Failure: The Secret to Success

At least, that's what my cousin says in his book of the same title. While it seems very unlikely I'll raise enough money to meet my goal at this point, I think I've learned a bit from this experiment. I'll keep the project open until the end, regardless.

It's the Game, Stupid

I think the biggest problem is that I focused too much on the production technique and not enough on the game. I also think that trying to fund a game without some sort of demo or trailer that demonstrates the game itself is an exercise in futility. It's amazing I got as many backers as I did, considering! My real plan was for my video to be amusing enough to be shared, but it didn't work. Perhaps with more experience I could succeed, but it was a bit too much to hope for from my very first exercise in video production.

The Demo

I'm going to release a "Backer Edition" demo version of the game with gameplay similar to the last video. I need to smooth out a few kinks first, but I'll try to release something by the end of next week; hopefully earlier. It'll be a Windows executable, and should work with any PC that has Windows XP or a later version with a reasonably fast graphics chipset that supports OpenGL 1.5.

As for the source code: I may release it at a later date, when I have some more time to work on it, but right now I don't want to set it loose. After all, Rock Hunter was supposed to be something of a fire test for the codebase, and it's without that now.

Getting the Demo

I'll send a back-exclusive update on how to get the demo before the project expires.

Yessir!

We're finally here. I have a video showcasing rock destruction with explosions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwXhOn33lsI

You'll be able to slice apart and otherwise fragment the final game's rocks dynamically; this is a rough sample of the gameplay with non-dynamic rocks.

I was able to get this far in only sixteen days; Image what I could do with the full development cycle. Donate today and find out! :)

The Demo

As I've mentioned before, my current target is the demo. I should be able to release it this week if all goes well. I hope that the demo will boost donations. Even if it doesn't, please consider it a thank-you to all of you for backing me.

I've only got a few tasks left for the demo. The ship can be controlled, weapons can be fired, and asteroids exist and can be damaged and destroyed. I just need to spice things up a bit with some special effects, like explosions, and add some point scoring and tracking mechanisms :)

Yesterday

The things I completed yesterday were the rock destruction for the simpler rocks that spawn smaller rocks when destroyed instead of breaking apart, and physics for rock/weapon collisions so that rocks can be destroyed with the ship's weapon.

Today

Today I'm going to focus my work on graphical effects; rock explosions and weapon effects.

Thanks to everyone who's donated so far! Things have been slow, but I'm hoping that the demo I'm making will provide a big boost.

I made a video of the current status of the demo that you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-vSXdNIrag.