Blade Edge

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Oooookay. So after working my butt off this weekend I figured it was time to take a few minutes and look over my current work domain to make sure everything is progressing as it should and that I won’t be going insane by the time GDC rolls around.

Blade Edge Software

Task to complete by GDC: T2D title Galaxy Conquest

Progress
Today I emailed to the team our first alpha release of the game, which was a major milestone for me. The game has only been in real development for the past 3 months, and the progress its made astounds me, and I’m the one working on it! Some current statistics:

Platform: PC (Win32/Mac/Linux)
Genre: 2D turn-based strategy
Status: In Production
Development Time: 5 months
# of Developers: 4
Design Doc Revision: 2.0 (10 revisions)
Art Assets: 219 files
Sound Assets: 21 files
Code Assets: 26 files, 8,560 lines of code
Game Builds: 1

Still to do
While the game has come far, it still has far to go. Only basic basic gameplay is functional right now, and while that’s the barebones that everything else will be built off of, there’s still a lot to add on top of it. After my team and I work out any bugs from this release my next milestone is implementing some more advanced features into the current game mode so they will be available with other game modes later on. My target is no later than mid-Feb.

Oh and although I originally wanted to release a version to you guys, it will have to wait until I can package the game and keep true to my license agreement with GG regarding the distribution of T2D games.

GameDev.net

Task to complete by GDC: IGF interviews and coverage prep

Progress
Well the first batch of 5 IGF interviews will be up on the site this week, and I already have 5 more ready to follow perhaps the week after. After that things get a little murky – I just emailed 4 teams (the 4 that no one else picked up), haven’t heard back from 1 I emailed two weeks ago, 1 refused an interview with one of the volunteers and maybe will do an interview with me at the conference, can’t do another until late Feb and the last one I have is responding via email since one of their team members is serving his time in his home country’s Army. I’m also still waiting on 1 interview from one of the volunteers, but it’s been confirmed and I’ll have it soon.

As far as coverage prep, things are going well, although it’s hard to do much of anything until CMP releases the conference schedule, which was only just recently.

Still to do
Now that the schedule is posted I can start choosing the sessions I want to cover and the events I want to attend. Besides keeping track of the interviews I also have to make sure I build the IGF coverage page before I get to the conference rather than at the conference and after like last year. There is also some internal stuff we have to work out, like a rock-solid accounting of staff members who will be attending this year, but we’re pretty much on-track so far

Game Institute

Task to complete by GDC: Community Seminars

Progress
If any of you have been reading for the past 2 months (even off and on) you may remember me mentioning something I’m doing with GI. Well the official title of the program is Community Seminars. Take from it what you will cause that’s all I’m saying for now. I’m in the final stages of preparing the package that will be emailed out to a bunch of selected developers to start the ball rolling. If you’re not on the list don’t worry – come GDC you’ll be hearing about it if I do my job right.

Still to do
There are some technical issues I need to work out with our lead developer but nothing obstructing the beginning stages of the program. We’re pretty much in final final review right now and emails should start going out this week sometime. After that it’s behind-the-scenes prep and a launch of the program hopefully two weeks before GDC or closer.

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Well that’s that. My head feels a little clearer now. Of course on top of all this I have my normal day job of coaching, there’s two books sitting on my desk waiting to be reviewed for GDNet, I have a GDC networking presentation to put together for my IGDA chapter’s Feb meeting, and I need to prepare for the first Advisory Board meeting for my IGDA chapter.

Of course I’m not complaining – If I didn’t have this much to do I’d probably go insane. Work hard now, rest later. That’s my motto. I’ll be sixty and laughing at all those fools who drank their way through college and then put off getting a real job for as long as possible when they’re still at the 9-5 and I’m on my boat somwehere in the Carribean sippin a cold drink working on my next game on the lappie and wondering what island I’ll stop off at next.

Maybe.