I’m starting to get worried. All our stuff is leaving on a big truck on the 22nd. Need my desktop back before then, if only so we can get it on the truck. Don’t want to have to shell out hundreds of bucks in shipping.

Developing 2 small games in addition to the big one. One should be finished the week… it’s a popular type of word/logic puzzle, but I’ve never seen it ported to flash. So I’m doing it, and slapping 100 puzzles in it. Doubt it’ll do that well… but it’s the type of game I’d enjoy playing, so that’s why it’s being made.

The other is another satire game with Benologist. It’ll be less “omg complete joke” and more of obvious satire but still fun to play / challenging puzzles. Most of the puzzles are done… need to write the script still. And Beno is busy until July (as I am, sort of, with the move)… so that game will be made in early July.

Over the weekend, I had my 4th video hit 1 million views. This is the first video to hit 1+ mil that is not a fully self-contained walkthrough; instead, it is 50% of my Wake the Royalty walkthrough. The other half has 944k views and should hit 1 million sometime this summer.

Recently, the total viewcount on YouTube has been lagging. It seems to only update every few days. So I’ve been tracking my viewcount through TubeMogel instead, which is not QUITE as accurate on the short-term, but is fairly damn accurate long-term. All TubeMogel does is take a snapshot of the viewcount on each video at midnight, then sums them all together for your account total. This is dependent on YouTube updating the counts, which is why it’s often off in the short-term… but it evens out to be only a very small margin of error in the long-term. That explanation aside, My viewcount on TubeMogel as of Midnight this morning was 39,950,000… which means sometime today I hit 40 million total views. Yay!

My desktop is still in the shop, for exactly 1 week now. Going to call tomorrow to see what’s going on. Tass is starting to get the DTs from sexy computer withdraw. Sadly, I’m going to have to be without my desktop again in 2 weeks. The moving truck is taking all our stuff on June 22nd, and is not expected to arrive in Philly until June 29th. That means 1 more full week with the craptop. *sigh*.

Oh… and in other news. My big game project has basically been on hold the past week because of the desktop issue. Which sucks. Probably won’t hit FGL until July at this rate. However, I’m designing another quick satirical game with Benologist; but because of both of us being busy this month, that won’t see the light of day until July either.

My Game is progressing. Getting the art coordinated is proving to be quite challenging, and a slow process. Hard to judge how the programming is going, but I’m being assured that it’s mostly done. Custom music is also progressing slowly.

I’ve been talking to Synth a decent bit recently, and we’re looking at a June 18th re-launch of the site. Synth believes that all data will be recovered.

Walkthroughs are continuing, steadily. My daily views seem to be constant above 80k/day, which is good. Would be nice if I could get that up over 100k.

Was offered some level design work on Crush the Castle 2, which I accepted initially… but after about an hour working on it, it was pretty clear that my cbf level outweighs the offered cash. Those castles are just so damn intricate. So many small details to them. Instead, I wrote up some general level ideas that hopefully will be useful to Joey.

Life is moving quickly. Less than 1 month until all my stuff gets shipped back east, and 1 month until we fly away from LA. Will have to start packing shortly. We have a new kitten, which complicates the move a bit… but Whorli just can’t say no to kittens.

So, the initial response to the game has been quite divided, which is what we expected.  There are those who think it’s funny and like it and those who don’t and don’t.  Very, very little middle ground.  As a result, it did ok on Kong (and got a pity badge from Greg), but has seen very little early pickup from distribution.  More on that aspect of the game’s success will be known in a week or two.

What interests me so much is that the walkthrough has been viewed over 21,000 times.  It’s not like the game is hard, at all.  Not even remotely.  Yet 21,000 views.  I’m quite shocked by this, and don’t really know what to attribute it to.   I understand that there have been 74,000 clicks on the walkthrough link…  but that makes a bit more sense, given there is an achievement for it; but for 30% of those clickers to view it?  Either they really like me or they are dumber than I thought.  Not sure which is better.

Last Friday in the FGL (Flash Game License) chat, a few of us were talking about random game ideas, and the chat clown Benologist (Ben Lowry) gave one idea that I thought we could make into a game.  3 days late, we have a finished game…  he did the programming and art, I did the design and QA.  It’s a metagame about game commenters.  We think it’s pretty funny.

