantive news to relate regarding the progress on Ball of Steel. Until then, feel free to drop a few more plays on the Kongregate build or download it for yourself.
Oh, the ball speed trouble has been resolved much to everyone’s satisfaction. That was the major feedback issue from both the Kong’s members and private testers, so it comes as great relief that a solution wasn’t a major sticking point in moving production forward.
A new project! A partnership with a somewhat famous author! Excitement and hype without any details whatsoever!
I can say that it is a game project, it’s being built in Unity, and it’s targeted at mobile devices. A prototype of the major functions has been built and is working to spec, and while the major concept is solid it’s already starting to present some challenges. Fortunately that’s just the kind of thing that I get out of bed for.
Words have been flowing into Ambia at a steady pace, which always puts a smile on my face. I was struggling somewhat with a new character, but a couple days of head-to-desk pounding got me over that hump and the tale is resolving itself at my standard rate.
Dark Acre has its first hands-on disciple! I’m teaching C#/Unity3D in direct, face-to-face and hands-on lessons. It’s been really interesting and provided a lot of perspective on how I handle my own code.
It’s very cool to see someone start to develop their own style, and to pick up new ways of doing things purely incidentally through instruction.
To that end, yet another week is about to pass by without an update to the code-share, and again I apologize. If I weren’t so busy making games and teaching there might be more hours for it.
I’ve got a decent link to an excellent article on Lemmy’s Blog on the perils of XNA. If you’re an indie developer thinking of pinning your hopes and financial future on a hit on XBOX 360 Indie, you definitely need to read this.
Okay, that’s all for this week, a little sparse I know but anticipation is half of everything, right?
This week’s report cancelled due to international crisis.
Dark Acre continues to work hard at crafting fun and entertainment for the world to enjoy, but it’s been very difficult to focus in this time of need.
[Lost content, likely a vlog of development progress on Project Zero Three.]
News from the front brings glorious report that our fighting boy in black has made some real headway during the Great Push this week!
Official production week one for Project Zero Three has gone smashingly. Highlights include:
Further developments as they arise!
[Lost content, likely an image demonstrating the graphics of Project Zero Three.]
The next week’s work will center around graphical improvements. Nothing earth-shattering, but the mazes will all have some form of texture to them. As much as I’m in love with the minimalism of vertex painting, I’ve found that by adding basic noise and lens correction to color in Photoshop that a form of visual alchemy occurs.
The novella writing has been very, very good. I believe this is primarily due to:
The crisis in Japan also weighed heavily on my mind the week prior. Fortunately, all of my family and friends over there are fine. Unfortunately a whole bunch of people I knew were reminded of their mortality and I had to commiserate via the Tweet-machine and Facebook.
Which brings me to another thing, I’ve been spending far less time with both of those social media outlets than I have in the past. So if I’m not re-Tweeting or responding to your glorious 140-character epiphanies with the frequency I once was, it isn’t because I’m ignoring you.
I’m simply not there.
Oh, there’s a different preview of Tale of the Madeus available, and I think this will be the only public mention of it so far. I’ve finished the first full revision of the text, and I’ll be replacing the current version on Amazon with it once Ambia is published. So, if you haven’t bought the original and want a slightly different introduction to the story, you may read the new preview here. (As the books were removed from Amazon, the link no longer exists. –Ed.)
I get one hair cut a year. I’ve done this ever since I lived in Beppu, Kyushu, in 2002. Which, incidentally, was the year I decided to become a game developer. So it’s something of a tradition. I do it now every spring, which very nearly coincides with my birthday.
I leave you with this, loyal reader:
[Lost content, likely a selfie from Spring of 2011 showing my once-a-year shaved head.]
Suitable for printing and framing. See you in seven!
Keith Stuart checked in for an update on his Indie Dozen series for The Guardian.
Jack Nilssen, Dark Acre
Vancouver film school graduate Jack Nilssen is working on several projects, including an ambitious combination of Star Flight, Star Control and Privateer.
I launched the prototype of my tilt-puzzle, Ball of Steel, to Kongregate in February, as part of their Unity Game Contest. I'm also currently in talks to do some contract development for a media firm in town, some form of mobile game that promotes cultural awareness.
First part of the week was spent re-adjusting to Vancouver time, and poring over the feedback generated for Ball of Steel via Kongregate and a private circle of playtesters.
