We all want to create games. It's a sickness in our kind. "Oh look, I could create a Life Force (Salamander, for the weeabo bastards who stand ready to correct me)." In all honesty, the tools to do so have not, in fact, been better. So why, then, with an army of people wanting to create games, so few actually get done? As a man who has failed on multiple occassions and now whiles his days away at a flight simulation company rather than a game studio just so he COULD have the freedom to make his own game, perhaps I can tell you why. I suck at finishing making games.

Early college: Pocket full of dreams but no financing for a real education.

When you're an art student learning how to make 3D art about six years ago, you had several huge hurdles. The first is that, outside of a few schools, computer art was currently battling the old vs. new guard. My program, for example, could not have artwork created on computer in the annual art student show. Imagine the feeling this sends a student. My drawing of a sword on a draped cloth could be shown, but my low angle black and white rendering of a futuristic city was clearly off limits. To add to this problem, my 3D art program was primarily geared away from realtime asset creation and instead on the rendering aspect. Those "in the know" understand exactly what I'm talking about.

Now in the middle of this, I had the genuine feeling that the sky was the limit and anything could be accomplished. In my free time, which was rare, I set about a path of writing an epic five game RPG. I was so engrossed with this concept that I started mapping out even the release plans. Game three would drop first, followed by the second game, then the fourth, the first, then the finale. Worse yet, I had spent the better part of a year and a half WRITING these games. I couldn't model organic characters to save my life, let alone rig them, or even code. Yet there I was, with an impossible task and no help doing it. The entire concept had a name, Dreamers Saga. Each game would be named "________ Legacy." It was going to be massive and beautiful.


She Could Have Been A Contender....

But while on this project, I was approached by someone watching me draw when I was supposed to be paying attention in Math 105. He was working on creating a fighting game with a group of friends. I joined the project, of course, when it was still in the "Let's make a fighting game" stage. With a couple people, we started developing the mythos. One evening, we were to meet the other people and one particular person started shooting everything down as well as pointing at Guilty Gear as the accomplishable goal. But worse than that, he wanted full 360 degree sprites. After bickering over this issue, I pointed out the 20+ artist who worked on GG and reminded him we were woefully understaffed. We continued with the mythos and early designs. Suddenly a fuedal japan fighting game about demon swords needed to have an egyptian warrior and a cowboy. Around that point I started to withdraw. This person, however, started telling everyone else in the group that my art style was "shit" and looked like a poor mans McFarland... but hey, the project had music. Ironically, when I ran into this person several years later, the project still hasn't gotten past the completed soundtrack phase.

So back to the RPG I went but the reality of the task was a cruel, cruel bitch. I couldn't code, lacked even fundamental understanding of realtime modeling, and had a crappy portfolio. I applied, instead, to work at Volition, Inc. I assume that didn't go over well considering I heard no response, but looking back, I'm sure my portfolio looked like a practical joke. However, what I didn't understand, I learned by taking freelance contracts from a company named Inertiasoft. I met with one of the founders and took an "art test." Having a goal and a vague understanding of how to get there, I modeled a Corsair airplane and secured my spot on the team (I would later model a Corsair for the simulator FSone. I was proud, but this model taught me one thing, I was WOEFULLY unprepared to make my own game.


Mah First Paid Model

After college years 1-3: Retail, Freelance, and failed attempts.

I couldn't get a steady job, so I retreated to the failsafe finances of retail hell. I worked at Meijer while doing contracts for Inertiasoft. While working on FSOne, I was learning a lot, but couldn't use it to get a job thanks to the NDAs. On the side, I started learning programming. My first COMPLETED game was a Dr. Mario clone called Ebon Sway. This game was made in Visual Basic and I no longer have any copies of it. Since I was a morbid bastard, the game was basically a carbon copy of Dr. Mario except you matched Rune colors on stone tablets to animal souls. As you drained the souls on animals (the morbid copy pasta of the viruses), eventually they would die and the level would end with a demon giving you a present. The game was shit, but it was an exercise.


One of my first attempts at Organic Modeling.... LAUGH!

