{"id":1747,"date":"2012-03-30T10:36:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T09:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2012-03-30T11:06:24","modified_gmt":"2012-03-30T10:06:24","slug":"why-i-like-developing-redshirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/2012\/03\/30\/why-i-like-developing-redshirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I \u2018Like\u2019 Developing Redshirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Guest post by redshirt developer Mitu Khandaker<\/a>)
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So, Cliff asked me to blog my thoughts on developing Redshirt<\/a> so far. My response as I sat down to try write this was \u201cGosh, where do I start<\/em> in talking about this massive project that has been my life since last summer?<\/p>\n

After all, I\u2019d been a videogames PhD researcher, and I\u2019d worked on smaller things before (as well as bigger, non-gamesy things), but Redshirt is my first proper<\/em> commercial game project. Its origin lies in an idea I\u2019d had – social networks govern the daily lives of so many of us now, and give rise to their own set of micropolitics and behavioural quirks, so why not make a simulation game about that? I briefly talked about the story of pitching the game to Positech in my first dev video, and how it evolved into Redshirt, so I won\u2019t go into that here, but, as of 15th June 2011, I put cursor to code.<\/p>\n

Making the Best of Highly Illogical Decisions<\/em><\/strong>
\nI\u2019d opted for Unity as my development tool of choice, because I\u2019d used it comfortably for smaller, throwaway personal projects and was definitely enamored with how it expedites things. As someone who insisted on Notepad for years when I was doing web programming, I certainly understand the impulse to shrug off fancy IDEs and editors and such, but I knew with this project, I\u2019d have my hands full with PLENTY of challenges anyway, so, I wanted to make life easier for myself by using Unity.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought, anyway. The thing is, Redshirt relies heavily upon its user interface; it is, by nature, a very UI-centric game – which meant that Unity\u2019s notoriously lacking built-in GUI system wouldn\u2019t cut it. Unfortunately, the available third-party solutions also didn\u2019t do exactly what I needed them to do, or were otherwise incomplete in many ways. I ended up writing so much custom functionality anyway, and doing more work on fixing the UI than I\u2019d anticipated; there was that time, for example, when I spent a whole long weekend fixing scrollbars. Scrollbars<\/em>, of all things.<\/p>\n

Of course, once they were done, I felt a massive sense of achievement – and, that\u2019s something else this project has taught me. The motivational peaks and troughs that come with getting things working which no other sane person<\/em> will even think about twice.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve Got a Bad Feeling About This<\/em><\/strong>
\nWhile I expected plenty of challenges (and wow, did I get them!), I did not prepare for stretches of time where progress just felt so slow. <\/em>This happened around months 3-6, and things felt largely like trying to run through a pool of really thick, viscous liquid.<\/p>\n

Around this time, I\u2019d been busy working on implementing the Spacebook (more work than I\u2019d thought it\u2019d be, naturally!), but a lot of the other functionality remained unfinished, and things were taking massively longer than I\u2019d projected.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d drawn out a huge, elaborate, multi-faceted system in the game, a lot of which still needed to be properly implemented. But, after numerous discussions with Cliffski, we decided it simply needed to be pared down for the sake of actually finishing the game on schedule. And, y\u2019know, for my own sanity, too. This actually turned out to be a good lesson in practicing\/really thinking about subtractive game design (http:\/\/www.sirlin.net\/articles\/subtractive-design.html<\/a>). (For the record, the main thing that was taken away was the currency system on board the station, because it wasn\u2019t adding much valuable depth to the game, really. Who needs these things in a post-scarcity society, right?)<\/p>\n

Often, things still<\/em> feel fairly painfully slow to progress, but either I\u2019m used to the feeling it now, or I\u2019m slowly coming out the other side, and seeing things come together. Either way, the thing that gets you through those periods is really loving the concept of the game, and what it\u2019s trying to achieve, and knowing it just needs to get made<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The View from Orbit<\/em><\/strong>
\nOf course, the perversely funny thing is that all the focus I\u2019d been putting on worrying about systems, and how they would interact, sort of came second to the feeling of the game \u2018evolving\u2019 when things happened which I thought should be inconsequential, or secondary. Like adding sound, or avatar animations, or seeing the UI mockups from our wonderful artists. It was an odd sort of experience, which made me refocus on the fact that games are these magical things that somehow feel like more than the sum of their parts.<\/p>\n

And, oddly, no matter how much work you put into your own project, when someone else<\/em> does a good job on part of it – like with the game\u2019s logo art, for instance – it somehow makes it feel more real!<\/p>\n

All of this means, though, that I\u2019m getting to a stage where I\u2019m beginning to feel that there is an actual<\/em> game<\/em> amongst all the mess I\u2019ve been staring at for months. That is a good feeling! Right now, as I write, the majority of the core functionality exists for the game already; I\u2019m working on character creation, and adding a few things to the Spacebook feature. Next, it\u2019ll be a matter of adding a load of content – and, at the same time, beginning to incorporate the flashy new UI designs. Then, it\u2019ll be more art, and a whole lot<\/em> of testing, no doubt.<\/p>\n

On the whole, I\u2019m happy with how Redshirt<\/a> is shaping up, and I look forward to sharing more about the game soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Guest post by redshirt developer Mitu Khandaker) So, Cliff asked me to blog my thoughts on developing Redshirt so far. My response as I sat down to try write this was \u201cGosh, where do I start in talking about this massive project that has been my life since last summer? After all, I\u2019d been a<\/p>\n

Continue Reading… Why I \u2018Like\u2019 Developing Redshirt<\/span>Continue Reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-design","category-redshirt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.positech.co.uk\/cliffsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}