Art

We have some concept artwork for you to have a sneak peak at! Here is the main bad guy for the first Soul Quest... The Goblin King!

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For us things will be going in to overdrive over the festive season as we attempt to get as much work done as possible while away from real world work!

I will even be working on xmas day!! Well... Maybe for a wee while...

We are aiming for the demo being submitted to testers at the end of January for some play testing and feedback. The final product is scheduled for submission to Apple in April 2010!! Wish us luck, I think we may need it.

A Long Time Ago...

It has been ages since I posted here. Bad me...

Lots has been happening. I have had meetings with business gateway and have a written business plan. The plan looks good. The game feels like the content is taking personality.

The content production is slow. Not dedicating enough time to it. It doesn't help that with creative output, time is not enough. It has to be the right time, when you are in the flow and the ideas are burning in your head... That is the tough bit, when you take away all the time spent working for other people and travelling and doing parent stuff.. You don't have much left to spend on stuff like this.

So I need to be harder on myself. Back to getting stuff done over lunch at work. Just has to be done. No more excuses....

I am almost done the entire first plot quest. That is comprised of 2 essential quests and 1 optional quest. I still have to map the final level out. I have come up with a great plan, a great level concept.... It really is great.... But.... There is always a but....

The idea will be fie times as much work as my original thoughts. So it is going to take ages to map the level out, five separate entrances and ways through the dungeon to confront the Goblin King in his throne room. Five.... Why??? I have worked in tot he social section of the quest that 5 of the goblin tribes have sided with the returned king. The rest are far too busy trying to remain peaceful and keep the Goblin Kingdom in one piece.

So yeah, five different tribes guarding the king, five ways in, five different tribes with differing attributes and skills and levels.. All of which have to have a flip side, a realm of the dead variation..... This is probably going to be more work that everything else so far.

I will probably be sensible and cut that down to three. But it means going back and editing all of the social phase sections that mention the five tribes and rewrite it all.

I hope to have the company up and running as an actual entity in about 3-4 weeks. It may get pushed back until after the new year. I will just have to wait and see. Business start up can wait until more content is produced and the game is nearing completion.

I am very excited and will count the whole project and artistic success if I produce something I really like playing! Then I can sit back and go 'we made that, it is great'. Lots of money would also be a good thing!

I am going to go and try to chill my brain out and not explode at the thought of having to design this dungeon. I need a bigger table and bigger bits of graph paper..... Or a useful program for doing level mapping on. So far just using paper has been easier.

Someone please hit me if I don't update this blog once a fortnight, left it far too long this time.

Cheers,

Al

P.S. apologies for really bad spelling and typing, been up all night and have had noooooo sleep.

Tom Time...

Tom has now been added as an author to the Blog. So it could get interesting. You should be able to see the development process from both sides of the coin....

Que endless moaning about development decisions made by someone who isn't a programmer ;-)

I hope Tom is going to post a bit about what he is doing and what he is trying to create for the game.

Cheers,

Al

Well hello there!

I can post to our blog now, so I thought I'd introduce myself.

I'm Tom, I'm busy working on In The Beginning... Software in general. I'm mostly working hard to make sure than Realms of Life and Death gets out the door at some point in the next millennium, but I'm doing some other stuff too.

I built our first complete iPhone app last week. It's a simple little GPS application that doesn't need any maps to work. It's great, because it gives you your position *so* fast compared to the other GPS apps I've used, it doesn't drain the battery anywhere near as fast because it's not using your internet connection, and it can provide you with a load of useful information, without you waiting for the phone to load a map and show you where you are, hopefully it'll come in very handy when I go out geocaching. I'll post here, when it gets into the iTunes store, and you can all download it :).

In the mean time, I think I need a beer, and a sit down, and a relax :).

Tired

I am lying in bed, I am very tired... I got a job and had to go to actual work. Which pretty much got in the way of me achieving anything today...

On the plus side lots of things have happened!

