Status update… #7
Posted by Arman on March 7, 2008
I currently have three game design “projects” in school going simultaneously. The first two are for a course. They are flash games, one made in a group of four people and the other individual. We have plenty of ideas and the ability to conceptualize them, but we aren’t especially good at ActionScript 3.0 – so we’re struggling quite a bit at the moment.
The third project, however, has got me really excited. At the beginning of the autumn term last year we were practicing how to pitch games, and at that time an idea formed in my head (which I later used in my practice pitch). Later on I fleshed out the idea more, and a few weeks ago I wrote a three-page high concept document. I offered to show it to anyone in my class willing to read it, and got some great feedback on my ideas. A bunch of us even had a meeting where we discussed gameplay and various other issues. Lots of good stuff came out of that, too.
Anyway, one of the guys I showed it to in my class is studying programming, and he got interested in trying to develop a prototype. So now he and another programming student who also liked the concept are developing a prototype in C++, along with me, who provides the design aspect. They’re having a ten week project where they’re supposed to develop a game in pairs, so the timing is perfect.
In the building next to where I’m usually working are Sweden’s best graphics students, the SOFE (School of Future Entertainment) guys. We even had a lecture today from a former SOFE student, who now works at Massive Entertainment. So hopefully we Design guys will be able to cooperate with SOFE on some projects in the future, because while the SOFE crowd is busy working on their portfolios, I bet they would really appreciate a well-designed game to put their amazing artwork in.
The only downside to all this is that I haven’t had time to write on any scripts, short stories, or dare I say it, the novel. I’ve mostly been preoccupied with game design documents. Not that I’m complaining, but I’d like to get back to the other kind of writing that I seem to remember doing, too.
There’s a Swedish website called www.vulkan.se where you can self-publish your work. The site puts a price based on the number of pages of your work, that encompasses their fee for production and profit. You can choose to put a higher price, which will then become your profit (although they take 25% of that too).
The point is, you as an author don’t have to pay anything. So I’m planning on finishing up Den iridiska freden, and then publishing it along with the two other short stories set in the same universe, on Vulkan.se.
