as the code base is pretty much done I started on some enemy mechanical designs..

Catch 22

I sent a bunch of mails of to character designers to see how much they would cost and wether they would have time in their schedule for contract work..

So far I have only received replies from 2 of 7 artists.. one from my #3 choice and the other from my #1 choice..

#3 had no space i his schedule..

#1 (my ideal candidate for the game) gave me a quote for work!

Sadly there were a LOT of zeroes involved in the figure.. More than I can afford at present.. Had I known it would be so expensive I  would have been saving up a lot harder than I have.

According to my advisor, Miss N, she tells me his rates are reasonable... So I doubt I will get a cheaper option. And besides, he is a peronal hero of mine.

Being a Gaijin in Tokyo means there is little to no chance of getting a loan, and I can`t do a kickstarter with nothing to show.. So for now I wil try and stay in contact with him and get more done with placeholder art until I can afford his skills.

On the subject of things to show, here is a load test to check how the framerate holds up with pathfinding tanks, flying enemies and bullets..still at a solid 60FPS..

Characters

Today is the day I send work and rates requests to the list of illustrators I think would be ideal for the character art, noone really hugely major, but all artists I either already see as perfect for the work or seem suited to the task.

3 of which I will have to contact from home as I can`t open their site for fear of NSFW artwork.

I have zero problem hiring someone who also does pornographic work so long as they have a great style.

Hell even Capcom hired a guy notorious for really young looking loli art on one of their more well reknowned franchises..

I don`t think I will list who I have on my list for now. let`s see if anyone bites...

Music

To be frank, I have scant few favourite musicians for STG games.. Manabu Namiki has done some great tracks, but also some bloody awful ones. I love his work for Mushihimesama and Ketsui, but that’s about it.

I think I wont be able to afford a musician for the project so I will probably also be doing that myself.

As I used to run a record company, have several released 12 inches and produced the music for a Nintendo published game I think I have the confidence to do so.

I doubt I will break any conventions in the composition, and will be going for melodic conventional “shmuppy” sounding tracks.

This is a test I wrote for the character select loop a while ago.

https://soundcloud.com/studio-work3/selectwav

Needs, musts

Todays work is waylaid due to migrating my files to locations for multiple cloud backup.

This would have been done had copy.com had an option just to reselect a new location for syncing as opposed to moving it. The update bar doesn't even tell me how far done it is.. hopefully 104GB of test code and assets from "G" and previous apps won't take that long.

I am now talking to a bunch of people to either assist or act as advisors.

So far, interested parties are :

• A gameplay advisor, who is a seriously kick ass STG player
• A consultant, who used to work for a certain previously mentioned arcade game maker, now working at a somehwat less obscure international game company.
• A friend at another Auteur led Japanese game company who has helped me with my character design request letters.
• A programmer, who used to be at a reknowned UK game co.

I am also trying to convince a very talented Japanese modeller to help with assets. He said he would give it a try.

Hardware wise I am going to have to buy a CRT PC monitor to test low res vertical modes at 4:3 resolution.
Reason being, scaling down to dual and trisync arcade monitors with scanlines will need serious checking for clarity.

I was hankering after a recent discovery. The NEC PC-TV monitor.



Used for the Japanese PC9801 series, this monitor is probably the only CRT I have ever seen that has VGA inputs as well as SCART, SVHS and A/V connectors. It could actually be a more ideal gaming CRT than the highly rated SONY PVM / BVM TV studio grade monitors. However, Yahoo auctions priced indicate that they can go for over $100, and considering I have a PVM monitor already to test lowest resoultions, I may as well just by a super cheap SONY Trinitron monitor for around $10

Bye Bye Monkey, Hello Project "G"

After attempting casual appeal with the IGF nominated ookibloks, we were left with, despite positive reviews from every site that covered it, a debt. We both worked for equal profit share. So far, the "equal" profit share is about $0 for me and -$1000 for Jesse.

May as well have put that money into a chinese clickfarm to push it into the charts. Hell, it`s what everyone else does..

The PC version is in STEAM greenlight process at present. as you can see from thsese stats taken today, it looks like there is no space on steam for simple happy fun puzzlers. Maybe if I had done it as a pixel art game about a depressed paraplegic transvestite Kotaku and Polygon may have covered it.

Hm.. maybe I would have had to castrate myself and dyed my hair blue as well for authenticity, scratch that.

FUCK YOU! NO HAPPY MONKEY GAMES ON STEAM!

Work3 Project 2, AKA "Project G" - a polar opposite approach.

My major love has always been vertically scrolling shooters, not those hideous euroshmup clones, but good solidly thought out japanese arcade shooters. Especially ones by CAVE.

I work, literally , on the other side of the street from cave`s offices, I have smoke breaks in the plaza of their building with what`s left of cave`s staff.. The guy who did the "BOMBAAA!" voice? He was part of the sound division.. I say "hi" to him occasionally.

 I think if I made a slingshot I could launch a brick through their window, but now all the arcade  development key staff have quit and the rest of the staff involved absorbed into the mobile division, a well aimed brick wouldn`t knock sense into anybody of importance anyway.

Basically I am thinking that Cave`s withdrawal into mobile mediocrity is a bit of a sign for me.. 3 years ago I made decent progress into a vertical STG engine.. it was running at a medium resolution at a constant 60FPS and I had made some good placeholder art.

The initial idea was to make a vertical doujin THUNDERFORCE game to make up for the disappointment of the utterly laughable "BROKEN THUNDER" doujin game that bombed so hard it crashed through the crust of the earth and reappeared on the other side of the planet.

Source model for Hi-res TF Rynex sprite.

I figured out how to build detailed backgrounds, set parallax, and it was all looking great.. even with the screen so full of bullets you couldn't see anything else it still held at 60FPS.

Sadly I had decided to shack up with one crazy ass lady and after receiving a flurry of blows to the head, from behind while programing one night, I decided that this would not be viable with an attention starved bipolar brat under the same roof as me.


Needless to say I now share my house with just 2 cats.

Why did I choose a doujin thunderforce game?

1. Because retro bandwagon.
2. Because news sites would have covered it. Because retro bandwagon
3. Wouldn`t have to hire a character artist. Because spaceships.

Why did I ditch it?

1. I couldn`t sell it outside doujin shops in Japan
2. Would probably be lynched for turning Thunderforce into a vertical scroller.
3. Engine was stuck at one resolution
4. People would have whined it wasn`t low res pixel art.

Several years later I have resurrected the code, and it`s now running in 720p, with all other resolutions supported including a vertical monitor modes and support for standard arcade CRT and trisync monitors.

Why am I doing something so niche?

1. I love the genre.
2. It`s a limited and small market.
3. People that get it are discerning, which makes it a good challenge.
4. STG dev is pretty much a wasteland and free of pretentious assholes and indie cliques.
5. You have to come correct with the mechanics, a wanky hipster storyline alone won`t sell a 2D shooter.
6. Want to do my own IP.

I`ll post up a few more assets of the old shooter and start talking about the requirements of the new one soon.