okay, so!
fishbane is due up any time now. cheers to those who have been following along. this has been an exciting time, and it's great to know we'll be able to share the game with everyone really soon. last time i wrote about design stuff, this time i'm going to get a bit deeper into the history of the project, details about
the development environment, and the sponsorship process. also, some love for certain particular community folk.
coming off of probability zero, droqen had been brewing ideas and little prototypes, and was ready for the next project. while discussing new directions, i asked about the profit he was making on gamejolt, which, he informed me, was about the price of the lunch we were chatting over.
a while later, we talked about the feasibility of flash sponsorship for our own personal projects, given that it was a way to continue to work on games that would be freely available to play, and possibly see a reasonable cash return. making and sharing cool stuff has been droqen's focus, so this sort of compensation was really a secondary concern. around this time chevyray released his excellent flashpunk libraries, and droqen promptly got to work on something cool. unfortunately the project didn't quite pan out. the primary reason was a conceptual snag in the construction of a good challenging system within what was initially a cool toy. ultimately, droqen decided to put further work in this direction on hold, due to a fundamental disagreement with two parts of his original plan for the project.
| | | |
|
and then along came ogmo ed. i was really excited when i first caught wind of the project, and once i
heard from matt that it was out the door, i poked droqen to give it a spin. a few false starts later, and something gorgeous began to emerge. revisiting an
old theme with a new approach, the fishbane we know today was born.
| | | | early development progress on fishbane was played a little closer to the chest. droqen was excited to be working on something that showed such great potential, and was driven by the rapid development speed afforded by ogmo ed. he hadn't previously designed games oriented around level structure, mainly due to the rapid pace at which his ideas took form in code. prior to fishbane, droqen's focus was on procedural playing fields, such as the system used in probability zero.
|
not long after the first prototype, the majority of fishbane had been completed. while there was additional content and final polishing to be added, the core of the game was ready. and then, we started sharing what we had. the great responses from tigs on irc, and in this very post, were crucial to the final product. some of the fan artists even ended up lending a hand with in-game assets. the positive feedback from people we love (sparky and locomalito, amoungst others) was awesome.
with game in hand, sponsorship was the last stop. we tried flash game license, but ultimately it wasn't much help. after mailing potential sponsors and uploading a demo, we waited hopefully. and then, a couple weeks ago, droqen got suddenly excited over irc. a rather nice looking offer, from a fondly familiar fellow.
the hunt for a sponsor was without a doubt the most resistant part of the process, but after hearing from tom things have been a breeze. we have a soft spot for newgrounds, and the ease of getting the game up and running with their help has made for a rather nice conclusion to the whole process.
so thanks everybody!
and thanks droqen, for this wonderful game.
Community
