Onward an upward

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The Challenge

"You ain't my boss no more and you cain't tell me what I cain and cain't do!"
    - Kurd Liquer

Once I ate a giant hamburger. It has six enormous patties. I think it probably weighed about 6 pounds, and that wasn't all. I had a bunch of fries and a drink to go with it. See, they had this eating challenge. If you ate the whole thing in under 30 minutes, you got it for free AND got your picture up on the wall.

I'd brought along my family plus the whole company and offered to pay for anyone willing to give it a try.

It started out OK, even delicious, but about half way through it quickly turned into the worst experience of my life. I have never given birth to a child. I've heard its pretty bad, but I full on believ that shoveling all that dry, nasty meat into my gullet for the longest 30 minutes of my life is worse!

I didn't quit though. I mean, for one thing, I had the whole team, who'd all long since given up on their own eating challenges, standing around watching me, and my family cheeing me on.  So with all that, I just couldn't let go of the need to succeed.

I think we all have a part of us that can't back down from a good challenge.

Anyway, I wriggled and danced, paced, sweat and drank a LOT of water to wash it down, but finally squeezed all of that cardboard-meat down my expandable esophogas just as the the timer went off.

Success!!! I'm sure my family and co-workers enjoyed it, but as for me, all I remember is trying to keep it all in as they were taking a picture of what must have been my least photogenic moment. I could't really focus on the camera. It was like the meat was pushing on the backs of my eyeballs making them bulge from their socket and blurring my vision.

"Congratulations!" they said after they snapped the shot. "You've done it! Now, here's a garbage can. Take it out back and puke all you want."

My kids still talk about it. "Remember that time when daddy ate that giant hamburger and then threw up?"

To be clear, I don't recommend anyone taking on this particular challenge. As I said, it was one of the worst experiences in my life, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. But I AM glad that I did it, now that it's all behind me, and I'm even MORE glad that I beat it.

Aaah, the power of 'the Challenge.'

If presented just right, it can be a super effective way to motivate a team.

One thing I've learned being a leader is that teams LIKE deadlines. They like having agressive goals to work toward.

Not when they're overwhelming or seem impossible, but everyone likes a good challenge! So if you can find a good balance there, and break things into achievable, well defined milestones, and instill that drive to succeed, it can make the journey toward the finish line a lot of fun.



Kenn update: I’m happy to report that we’re only a few models away from having ALL of our cut-scene characters and props modeled. We’ve got our AI class system prototyped including about half of our bosses and we’ve got our visual style nearly ironed out. I can’t wait to post what we’ve got soon!

And finally, here's a pic of Sharlene...

Noise, Noise, Noise, Noise!

"I told you, Kurd ain't my true name no more.  Use my game profile ID -- MasterThief07."
    - Kurd Liquer


Ever notice how entertained we are these days?


When I was young, I was DYING to play any game I could get my hands on.

We would copy, borrow, steal and even make games -- anything we could do to get our hands on them. They were rare and precious!

It was the same thing with Movies. Maybe my home was different than most, but I don't think we even got our first VCR until I was about 12 years old.

Before that, watching a movie was rare and going out to a movie even more rare.

I remember gathering around with the family waiting for the muppet show or the A-team to start. Or once about every six months my Mom would let us stay up extra late to watch the Wizard of Oz. WOW! That was exciting!

It made it so that we really appreciated the movies and TV we did watch.

Then I think about how things have changed. We have an Xbox360 AND a Wii, a VCR, a TV in about every two rooms and a huge collection of DVDs.

And as though that's not enough, there are about 400 channels on TV and you can record your very favorite shows and watch them whenever you want.

You might have thought I was done raving, but no! Don't forget there are games and movies in our cars, on our cell phones, and closets full of board games. Entertainment is infiltrating every corner of our lives.

When's it gonna be enough? Whern are people gonna scream "STOP ENTERTAINING ME ALREADY!"??

Maybe someday. But probably not anytime soon. One thing's for sure...The problem of all the noise is NOT going away. It's going to get worse, not better!

With all this noise going on it makes it a staggering problem to try to stand out. Everyone other entertainer is trying to stand out as well.

"Let's make it Orange so that it'll stand out."
"Let's make it Bright Yellow!"
"Let's make out louder!"
"Let's make it look like we puked a whole bunch of colors."
"Let's make ours even brighter, pukier colors!"
"Let's make it black and white."

