In Memoriam - Ophidian Wars

It's been a while. There's a reason why it's been a while, and now I think it's time to explain myself. Oh... this is Bryan, BTW. Not Carl. I rarely chime in, but in this case, it is my duty to explain to you exactly what the scoop is. Before around October 2010 things in the land of Kilflame were flying hot and heavy. We had momentum building, and we got to tap the fruitful mind of our terrain engine guru who has provided us with a quite stunning graphics engine complete with particle effects, and shadowed terrain and all sorts of wonderful goodness. If you follow our other blog (http://ophidianwars.blogspot.com) then you've no doubt seen the awesomeness already. Unfortunately around October 2010, things inside my body were reaching critical mass, literally and figuratively. As a professional programmer I spend at least 8 hours a day in front of a computer. Sometimes more, if there's an abundance of work that needs to be done. As a programming hobbyist, I spend

Many of us are working on our own gaming projects that keep us up at night.  Maybe it's developing/porting a game, or in some cases a brand/IP - maybe you're making strides on the journalistic side of things or developing a YouTube following to watch your game footage. Whatever it may be, we're all trying to carve out a little piece of cake to call our own, taste the delicious frosting of success, and raise the cake over our heads exclaiming, " This is my cake, eat some! " But it sure is easy to get sidetracked.   And by sidetracked I don't mean the heavy hand of the procrastination or utter laziness.  I don't mean the little red Netflix envelope, Twitter banter, or figuring out what the hell Reddit is (okay I get it now, and I am a little hooked). I am talking about losing sight of your original goals while you wallow in the inter-drama.  I am talking about questioning your motives and falling off course, swayed by the opinions and rhetoric of others

Consumers will always buy garbage - watch garbage movies, listen to garbage music, and even spend hard-earned money on garbage video games.   So I guess it shouldn't be a huge surprise that the demand for garbage is met by a willing group of garbage suppliers.    After all, garbage is pretty common, easy to create, and mostly void of worth. So when garbage restrictions are minimal (hello XBLIG platform), out of the woodwork come developers willing to 'develop games' that cater to the garbage eaters.   Some succeed, far more don't, but holy shit these terrible games are running rampant.   I know what you're saying.  "But if people are buying it they must not think it's garbage, stupid!  I am just giving them what they want."   Now, I don't hate you, imaginary blog interloping XNA developer, but I don't want to associate you with you.   If that's your rationale for creating poor quality, turn-a-quick-buck slop-ware, let's just part w

EDIT: POSITION FILLED Bryan (lead programmer) and I are looking for some part time help with Legend of Kilflame.  The position requirements and compensation are below, along with the current state of Legend of Kilflame. Please send a note (formal resume not required) to cevo70@yahoo.com if you're interested. REQUIREMENTS: Deep understanding of XNA and C# programming. Experience working with 3D terrain, models/objects, and animations. Responsible, reliable, and able to devote 5+ hours per week until the job is done. Open to phone and online discussions regarding progress and direction.  "Kick-off" chat is required. Recommended: Have a published or work-in-progress game on XBLIG, preferably 3D. RESPONSIBILITIES: While much of the game is completed, we need help establishing a working 3D terrain/gameworld.  All assets are completed (models, rigging, animations, textures, etc).   You would work on creating a live test world with these assets, along with a &qu

Ophidian Wars: Opac's Journey has been "on the shelves" for about 20 days now which in XBLIG terms actually makes it mature (arguably dead actually, maybe on life support).   The game definitely met our hopes/expectations but I am going to do a separate postmortem on the sales/marketing aspect (aimed more at devs). I wanted to have a look back at Opac's Journey purely as a game without the numbers muddying everything up.   There's so much to consider, especially in hindsight, but I am going to try to keep this concise. The GOOD Box Art:   Throughout development and post-release, we heard almost nothing but good things about the shadowy Opac reaching upwards on the box cover.   This without a doubt helped it stand out and create interest. Retro Look:   It's not quite the 8-bit look that seems to appeal to sizable subset of gamers, but Opac's Journey still has oldschool flavor .  For better/worse, immediate comparisons were drawn to "Metroidv

With the release of Ophidian Wars: Opac's Journey recently, it came to my attention that I could do the XNA community a better service by playtesting and peer reviewing. It's like reviewing, but helps developers make their games better and get them online. There are a ton of other indie review sites out there (check sidebar for some) and quite frankly they were doing a better job than I was staying up to date and offering more features. This blog is going to become space for company and industry relevant news and updates (and the Ophidian Wars dev blog will stay devoted to Opac's Journey and the upcoming Legend of Kilflame development).