In the current basic Dark Acre dev cycle, two weeks are allotted for pre-production, where all of the paper-planning and code-snippet prototyping gets done to prove out an idea. Ball of Steel came about in a rush at the end of the last cycle when the previous project imploded. So since Ball is a proven concept, these pre-pro weeks have been focused on deciding what (if any) new features to add, what needs tuning (game speed was the overwhelming response from players), and the layouts of new levels.
I'd like to add 80 more levels to make it worth the baseline price in any given iStore, so some of this pre-pro time has been given to mapping those out. Since the whole thing is grid- and tile-based, it's a matter of sitting down with the graphing paper and drawing. 80 might seem like a lot, but once there are some solid themes to wrap the levels around (like the various mechanics in the game) it really isn't so bad.
In addition to the above work on the core Dark Acre project, I've been very closely involved in some collaborative efforts that I'm currently not at liberty to discuss. I've had to factor those into the schedule as well, so the week delay will hopefully help me better accommodate the extra work.
Finally, I've taken on an apprentice coder and am spending a couple of hours each day teaching what little I know of C# and how it works with Unity. I taught English for 10 years in Japan, so the mechanics of instruction aren't new to me, but attempting to teach something as complex as a computer language has been a bit of a wake-up call. I'm pretty sure I'm getting more out of the lessons than the student, as it's helped me organize my own thoughts on programming and given me more insight into how code should work.
So there you have it. To say it's been busy would be a bit of an understatement, but there's nowhere I'd rather be, and nothing I'd rather be doing.
[Lost content, image: alt-text “It only happens once a year.”]
Note: This is another of those “personal” posts, so if you’re only here for the project updates and not really interested in how I think then you may skip most of the below.
It has been a strange and conflicted week. Seasonal change is always like this for me, and particularly in that week between Winter and Spring as it also coincides with the anniversary of my birth. I’ve never been one to subscribe to astrological signs or augury from the heavens, but I do believe that the shift from the killing cold of the dark season into the rebirth of the light has a profound effect on people.
For me, this it the time of rebirth, of reassessment, and of renewal.
I have been living my dream now as a solo independent game developer since September 24th, 2010. I had a plan, a plan that involved me learning all that I could about myself and the world of game development through an intensely personal process of grinding myself against the realities of production and attempting to do good work.
Maybe it’s the Japanese in me. As my family and friends are so often to remark, I spent the latter third of my life living and learning in the great metropolis of Tokyo, and as such I’ve got so many of those cultural values embedded in me. Informing me. Guiding what I do.
My dream was to walk a long and hard road, alone. It has always been this way. I know there will come at time when I’m ready to take on the responsibility of having others travel with me, but this first leg of the journey had to be taken by myself.
So I’ve toiled, in obscurity but with growing recognition that I’m doing exactly what I want to do, when I want to do it, and to my specifications. The output depends solely on my prowess with the tools that I’ve been given and the extensions I can add to those tools. It’s a magical time.
But I have been tempted. Whether due to the loneliness or the solitude of this lifestyle, there is always a nagging external call to partner up. To seek the shelter and solace of the group.
I’ll tell you right now, I do not play well with others. I never have. And I likely never will. I have vast amounts of tolerance, trained over years of focused effort to not simply dismiss people and their thoughts out of hand, but to quantify my relationships and make rational judgments about whom I deal with.
I am a captain, like my father before me. And as such I wear the mantle of command and it is an isolating wreath, but it is one of the most comfortable things in my life that I have to bear.
So where is all this exposition leading? I wanted to make a clear statement about why I’m doing what I’m doing, and why I’m doing it alone, and despite whatever “strength in numbers” and “value of companionship” proverbs there are out there, this is my way.
I’ve turned down offers to do contract work. True, they would pay me money. And I would gain experience. But the questions I had to answer before fully committing to those relationships was:
For me, at the end of the day I am in a position to do right by myself. To be the consequence of my actions. How many others can make the same claim?
It’s a privileged position and one I do not take lightly, as I’ve struggled these past 36 years to get here.
So, the “too long, didn’t read” version is this:
And why? The simple answer is that I just don’t need the extra work. There’s plenty enough on my plate and I’m secure in my current funding for a good long time to come.
So my advice to the self-sufficient independent developer would be this: ask yourself if the additional stress and logistical challenges of working with an outside sponsor, team, or other entity would truly be more valuable than spending that time on your personal dream. And if your dream involves expanding your efforts to help others, then the answer is self-evident. But if it doesn’t, then I would carefully measure every possible benefit and detriment of entering into an agreement with outside forces.
2011.03.01 – 2011.03.31