Tag Archives: advice

The Good

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In order to figure out what I was gonna write about this week, I took a quick scroll through the past few posts we’ve written, and I noticed something about the general tone of our blogs of late. Thanks to the pressure to get Where Shadows Slumber done, and the fact that we’ve entirely run out of new ideas for blog posts, everything we’ve written recently seems to have fallen into one of two camps:

  • A half-hearted explanation of a part of the game no one really wants to hear about, because we can’t afford to waste time writing blogs when we have work to do.
  • A frantic excuse for why the game hasn’t been released yet, which generally boils down to “working on this game is sucking out my soul”.

Even those descriptions fall into one of those categories! (Hint: it’s the second one). That fact aside, I’ve decided to take it in a different, more positive direction this week! Instead of talking about how much game development sucks, let’s talk about all the good that’s come from working on Where Shadows Slumber.

 

 

Lessons Learned

The first and most obvious positive result of working on Where Shadows Slumber would have to be the things that I’ve learned. Creating an entire game from the ground up in a game engine that I didn’t have much experience with has been incredibly challenging, but it has also left me with a lot of new knowledge and valuable experience.

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I’m still not the best coder on the team. That honor goes to Obe.

  • Unity itself. Unity is a very powerful, and professional, game engine. It may not have all of the depth of something like Unreal, or all of the customization of writing your own engine from the ground up, but there’s really no arguing that it’s not a “real” game engine. In fact, there is now a certification for programming in Unity.

 

  • C#. As a programmer, you get pretty used to picking up new languages, and, for the most part, it gets easier with every one you learn. The fact that I was able to learn C# isn’t the takeaway here – the fact that I was motivated to learn C# is. Without Where Shadows Slumber, I simply wouldn’t have had any reason to extend my programming repertoire.

 

  • Shaders. One of the most difficult technical challenges this project has posed has been the shaders. For the most part, the programming required for the actual game logic was similar to code I’ve written before. Shaders, however, delve into a very different type of programming. I now know far more about how Unity renders a frame than I ever thought I would, and I’m pretty happy to have that knowledge. Even if I don’t have to do any rendering work again, I’m glad to know what’s happening under the hood.

 

  • Project management. To continue a running theme throughout our blog posts, I’ll mention that this was the one that took me by surprise. When this project started, I was well aware of (most of) the technical challenges that lay ahead. What I didn’t anticipate was handling the vast array of tasks involved with actually managing a project. Where Shadows Slumber has helped me advance from a quintessential disorganized coder all the way to a slightly-less-disorganized coder!

 

There are a million other, small things that I learned throughout the production of the game, but these are the big ones. Throughout its development, Where Shadows Slumber has had a lot to teach me!

 

 

Personal Life

Another important (and perhaps more poignant) side-effect of working on Where Shadows Slumber is the personal relationships that it has helped cultivate.

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BFFs Forever!

Frank and I were friends in college, but just barely. We were in the same sketch comedy group, but outside of that, we didn’t really hang out. I guarantee that if it weren’t for Where Shadows Slumber, we wouldn’t be in contact at this point, and it probably would have been several years since we’d seen each other. Now, however, we’re definitely friends, and close friends at that. Frank and I are in nearly constant contact, which, annoying as it can be, keeps us pretty close. I don’t want to bore you by getting too gushy, so let’s just say that we do a good job of tolerating each other.

In addition to bolstering an existing friendship, this project has also created new friendships – with Alba and Noah, our sound engineers! They’re totally awesome, and I look forward to spending more time with them, hopefully even after we’re done with Where Shadows Slumber!

We may not be as close, but the other people that we’ve gotten to know are all of you! As an indie game, we have to do a lot of work to make sure people hear about the game. Throughout the past few years, we’ve been to over a dozen conventions, showcasing and pitching the game, making a name for ourselves, and, most importantly, meeting a bunch of really cool people! Seriously, all of the people we’ve met throughout this process, whether they be other game developers, fans, or just normal con-goers, are great. No matter if I’m annoyed with the game or frustrated with the drudge of development, going to a convention and seeing new people playing the game, or old fans coming back to check in, is always incredible. There are a lot of aspects of Where Shadows Slumber that I love, but that’s definitely the best part.

