Had somewhat high hopes to what will happen afterwards I left my other project (EOTH) behind (due to IRL issues), despite the fact that everything was still highly volatile (and still are, unfortunately). But, it had to be done, as I hadn't the luxury to work on it anymore. Truth is, these past couple of months were even tougher than I thought: All the energy I put into trying to kick-start FLD (or should I say it's successor) failed tremendously. Which doesn't come as a surprise, but the way it does makes my (seasoned soul) crumple inside; more than I'd like to admit. This time, however, I'm writing this blog entry, not for the sake of my work, but for the sake of my sanity. These four walls I've caged myself in, can only speak so much . . .
No-way-out?
A recurring theme that's been poisoning my mind for years now: deadlock in the absence of a clear mind; so-to-speak. Small or big, my ideas are disposable, and not market worthy (or only to a few, like 1-2 people). I've gone through studios, publishers, grants, venture capitals, and whatnots, and managed to mount up a heaping pile of ghosted-emails and applications (regarding this project). The sheer amount is staggering, and only slightly overshadowed by the fact that 99,9% of the time no reply was given. And when it was, it was just a generated response (rejection), with no real thought given whatsoever. I mean, generally speaking, What would anyone (rightfully) think of themselves after receiving such awful, and clear states of one's value (over and over, spanning decades).
Was naive enough to think that someone, out-there, would agree with my idea of an ARPG that would resemble the pixel art from Diablo 2 (and some mechanics), but ultimately would handle differently, and would tell a tale inspired by my own dyslexia and slight autism (which is a “secret”, as nobody cares nor wants to acknowledge it, but something I wish to show the world and let others in the see what's it like, and tell the inspired tale of how can one, such as my person, achieve something greater than themselves, in life). I know that D2 has been ripped off way-to-many-times. I know that it has been replicated to oblivion. It's boring, unimaginative and plain stupid of an idea (even though Blizzard just announced something eerie familiar, by buying up Vicarious Visions just now; wonder why). But that is the best I can do (with my current abilities anyway, using Unreal Engine), dreamt of it for a long time (since childhood), and would've definitely put my take on it (altering it beyond plain recognition) if the chance is given.
The final stoke was when the campaign was shut down (by the provider), due to lack of interest. However, surprisingly, a small glimpse of light came to be (or I thought), when an unknown person showed their interest in my project; for the sake of helping me out. Little did I know that the latter would cause me more headache than anything of late . . .
Pushing ahead with a false sense of security
So amidst all, I've rolled out one more update to FLD:
And then eventually got in touch with my mysterious “patron”. Of which I've no idea who they are, or what they do really. It all feels like being in a massive con right now. Anyway, initially my idea for this project was to release it in numerous chunks, over a great span of many years (if initial funding would've passed). Simply because the amount I was raising was tiny ($50K), I'm not the fastest, nor the one with the best skills, and development . . . solo development takes a lot, I mean a LOT of time. Something that is clearly unknown to this supposed to be “patron” of mine; at the time of this writing. I tried to convince them to be upfront about their intentions, but they refused to bend, and kept insisting of wanting to know the what's and how's (coming up with a time-frame and budget). Tried to warn them also about the consequences of such a request, but no answer was given to that. Which made me worry: Both because of the scope of their request and difficulty (not to mention the underlying costs). What this meant that essentially they asked me to come up with a budget, for the entire game. Which is bonkers, and worries me a lot.
But, as all other options failed (some even ghosted me after having "convened" via email prior), I had no choice to tackle their request (as a last form of attack) and start rapidly developing the project. As only just a few weeks ago, I had nothing planned afterwards my initial milestone (leaving the rest hang in mid air). Had only fragments of a GDD and no idea of the true scope of the project. Now, I've wrote a lengthy document (not fully detailed, but a solid start of the wants and how's), drastically changed the story, and added most of the stuff from EOTH into the mix. ‘Cos you know, why not. Actually, most of the stuff wasn’t totally out of place, and technically I'm still capable of doing all of those features myself (which is always a good thing, I suppose). Even sent sent it out to a couple of publishers, who'd deal with indies, but got no response (apart from what I told before).
