Acheron's Awakening vs. NEStalgia

ID:64150
 
Apr 17 2009, 12:53 pm (Edited on Apr 17 2009, 4:27 pm)
Keywords: silk_games
With my announcement of a new project today, I know that the "What about Acheron's Awakening?" line of questioning is inevitable. Therefore, I just want to clear a few things up.

My interest in BYOND is based upon the enjoyment I get out of actually creating games; as in the process of conceptualizing, coding, and seeing it all come together. To me the "work" of creating a BYOND game is almost a game in and of itself. Some people like logic puzzles like Crosswords or Sudoku... I like coding.

I work on BYOND projects knowing that if I finish them, I'll have the added bonus of seeing other people enjoy my work. Releasing a finished game is always my goal; but it is not an ultimatum. In other words, the enjoyment I get out of creating a game is not contingent upon that game's release. Therefore, I do not consider my previous "incomplete" projects to be failures, nor do I look back on them and regret my decision to stop working on them.

It would have been a blast to play Dragon Warrior Online 2.0, but I had a heck of a lot more fun staying off of my computer and enjoying my freshman and sophomore years of college. Finishing Acheron's Awakening would have been quite an achievement; but getting engaged and jumping into my screenwriting career was much more important.

Sure, I could go back and finish either of these projects at any time; but at the moment I wouldn't have any fun doing so. Why would I go back and spend a lot of time getting reacquainted with and finishing an old, incomplete Crossword puzzle when I can jump right in to a fresh one right now? While I'm not ruling out the possibility that I may go back and finish Acheron's Awakening one day, right now I simply don't feel like it.

The bottom line is that I think anyone who is actually serious about game development -- anyone who wants to actually achieve something with it -- should avoid BYOND like the plague. BYOND is not a stepping stone.. It's blast to make and play BYOND games, but you are never going to create a game and "make it" using BYOND. Because I have no interest in becoming a "real" game developer, BYOND suits me just fine. This is why I can work on a game like Acheron's Awakening and leave it unfinished without losing sleep over it.

Now my focus is on NEStalgia, and on all the enjoyment I am getting out of seeing that project come together. My hope is that I will be able to share it with all of you in the near future.
Apr 17 2009, 1:03 pm
I agree wholeheartedly on your game design position (as I'm the same), however BYOND can in fact be a stepping stone for game development- I think you just don't see it that way because that's not your intended career path.

People can come to BYOND and make games just for fun without the intention of moving on with that career, sure, but that's not all-inclusive. It's entirely possible to use BYOND as a friendly, easy to use front for learning about programming and important aspects of game design, from which you can shed the handicaps provided by BYOND's system and move on to greater things. To say otherwise is kind of silly- it's like insisting that if you wear Adidas you can never really become a professional athlete, because that's what Nikes are for.
Apr 17 2009, 1:10 pm (Edited on Apr 17 2009, 1:35 pm)
Zaole wrote:
It's entirely possible to use BYOND as a friendly, easy to use front for learning about programming and important aspects of game design, from which you can shed the handicaps provided by BYOND's system and move on to greater things.


I agree; BYOND is a great place to get your bearings as a developer. What I mean (and perhaps should have worded differently) is that you're not going to make a BYOND game that gives you much notoriety or great commercial success.
Apr 17 2009, 1:11 pm
Ah, in that case you're so very right. :P

I hope that you do become motivated to work on AA some time in the future.
Apr 18 2009, 12:13 am
Zaole wrote:
To say otherwise is kind of silly- it's like insisting that if you wear Adidas you can never really become a professional athlete, because that's what Nikes are for.

Kevin Garnett or Dwight Howard ring a bell? I happen to be a very very loyal adidas patron. Nikes are garbage made for soccer moms, real men wear adidas.
Apr 18 2009, 5:59 pm
Disturbed Puppy wrote:
Zaole wrote:
To say otherwise is kind of silly- it's like insisting that if you wear Adidas you can never really become a professional athlete, because that's what Nikes are for.

Kevin Garnett or Dwight Howard ring a bell? I happen to be a very very loyal adidas patron. Nikes are garbage made for soccer moms, real men wear adidas.

Your stupid.. Stick to the generic 20 dollar shoes!!!
Apr 19 2009, 6:29 pm
I think that BYOND hasn't quite shown it's true capability for developer success. As the platform grows, I think that with it will come some very important milestone games and developers that release projects and actually have the capital and resources to advertise outside of BYOND and seriously draw people into their system.

BYOND isn't really out of the realm of flash game quality these days - the guys have done a great job with improvements to the graphical engine and some pretty nice interfaces and effects are definitely possible now.

I'm interested to see where things go.
Apr 19 2009, 7:03 pm
Question, do you lose anything when you release an incomplete game?

Acheron's Awakening might not be complete, but it sure as hell is one of the most polished and enjoyable games on BYOND.

Also, is there anything stopping you from handing the project off as well?
It's not like you have the motivation to take it where you wanted, anyway.
Apr 20 2009, 4:08 pm
D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
Question, do you lose anything when you release an incomplete game?

Yes and no. It's no skin off my back if people try out an incomplete game that I'm never going to finish... but because I'm still holding onto the possibility of releasing AA, I don't want to expose people to an unfinished compile.

D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
Also, is there anything stopping you from handing the project off as well?

Honestly, I can't imagine someone even wanting to do that. It's a pretty big code base, and it would take a lot of "getting acquainted" time to even get started. Your average "rip" coder would have a 0% chance of being able to modify anything, and more experienced coders probably prefer to work on their own stuff.

That said, I probably wouldn't want to hand it off anyway. If I start working on it again I'm going to bring on a few team members to help me, but I wouldn't want to just give it to someone. Even if I did give it to someone, it wouldn't be Acheron's Awakening anymore, it would be their game and their vision built upon my codebase.
Apr 20 2009, 4:38 pm
Alright then, I understand.
Here's to the hope that you do decide to finish Acheron's Awakening.

:]