Saturday, December 31, 2011

I seriously need to just pick a musician

I don't have the time to waste on e-mailing all these people back...it's getting frustrating.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Oh and

I want someone detail-oriented.  I'm super deficient in that.

This may seriously be the hardest choice I've had to make yet.

=(


I want to hire them all.  Balls. 


OK, recap:


1)  I want classic fantasy. 
2)  I want someone with an understanding of chiptunes for the comedic themes.
3)  I want someone who really wants to work on a fantasy game.
4) I want a really awesome ballad piece that is intricate, so I want someone capable of that.
5) I want someone I can give a chance, my age, if possible. (I believe in hiring in my generation.)

Repeat after me:  Do not let having worked with John Mayer, Hollywood films, International Automakers, A-list film companies, or other people who are amazing.  I want someone who can grow with the project. 

Deep breath.

More music listening....

I wish I could close the bidding, but I can't....argh I now have around 50 bids on this. 

Also, who says, "If you don't hire me, good luck on your binary conundrum?'

Getting even MORE response for the music

Wow, if the game itself is as popular as the music ad I posted, I should be able to retire quite early in life.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Worked on the storyline a little bit today

Today was supposed to be a 'complete all storyboards and get lots of work done day.'

Instead, I slept for 95% of the day.  I can't believe how sick I am. 

I've been looking through the art, and some of my delirium affected me yesterday and I got super stressed because not a lot of work is being done at the moment on this game.  There's a lot left to do.

But then I realized it's not a big deal because I'm actually SUPPOSED to be on vacation and I told everyone I'm working with to take one as well until January  (my feeling is that this will be good for the project.)  I'm not even supposed to be working on this now, but the workaholic in me never sleeps, I guess.


Tomorrow:

-Finish one storyline.  (It's almost completed, last leg of it needs to be completed.)
-Complete the rest of the demo's storyboard (it's almost done as well.)
-Set up interviews for the music
-Die in a pool of my own mucus.  (Shouldn't be that hard.)

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

I changed the layout this morning

Since when life hands you a fever, you change blog layouts.

Also, it was annoying me that that guy (girl?) from Alaska who reads this blog couldn't sign up by e-mail or Google Friend Connect with my blog.  Since, mysterious person/people from Alaska, this blog is really a secret love letter to you straight from the heart of my Google Analytics profile.


As always, beta tester can sign-up here.

Character designer finally sent me some updated art

At first I was freaking out, but then I looked through the rest of the art, and realized she did a pretty good job with it.  I can't believe how much the main character has changed over the last six months.  Not bad changes, just different.  I'll have to post it later.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Music Shortlist finished

Somewhere between 9-11 interviews to schedule this week.


....


I'm going to be spending a lot of time in this Starbucks right here.

You've worked in studio with John Mayer

And you want a couple hundred bucks from me?

Geez, this whole recession thing is clearly killing the music industry.


EDIT:  You've worked on Crysis 2?!!?!?  What is wrong with the world today people?!?!

Wow people

It blows my mind that I'm getting industry standard professionals applying for peanuts to a freelancer posting I put up 7 days ago.  I have people that have worked on Microsoft projects, Hollywood movies, etc.

I have 41 bids on a site that doesn't even really have a specific area for 'music.'  This is insane.  Plus 35 private e-mails.


Currently shortlisting....

I have just spent the last three hours playing iphone games

And I have learned three things:

1)  Good controls make sucky games alright.

2)  Most people who release games for the iphone don't know how to spell.  The rest don't know how to spell plot, much less create a plot.  Casual game stories suck.  How do people get away with this?

3) There just aren't a lot of good games on the iphone, period.  The only one I can think of that I would actually call a game that did anything interesting, and I haven't even PLAYED it but I KNOW it'll be what I expect, is Infinity Blade.  Honestly, why don't indie devs realize how bad the games are on here?  I'm not saying I'm going to make the best game that ever existed, but where's the fun and where's the creativity and WHERE'S the SPELL-CHECK.  (Mage Gauntlet has just been loaded and I have high hopes for the  writing.)


As always, go to www.interragames.com and sign-up to be a beta-tester for a great fantasy-themed visual-novel style iphone game. (Say that three times fast.)


Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Basque Music


I've been listening to a lot of cultural music as I prepare to hire a musician to score the game, and I really liked this piece.  It's one of the most famous, naturally, but very beautiful.  The Basque musical culture is such a blend of different traditions, it's really enjoyable to listen.

That being said, I have 30 more e-mails to read from people who want the job.  Sigh.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Setbacks...

Well, the programmer has had a personal emergency, the character designer has a mountain of work left and I'm not finished the story.

Ironically, the background designer met his deadlines.

I think this isn't going to be released until potentially February.  Sigh.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Stop. Music Time.

I need to hire a video game composer.  It's unbelievable how few of them there are...and the ones that are good are fewer in between.  I have one that I'd really like to hire, but he's outside of my budget currently for producing the music.

Hmmm....what to do....

Writer's block thanks to a crap sleep last night


Friday, December 16, 2011

I just spent an hour looking at other video game websites

I have more important things to do, but I never realized that most videogame websites are just using (or using a themed template) similar to a Wordpress style blog.


In that case, I suppose I could do the same thing....?


Update:  I will not be doing this.  That is lame.

My Google Analytics shows one visit to the website.

And it was me.


Please visit and sign-up for when the game is released:

www.interragames.com

Developer didn't show up for the meeting he scheduled.

I'm not mad, but when this sort of thing happens, I always think, "Please don't be dead/hit by a bus."

Thursday, December 15, 2011

And geez

My pageviews are up like crazy today.  Are people just bored or what? 


