Metroid - Rogue Dawn

[Grimlock]

if you ARE gonna make a projected release date, it should at the very least, be only 3 or so months off. Not an entire year.

Ok so what do I do when I project a completion date/goal and then Snarfblam says "hey, check this out, we can expand the ROM to MMC3" (allowing us to do all the things we couldn't do previously)?  Or how about "I just figured out how to implement slope detection" (the last one requiring a significant rework of the level design).  The original release date was for a much more basic MMC1 hack.  Release dates are nothing more than the current goal based on what the current punch list contains coupled with whatever free time we think we might have, nothing more.  They aren't carved in stone. 

[Zero One]

I'd just like to interject a moment and state that hack developers owe you absolutely nothing in regards to accurate estimates of release dates, and that it'll be done when it's done. Now, let's kindly shift the conversation away from this argument.

[Dark-SA-X]

Grim if you have a spot available for another tester I'd be glad to give it a run and see if I find any bugs or glitches.

[Grimlock]

Grim if you have a spot available for another tester I'd be glad to give it a run and see if I find any bugs or glitches.

Thanks for the offer, I probably won't update the list again until I'm certain we'll be moving forward with the larger group, otherwise we'll go a different route depending on time availability.

[SacredHooves]

I got to say from a personal standpoint: that for everyone bitching they got no right to be bitching period.  I have worked on several open and closed betas for MMORPGs and not only do those; A: take a lot of time and effort to go through, B: Have ups and downs depending on the developer, but most importantly. C: Intended goals weather you are in a team or solo ALWAYS end up getting moved.

As long as Grimlock delivers top quality Retroid action: it's worth waiting.  I'd rather see him push the date up to make a very polished game than do a MN9 and not deliver the goods

[Thirteen1355]

I totally agree, sir Brony!

[AuroraxPhilic]

*Sigh* Oh look at that. I'm being painted as the bad guy. Lovely. If I so wanted to, I could disprove all of these claims easily from a philosophical and logical standpoint, but I'm not going to, because Zero One asked me to stop, and also because that would require too much time and energy to write. All I'll say, is if you don't bloody plan your game bible out thoroughly, you're project will take too long. In this case, because this is a hack doing MANY new things, it's okay to be off with dates, I've learned this now.
I feel badly disrespected for simply having an opinion. My opinion is pretty just' if you REALLY think about it. Calling me a bitch isn't very nice, and only proves to make you look like an uneducated person @SacredHooves You guys have blown this out of proportion. I saw my error, corrected it; yet everyone ignored it. So much for trying to apologize. :(

Now if you'll excuse me... I have a demo to release.

[snarfblam]

• You're still stirring the pot.
• Yes, people over-reacted to your complaint.
• Nobody called you a bitch.
• Don't take it too personally. You struck a nerve. People got butthurt. Life goes on.

[Thirteen1355]

 :lol:

Haha, don't get butthurt about this internet chat-thingy.
Don't take it all too seriously, man.

People on these hacking forums quickly start thinking you're begging and stuff. Criticism won't be welcome. Don't worry about it too much, it won't hurt you in the slightest.

Hey, you have a demo to release? We won't disturb you anymore, promise.
Back to seriousland: what game demo are you going to release?

[Grimlock]

*Sigh* Oh look at that. I'm being painted as the bad guy. Lovely. If I so wanted to, I could disprove all of these claims easily from a philosophical and logical standpoint, but I'm not going to, because Zero One asked me to stop, and also because that would require too much time and energy to write. All I'll say, is if you don't bloody plan your game bible out thoroughly, you're project will take too long. In this case, because this is a hack doing MANY new things, it's okay to be off with dates, I've learned this now.
I feel badly disrespected for simply having an opinion. My opinion is pretty just' if you REALLY think about it. Calling me a bitch isn't very nice, and only proves to make you look like an uneducated person @SacredHooves You guys have blown this out of proportion. I saw my error, corrected it; yet everyone ignored it. So much for trying to apologize. :(

Now if you'll excuse me... I have a demo to release.

It's all water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned.  Actually the only thing I found irritating was the whole "promise" bit but you clarified your intention. Other than that it was just your typical debate, maybe slightly heated but there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's kept from escalating into something unintended or disrespectful. 

For final clarification the intended release date changed several times because we decided to expand the scope of the project several times.  It's really that simple.  The final state of the project content is easily ten times more vast than the original plan was.  Also, life happens...  :^_^:

Thanks for sharing your opinion, I didn't think you were particularly wrong regarding announced release dates.  Ideally it would be best to announce a more precise release date if possible.  My intention was to enlighten you on how this particular project has expanded and how it has affected my previous estimations.  I have no regrets (none implied) for taking every opportunity to make this project as good as we could even at the expense of additional time requirements.  In all fairness I did announce several release dates throughout the last two years, on the surface I can see how that can be misunderstood and viewed unfavorably.