• Had good meeting with business gateway, have future meetings arranged for writing a business plan in early November.
• Got the social phase of part one of soul quest one complete. I don't really have a name for the first soul quest yet. But it does involve a dead Goblin King (who is on fire).
• I have put the first secret bits in to the game. Go Go Easter Egg Gadget.
• Have meetings to arrange with intellectual property rights guy
• Have meetings to arrange with bank, accountants.
• Business registration should happen early November! Roll on grant money :-)

Does that really count as lots of things? Well, sod it, it felt like a hell of a lot happened. I feel like momentum is building on the project and that it is going to sweep me along for the ride.

I have to find a way to get more work done. After work is hard, during work at lunch time is hard. I really need two monitors, a desk and plenty of drawing space. Going to have to make use of voice memos and notes on the phone if anything springs to mind.

I think generating all of the content is going to be a long haul. Still it will be worth it. In the mean time I have to learn to lead two lives (much like Batman). Be a successful, charming and well dressed private landlord registration scheme enforcement officer by day.... And a very tired games designer by night.... Wait a minute that isn't like Batman at all!!

Oh and at the weekends I also need to be a Dad and Husband.

Big shout out to my wonderful wife for giving me the chance to do all of this stuff. Couldn't do it without you. You are just great! Love you loads. This is as hard on you as it is on me. I understand that and love you for it.

Progress!

I feel like we are making progress. I am sitting in the loft having just played around with the first tool that Tom has completed.

We call it the monster tool (not sure why it isn't just to do with monsters). It allows us to load up classes, stats, powers, skills, classes and races. Lets us tinker with the setup for each of the above elements. It is very cool. Very happy with it, something tangible to play with that isn't my flow charts for dialogue! Woop!

A big thank you to all of those who helped with suggestions for how to deal with branching dialogue options! The winner of the unofficial competition is Cleodhna! Her suggestion to try using Omnigraffle was fantastic.

Omnigraffle is a program that allows you to generate flow charts of varying designs. It allows for a lot of editing options and the final results are relatively easy to generate and easy to follow the flow of dialogue to its conclusion. So big thanks. I am sure that some sort of prize can be arranged in the (probably distant!) future...

Level 1 of Soul Quest 1 is in progress. I am currently working on the social phase of the level and realising how much work I have let myself in for.... I think we are aiming to be very ambitious with the game and the level creation is quite taxing from a creative standpoint. Trying to make level 1, Quest 1 a bit harder than the opening level, highlighting new options and things you can do. All of that without making it too steep a learning curve.

I have a business gateway meeting tomorrow and a meeting with the bank next week. So time to go and do some dialogue trees!

Cheers,

Al

Stuff is getting done... Honest

I have meetings arranged with business gateway on 13th October. The business manager at the bank on 19th Oct and I am waiting on the accountant to phone me back! I am doing things, it just feels like all I am doing is the bits that are not really that much fun....

I feel like I need to get stuck in to some creative stuff, which is what I am going to try and do after I finish this post.

Lots of things are getting in the way, life is often like that.... Trying to get Ben to sleep through the night and sleep training has left me feeling like I have been run over by a train, the reversed over by a train, then parked on by a train and then asked for my ticket by the conductor... I am now scrabbling around in my pockets for loose change before passing out!

On the plus side I am also finding time to volunteer at the citizens advice bureau on a Tuesday and Thursday. I am still waiting to hear if I have this temping post in Ayr.

Tonight I should be having a meeting with Tom, who will be handing over some tools for me to play with using the developer kit. Some stuff to do with monster and character editors. We are hoping to have a map interface next week so we can load tokens on to it and complete the AI. The AI has ground to a halt as Tom needs to be able to plot the location of everything and make them figure out where they need to go and what they need to do. This is apparently hard if you don't have a world to plot them on!!

I need to get the first of five Soul Quests written. This is going to take a long time. I need to trawl through all the links people have been sending me regarding dialogue tools. Thanks for all the help guys! I think once I have written this I MUST look at some dialogue tools.

