Daily Things

It all starts so pretty isn’t it? A clean project, a quick prototype, it works! It’s beautiful. Now it’s time to add more features, everything is planned out, all cogs have a place to be, it goes smoothly for a while. Now you realize other small components are needed, no problem, let’s make them… Eventually you do need to plug them into the game itself, and that’s when the problems start, most of the other stuff wasn’t built considering these new components. Will they break? ...

Working on Dary’s Legend has been my daily routine so I decided to make a time lapse. So this is a video compiled using Chronolapse, by taking a screenshot every 60s during a couple of days while I’m working on Dary’s Legend, the new game from Different Pixel. The video is being played back at 10 real minutes per second. This was recorded between 14-06-2012 and 30-06-2012 (some days are missing) ...

1 – You either are, or you aren’t. People can go and , “I’m an aspiring indie game developer”. You are either doing games or not, period. If you are starting in development with your own money then you are one. People tend to think they are indie developers when money starts rolling in, well think again, cause money may never come. 2 – It’s a jungle out there There’s not a safe path on becoming a successful indie developer. It’s not like following another’s path will get you there. That’s why giving advices is just that, it might work or not. ...

Another year has gone by, not quite what I was expecting developing wise, like putting another game out there, but things never turned out as planned. Still over the last year I’ve gradually saw out little Different Pixel brand reaching more and more places which can be very helpful in the future and sure hell is nice to see work recognized. From the top of my head I recall Kotaku article on the Xbox360 release, we finally managed to release the Xbox360 version, which was the first one we made. Being a semi-finalist on Dream.Build.Play 2011 and the coverage on Destructoid. ...

So as I mentioned a few weeks back, since November 1st I quit my job and I’ve been mainly focusing on our next game for Different Pixel. After a month, I think so far progress has been good. I’ve been able to work almost entirely on the game itself instead of the engine because most of the stuff is stable enough since Vizati. It’s kind of rewarding now and instead of reading tons of docs of other engines each time something doesn’t work right I usually know where the problem may be and can fix it, as good as I can at least. A few glitches here and there but so far so good. ...

So being a big fan of Quake, Quake 3 Arena and Doom I was eager to get my hands on id Software latest game, Rage. Like most developers out there I’ve been impressed by John Carmack’s work and breakthroughs in gaming and computer graphics for years. When I first heard Rage was targeting 60FPS I got intrigued. Almost every game targets 30FPS and targeting twice as that leaves less time to render each frame, even more since they were promising vast wastelands, detailed characters, top notch animations and AI. ...

So I’ve been out for quite some time, and this is just a quick update. First, I have tones of unread, thus answered emails on my inbox. I haven’t managed to go through that lately. I usually scroll to see if there’s a really urgent one, I will eventually read them all. I decided to quit my current job, my last day is October 31st. I couldn’t glimpse a very promising carrier there and I practically staggered learning-wise for the past months due to the type of work we develop so yeah, that’s it. ...

First of all I think this is my last idevblogaday post for a while. I my math doesn’t fail me this is my 10th post and it’s time for someone to take turn. Actually it’s just the 9th. I hope my words have somehow enriched your knowledge, in case you want to stick around just bookmark my feeds. I keep this fairly updated. Also since I’ve been working on a new game there’s probably news to share in the next 2-3 months. ...

So this is what we at Different Pixel, together with 5 other developers have been working on, the “Indie Summer Six Pack” Six indie titles for just $10 – or a stonking $5, if you first share the offer via Facebook. How can you say no to that? The games included are Aztaka, City Rain, Puzzlegeddon, Bob Came In Pieces, Vizati and Lylian.

A large percentage of the indie developers have to work on their project at night and/or weekends. In order to pay the bills they have to maintain a day job. There’s no shame in that, many do it, I do it, not everyone can make a mega jump right into fame and fortune with a single project. The rest of us mere mortals have to gradually build a fan base, learn from past mistakes, do better PR, etc. Looking at successes like World of Goo, Braid, Trainyard, it all sounds so easy, everyone quickly makes such huge hype that it seems like they only have to finish the game and they are instantly rich. ...