Jigsaw code

There seem to be two standard ways to start a blog; the first being to simply start writing and hope to attract people, the second is to actually have a plan and start writing with a specific topic and set of goals in mind. As you can tell from the title of this post, this will be an attempt at the latter.

Originally I had intended on just starting another dev blog for the new game I’m trying to make in my spare time. I’ve attempted to do this twice in the past; both times, the purpose of the blog was not so much to serve as a living “document” as it was to stand as something of a history of the development process. At the same time, they both (perversely) drove development, as I’d have a desire to get something done that I could post about it, no matter how large the roadblock.

So, why not simply do that again? Its the safe and easy route, free of criticism due to its low level of interest. Safe is boring.

Beyond that flippant answer, I hope that I can also offer help to other people trying to get into the games industry, and to try to understand games better. As a Graduate Student in the process of breaking into the industry, hopefully I can
offer advice and insight to others who are trying to walk a similar path, but don’t know where to begin.’

It also seems like there are very few attempts at creating decent game design blogs out there. Sure, there are critics who review games, or talk about the state of the industry. There are academic blogs that talk about what games could, or should be. There are even blogs by actual game developers; most of these, however, seem to be ranting about issues related to game design, instead of game design itself.

I could be wrong about this; I haven’t actively searched for game design blogs. I know there are a number of sites that good game design articles, such as The Escapist, and Gamasutra. However, these are little more than old-style magazines that happen to be typeset for the web. What’s the difference between that and a blog? Honestly, it seems the biggest thing lost in these web magazines is that individual authors rarely have regular pieces. So if a reader is interested in following the thoughts of a single author, to see either evolution or to delve deeper into a topic, it is rather difficult. Hopefully I can offer a new viewpoint.

That said…I don’t presume to be some veteran of the industry who is trying to spread my wisdom. I’ve been in the industry less than a year now, but hopefully by writing regularly and forcing myself to examine designs and thoughts regularly, I can improve my game design skills faster, while at the same time providing and interesting (or inflamatory) read.

Or I could just be trying to get enough people mad at me that they start playtesting my game and giving my criticism more readily. Hey, it worked for Yahtzee.

After much deliberating, I decided to start another game. This post is more for archival purposes than anything, but hey, here’s the Hello World for this thing:

Last year, when I started at the ETC, the first real assignment we were given as part of the “Building Virtual Worlds” class was to create a small world using the Panda3D engine, to familiarize ourselves with the engine. I created a little game using a Sonic Riders era model that was on the Panda3D site, using the hovering Sonic in a field of cubes, and having a goal of collecting rings, as Sonic moved ever faster and faster. After that class however, I didn’t touch Panda again; my next semester I spend doing work in flash on Bandology, and then I did a summer internship and fall co-op at Flagship Studios, working on Hellgate: London. I’m currently there on a spring co-op…still working on Hellgate: London.

So, after a year of not working with Panda3D, I’m back to the start again…creating a simple world, using Sonic and a bunch of cubes as placeholders. Hello, world.