 

 

The Game Itself

I guess the actual most obvious result from Where Shadows Slumber would be the piles and piles of money we’re going to make from it. That, however, is not the point – as much as I would love for Where Shadows Slumber to make some money, that’s really ancillary to the whole ethos of the project.

Frank and I are avid gamers, and always have been. We set out not to make a lot of money or make the most popular game ever. We wanted to create something beautiful, something we could be proud of – and in that sense, I think we’ve done a pretty good job. When I look back on this project, I’m not going to look at my net profit – I’m going to look at Where Shadows Slumber itself, and I think I’ll always be happy with it.

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I think we’ve got a chance at this one!

Of course, Where Shadows Slumber will serve as more than just an ephemeral trophy to put on my emotional mantle. The game itself is the end goal here, and there are some tangible benefits to that:

  • Money. Even though this isn’t the goal of the project, Frank and I are both hoping to make a little something for our efforts.

 

  • “Resume bait”. At some point in the future, I expect that I’ll be looking for a job. When that time comes, I’ll be handing out my resume, hoping to catch the eye of some company. But I may be just one of hundreds of applicants, all with similar experience and qualifications. How can I stand out? By having something awesome on my resume, something that other people won’t have, something that shows that I can set a goal and reach it, that I can meet technical challenges, and that I can manage a development process.

 

  • Experience. Working on Where Shadows Slumber has given me an incredible cache of experience to draw on. Pretty much any technical problem I run into, I can find a parallel with some part of the development of Where Shadows Slumber. The end result is a game that’s more than a game; every part of that game represents a different challenge and a different piece of knowledge that I can now look back on.

 

  • A trophy. I know I said that Where Shadows Slumber was more than just a trophy, but it is also that. From conception to completion, Frank and I have worked tirelessly to bring this idea to life. This is something we’ve built ourselves, from the ground up, and it always will be. It’s something we can be proud of, and something we can always look back on.

 

 

A Fond Farewell

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Thanks for listening to me ramble on for a little bit. Anyone who has ever worked on a software development project (or pretty much any long project) knows just how stressful life can start to become when you reach the dreaded “crunch time”. We all end up hating our games as they come out, and I don’t want that to be the way that Where Shadows Slumber is released. So I’m glad I got a chance to take the time and share with you all the good things Where Shadows Slumber has done for me!

 

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You can always find out more about our game and how awesome it is at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, find us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, join the Game Revenant Discord, and feel free to email us directly with any questions or feedback at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Jack Kelly is the head developer and designer for Where Shadows Slumber.

Crunch and Burn(out)

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If you’ve been following the development of Where Shadows Slumber, then you know that we’ve been working on it for a while. It was early 2015 when the core concept first came to me. Three years ago this month was when I put together the first proof-of-concept to show to Frank. The demo version of the game has been out for over a year and a half.

Game development takes a long time, especially with a tiny team, little to no funding, a full-time job, and, the biggest time-waster of all, life itself. As Frank discussed in a previous blog post, we are holding ourselves to a pretty high standard for Where Shadows Slumber, which makes development even slower.

Fortunately, after all this time, we’re finally closing in on the end. As happy as that might make you, the fans of the game, there are two people who are definitely happier about it than you are: us. As frustrated as you might be about how long it’s taking, we’re even more frustrated. Frankly, as much as we love Where Shadows Slumber, neither of us can wait until the moment it’s over.

“But Jack”, you ask incredulously, “if you love it, why do you want it to be over? You’ve managed to work on it for three years – what’s another few months?”

There are two phenomena that often creep up at around the same time in the development cycle of a game (or any project, really). Here they both are, followed by something I’ve said in the past week that represents each of them:

  • Crunch – “There’s only a little bit of work left, but there’s even less time left!”
  • Burnout – “I’ve spent so long on this game, I’m just sick of it!”

