Status: 07-30-09. First Controller Protos!!!

Tino has been hard at work on a bunch of stuff. After the successful proof of concept implementations of our screen space shader effects, he's gone back and refined a couple of them and added another big one. On Monday, we're going to sit down and go over each effect and specify how we can bring them up to final quality. A couple of added features here, some number tweaking there, and I think we'll be looking pretty good.

The hardware guys came through with a number of interesting controller prototypes on Wednesday. They have a big challenge ahead of them to create the device I am looking for, but major steps forward were made this week. I am looking forward to the next batch.

By all counts, this is a really great time for the project. It's so cool to see the creativity and exploration of various concepts at this phase, both in hardware and software. Way to go guys!

All right... I'm back to turning out some artwork before I head off to Siggraph next week.

Status: 07-24-09

This week, I have mostly been working on: Schedules.

I am spec'ing the Operator Adjustables screens. WHEEEEEEEEEE!

Status: 07-16-09

For me personally, this week has largely been all about staring at schedules and projections. I probably have another week's worth left, at least. I am itching to turn out some art and get some new stuff on screen!

On the software side, great progress is happening daily. We're really looking to blur the line between film and videogames with this project, and so far we are making great strides to that end; I am well pleased. Once we're a bit further along, I will go into more detail, but at the moment I am confident in saying that there are certainly no other coin op games out there that are doing what we are doing.

Regarding the new controller, the driver that interfaces the current working unit with the development system was revisited. We're getting much better performance out of the thing now, so that's all good. Tomorrow there's a meeting scheduled to look at progress on the first prototype of the device, so I am anxiously looking forward to that.

In addition to the weekly status updates, in the next week or so, I hope to write a little about how the project got started, so come on back!

Status: 07-10-09

Wow, the last two weeks have been pure rock and roll. Let's see...

As we are developing a brand new type of controller for the game, we need to begin development of the game itself while the device is still being designed. I did some looking around and found some hardware that I hoped might serve as a temporary stand in. The big unknown was if we could get it to run on our dev systems at all. Fortune smiled on us however as once it was in house we handed it off to Mr. Chris Brewer who just totally blew us all away by getting it hooked up and returning data within the space of a day.

Another day or two of clean up, and Chris handed it off to Tino Kalafatis, programmer on the project. A few hours later and POW! The device was integrated into the game. Stellar work.

This week, Chris went back and took another look at his work and found a was able to make significant improvements to his code. Again, he handed it off to Tino and within a day, it all automagically went in and worked.

I was happy to see substantial progress on the hardware front, because I personally have been up to my neck in projections and scheduling. It's not all bad, but just not as exciting and initially rewarding as seeing stuff happening on screen for the first time.

That is it for now. There's more progress brewing today that I cannot wait to share next week!

Project: Ground Rules.

Welcome!

Here's the deal: Over here at Incredible Technologies, I have recently kicked off development of a brand new game and I want to share the process with you, the reader. Why? Well, first and foremost, I am extremely excited about this project; more so than any other I have yet to work on. So much so in fact, that I feel compelled to share the experience with the everyone that cares to listen!

In addition, the current reality of coin op coverage in the regular gaming press these days is that coin op games do not get much love. I would like to see that change. Part of the reason for this situation is that coin op companies are not doing enough to engage the end user. So by effectively leveraging the power of blogs, social media networks, and so forth, the hope is that with regular updates of interesting content, this game might just help coin op grab a little more “ink,” as it were.

To those ends, the goal is to update the blog twice a week with behind the scenes information and commentary. I will talk about the process of building a game start to finish: from the original germ of the idea all the way to bringing the final product to market. Look for interviews and guest pieces from members of the team, discussions regarding the decisions concerning the game we are making and why, and maybe even a coin op history lesson or two along the way.

It should be noted however that here are a few things I will not be doing, at least not right away. The coin op industry is highly competitive and extremely fleet. Should the game be revealed too early, it is possible that it could be beaten to market. With that in mind, I will not be talking directly about the specifics of the game play or even the genre the game falls under for a period of time. Fortunately, development cycles for coin op games are markedly shorter than those typical of console titles, so please just hang in there and stay tuned.

Hopefully you too will be able to share my enthusiasm through this blog. So if you are a player, perhaps you will follow along in anticipation, eventually seeking the game out upon release in order to try it. Perhaps you are one of our customers and want to know all about that next great product for your locations. You might even be a member of the gaming press, tired of covering the upteenth console World War II shooter, looking for fresh gaming stories to liven up your site with.

Whatever the case, keep coming back, and I will try to keep it entertaining and insightful!

Project: Blog Redirection

When I started this blog, I originally imagined it would be primarily about CG artwork. I intended to post up my personal work, tackle technical art issues, share scripts and tools, and so forth...

...That didn't really happen. Over time I created less and less personal artwork. I grew bored of dealing with the bugs and workarounds involved with using 3d content creation apps.

I largely ended up writing about whatever game I happened to be playing at that time. Unfortunately, I never felt I was able to devote enough time to these reviews/critiques to really express all of the things I wanted to say about any given title. And even if I had, let's face it: nobody likes to be assaulted with a massive wall of text, so I wasn't sure that anyone would really be reading these mega posts of nitpicky detail anyway.

And so now with the previous announcement of my project just kicking off, I am going to shift gears a bit and refocus this space on the development of this new game.

So here's the plan: I will be shooting for at least two updates a week regarding the new game. To start, I am thinking that each week I will do a brief status update as to how things are going, followed with a post about the history of the project so far. There is a lot to catch up on!

Next article: Ground rules for the new blog direction.