I have my extra monitor working with the macbook. It is pretty sweet, a really nice wrap around system. Place the monitors wherever you want in relation to each other!

Other things on the horizon.....

I wrote some notes of game number 2 that I had kicking around in my head! I had to get them down before the ate up my ability to think about anything else. I have a working title... Sector 7.

Hoping for my copy of Rogue Trader RPG to turn up next week, but I doubt it will!

Trying to dig around for some stuff to make Battlefleet Gothic Terrain with for use with the above RPG product.

So time to sign off and go do some actual work......

Cheers,

Al

Distraction

Baby sitting, wedding, hangover..... These are the reasons I have for getting nothing done over the past few days!

I need to get down to work on Monday. Although lots of things need sorted out! Why can't you buy extra time from ebay?

I need to get content done, must sit down and write up some stuff for the the first part of the game. The game is split in to five main quests, each quest will have a number of missions or adventures in it. Each one of these needs a lot of detail put down in black and white.

• Plot
• Artwork detail
• Social phase detail
• Scouting phase detail
• Attack phase detail
• Maps for the realms of life
• Maps for the realms of death
• Creature statistics
• xp awards
• Loot tables

and the list goes on and on. Each element needs sufficient detail in it so that we can construct the artwork from it as well as code up all the different elements required to run through the adventure. It seems to take a lot of time to detail each adventure. The first one took me about a week. Although I hope this will get easier as time goes on. At least I have a structure to work to now.

One of most complicated bits to get right is probably having branching dialogue options in the social phase that actual mean something tangible in the later phases of the game. This is made doubly difficult by the fact that the game can enter the realm of death at any point. This transition brings about an entirely new set of characters that can be interacted with, all of which require branching dialogue options that make sense.

On top of that I don't even have a good way of recording the dialogue options. For the first level I ended up using excel and bookmarks so I could track along the screen and make sure they made sense. I am sure iworks (pages) would have helped in this regard, as it seems to be determined to piss me off and not let me read anything I have written I have decided to give up on it for now! Maybe I will have the chance to puzzle this mystery out some other time.

Now to go and thump a grumpy cat who is trying to destroy the ironing pile.....

Cheers,

Al

ARGHHHHH!!!

I am trying to come to terms with my past.... I used to slag off a Mac with a smile on my face. Now I have to admit having my first mac has been a bit of an experience so far.

It began with the delivery guy turning up and a slight tremor of excitement began to flutter in my tummy. The dull brown box gives way to a shiny white box, with a nice picture on the front... I open the box and start to unload the contents, everything seems so sexy. It is all nicely wrapped and well placed. It looks so fantastic. Almost like you would expect a posh shop to wrap up that very expensive piece of lingerie you bought for your wife.

It smells good, it looks good, it feels great.... Then you switch it on and you kind of stare at it blankly for a few minutes... What do I do now? How does it work? Why has windows not annoyed me yet? Ah, no windows! You do a little dance in anticipation of a life filled without random driver conflicts and the blue screen of death.

You install iworks, you load up pages. You start to cry.... You can't see anything in the little text box you created and typed in to. How does this work? I have used word for almost 15 years, it is like going back to school! I still haven't figured that bit out yet....

You open the mail client, it asks for your email address. You put it it expecting it to go mental at your hotmail account... Why wouldn't it? I do after all. It loads up your hotmail account in one smooth go! This can't be correct, is this the world I have been slagging for years on end. I start to feel a bit silly about all the snide remarks.

I understand why people fall in love with their MacBooks. I do. I think I might just have fallen in love with mine, even though she still hasn't surrendered all her secrets to me! Now I must retreat from this overlong and unnecessary blog post.... You see I have work to do, wonders to create and a word processing package to figure out!

On a more serious note, I also have a job interview tomorrow and had better get back to figuring out where I can park near the office I am going to.... Hello iphone.... I feel almost dirty, in a good way!

Cheers all,

Al

Measure before you set up your office

.......................................... I forgot to measure the distance from my table, through the floor, to Ben's cot..... It turns out that distance is less than 10'. The disrupt work power went in to overdrive when an attempt was made to put him down for a nap. This eventually led to Ben being in the loft (my fault).