One of those features were the question of a procedural generated map. It's almost impossible to implement (without C++ coding), if you wish to create something that is logical in its placement, and not totally random (think of something like Minecraft, in the sense how chunks are just essentially strapped on to one another). What I was after was “precise” layout generation, that is easy in theory (like, you know, use some perlin-noise, or whatever, and BAM, job's done), but difficult to implement (with the tools BPs can offer). Which I had no prior experience in, so had to make my own tests. Actually, come to think of it, had done some in regards before (with my A* pathfinding), which was impressive (in my own little world), not because it was done, but how it was done (and ran fast at runtime, using Blueprints only). Which was a recurring theme of mine, as it had to deal with arrays. And high level (noob) coding, especially with visual scripting, doesn't cope well with arrays. The engine just breaks down immediately. Now, I hope you know where's this going: A grid based map, any map, uses arrays (matrices optionally in real coding), to store the location of each grid point/square/hexagon/etc. Now, generating it, at run-time was out of the question, as it would freeze or in best case lag the game horribly, but what was worse the fact that generating large enough maps would crash the engine; as I was after something similar seen in D2.
The fear of not being able to do it, was quite-real, and stopped me from continuing on with my (time and financial) calculations for said project, until it was sorted out. Here's a short list of how it went:
Turns out my hexagon map generation idea is possible to pull off (won't bore you with the details, but spawning the grid, the way it does right now, took me a solid week to figure out), and even have forms of optimization in the bag (to implement later), but would need more testing of how bad of a performance penalty this gives you. I mean, I've an old PC (10y+), and generating a sizeable map (aham, grid) on it takes 2-3 minutes (just the grid, no additional meshes, although it has a built in pathfinding system, so technically there would be no scenario where the player would not be able to find the exit). Not sure how much fun would a game be with 5-10 minutes of loading times prior to gameplay. But that being said, I think anyone could swallow that issue, knowing that it would only happen once per act, as all the pre-generated levels would be streamed afterwards (loading and offloading from memory, freeing up space in there as well, each as you go). Had to use some trickery to make this happen, but it's stable enough. What's not stable is my sanity.
Truth be told that coming up with an exact number, as to how long it would take to make this game (regardless of what experience I had prior), was something that really confused me, and would've been easier if I could've asked someone with about it. But that didn't happen so far (tried it). So, I opened up an excel table and started typing out all of the possible elements of said game. Took me 4-5 days just to get to the point where it is at the moment: 10 freakin'-solid-years. 10 YEARS. Bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. Bonkers, because of how much time each iteration takes. And this isn't a super-large project. Just a one man's quiet work. Turns out, approaching the same level of item variety, seen in Diablo 2 (without the expansion), takes a lot of freakin' time. A lot. The coding not so much (like had a working prototype, FLD wink-wink, up and running in 2 days, for the basic controls), but the design and modeling/texturing/etc. does. And as any worthy RPG, content is king. Has to be. And if not considered, than the replay-ability & customization of said game would instantly vanish.
On top of all, as I was working on the sheet, I realized more and more (started to panic I guess), that there's no way my patron has this kind of money to give, for such a long period of time. Nor anyone for that matter. What's worse, in order to change that, one has to hire people (pay them, pay taxes), create/operate a business, have an office, pay bills for that as well, and deal with all the other assorted crap that comes with it, essentially turning it to a start-up. Which, dunno about you, but takes hundreds of thousand dollars to millions to do. Nobody has that kind of money in their pockets. Nor willing to give to someone (completely unknown and possibly a huge financial liability, again based on having no prior successes) with no street-credit (commercial projects), or connections, etc. (like from VCs) backing them up.
And there's the “little” fact of keeping in mind that, even with more people on the job, I can only give an estimate; especially knowing that I haven't the experience to operate such large projects (though managed a 5 person team before, so have a small frame of reference, but still). I seriously have no idea, how can someone think that they can just simply invest in gaming, without knowing anything about it (e.g., cost of equipment, software licenses). Like how to handle recouping, in the light of failure or success (over what period?). I've no answers to that, as I couldn't get more out of them, just a “get me a time and budget”. This would be an investment. A highly risky one, with no stable predictions (the only thing I can guarantee that it would evoke some nostalgia, and know that people would enjoy seeing pixel art, and RPGs with solid mechanics and storytelling). I know that, but I'm not sure my “patron” understands that fully. Now, I've a GDD in one hand, and a complete estimation of the entire project in the other. I'm crying and laughing at the same time. This-is-stupid.