 

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Crunch

I’ve discussed before the “ninety-ninety” rule, so I’ll just summarize it quickly here, since it’s relevant: not only does software development take a long time, it takes significantly longer than you think it will. This is an issue when you first start your project (“it’ll probably only take 18 months or so”), but there’s no scheduled release date or external pressure at that point. Nobody really cares yet! However, it becomes a bigger issue when dealing with shorter time periods. For some reason, people have a hard time realizing that their estimates are wrong and adjusting (at least, we do). Because of that, we’re still making poor estimates for how long something will take!

This is the reason that developers inevitably end up in the dreaded state known as crunch time. We thought there were about 6 weeks of work left, but it turns out there were 12 weeks of work left. Too bad we already gave a bunch of outside parties a solid release date! Since they’re now depending on us to meet those deadlines, we have to do 12 weeks worth of work in 6 weeks!

This is the phenomenon that leads to crazy overtime, too many all-nighters, and an incredible amount of stress. If you follow game design, you’ve probably heard about it, because it somehow ends up happening to pretty much every game. If you’re involved in game design, then you’ve probably gone through it, and you know how awful it can be.

It’s a little better for us than for bigger, more established studios – we don’t have employees to pay, stockholders to appease, or a public release date to hit. That said, we don’t want Where Shadows Slumber to turn into an indie game for which development takes forever that people are perennially waiting for. It’s now or never!

 

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Burnout

Cascading into crunch time at full speed is pretty bad, but it’s not the worst thing in the world – we’re been working on Where Shadows Slumber for a long time, and we are both willing to put in a little extra time as we reach the end. However, one of the biggest problems is that crunch time is also usually accompanied by burnout.

When you’re just starting out on a project, everything is pretty exciting. You enjoy working on interesting problems like pathfinding and game mechanics, and you don’t even mind fixing any bugs that come up. On the other hand, once you’ve been working on a game for a long time, you’re pretty much sick of it. All of the interesting stuff is already implemented, so the only things left to work on are tiny quality improvements (“does this look better when the position is 0.4 or 0.41? How about 0.42?”), annoying, subtle, or hard-to-reproduce bugs (“this was working last week, but a change to a different piece of code is somehow causing it to break, but only ~10% of the time”), and tasks that you intentionally avoided because they aren’t interesting or fun (“how many setPass calls will this scene render when running on a 6-year old Android phone? Is that too many?”).

None of these tasks are really very enjoyable – so not only has your excitement about the work decreased, but so has the objective fun-ness of the work that’s left to do. This leaves you in a state of never actually wanting to work on the project. Combine that decreased drive with the increased amount of work you have to do, and it starts to become pretty obvious why the end of development for a game tends to get pretty hairy, and why we’re looking forward to being done with it.

 

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The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Don’t worry, though – it’s not all bad! We’re both still really excited about Where Shadows Slumber, because of the amount of work we’ve put into it. We’re both dedicated to the cause, and we’re not gonna let a little extra work put a stop to it (even if it ends up slowing us down).

The purpose of this blog post is two-fold. On one, more selfish hand, I want to offer up to our adoring fans an explanation for why we haven’t finished the game yet. We know a lot of you love the game, and are really looking forward to it, and many of you have shown us that by popping up and saying hi at various conventions. The past 8 months or so have been a real whirlwind, both personally and professionally, and our timeline has been shifting around quite a bit as a result. So I wanted to offer a bit of an explanation, as well as reassure you that we’re still working on Where Shadows Slumber, and we’re not gonna let it fall by the wayside!

The other reason for this post is to serve as a sort of warning, albeit a likely redundant one. For anyone working on their own game (or any project, really), it’s very important to take time management seriously. Ending up in the crunch time/burnout trap is an awful place to be. Despite this, most developers (indie and AAA alike) end up here, because it’s hard for people to grasp how time-consuming the last 10% of a project can be. So, if you take away anything from this post, I hope you do your best to allow enough time at the end of development to get your game out without ending up there. You’ll end up there anyway, but maybe by knowing about it ahead of time, you won’t be there for long.

 

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You can always find out more about our game and how freaking long it’s taking us to finish it at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, find us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, join the Game Revenant Discord, and feel free to email us directly with any questions or feedback at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Jack Kelly is the head developer and designer for Where Shadows Slumber.