It then led to lunch, me replacing a broken light fitting in the dining room, a trip to Tesco to buy lightbulbs and now an attempt to catch up on everything I meant to get done earlier today.

I need to set up a meeting with Business Gateway to clarify some things with them.

I need to talk to Apple and the tax department about VAT.

I need to get the email address that belongs to Pix!!!!

I need to get on with some actual content writing for Pix to work with, only have level 1 done in a complete form for Pix to work with.

I have also got a job interview for a job in Ayr on Friday. Not sure if this is really a good thing or not. On the one hand the money would be helpful... On the other the lack of time to fit this stuff in during the day will result in working nights when I come home 4-5 days a week. So I will be pretty run down.

Still. Money is a good thing, or at least a necessary evil thing.

Day one in the office....

So I have the office ready to work in (except I have no bin....)! I have a table, printer/scanner, extra monitor, a tin can with pens and pencils in it. I also have some desk ornaments to brighten up a space otherwise devoid of anything remotely interesting to gaze at.

When the iphone turns up I intend to figure out how to take pictures and upload some of them so you can share my pain....

Right now I need to actually attack some work. I have Pix coming over to discuss artwork and I need to get some of the maps and stuff that have been sketched out for the first level scanned and on the computer and over to Tom.

So, yeah, work....

Cheers

The Office is nearly complete!

I decided that I really needed some proper space to work in. A bit of space that is just outside of Ben's disrupt work 10' radius power.

So given we have a small two bedroom house, there was no choice but to brutally dispose of all those unwanted empty boxes in the loft and set up the old dining room table!

And so the office was born.... It isn't pretty, it isn't big enough, it isn't very comfortable.... But it is mine!!!! I have room for the macbook, an extra monitor, a printer and some filing.

This means I have fewer excuses for not getting through my work. So tomorrow will see the first attempt to work in the cramped loft space with nothing but insulation to stare at. Will post pictures when I get up there!

The iphone turns up tomorrow (classic white) and the macbook is on order. So I really need to get down to work and sort out an accountant and other rubbish but necessary things. After that I can get back to work on producing game content that will hopefully inspire lots of people to buy the game.

Launch time? Not really sure yet, it takes as long as it takes. This is the first one so we have no idea really. But I hope that we will make it there within the next 4 months. So if you know anyone who likes roleplaying, iphones, games or random and pointless blogs then show them the yellow brick road.

Cheers,

Al

First Post

Welcome to the Blog

I decided to set up a blog page to document my attempt at producing iphone games for a living. I have to balance this desperate dream with the attempt to look after a family and trying not to get myself in to too much trouble with my wife!

In all seriousness though I wouldn't be this close if it weren't for the support of all my family! All of you have my thanks. They have helped with equipment, support and even constructive criticism.

I will be working with my brother in law, he is the master coder, I am merely the ideas man. The guy who has to come up with something that might sell and produce content that is exciting and compelling enough to make people want to pay for the game and the additional content and expansions we have planned.

So on the staff roll are;

Al (me, the ideas guy)

Tom (the coder and guy that has to do the hard work!)

Kirsty (my wife, who keeps me in line and keeps us all working to deadlines)

Lex (Tom's wife, who is a bouncing board for ideas and keeps us all in crochet dinosaurs and great old ones)

Ben (My son, who mostly distracts and keeps me from work, but who is a great motivator in other ways!)

The company is called In The Beginning... Games

On Tuesday we have a meeting with a friend of mine about producing artwork for the game. His name is Will Pickering and he has produced some excellent work in his past. The recently to be released Burke & Hare. Can be pre-ordered on amazon. Worth checking out the facebook fan page for the some preview artwork.

The initial game we are working on is called Realms of Life and Death....

I don't want to give away too much about the game or concept for now, but will drop hints and information as this blog grows!

So fingers crossed and time to plow on with work!

Cheers,

Al