Thanks for stopping by.

I need beta-testers

So now I built a landing page website.

You can sign up here if you want to beta-test or would like to know when the game is ready. I'll be giving out special incentives to beta-testers and early buyers, just fyi.

Yes, the website is very not finished.  I'm...aware. =/

I don't plan to do anything else with the e-mails, and frankly I hate writing mass e-mails in general, so I can BEYOND promise that signing up means you will only get e-mails that contain things like "Free this!" or "Sale that!"  etc.  Unless you want to be a tester.  Because I totally need testers.  Feel free to share this link with anyone who's wants to beta-test a fun, adventure/rpg/choose-your-own-adventure iPhone game. 


I'm getting sick of faxing stuff

Man, seriously, I sent you a certificate of incorporation, why do you need the OTHER twelve documents attached to that? 


Sigh.  HONESTLY.

Oh and

I also need to build the website, set up the e-mail capture, and design the logo.  I sort of forgot to do that in my *spare time.*

Today's purpose: Storyboarding

It's almost done, I just have to push a little longer and it will be finished. 


Hopefully I finish it before it finishes me. 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Programmer hit a roadblock

There's too much crap on the screen, and the character art is too big in some places. The battle system isn't looking so hot just yet.

And the designer just sent me another set of art.

I haven't started storyboarding for the day.

E-mailed another composer.


....


There's need to be two of me.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Exciting!

Programmer had first demo to show me of the story scenes.  So far, it's looking pretty alright.  I should have a battle scene demo by Thursday.

Deep breaths.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Oh and P.S.

I see that person(s) from Alaska is/are still visiting.  Please continue to visit.  I love Alaska.


Xoxo

How do people like their game marketing?

A real problem I'm having is how to market this game.  I have some ideas, but I'm still learning as I go along this process.  Game marketing is different than most kinds of consumer marketing.  Unless you have the best graphics, it won't work to simply give screenshots/grabs, etc.


Here's what I know:

-I know the kind of people I want to play this game.  They love a good story, and they love a game that challenges them to 'beat the next battle' so that they can get the next story sequence.  I'm that kind of gamer. I love a good story, I love the feeling of working for a couple interesting lines of text when a game really immerses me in its world.

-I know how big the market is.  It's big enough that I think I can be relatively successful, and even have some non-text-role playing game lovers play the game.  I'm aiming at a niche market, and I know this market, because I AM this market.

Here's what I want to know:

-How much time should I spend approaching app review sites and sending out press releases.  I work in PR, I know quite well how many press releases die in a spam folder.  Many of them.

-How does my niche market want to find out about this game?  On a game review site, through social media, through a neat contest, or through a video?  I'm not a fan of shotgun marketing, and frankly, I'm too busy for that at the moment, and this kind of stuff can wear on you if you don't enjoy doing it.  I do enjoy doing it to a certain extent, but there's a limit.  And also it's Christmas soon.  It's just NOT going to happen that I'm going to work on this during Christmas unless I'm bored to tears. (Unlikely.)

-Can I approach people individually and ask them to review and play it?  Random strangers and such?  Sigh, I have no idea.

-Should I do a Kickstarter campaign?  I have been researching this for a while, and this seems like my best bet for making sure the game is a financial success as well as a success for gamers.



I'm going to be pondering this is over the next week and a half.  The website URL has been bought, time to make a website this week. 

Did I mention I've never really done that before and that I'm going to make it from scratch pretty much for fun?

Vector graphics last week, website design this week.  Pretty soon I'll be the king of everything.  Booyah.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Wow, productive

Today I:

Sent the designer spec docs
Created and sent the programmer battle design docs
created 8-11 new icons for the battle system
mapped out all the battle system animations
got a bunch of errands done and it's only 4pm.

Rock. On.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Makin' icons

Today I have to make icons in Inkscape (because I don't have Illustrator on this computer.)  for battle graphics.  I think I've figured them out.   Business stuff out of the way until at least tomorrow sometime and art meeting this evening.  Things are ramping up!  Hope to have everything done in two-three weeks!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Drowning in Paperwork

Filed the wrong papers with Apple. Now need to incorporate my business.  Another 250 dollars.


Sigh.

More emails!

I don't know why I'm getting so excited about that.  But dev believes we should have first demo by Friday.

BY. FRIDAY.


*gasps and dies*


Gavin


Monday, December 5, 2011

Sunday, December 4, 2011

But now the designers aren't sending me emails.

Why can't I get a whole team of people to send me emails, and not just one person at a time??

OK, Now I have a title

I took all day to decide it, and I finally came up with the tagline. 

Working title is


Legends of Varia:  The Artifacts of Basque


Hope that works out.  I went through about 7 titles today.  Not many fit.

Well Crap

The dev asked me what the app is called.


Er, could it be that I haven't thought up a name for the game yet?

Nah.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Great talk with the developer today

I'm sooooooo happy I am working with an efficient, organized developer who understands the messes of text that I send him in word documents as well as the game design ideas I have and why I've decided on them.  Yessssss.

That aside, it's looking like by Dec. 19 or so (so before I go home to my family) that I'll have a working, living breathing demo I can show to my family about what I've been working on for the last year.

That and I am probably starting a new job in two weeks!  I'm going to be the bearer of so much good news!  Yeah, yeah!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Pros and Cons

Pro:  Developer ready to get started finally and meeting tomorrow morning.


Con:  He still wants to use the freelancer website payment system because it hurts his job completion rate if I just pay by wire/e-mail per milestone.

Price  for using an e-mail transfer:

a dollar-fifty.

Lowest price I'll pay for using Freelancer per milestone:

45$.

....*gasps and dies*