Criticism won't be welcome.

Actually some of your greatest opportunities for growth can come out of criticism (constructive criticism).  I don't mind criticism, so long as it is respectful and laid out in a constructive manner with positive intentions.

[AuroraxPhilic]

@snarfblam , I was implying that life goes on with the whole -- demo release thing. XD

Guys, I'm INFJ trash okay. I'm a person who takes everything too seriously, and in a way, I think that's was caused me to continue work on my hack. It's scary hearing many stories of just how hard it is to hack Metroid, because I'll be creating a Metroidvania game very soon nicknamed Organic. But anyway...

Thanks for kinda seeing it through my lense Grimlock, I don't like stirring the soup. Conflic is not my thing. And yes, criticism is key to improving. I have to agree.

If you're curious about my demo:

http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4059.0.html

You can check it out if you want. Just released it yesterday.

[Thirteen1355]

I love stirring the soup. It makes for some delicious insights.

Without criticism, things will not improve.

[Quietus]

It's scary hearing many stories of just how hard it is to hack Metroid

It's not even the difficulty for me. I know I'm capable of reading up on anything, and pretty much learning whatever I want, but it's the dedication that kills it for me. Knowing that I'll likely be spending months (if not years) tied to the same project. I've started so many hacks over the years, and next to nothing has ever been completed. Even if I don't play some of the hacks here, I still take my hat off to anybody that completes a project. :^_^:

[AuroraxPhilic]

Geeze @Quietus ... Mentally, I have many projects of games and stories I'd like to write, byt it is important to finish before beginning the next. Every project should be like some sort of journey. You must stick with it, because it will make you better, and more prepared for future projects.

Some people just work in this fashion as you do, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. It pains me to see people not finish what they started.

[Quietus]

You eat a whole steak in one sitting, and I sample a bit of everything from the buffet. As long as we're both full, right? :grin:

[AuroraxPhilic]

XD I guess that's true. Although, I might put away the stake an finish it later on, depending on just how big it is.

[samplerInfo]

All I'll say, is if you don't bloody plan your game bible out thoroughly, you're project will take too long.

This is a far too common misconception that has no validity in the reality of iterative games development.

I definitely don't want to paint you as the bad guy here, I just want to address that standpoint in general (be assured that you're not alone in having it so please don't take it personally). I've worked with a lot of producers, PMs, even fledgling game designers themselves, who believe that bible-thing to be true. In reality though, if you want your game to be the best it can be - as in fun, new, challenging, properly tested, polished - you need to work by iterations and also let the game have its say in where to go, or "write itself". That is what will start to happen when your ideas begin to get concretized and when you discover new tech or synergies between mechanics, which you will do all the time if you're testing it properly with an open mind. The game evolves.

In this regard the whole game bible (GDD, game design document) is thoroughly misunderstood. Maybe, just maybe, if you're making a dialogue and stats-heavy RPG you can plan more or less the entire game ahead. Or if you're doing an expansion that just adds or changes assets (nothing that impacts design), in which case it isn't even a proper GDD - it's a task list. Or if you for some reason are obsessed with the idea that your game needs to be exactly like you planned before even being able to try all those interdependent features out, and that it can't be improved by being played around with, which is both naive and absurd.

Sure, writing a GDD and then sticking to it by all means, obviously means you have a greater chance of completing your deadlines, since essentially you're ticking off a checklist: "Feature A will take X time to implement. Feature B will take Y time to design and test. Assets C will take Z time to build." But if you stop to think about it, sticking to this plan also means the game can't evolve, you're designing a static construct based on educated but blind guesses on what will be a good combination of features. It has rarely, if ever, worked for the better and this waterfall model has been gradually abandoned by most companies throughout the last decades in favor of iterative development (Scrum/Evo/Agile etc). At least in the first phases, before you handle out the checklists with assets to sometimes hundreds of people.

What you CAN do however, is set deadlines. Deadlines will restrict the number of possible iterations you are able to have, meaning at a certain point you will have to run with what you have. Iterative development makes sure that what you have at that time is the best it can be, since you're constantly testing and changing it in the right direction. This means the GDD is a living document, and as such it contains guesstimates on what you may want to achieve and how, but more importantly it keeps track of where you currently are.

Now, deadlines may be very important in professional production since you have a limited budget and/or other resources, marketing sync and release windows etc, but that's hardly the case in this scene. Here, deadlines may be important for a number of other reasons, such as striving for a certain scope, managing your time, or giving the community a rough estimate depending on how things look at a particular moment in time. But these reasons, and whether giving estimates at all is the right thing to do (I believe it is but they will always be misunderstood), is another discussion.