Play Great Game! 1/5 on Kongregate and rate it 5/5 you like it.  <3

My full team is now assembled.  As mentioned, Krayz is on programming.  Now on board…  Kfosh for art and KgZ for music.  Kfosh’s art is absolutely perfect for what I’m looking for.  As soon as I saw his portfolio, I knew he was the artist for this game.  And KgZ…  well, James is just a really talented kid who I try to help (and benefit from) as often as I can.  He’s my go-to guy when I need to replace in-game audio with something else.  Anyway, his usual jazzy style isn’t what this game will feel like, but I’m quite confident in his talent and ability to create something awesome for the game.

Maybe in the coming weeks I’ll reveal the name, so that I can stop calling it “the game”.  But not yet.

Last summer I was planning on working on a point and click game, but gave up on it because I wasn’t a big fan of the script that I was writing and where it was going.  However, recently, many different people have brought up the point that I have some extra time available and should consider making games, in addition to my other stuff.  A few days ago in Impossible is Nothing (our Kong chatroom), we were discussing box2d games and how they make lots of money without having much in the way of original content.  So I jokingly shot out the first idea that popped into my head for a funny box2d game.  Add in a few hours of planning and refining the concept, and I now have my first game under way.

I’m still searching for an artist, but my buddy Krayz will be doing the programming for the game, and I’ll be hiring someone for a custom audio track or two as well.  This game is going to be a test, all around.  Do I like being in charge and designing my own games?  Is the profit worth the time investment?  How much time will I need to invest?  Should I do my own level design, or outsource that too?  Lots and lots of questions, and hopefully they can be answered in the next 4-6 weeks without me losing money.  :)

I don’t want to do an open development, because this is my first project.  I want to get it right and focus on it and not have to worry about blogging about it.  However, I’ll give updates here and there.  I’ve run the concept by a few people… both industry and family, and after refinement it’s gotten positive responses.  So if I do a good job on the design, it should do well.  The one thing I know is that this project won’t be scrapped like the point and click.  This game IS getting made.

So, back in October or November 09, Jamie Young approached me about creating some new formulas for the next Sacred Seasons game.  I put together a spreadsheet that featured many different formula choices, all simple and meant to scale in a similar way to SS1.  Then I didn’t hear anything for a while.  Fast forward to mid December, and I begin speaking to Derek Day, who had been working more on the game’s lore, features, and content.  It’s with Derek that I spent the past 4 months.

Initially, I thought I would be making some formulas, maybe doing some class balance.  In the end, I wound up laying the foundation for 24 classes each with 4 seasons, 17 different weapon types with 100 total descriptors, 58 monster types, and 60 dungeons with ~2500 battles.  Basically, I would get a document with names and ideas on what something would do, and I added values to do it and made sure it’s balanced with everything else.  I say laying the foundation, because a lot of the initial work I did wound up being changed, tweaked, or modified by Derek.  He and I had many a discussion that revolved around making changes to work I had done, sometimes weeks or even months after the fact.  Derek “won” 99% of these discussions, and he managed to change my opinion on about half of them, with another quarter ending in indifference between the two.

I want you to go back and re-read the 2nd sentence of the previous paragraph.  Take that in.  Then add in the massive world, encompassing 13 areas, tons of quests (I’m not sure exactly how many…  but it’s a lot), and all the features that are still planned for future content updates.  It’s been a huge undertaking and I only played a small role.  But the experience has been fantastic.  If I had been allowed to design a lot of the systems and mechanics that I thought I was going to be allowed to design without oversight, the game would not have wound up as complete as it is.  I’ve been frustrated on numerous occasions, having spent 10+ hours designing something, only to then find out that Derek wants part, or all, of it changed or done differently.  There were times I wanted to bang my head into a wall because I felt my way of doing something was better, yet I was being overruled time and time again.  But through it all, I have done what I thought was best for the game’s success…  and then adapted to all of the requested changes.  I’ve gotten to see and experience what it is like to design an MMORPG.

So, I hope that all of you enjoy the gameplay in Sacred Seasons 2, because an awful lot of time, energy, and thought went into it.

Expect some more game-related posts and post-mortem type stuff in the coming weeks.