UDK Day 1

Today is the day that I start really cracking down and learning unreal script. I have worked with it in the past on and off, but never really got into it as my real world life tends to take me a little deeper down the rabbit hole (i.e. C/C++/C#/HLSL/GLSL/etc...).

The reason today is the day is that my friend and I have some serious plans that we have been talking about for about a year now. Hopefully getting the game play mechanics in place won't take that long... assuming that I get this unreal scripting stuff figured out.

A few issues that I already foresee:

1. No free to use IDE with code highlighting + code complete/intellisense. I can use visual studio which is great, but I still get no code highlighting. Apparently there is a tool called nFringe but its not free to use for commercial projects, and we hope to eventually sell this jewel. 
2. No free to use IDE... oh I already said that one, well looks like I'm gonna have to Rambo program this stuff. The biggest problem is class member and function lookups. I have to open the script file that I am working with just to find out what functions I have access to. Makes me sad if you can't tell. 
3. Syntax is close to C++ or C# however it is just enough different that when I'm coding quickly I can already tell my brain is going to flip back to C++ land and I will bork something up. 
4. No project file containing all the script files. I could set this up in visual studio, but then I will have an .sln file sitting around that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I am not yet sure if that will cause the compiler to have issues if it is in the same folder as the script files it is housing. I will figure something out with this, just not there yet at the moment. 

There are more I'm sure, not to mention the learning curve of learning a new engine and a new scripting language and a whole new development paradigm... its gonna be AWESOME!

Oh and as a follow up to my last post, its not a social game, its not gonna be shovelware, both of us feel that we want to make a game WE want to play. Hopefully others will like it too as a result and as any indie developer hopes, maybe it will revolutionize the industry.

New Job - Zebra Imaging

Since my last post I have found a new job. I am currently working as a holographic rendering engineer at Zebra Imaging (www.zebraimaging.com). I have been enjoying my new position and have been learning quite a bit. Holographic technology is very cool and the products that we have here are cutting edge.

It does make me a little sad that I am not working in games anymore (at least for now), however it has come to my attention lately that I have become quite bitter about game development and jaded as far as video games relevance on human culture and civilization. I find this most true when I look at the booming of social gaming and online gaming. I find that the lack of story or purpose to most of these games removes a key aspect that makes games interesting to me. I do not see the reason for putting in thousands of hours of you life into something with no goal. I feel that this is already the crux of life and that I play games to escape the pointlessness of life for a while. The epic feeling I get when slaying Satan in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (a great game by the way), or defeating Bowser to save the princess, these are why I play games. I do not play games to receive an achievement for pressing the button 300,000 times to farm the same crop over and over again, merely to receive a glowing cow that simply sits on my farm.

I look at these latest trends and the amount of money that is going into the development of these social games and the associated recent closure of studios and cancellations of projects at some studios and it saddens me. (Edge of Reality being one, in regards to the termination of their Sims expansion project, most likely in lieu of the successful launch of The Sims Social and the noticeable trend of Sims players migrating to that service). Games are expensive to make, really good ones even more so. If publishers are not willing to risk the money to build something innovative and excellent, instead merely only willing to devote money to these social game experiences with no real depth or innovation (honestly there isn't any, its a formula, merely convincing players that they have an initial investment that they don't want to lose, thus encouraging them to come back), then what does this mean for games as an industry, or as a whole?

I know its not entirely the end of the games industry, there are still developers out there making great single player experiences. Some are still progressing in the aspects of innovative storytelling.  However, I honestly do not believe that industry cares about the products it creates anymore, only the money is important to them. Strong arming reviewers, releasing day one DLC, micro-transaction models with devalued products, all of these are examples of this in my opinion. The only way this will ever change is if players stop putting up with the garbage and make a stand against poor quality practices. Unfortunately the human race has failed me once again and have whole heartedly bought into these atrocities at least for the foreseeable future. Until this changes (and I still have a job at Zebra Imaging) I don't know if I want to go back into game development as my full time job. We shall see though I suppose.

Regardless, this post as become more of a rant on games than the announcement of my new job. So I will leave it here with the thought that whatever happens, I'll still be a gamer, I will just be more careful with how I spend my gaming dollars, giving my money to companies that I feel still have a solid grasp on what gaming is and what it should become.
 