My next task was going to be an RPG. I had it writen after all. I started modeling the environments and within 20 hours into the project, interest started waning. And so I shifted to coding... which lead to a system crash and a loss of most of my college artwork. Where I went from there was simple, hey.... I COULD MAKE AN RTS! So once again, I started modeling various doodads and widgets. I forget why this project ended aside from my typical problem, I fucking hate coding. It was around this time FSOne shipped and now I had portfolio fodder. Ironically enough, it was the Inertiasoft connection that landed me ultimately at Frasca.

Frasca years: Four games later...

The reason I stay at my current job rather than enter the industry is simple. Here I have a steady job, nothing overly challenging, no crunch times, and the noncompete clause in my employee contract says I cannot make a flight simulator that competes with Frascas own simulators. Seriously, I could make iPhone games and not an eye would be batted. In this environment, I fostered my game design dreams yet again. My first project was going to be an homage. A 3D recreation of Donkey Kong. The idea was simple, with it all being 3D, I can do dynamic camera angles, elaborate animations, and basically have a blast with even changing up the game "theme." Sounds awesome, right?

So I started some conceptual artwork and was getting pretty far. A friend of mine, working at Nintendo, saw the stuff and spread it around hoping to somehow get approval for what I was doing. What happened was the exact opposite. I received an email saying "dude, stop whatever you're doing or they'll come after you." Fair enough, said I. And so concepting began on the next game. A schmup. This time, I had friends to help on it. Trinity Wing would be the name. I won't to go into details because that's still protected in case I ever go back to it.


Trinity Wing's Second Design, Rough Diffuse Start

This one fell apart as well. We had an artist (me), and engine coder, and a programmer. When starting out, everyone had energy. By month three, everyone had lost interest or was moving on. I had modeled several ships but the overwhelming task was dragging me down. Without seeing progress, I was seeing only an endless ocean of work I would have to solo. What I needed at this point was structure and so I took a night class on Creative Writing at Parkland. This taught me many things, chief among them that I was not a very good writer. Sure, I got a pass (I didn't go for the grading scale on the class), but I was still woefully unskilled. This realization factored heavily in the next project.

This time I had many ideas, and decided to assemble a team. At it's height, eight people were involved. The game was to be called Hope Dearling and this was the project people could MOST get behind (A document was sent early with five different designs and a vote was taken on which to do). The problem then sprung up as I was the chief designer and yet had little done. It was the kind of game that basically needed a purpose and goal the entire time of development. I was fast getting buried. The concept artist couldn't start until they knew what to draw, the writer couldn't start until I had game flow decided, the coders couldn't start because they had no grand idea, so on and so forth. For the next four months, a friend and I hammered out details. I, frankly, got buried. With all the progress on the game BEING simply text, I was getting discouraged. In total, there are now over 200 pages related to this game project on my hard drive. Unless I could muster more energy, Hope Dearling was doomed.


A rough crappy concept speedpaint of the world of Hope Dearling.

And doomed she became. Around this time, adventure games were recovering so the novel idea of being an adventure game had disappeared. Likewise, alternative worlds as a narrative plot where becoming passe. My story was contrived and everyone else was in a holding pattern. Then the bad things started. First one coder dropped, then another. Hope Dearling, having no programmers, was dead. I sent out an apology email as I realized I had wasted not only my time, but several other peoples. I would give up game design for a while and refocus.

A New Hope: XNA, Ambition, and Multitasking

During a weekly event at my house, it became painfully clear that, despite being the only console generation that all three consoles have four players out of the box, not enough companies were creating four player single console games. The fact that Virtual-On hit XBLA and didn't support splitscreen is grand fucking evidence of this generations emphasis for online only multiplayer. A friend and I decided that we needed a four player game that was just a fun arcade romp. And so we began.


One of the "Next Game"'s stars... hoping to get a playable single level build done by March.

We're in month 2 with clear cut goals. I'm learning animation and modeling our first environment, he's programming in XNA. Until a single level build is done, we're not recruiting anyone else. To prevent burnout, I also have a side project going on. The side project is making a new 3D art style for my eventual planned return to making an RPG. I'm hoping by multitasking, I'll prevent burnout and to have a better plan starting the RPG once this one is done. I'm not sure if I'll succeed this time, but I'm definately giving it a LOT of passion.