Me too! Im looking at the forums and the blog to check for updates on a very regular basis, because I'm really interested in seeing how the game is coming along. Lets hope we'll get something to play with soon!
I'm excited as well, but I also understand why it is delayed so often. I can imagine how hard it must be to build this from scratch. I'm happy to see more activity on the forums now...keep it going : )
I totally understand the delays; I know enough code to solve some Project Euler problems, but that's it really. I can't imagine how difficult making this game must be!
I find myself playing games that I have and feeling like I'm just filling/using up time until this game comes out. Which, in turn, slightly hinders my immersion capabilities. >.>
I don't think the game is difficult to write. I write software for over 30 years and also wrote several graphics programs (e.g. fractal generators). It's like a musician or a race driver: singing and driving is not that hard for them. It's the same for the coder: writing such code is not that hard. The really hard part is to not get lost in ideas and endless refactoring of your code to implement each new idea. Especially when you wrote everything from scratch, you could get lost in perfection for your own code.
Leonard has the big problem to be everything in one person: requirement requestor, software architect, programmer. Combined with perfection, this can either lead to a wonderful engine or a neverending piece of ever evolving code that is never "finished". But he has also the big advantage that he has to take only his own compromises into account and not that of others. My impression from what I've read from him so far, is quite positive. This one is very promising:
"We're agile enough to deal with setbacks, and we own 100% of our project. This game is going to get made, whatever it takes. This is the work of a lifetime, and there is no other project we'd rather work on."
Such people get either killed by bus, starve or code themselves into the olympus of Master Of Coders.
You can also get lost in your code sometimes. Therefore, Sylvia is probably a perfect counterpart for him: female visual art work combined with his male technical perfection and abstraction. And one of the biggest problems of coders: you see some results of your work! If both keep up with their work (and get supported by others - us - with food, housing, living costs), this could be the perfect team to reach their goal!
I keep fingers crossed and hope that Christmas time will bring us many surprises - for all! :-)
I'm a bit worried by the long delay. We know they've been working on getting a playable alpha and also a tool to help that move faster but it seems like they've gone down the coding rabbit hole with that indefinitely.
I get that first impressions of the game will be a big deal but it's hard to watch missed deadlines go by and not feel like I'm seeing another failed kickstarter.
I'm a bit worried by the long delay. We know they've been working on getting a playable alpha and also a tool to help that move faster but it seems like they've gone down the coding rabbit hole with that indefinitely.
I'm sorry for the long wait. I'm currently hard at work to get an alpha ready for Christmas.
Progress is not going as smooth as I'd like it to go because innovative ideas take time, and there are many times when I have to rework an approach because it's not optimal.
Coding is a rabbit hole when you're working on something truly new. It's very much like navigating a maze; all you can do is mark the hallways where you've already been so you don't walk those again, and so, inevitably, you're coming closer to your destination.
It does feel soul-crushingly indefinite, but fortunately it isn't (at least that's what I keep telling myself.) There is definite progress, and I feel guilty for not communicating it better, but it's difficult to write about things where I'm not 100% certain that they are a result that I'll keep.
Right now is, hands down, the worst part of development. There are no fancy graphics to show off, no intricate gameplay, no surprising AI, no badass music, just unglamorous system design that interests no one so we can get all the aforementioned stuff in a manageable form that doesn't keep becoming a sluggish and unserviceable mess.
I recently had an email conversation about this and other things with Nick Porcino who worked at Industrial Light & Magic, who told me that they "strongly believed that innovation was part of our competitive technical advantage"; He helped shape their content pipeline, outlined in this blog post, which shows how much rabbit holing special effects, and in this case, game production entails.
Now, we are not ILM, but we're running into similar issues. I felt guilty for all that yak shaving and feared I might walk into the wrong direction without knowing it, but Nicks words gave me confidence that we are right on track.
The importance of tooling can not be overstated. There are no tools out there for the kind of game we're working on, and it comprises 90% of what makes the game, as nearly all of our content is procedural in one way or another, and not handmade. If there's currently a lack of procedural content out there, it's precisely because of the lack of tooling.
At the moment I'm reworking the editor into a smaller, more efficient version, with a small table/graph-based Scheme implementation on top of our Lua framework, a result of working with the existing graph editor for a time and recognizing where things have been too complex and needed to be simplified. Here's a video of a comparable, less graphical environment that shows you what such a system could do.
As the editor and the language are the fundament for a lot of content built on top of it, it is paramount to ensure that the interfaces remain flexible, so future changes don't entail a rewrite of half of the game.
Our engine repositories are open and browsable here. Right now that's the best I can think of but if you'd like to see anything else, let us know.
I get that first impressions of the game will be a big deal but it's hard to watch missed deadlines go by and not feel like I'm seeing another failed kickstarter.
This game can not fail because we will never stop working on it, and there is nothing else to do for me but this. It's the most exciting project I've ever worked on.
