Starting a new feature can be a nerve-racking experience for any writer. Will people enjoy it? Will others offer feedback? Am I wasting my time? This anxiety and these questions are shared by developers as well with each title they release. What better way to release some stress than by sharing their woes, trials, and tribulations?
Carl Van Ostrand of Small Cave Games has offered to share his development experience with 2010’s XBLIG Ophidian Wars: Opac’s Journey, in what will be our first of (hopefully) many postmortems to grace the pages of Armless Octopus.
How did you get the idea for this game?
I worked on a CCG after college which allowed me to conceive some original characters and lore from scratch. It was awesome.
However, many of the concepts never made it to “cardboard” (aka the final draft of the initial set of the CCG). I had little notebooks full of unused story, characters, and flavor text – essentially having brainstormed my own world for fun – a world that was never going to expand beyond my living room because the CCG had the plug pulled after one set (cue sad violin).
After being engrained in the CCG development for 3 years or so, I became highly addicted to the design process. I wanted to take action to bring my world to life, so I started lurking on various video game development forums. I witnessed other “wannabees” getting torn to shreds, getting the harsh truths about indie game development.
So I picked up game development books, practiced with free art and music programs, and started to refocus my ideas into a game design document. I decided to use a dynamic female lead character that I felt had potential (Maya). And my game design inspiration came from my favorite game of all time, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
I found the XNA Forums (App Hub) and motivation peaked. I found a dev partner on the XNA Forums, and coding began soon afterwards. Watch out Link.
What lessons have you learned from developing previously that you carried onto this title?
I bit off way more than I could chew. Even though I thought I was taking a cautious and simple approach, the action/RPG genre proved a mighty foe. And there is a good reason why so few exist on XBLIG, and none hold a candle to A Link to the Past – it’s insanely robust and complicated when you start to peel back layers. Making the climb steeper, I had committed to 3D (something I no longer regret, but it can be a bit of a worm can).
We took a hard look in the mirror and decided to take 6 months to develop something that we knew could ‘cut our teeth’ on, and more importantly, complete. So along came Opac’s Journey.
The concept art for the Opac character was getting positive feedback because well…he’s pretty kickass. So we decided to use his back-story as the foundation to a 2D platformer, while also tying the two games together story-wise. We kept things simple, focusing on the platforming and exploration elements while infusing some RPG flavor.
It proved to be a great move because 6 months later we had a game for sale on the marketplace, learned a crapload, received a good amount of press, and even made a profit within the first several days. That was quite thrilling, to say the least.
Any advice for budding developers?
I am still budding over here too, but I might be able to relay some pointers.
Keep your day job if you have one. Working on a game part time will obviously lengthen a dev cycle, but at least you still have a roof over your computer. Think about going full time after a sizable success.
Make a very small game first, but if you plan to release it for sale, polish it. By that I mean, start a project that can finished within about 6 months (or less), but still looks and feels crisp.
Save up a little money to fund areas where you need help (for example, art assets, box art, etc).
Network nicely. Get to know your peers. I’ve met tons of talented people who I’ve either worked with or traded wisdom with – it’s so valuable. For example, we work with a rigger/animator based in Australia who does incredible work and it a genuinely great dude.
Be prepared to stumble, fall, pull hair out, lose sleep, gain weight, and become addicted to at least one additional drug. I can honestly say that part-time game development is more challenging than any day job I’ve ever had. As you’d expect though, it’s equally rewarding.
What do you have planned for the future?
Legend of Kilflame (LoK) is still our passion and it’s really coming together now. Frankly, it’s a bit ambitious (from a time and money investment standpoint) for the nature of the XBLIG platform, but we’re okay with that and hope to help raise the bar. We were lucky to get some help on the 3D engine and level editor from an XNA MVP as well, so tapping his impressive skill set has been huge.
LoK will be a sequel to Opac’s Journey, but with a different, slightly sexier, protagonist. For those who like Opac’s Journey, they should be pleased to know that Opac will be an important character in this game as well, in full 3D action/RPG glory.
Thanks for listening – if you want learn more about the games, please visit our development blog.
Length of Development: 6 months
Cost: ~$300
Team: 2
This is just the first of many postmortems we have planned. If you’re a developer interested in sharing your postmortem or development experience with others than feel free to contact us. Finally, if you enjoyed this feature or any of the developer’s titles, let us know below!
By at .