Update: Looking for work

So I was unfortunately a casualty in the recent layoffs at UTV Ignition. I am sad to leave and I believe that Faxion Online is a great game and a great product. Unfortunately there just wasn't the support that the game needed to succeed and a development team is too expensive to keep around. I understand it was business and that is fine. Unfortunately that means I am currently unemployed.

I recently had an interview but that was not as successful as I had hoped. Thus I am reviewing what is currently in my portfolio and am redesiging this site to include more of my work. I may need to port it over to crystal space or something but I will figure that out. I might just end up redirecting for the art and such.

Anyways, I have been programming and making a game. No details yet, but safe to say that I am confident in the chosen tech and the ability to quickly get to a level building alpha state. It has renewed my energy from an unsuccessful interview and it has helped me keep busy during my unemployment. Hopefully more on this very soon.

That leads me to my last update, I am looking for work in the Austin area. If you are interested in receiving a resume, please let me know.

E3 2011 Awards

Now that E3 is over, there are always awards given to developers for various categories from various sites. UTV Ignition Games, the company that I work for while developing Faxion Online, received an award from Massively. The full article can be read here. Otherwise our award and comments are shamelessly listed below.



Beau Hindman: UTV True Games. They not only showed off Faxion and were ready to discuss how much they were concerned about fixes and future updates, but they seemed to be having fun. I like an accessible developer. I believe in Faxion because it comes from the same place I would if I were a developer. Sure, it needs its fixes, but it's brand new...and what game doesn't need a few patches when it launches? Also, the rest of the games they offered made me smile. Planet Crashers? I must have it, now.

Shawn Schuster: UTV Ignition/UTV True Games. Their first showing at E3 was preceded by months of tongue-in-cheek humor in trailers and advertising campaigns, which simply reminds us that we're playing games to have fun. Their booth was impressive for a first-timer, and they seemed to get some healthy foot traffic. Will Faxion Online prove to be a hit? That I don't know, but the team behind it is still catching our attention.

I'm very excited, this is the first award that any team I have worked on has won since I have moved to the game development community. We have all worked very hard on Faxion and the rest of UTV has been working hard to bring games like Swarm, Planet Crashers, El Shaddai, and Sky Legends to the public. So I want to congratulate both the Faxion Team (myself included I suppose) and the rest of UTV for a great first half of the year and continued success.

Faxion Online Post Release

Well its launched. Faxion Online, the game I have been working on with UTV for the last year has launched. Its fun to play and momentum is building in the community. I am very happy to see this work put forth in front of so many people. It has been really fun working with the Faxion Team and I have learned a lot since starting here a year ago (as of June 2).

I think there is a lot that Faxion still has to do to see it where it should be, and we have a lot of content planned for future patches. That excites me because I am not ready to be done supporting that product and making improvements for the product that I am creating and offering to the public.

On that note though, I am happy to say my second game is released for sale. Possibly looking at doing another side IPhone game in the future. With who is still left to be decided, I guess it just depends where momentum picks up on a new game idea.

I wish that I could highlight here some of the more complex stuff I worked on with the Faxion project but unfortunately you can't really discuss code like art without risking encroaching on copy write laws. For the most part it was tools development for particle systems and full screen effects. I created optimized terrain editing tools and I also wrote and maintain the Login system for the client. Overall I maintain the client in general and work on optimization.

Engines are funny things, there are so many working parts in them that one silly mistake in a single subsystem can impact performance. Also knowing what the tools do and how to best utilize them is really important for a team to understand. Getting a good balance between assets on screen at once and good play performance is a tricky number to maintain in a dynamic environment.

Anyways, I am wandering away from the subject of this post. I want everyone to go try Faxion if they are in to open world pvp and real time character leveling. Its a great game with more stuff coming every patch.

www.faxiononline.com

Art - Bathroom Starcraft Flyer

Something I whipped together today for our bathroom at work. We have noticed a large number of people who don't wash their hands... eww...

So a little Starcraft humor for the bathroom. Original artwork is owned by Blizzard.