4 Tools for Recording Your Game

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Recently, a friend of ours asked us to provide him some footage of Where Shadows Slumber in action for a highlight reel he’s making. That made me realize we never blogged about the topic of recording your game. I’ve gotten pretty good at recording images and footage of the game over the past few years, so why not share my tricks? It’s just one more thing I never thought I would have to do before I started doing game development, but our experience with SkyRunner taught us a lot.

So this blog post will save you some time if you’re looking for tips: here are the programs I recommend for recording images, GIFs, and video of your game!

 

 

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Saad Khawaja’s Instant Screenshot

During the process of marketing your game, people will often ask you for a full-resolution screenshot of the game in action. To fulfill this request, you need to get the dimensions of the screen exactly right. For example, our game is made for phones in Portrait resolution. If we give someone an image that is in Landscape resolution, they’ll think the game is made for computers or game consoles instead. Getting the resolution right was really important to me, and I recognized quickly that the Microsoft Snipping Tool (more on that below) wasn’t going to give me the high quality screenshots I wanted.

After trying out a few plug-ins on the Unity Asset Store, this is the one I came away with: Saad Khawaja’s Instant Screenshot. It’s free and very easy to use. You can adjust the size of the final image, or set it to the current screen size which is super useful. You can take low quality images or blast the pixels up to an insane level. (I could probably make a banner-sized image with this tool!) Once it’s in your project, you’ll see it in the “Tools” window and after you click that it comes up like any other Unity window. Trust me, you will not regret making this tool part of your routine.

 

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Snipping Tool

This one is just for Windows users, but there’s a program installed on every Windows machine called “Snipping Tool” – have you ever used it? Find it in your Search bar and save the shortcut. I keep Snipping Tool on my hotbar! That’s how useful it is.

Above, we discussed how sometimes you really need high-resolution screenshots at the exact size of the screen. However, often I need to record segments of the game for internal use. In these situations, like if I’m logging a bug in GitHub, it’s not helpful to have such a large image. My philosophy is that the image should be short and wide with the bug in the center of the picture. This way it will fit in nicely with the text of the bug report. I generally include some kind of note where I circle the problem, or draw a funny confused face. (This probably annoys Jack, but I’m sort of hoping it softens the blow of finding another bug in some far off corner of the game)

Fortunately, you can do all of this with Snipping Tool and you don’t even need to download it! Simply click the snip button, drag across a corner of your screen, draw on it with your mouse, and copy/paste the image where desired. You don’t even need to save the image to your computer if you like to live dangerously. Make Snipping Tool your go-to for capturing bug report images, and include as many images in your bug reports as you can. It will really help your team!

 

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ScreenToGIF

The image above is a GIF, and it was recorded using ScreenToGIF. The best way to explain the GIF file format is that it’s basically a digital flipbook. I may be dating myself here, but did you ever have those little Disney flipbooks as a kid where you could flip through them with your thumb and see the animation play out across a hundred tiny pages? That’s a GIF. They are all over the place, they’re great for advertising your game in motion, and the Internet loves them.

Before ScreenToGIF, I found it really difficult to make my own GIFs. I forgot what program I was using – who cares, it didn’t get the job done! Download this program for free here, and I promise you that you will not regret it. There’s a ton of settings you can tweak to get the image size, file size, and quality you want. It’s extremely user friendly. You can delete frames after you’re done recording too, which is such a nice feature. I’ve never had a problem posting these animated images to Facebook or Twitter. I’m not being paid off to say this: use ScreenToGIF!

 

Open Broadcaster Software

I wish I had a better option for recording video of our game, to be frank with you. (Note: I am always Frank with you, dear reader.) This program Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) was the main way I streamed on Twitch a while back when I used to do that. I then realized that it didn’t just stream your image to the Internet – you could also just record footage and save it to your computer. Neat!