Again, innovative and satisfying game development (for you and the player and the game itself) is nothing alike manufacturing a static gizmo according to a blueprint, or bible as you put it. Game companies are being accused of poor time management all the time, in every forum, as this is something people think they have an understanding of from their everyday lives and work, which are mostly limited to planning according to more or less complicated checklists - when in reality this type of management is one of the most difficult things to tackle in games development, due to the dynamic processes described above.

[squishy_ichigo]

samplerInfo: I for one rather enjoyed your comments, and agree fullheartedly with your assessments. Good read, kinda wish I could add more to this, but you did a great job with your write up and I don't feel I can add anything to it.

[DSO]

Interesting post, sampler.

I'm really looking forward to Rogue Dawn and I believe it's like wine and only become better with age.
Don't forget Grim probably wants to get this out there just as much as we've been wanting to play it.

[Zero One]

Damn, sampler. As a games dev, that is now my favourite post on this forum :P

[AuroraxPhilic]

Wow. You are bloody right. In everything you said Sampler. Very  shocking to read as well. You've basically expressed many of my hypothesis of game development into proper words. These are only ideas that I have imagined and played with in my head (never really experiencing them yet), but I always thought that -- the way I was thinking about it was incorrect. That a game needed to be set and stone. But everything you say is very true. It also excites and scares me in a way, because soon, I will go through this...process of developing a game, and it's interesting to imagine how it could change. How things translation based on MANY factors and influences... It will be different, and it is your job, to make sure you deliver the best that you possibly could; but again...many factors such as life and other interaction may affect motivation and the development process. Creating a game, is indeed a journey. One that I'm very curious about. So many factors...so little ti-- wait, I have an idea for Mst now. So Little Design. A hack where in all you do, is enter a room, and you fight a giant potato, that kicks your ass every time. Mst get on it. The world needs more potato MBs.

Rogue Dawn is definitely interesting to see develop and evolve. Game creation is something -- well -- special, in a way. It's unpredictable, while being predictable all at the same time...

Oh sh!t. There I go rambling again. JFC. Smh. Anyway, great post. I whole heartedly agree, and will take this into serious consideration in the future.

[samplerInfo]

You've basically expressed many of my hypothesis of game development into proper words.

Wow, if you're serious, thanks.

Again, this is hard enough as it is to explain to people actually working in the business. Telling your producer "it's done when it's done" simply won't cut it. You need to meet deadlines. Naturally, if you're serious about becoming a talented professional game developer, it's easy to start internalizing that way of thinking, and turn your focus to that GDD pile. "If I'm good enough I will write the perfect design document, and from there on all I have to do is write a huge list of tasks". What I'm trying to say is that although your client or producer may applaud you, this is an illusion, it's the wrong way to go about things if you want to become a better, more structured designer, and still make good games. And be creative and have fun while doing it.

Instead, you should care about what your game wants to become, while at the same time keeping track on how much time you have left. Improve the speed of your loops - your iterations - by learning how to make quick, simplified drafts that will still let you validate your design. And get better at predicting how long the crazy ideas you get along the way will take to implement, and whether or not they are viable at all. Get better at throwing away stuff that you can't get to work, even if you've written 20 pages about it in your GDD. If you are doing it right, there will always be a throng of discussions and compromises along the way - and breaking of deadlines - and you will probably be your own worst enemy.

Modding or making indie games is my own way of coping with this pressure. I'm completely free to decide my own deadlines and scope. But at the same time this doesn't mean I can't be structured in the way I go about doing it - in fact having some sort of structure is a tool that helps my discipline and ability to finish things. And setting some kind of deadlines (doesn't have to be time, it can be the completion of certain features) helps against over-iterating stuff. That is, working on and playing your game so much that you start to change features that are perfectly fine because you are bored and want to try new things. Or failing to recognize that you are subconsciously set on designing a completely different game because you are so worn out. But that structure is very different from having a release date set in stone, that can't be moved no matter what.

[Thirteen1355]

Back from a nightly ban.
Now for a more serious question:

Do you have suitless underwater parts in Rogue Dawn, or don't you have a Gravity Suit at all?

[AuroraxPhilic]

What I'm seeing here, is the thing the universe likes to do, which is balance everything out. It is good to have some structure, but bad to have too much structure; bad to have no structure and yada yada. The reason why most things become a bit of a journey, is because of the inevitable ups and downs/ changes that may occur along the way. It's just the simple way of the universe. Game development is no different in that regard. :P

Also...
[spoiler]-removed-
[/spoiler]

Gravity in Rogue Dawn? That would be interesting. But unlikely, so it my be suitless.

EDIT: I see it's already been removed. I had no idea that was a serious spoiler. Sorry. :(

[Thirteen1355]

I wonder how water physics work, then. Do they really slow you down like in Super Metroid?
Grim, I remember you had a small room with water in Incursion. I don't remember if it actually slowed you down.