So how do you stand out amongst all this?   I don't know the answer...just the problem.

So, as for this post's art, say hello to Harley, Spanktor's local hobo.

What's the Hook?

"My readings indicate that your pulse has risen. The Ankor Larvithian has been known to often maul and disembowel its prey. So I assure you, the terror you are feeling is perfectly normal."
     -- Kenn's watch



After years of pitching games, the last thing I want to hear from a publisher are those fateful words, "So, what's the hook?"

You just spent an hour pitching your game. You waved your arms. You did everything you could to make it sound like the next best thing since sliced bread, but still they come.

What that sentence really means is, "We don't get it and we're not interested in publishing your game at all...not now or anytime in the future." They could just say that, but usually they try to be kind and let you down a little softer.

How do they think you're going to respond? "Hmm a game that actually appeals to people? I hadn't thought of that. Before talking to you, my plan had been to make a game that sucked! But I'll go back and rework it a little."

At first you might think that they'll change their minds if you come up with a different or better hook. Sorry, guess again if you try that, they'll just say "Yeah, we get all that, but what's the hooook?"

It doesn't seem to matter much how you pitch it, or who it's to, you'll keep hearing those words. Or at least something like them…maybe "You know what this game needs? ...A Hook!"

After a while, it starts to feel like you're designing a hook instead of a game. It's like when you show up at a car dealership and they're giving away free popcorn and balloons to sell cars. What does popcorn and balloons have to do with buying a car?

Maybe I could try that as my hook! We’ll make every game come with free popcorn and balloons! Or even better, we could wrap every game in real Bacon! The funny thing is, you could really pitch that to a publisher, and on top of it throw in some dancing clowns that come out of your TV and polka with flying monkeys, and at the end of your pitch, the publisher would STILL say, "So, what's the hook?"

OK, I think I get it. So, you want to see evidence that the game will sell millions of copies before you spend any money on it.

Well then, I say, to heck with it! I'm simply not going to be walking through anyone's doors owning the rights to Glee, Harry Potter or ESPN. If I did, I'm sure they'd receive me differently, "Have a seat, put your feet up. Can I get you some free coffee? How 'bout a couple billion dollars to make your game?"

The truth of it is, even if I COULD make a game based on something like that, I'd WAY rather come up with my own original stuff anyway. Isn't that a huge part of the appeal of running an indy studio?

The problem is that as a indy game developers. Most of us WANT to make our own stuff, and to not have someone else's IP(intellectual property) tied to it, and we want to make games that are creative and different enough that the "hook" might be hard to see especially from someone who doesn't see game development as an art, but only as a business.

Then again, maybe I just haven't come up with the 'right' hook yet.

Anyway, I love the art of making games. I do consider it an art form. To me, it's the ultimate art form, or a whole bunch of art forms all rolled into one.

The problem I see is that most people in the industry don't seem to see it the same way. They see it solely as a way to make money.

Sure, I'd love to make millions of dollars on the royalties of a game and buy a small island off the coast of Mexico, drink virgin pina coladas 'til I puke every day. But I suspect that before too long, I'd want to get my computer over there, so that I could start my next big thing whatever it may be.

So, what SHOULD the hook be?

Well, maybe it's just me, but I don't want to make something that gets promoted because it happens to line up with some publisher's agendas.

I don't want to make something gimmicky! ..something that's only 'right' for one particular moment, but rather I want to make something that would be loved no matter when it got released. That's pretty hard to do in game development, but I'd like to make something timeless.

I just want to make something so full of heart and passion that people can't help but to love it.

And eventually, I want people to say, "It's a Bacon Wrapped Game? Must be good!" How would that be for a hook? Some studios have achieved this. I don't suspect it's something that comes easily or quickly.

So after all that, I'm sure you're dying to ask, for Killer Kenn, what's the hook?

Well, I hadn't really thought to come up with one yet. But trust me, it's a real Doozy! And there's gonna be like ten or twenty of 'em.

See, I'd have come up with one, but I'm kind of busy trying to make a cool game. And by the way, why can't that be the hook.

Killer Kenn
The hook: Freakin' cool game!