Download OBS for free here. It’s not bad, but it’s not perfect either. It can record footage and capture audio too, which is helpful for progress updates like the image above. However, getting the screen resolution just right is pretty difficult. According to Alba and Noah’s finely trained ears, it does not do a good job recording sound from the computer either. But I’m willing to admit that could just be my fault… there are a ton of settings to configure, and I have no idea what I’m doing!

It doesn’t do your editing for you either: I recommend Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. Sadly, I know of no good free editing tools! You’re on your own, I’m afraid.

 

That’s all for now, folks. I hope this saves you a few days of frantic searching, downloading, and deleting. Thanks for reading, and happy recording!

 

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What programs do you use? Do you like my suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment below! You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.

The Triangle of Truth

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Hello again, everyone! It’s Frank again. I know you are all eagerly reading our weekly updates to find out when the game will be finished, but this week you may be disappointed. Rather than announcing a launch date, I’m going to explain to everyone the project management principles behind why Where Shadows Slumber has had such a long development cycle. We’re going to discuss the Triangle of Truth!

 

 

 

 

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The Triangle, Explained

The “Triangle” refers to a project management principle that has gone by many names, visualized in the image above. This diagram has been used to describe everything from project strategies and economic models to government healthcare systems and construction projects. It’s one of those mantras that just always seems to hold true, no matter the circumstances. When you are creating something, such as a mobile video game, you’d ideally like for it to be as good as possible for the cheapest cost and have a fast development cycle. Sadly, the edicts of being demand that you must sacrifice one side of the triangle to achieve the other two. As the desired two metrics increase, the sacrificed metric must decrease. Let’s define these bolded terms first, and then talk about Where Shadows Slumber.

Good: The product stands out among the crowd as something special. We want quality to be as high as possible.

Cheap: The cost incurred creating the product. (Not to be confused with the price a consumer pays for the final product) We want our cost to be as low as possible.

Fast: Time is money, so the sooner the project is done, the better. Life is short! We want our development cycle to be as short as possible.

When you see how Where Shadows Slumber lands on this diagram, everything will start to make sense.

 

We Chose “Good” and “Cheap”

Jack and I are two recent college graduates who teamed up together to make video games. The development of Where Shadows Slumber is not too dissimilar from the development of SkyRunner, our previous mobile game. We decided not to spend a truckload of money on the game, so that it could be as good as we can muster at the lowest personal cost. Essentially, we decided to spend time on the game rather than cash. This is because we have no money, so it was an easy decision.

That’s not to say that I’ve spent $0 on this game! It’s fair to say tens of thousands of dollars have gone toward the development of Where Shadows Slumber, easily. But our budget is a pittance compared to large indie studios and AAA development houses. The sides of the triangle have been chosen: we want a good game, and we can’t spend a lot of money, so we’ll just have to spend as long as it takes to get the job done.

What would Where Shadows Slumber look like if we sacrificed a different portion of the triangle? Let’s analyze where we are now, and then look at the others. Right now, we’re sacrificing time.

 

SACRIFICE: TIME  / /  GET: QUALITY, LOW COST

Time: We’ve been working on the game since the spring of 2015, and we’ll continue to work on it over the next few months. That’s a 3 year development cycle!

Cost: Game Revenant has spent ~$25,000 to pay our audio engineers, travel to conventions, and equipment. We work from our apartments and meet in coffee houses, so we don’t spend money on rent or utilities. Jack has a full-time job and I mooch off my generous, loving and forgiving family.

Quality: The game is superb, beautiful, and time-tested. We even created a free Demo that went through extensive user testing and has stood the test of time. This informed our approach to the final game, but it took a while to get to this point.

 

SACRIFICE: QUALITY  / /  GET: TIME, LOW COST

Quality: We always knew we wanted Where Shadows Slumber to be an awesome, premium mobile game. But if for some reason we decided to release a poorer quality version, we’d be done by now. What would happen if we sacrificed quality by having fewer puzzles, no meaningful story, and low-quality audio produced by Frank making noises with his mouth?

Time: We already created a rudimentary throwaway version back in 2015 when we first begun work on the game. We could have cut it off right there! Also, our Demo has been available for download since November 2016, so that gives you an idea of how much time we could have saved.