We'll hold the release date of end of 2015 (that is a promise), and we would love to continue the project indefinitely beyond that. We've still got access to enough (borrowed) funding to cover the next few months.
Registered to comment on this. Love the concept, the alien-ness of it, and the willingness on your part to venture away from the crowd to explore some really interesting terrain. I'm learning to code full-time at the moment (my background is in molecular biology) and draw a lot of inspiration from a select number of developers (a disproportion number of whom are in the indie games space) who take on large personal risk (despite having high value skills) to realize wondrous projects. Can't really offer much advice, since I'm significantly junior to you, but it seems wise to suggest: "keep your head down, working avidly, only coming up for air when inspiration falters and you need to refill your souls". You guys are incredible for trying this in the first place, and even though I'm at the periphery of your developmental bubble, I can smell code singeing silicon from all the way out here. I have little doubt that we'll get to see something truly unique and interesting emerge from the struggles. Keep it up!
I'm a huge fan of this kind of game - singular, unique visions that aren't reiterations of what's come before, but explorations of what's possible - so I'm more than happy to wait patiently. The developers are doing something new and interesting, and I respect that and trust them and am happy to give money to support the exploration.
What I'm genuinely scared of, however, is what's going to happen when this hits the Steam community. I'm glad the developers aren't leaping into it without the new alpha. There's a pervasive distrust towards developers on the Steam boards, so some tangible evidence of progress will make a huge difference, and will decrease the chance of a pile-on by uncharitable Steam members.
For the same reason, I'm scared of that promise to stick to the release date at the end of 2015. I have seen four recent games have their reputations crushed by announcing a launch while the game was still in development: Kinetic Void, Cortex Command, Spacebase DF9, and Planetary Annihilation. Even when the developers were very clear that the game was still in active development and that progress wouldn't be halted (Cortex Command), the games still went from being treated as an exciting work in progress to a half-baked final product, and were reviewed as such. Their reputations and their sales were sunk.
So, as a fan of this project, I would prefer it if the developers didn't hold themselves to a deadline. I'm as excited to see the final product as anyone else, but for the game to reach its full potential it will need funding, and that requires a good reputation with the steam community. A missed deadline is far more acceptable to the general public than an incomplete game that is perceived as a final product.
I agree, I don't think you should rush the steam early access release or the final relase.
Of course, nonetheless, I would personally enjoy some experimental releases for us alpha founders - but thats optional; Im happy as long as you let us know that youre still alive every once in a while.
When buying into an alpha like this, it always has to be a commitment in the long run, I guess!
Comments
Me too! Im looking at the forums and the blog to check for updates on a very regular basis, because I'm really interested in seeing how the game is coming along. Lets hope we'll get something to play with soon!
Yeah, I have the forum as a pinned tab on Chrome
I'm excited! I check every day when I get home. This is an awesome project! I bought the alpha tribe and I just supported the patreon as a patron.
Best game concept ever. I'd love to see a multiplayer version of this game too, maybe years from now lol.
This thing is weird
I found it hiding under the comment box and felt like sharing.
I'm excited as well, but I also understand why it is delayed so often. I can imagine how hard it must be to build this from scratch. I'm happy to see more activity on the forums now...keep it going : )
I totally understand the delays; I know enough code to solve some Project Euler problems, but that's it really. I can't imagine how difficult making this game must be!
I find myself playing games that I have and feeling like I'm just filling/using up time until this game comes out. Which, in turn, slightly hinders my immersion capabilities. >.>
I don't think the game is difficult to write. I write software for over 30 years and also wrote several graphics programs (e.g. fractal generators). It's like a musician or a race driver: singing and driving is not that hard for them. It's the same for the coder: writing such code is not that hard. The really hard part is to not get lost in ideas and endless refactoring of your code to implement each new idea. Especially when you wrote everything from scratch, you could get lost in perfection for your own code.
Leonard has the big problem to be everything in one person: requirement requestor, software architect, programmer. Combined with perfection, this can either lead to a wonderful engine or a neverending piece of ever evolving code that is never "finished". But he has also the big advantage that he has to take only his own compromises into account and not that of others. My impression from what I've read from him so far, is quite positive. This one is very promising:
"We're agile enough to deal with setbacks, and we own 100% of our project. This game is going to get made, whatever it takes. This is the work of a lifetime, and there is no other project we'd rather work on."
Such people get either killed by bus, starve or code themselves into the olympus of Master Of Coders.
You can also get lost in your code sometimes. Therefore, Sylvia is probably a perfect counterpart for him: female visual art work combined with his male technical perfection and abstraction. And one of the biggest problems of coders: you see some results of your work! If both keep up with their work (and get supported by others - us - with food, housing, living costs), this could be the perfect team to reach their goal!
I keep fingers crossed and hope that Christmas time will bring us many surprises - for all! :-)
I'm a bit worried by the long delay. We know they've been working on getting a playable alpha and also a tool to help that move faster but it seems like they've gone down the coding rabbit hole with that indefinitely.