Works for me, but come on, you can't try to pitch it to a publisher that way.

Meet Miss Misty, one of Kenn's sweet and faithful clients.

A Lecture I will Never Forget

"Yep, things were good again...better than ever in fact. I started getting that feeling in my gut like everything might be a little too good."
    - Killer Kenn

Hey, want to hear a story? Thought so.


One time, I spent about 5 years making a triple A game in my garage. Ok, so it was really in my living room, not the garage, and it wasn't really triple A, but that was sure the plan.

I didn't work on it full time during the 5 years. I was working for other people at the time. But every night and on weekends, I'd force myself to turn on the computer and chip away at it.

I finally got it far enough along that it was playing pretty well, and even though the art wasn't super beautiful, I figured any publisher would be able to squint and see through the place holder art and catch the vision of how truly amazing the game would be.

So, I bought my tickets to E3 and called Microsoft telling them I had a game that would knock their socks off. They set up a time to meet with me and said they'd have dev kits there for me to use to show them my game.

As I arrived I was so excited. I kept thinking of how impressed they'd be that I had made this thing in my garage, er... living room and kept imagining them saying things like "How much money can we give you to make this thing become a reality?"

When I got to their booth, E3 was just wrapping up. I went to talk to someone at their desk the nice receptionist-ish lady told me to wait while she went and looked for someone to meet with me. I was expecting Bill Gates, but sadly, it wasn't Bill. Heck, it wasn't even the President of the Xbox division.

I sat there and watched while a few of them argued over which one would meet with me.

"He made it in his garage? Why don't you take him?"

"His garage? No, YOU take him."

"I know, let's have Bob do it. Bob'll meet with anyone!"

They were kind enough to have me meet with someone who had at least seen other people work on games though.

I still wasn't discouraged. I imagined that after I showed a few minutes to this guy, he'd go running off excitedly to fetch everyone else, including Bill himself.

I boldly told him that I had been making a triple A game in my spare time and that I was hoping that they would want to publish it.

I saw the guy sigh as though he'd been told this a thousand other times by dudes almost as hopeful as I was.

He started in on his lecture about how Triple A games cost millions of dollars, teams of 20 or more people make them.  They go through these things called "crunch times", yada yada yada.

I had worked in gaming for about 10 years, so I already knew what "crunch time" meant, but I patiently waited as he left no room in the conversation for me to explain any of this.

He finished up his lecture by saying "Maybe you could show someone your demo and get a job?"

Now that I had a spare second to talk, I told him I'd been working in the industry for a long time, and that this demo worked on a dev kit and that it would say everything.

"Well, we already took our dev kits down." He explained. He then went on with his lecture, but I can't remember anything else he said, because not being able to show what I had sacrificed so much on for years was a little discouraging.

So, the lesson to learn from this experience: "NO ONE believes you can make anything decent in your garage (or living room)"?

It seems to not matter how cool or impressive your demo may be, if can't at least appear to be a stable, capable company, you'll have a REALLY hard time getting anyone to take you seriously.


Update on Kenn: Our preliminary tests on our art style and rendering method are looking promising. I don't want get my hopes up too early, but I have a good feeling about where we're heading as far as the art style is concerned. Maybe I'll have something to show soon.

Here's a delicious pic.  It's a first pass model of Kenn's truck.

Where are we?

That is one heck of a question.

And why are we here?  NO, I'm talking about "Where are we in development of Killer Kenn" in reference it's schedule.

Well, to answer: It's a little hard to say for a few reasons. First, because we are so early on. Second, because I really suck at scheduling. I seriously thought Ooga would be done in a year. I guess I was only three years off. But what I can tell you are a few of the big things that we have finished and some of the big things that are left.

Big things we have done:

• Complete Script: That's right, the current plan on Ken is to have fully animated cut scenes between levels. We finished the first pass on the script about a year ago. I felt like it was strong right from the start, but since then, and have been reworking, tightening, and touching it up ever more.

• Concept art: I have about 5 years' worth of sketches and ideas. Most of them are mine, but I even hired a pro a few years back to put some ideas together.

• First pass cut scene sounds: My wife and I got out a microphone, warmed up our craziest voices, pressed record, and read through the entire script.  Sounds fun right?