Cost: Obviously you don’t need to spend a lot of money if you don’t care about the final result. Jack and I could have just created a shorter, worse game and it only would have cost us a few app store developer fees (Apple, Google Play) and the cost of buying development devices for building and testing.

 

SACRIFICE: MONEY  / /  GET: QUALITY, FAST DEVELOPMENT

Cost: It is possible to get investors for indie games, either by getting a loan from the bank or by appealing to groups like Indie-Fund. Jack and I briefly considered this a year ago, but by that point we had put in so much of our own time, we felt like reaping the full benefits. (Remember – investors don’t give out money for free, they want a cut of the sales!) We could conceivably have gotten $500,000 – $1,000,000 to work on this game if we put our own money in and also got some investments. If we did…

Quality: Along with our personal efforts, we could have hired a small team of veteran developers to aid me and Jack. Veteran programmers would help Jack organize his code, and veteran artists would produce work superior to mine. With Jack and I to guide their efforts, we could take a management / visionary role and let the experts do the hard work. I think the quality would be the same it is now, but it would have gotten there faster. Speaking of which…

Time: My work would be cut in half if we paid an Animator / Character Gui* to handle all of the cutscenes and humanoid animation in the game. That would free me up to work purely on environments with Jack. On the development side, we could hire a full-time Quality Assurance Gui to test the game on various devices. A full-time Marketing Gui would handle our social media efforts, press relationships, and business travel. We could have also brought Alba and Noah into the fold a lot earlier, meaning most of their work would be done by now. Every gui we hire is another hat Jack and I don’t have to wear!

*Gui is a gender-neutral version of “guy” that we used to use in Off Center

 

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There Is Always A Drawback

It should be stated that when you sacrifice a portion of the triangle, you don’t get it back. There is always a cost. If you spend money, it’s gone. If you sacrifice quality, your game suffers. And if you spend three years working on a game, you suffer.

I’ve lived in isolation for a period of three years ( ! ), all the while neglecting personal relationships with friends and families, turned down jobs, rejected business opportunities, let my body grow fat, and forgone other personal life goals in order to work on Where Shadows Slumber for as many hours a day as possible. (Imagine my surprise when I discovered that women are not eager to date a man who spends 10 hours every day in front of a computer and rarely leaves the house. Shocker!)

Jack has been working his fingers to the bone every day at not one, but TWO tasks: his full-time work at a startup in NYC and his passion project Where Shadows Slumber. He’s written about this before on our blog, and I encourage you to read his past writing. I was particularly mortified at the mention of how he has to find small scraps of time throughout the day (30 minutes in the morning, 25 on the train, 45 between arriving home from work at night and making dinner) just to work on the game. I have no right to complain – in light of his sacrifice, my life is a breeze. What kind of person would lead their friend into this kind of a life?

I don’t mean to be dramatic, but the point of this blog post is that the toll is real. Choose your sides of the triangle carefully, because the side you scorn will stop at nothing to seek revenge.

 

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Where Shadows Slumber: Eventually Good

Miyamoto’s famous quote that “a delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad” may not be true anymore in a world where games can be patched and DLC can be sold. In a world where software is now a service, rushed games might eventually become good, given time.

However, this is also an industry where you live and die by your first impressions. Users don’t ever return to write a second review, and journalists move from game to game quickly. Jack and I are making a sacrifice of time to ensure that Where Shadows Slumber makes a splash when it hits the market. We can’t spend money we don’t have, but we can always put in just a bit more work.

Are you a game developer, artist, musician, writer, or creator working on a passion project? Feel free to share this blog post with your friends and family, especially if they have ever asked you “gee, when are you going to be done with this darn thing?” Let me know what they say in the comments below!

 

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This has been a project management blog from the creators of Where Shadows Slumber. Have a question about aesthetics that wasn’t mentioned here? You can find out more about our game at WhereShadowsSlumber.com, ask us on Twitter (@GameRevenant), Facebook, itch.io, or Twitch, and feel free to email us directly at contact@GameRevenant.com.

Frank DiCola is the founder of Game Revenant and the artist for Where Shadows Slumber.