I get that first impressions of the game will be a big deal but it's hard to watch missed deadlines go by and not feel like I'm seeing another failed kickstarter.
Hi Sigil,
I'm sorry for the long wait. I'm currently hard at work to get an alpha ready for Christmas.
Progress is not going as smooth as I'd like it to go because innovative ideas take time, and there are many times when I have to rework an approach because it's not optimal.
Coding is a rabbit hole when you're working on something truly new. It's very much like navigating a maze; all you can do is mark the hallways where you've already been so you don't walk those again, and so, inevitably, you're coming closer to your destination.
It does feel soul-crushingly indefinite, but fortunately it isn't (at least that's what I keep telling myself.) There is definite progress, and I feel guilty for not communicating it better, but it's difficult to write about things where I'm not 100% certain that they are a result that I'll keep.
Right now is, hands down, the worst part of development. There are no fancy graphics to show off, no intricate gameplay, no surprising AI, no badass music, just unglamorous system design that interests no one so we can get all the aforementioned stuff in a manageable form that doesn't keep becoming a sluggish and unserviceable mess.
I recently had an email conversation about this and other things with Nick Porcino who worked at Industrial Light & Magic, who told me that they "strongly believed that innovation was part of our competitive technical advantage"; He helped shape their content pipeline, outlined in this blog post, which shows how much rabbit holing special effects, and in this case, game production entails.
Now, we are not ILM, but we're running into similar issues. I felt guilty for all that yak shaving and feared I might walk into the wrong direction without knowing it, but Nicks words gave me confidence that we are right on track.
The importance of tooling can not be overstated. There are no tools out there for the kind of game we're working on, and it comprises 90% of what makes the game, as nearly all of our content is procedural in one way or another, and not handmade. If there's currently a lack of procedural content out there, it's precisely because of the lack of tooling.
At the moment I'm reworking the editor into a smaller, more efficient version, with a small table/graph-based Scheme implementation on top of our Lua framework, a result of working with the existing graph editor for a time and recognizing where things have been too complex and needed to be simplified. Here's a video of a comparable, less graphical environment that shows you what such a system could do.
As the editor and the language are the fundament for a lot of content built on top of it, it is paramount to ensure that the interfaces remain flexible, so future changes don't entail a rewrite of half of the game.
Our engine repositories are open and browsable here. Right now that's the best I can think of but if you'd like to see anything else, let us know.
This game can not fail because we will never stop working on it, and there is nothing else to do for me but this. It's the most exciting project I've ever worked on.
We'll hold the release date of end of 2015 (that is a promise), and we would love to continue the project indefinitely beyond that. We've still got access to enough (borrowed) funding to cover the next few months.
Registered to comment on this. Love the concept, the alien-ness of it, and the willingness on your part to venture away from the crowd to explore some really interesting terrain. I'm learning to code full-time at the moment (my background is in molecular biology) and draw a lot of inspiration from a select number of developers (a disproportion number of whom are in the indie games space) who take on large personal risk (despite having high value skills) to realize wondrous projects. Can't really offer much advice, since I'm significantly junior to you, but it seems wise to suggest: "keep your head down, working avidly, only coming up for air when inspiration falters and you need to refill your souls". You guys are incredible for trying this in the first place, and even though I'm at the periphery of your developmental bubble, I can smell code singeing silicon from all the way out here. I have little doubt that we'll get to see something truly unique and interesting emerge from the struggles. Keep it up!
I'm a huge fan of this kind of game - singular, unique visions that aren't reiterations of what's come before, but explorations of what's possible - so I'm more than happy to wait patiently. The developers are doing something new and interesting, and I respect that and trust them and am happy to give money to support the exploration.
What I'm genuinely scared of, however, is what's going to happen when this hits the Steam community. I'm glad the developers aren't leaping into it without the new alpha. There's a pervasive distrust towards developers on the Steam boards, so some tangible evidence of progress will make a huge difference, and will decrease the chance of a pile-on by uncharitable Steam members.
For the same reason, I'm scared of that promise to stick to the release date at the end of 2015. I have seen four recent games have their reputations crushed by announcing a launch while the game was still in development: Kinetic Void, Cortex Command, Spacebase DF9, and Planetary Annihilation. Even when the developers were very clear that the game was still in active development and that progress wouldn't be halted (Cortex Command), the games still went from being treated as an exciting work in progress to a half-baked final product, and were reviewed as such. Their reputations and their sales were sunk.
So, as a fan of this project, I would prefer it if the developers didn't hold themselves to a deadline. I'm as excited to see the final product as anyone else, but for the game to reach its full potential it will need funding, and that requires a good reputation with the steam community. A missed deadline is far more acceptable to the general public than an incomplete game that is perceived as a final product.
I agree, I don't think you should rush the steam early access release or the final relase.
Of course, nonetheless, I would personally enjoy some experimental releases for us alpha founders - but thats optional; Im happy as long as you let us know that youre still alive every once in a while.
When buying into an alpha like this, it always has to be a commitment in the long run, I guess!