• Story boards: Yup, you heard it right. You can actually watch through the whole story beginning to end. Sure, it has some weak spots, and some corners to sand down, but it's all there! What a GREAT start!

• Lots of 3d art assets: Even though we're still pretty early on in development we actually have quite a few modeled art assets. Before you get too excited, remember most of these need rigged and animated. (For those of you who don't know, 'Rigging' means connecting a 3d model up to a skeleton so that it can animate.)

• Design: We have hordes of awesome ideas. So many, in fact, that we have to constantly weed through to pick the very best ones. We're constantly refining it and making it so that if and when it launches, it will launch with a BANG!!!! 
• I'm trying to do a better job of staying organized with design this time around and actually writing it all down rather than keeping it all up in my head.

• 2d prototype: We have a top down prototype using simple 2d lines to mock up AI movement and weapons. It's actually a pretty cool little program, and it has been super helpful in working out and refining the design. Maybe someday I'll throw it up for you to check out. 

• 3d prototype: You can actually run around with Ken, and shoot his weapon. How cool is that? Now just finish all the game mechanics, add in the levels, put in some enemies, cut scenes, cool artwork, and we're done! Right?

  

Big things we don't have:

• A game: Yeah, two unmerged prototypes and a bunch of ideas are a far cry from having a complete game. 

• A platform: The game isn't approved for XBLA yet. We're interested in expanding our horizons this time around. PC seems like a no brainer since our engine is already set up to work there. Time will tell how this all unfolds.

• Art style: A lot of this is kind of worked out in my head, and I know what direction I want to go, but sometimes things don't turn out how you think they will. Until we can all see it, this will remain a huge item left on the list.

• Animations: I LOVE animating. If I could have my dream job, I think I'd sit and animate all day. Wait a minute; don't I have my dream job? I guess so, except that along with animating, I have to squeeze in all the other art, programming, audio, and management tasks. Anyway, I'm mostly looking forward to working on animations, but that doesn't make it any less daunting.
• Including our cut scenes, Kenn will have far more to animate than any of our previous projects, and animations are one thing that you just can't (or at least shouldn't) rush.

• Bosses: Dang right! We have some awesome bosses in the works. Right now, they're nothin' but ideas, but they're freakin' cool ideas!

• Weapons system: Sure you can shoot, but there's no upgrade system, switching of weapons, and the effect on the bullets is a little sissy. There's definitely a LOT of work that will have to go into the weapons system and other basic game mechanics. 

• The rest: There are TONS of other little details including: Particles, HUD, menus, level objectives, sound and music implementation...I could go on and on. This stuff all takes time and we don't cut corners.

• Things I'm forgetting:  Oh yeah!  I forgot about that stuff.

So how long is it all going to take?  Man, I wish I knew.  I crunched some numbers, and if we keep the scope similar in size to what we did with Ooga, considering our current team size and budget, it'll take roughly 36 months.

I do keep discovering things that we won't have to re-do because we already finished it with Ooga or Clyde, but I also keep thinking of things that are new challenges that we've never done before (i.e. animated cut scenes) that could REALLY eat up a lot of time.

  

Also, the 36 months would be if I could work on it straight without other distractions, which currently doesn't feel very likely.

  

If we stick to that, it means we'll ready to ship right around the start of 2014. By then we'll all have flying cars and living in carbon casing with our brains hooked straigh into our computers, but people will still want to play a good gooey shoot 'em up. Right?

  

Who knows? Miracles happen. Right?

As for the scrumptious piece of art, here.  Take a look.  This is Dunkin, a local cop.

"I bet you wish you had a real weapon.  Somethin' like this puppy here."
      -- Dunkin Buster

How to become a hugely successful independant game developer

"My son Kurd...He's a real deadbeat. I can't get him to do nothin'. He just sits around playing them dern killing games all day."

     -- Bud Liquer


Steps to becoming a semi successful independent game developer:

1. Get your rich uncle to fund your company.

2. Hire a whole bunch of people to work for you.

3. Learn how to dial a phone.

4. Sit on the beach and command your minions from the cell phone your uncle bought you.

Say lots of things like "work harder", and "start over" to make sure your employees toe the line.

5. Wait until your minions finish your game.

6. Repeat step 3.


That's one way of doing it, if you can, I'd highly suggest taking that route. But for those of us who either don't have rich uncles or have rich uncles tell us 'no', this is the 'real' way. Well, at least it's the way I did it.

Real steps to becoming a hugely somewhat successful independent game developer:

(Before I get to the 'real' steps, I should preface that this is just one way. There might be many other ways, who knows.)

1. As a child, draw every free second you have, dreaming of one day becoming a Disney animator.

2. Also, as a kid, learn how to program on your Dad's Commodore 64.

This includes reading your Dad's book on assembly from cover to cover even though you don't really understand what about half of the words mean.

Note: You'll have to beg him to bring it home from work every day. Be patient. He'll forget for weeks even though you bother him about it every day, and NO, you can't learn it from the internet. The internet doesn't exist yet.

3. Fall in love with games. Play everything you can get your hands on. Get in fights at arcades because you lost a round of Mortal Kombat 2 or Street Fighter 2.

Also, it would help to solidify your passion if you threw your best friend through his mom's wall for beating you at a fighting game. Don't worry, he'll tell his mom he tripped and fell through the wall to make that big hole. Yes, that really happened, and it could happen to you. (I’m so sorry Sister Donaldson.)

4. Make lots of little mini demos, animations, mini games, etc.

This will refine your skills, and plus, your mom will tell you how talented you are, and that always feels good.

5. Decide you want to make a full game your last year in high-school.

Sure rip off your favorite game. Pick something small very do-able scope and be ready to get busy. It's gonna be a LOT of work.

Get your brother to help with the art work. If he stops helping you, head-butt him! This is extremely effective as long as you're in high school. (Sam, I'm really sorry about that head-butt. By the way, my little bro, Sam, is now a professional artist who works at Disney. Check out his incredible tasty art http://artsammich.blogspot.com/)

Note: I have since ceased the practice dealing head-butts to fix scheduling problems as it causes issues with employee morale.

6. Try to sell your game on a BBS. Is that what they were called? Bulletin Boards? Again, this was a little before the internet was around.

7. Get a job using your full game as your portfolio?

Well, your little brother will probably go get a job using your game as his portfolio first. But you'll be like "Hey, I made that game WAY more than he did!" So you'll go the company and tell them so. They'll be like, "Well, then welcome aboard!"

8. Work for various gaming companies for 5 years

Don't ditch people in the middle of a project. That's like number one game developer secret ninja oath code. "Never leave a team behind!"

9. Quit and decide to go off on your own.

Yes, this is a hard thing to do. I had to pretend I was dead to let go of my responsibilities and desire for a paycheck. Here's the thought process. If I were dead, they wouldn't give me a pay check anymore, and I'd be fine. If I just pretend I'm dead, i.e. quit driving my car, stop all social engagements, quit eating, etc. I'll probably at least be almost fine.

Note: It's OK to mooch off of roommates during this stage. You can't really not eat. But you CAN only eat mac and cheese and ramen.

10. Work like crazy to finish a game.

11. Get the game done, and watch as it doesn't sell.

12. Go get a job again, work for another 5-6 years for some other companies. Meanwhile, work every spare second you have on your engine and other games. I know they're making you crunch again. I don't care if you've worked a 14 hour day at work and you don't want to work anymore. Go home, turn your computer on, and at least do something. Pretend that you're in prison and you're using a spoon to dig through a 10 foot thick wall. That exactly what it feels like most of the time, but if you keep digging you might eventually get there. Right? Stay positive. But mostly, work on it every day!

13. Look for a golden opportunity to turn your hard work and dreams into reality. Then, when it comes, quit your job again and put everything into this golden opportunity.

14. Watch your game sell for once. Hooray!

15. Take 4 years to make another game putting all of your royalties back into your new game. You'll be really proud of this game and you'll have all the highest hopes in the world for it, but when it releases you'll wake up and realize that the market has changed horribly, and you'll feel like everything and everyone has left you behind.

This is where I am right now. I'm trying to figure out the next step. Could it be this?

16. Go back and repeat step 12

Note: During step 13 you may have to come up with a different motivation to quit as your spouse will probably not be ok with you "fake dying" and eating ramen and mac & cheese.

Alright, I've had my fun. Now for the juicy Killer Kenn art asset. This here's Kurd Liquer. As stated, he's a deadbeat who sits around playing them dern killin' games all day.