Golden Oldy game idea (2000/3D series type game)LUNERLANDER

[justclaws]

Hello,

 

How are things going for Loony Lander ?

Not had any time in the last couple of weeks, but it won't ever

be "a release", it's just going to be a fun little hack for friends.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I never promised anything else.

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

[justclaws]

Hello,

 

It has come to my attention that elsewhere I am getting bashed now

about "Loony Lander", so I'll try to spell it out nice and clear, on this

occasion. I won't reply there, because anything I say will become a

red rag to a bull, and I won't waste more of my time on follow-ups.

 

As I said... it's not going to be "a release".

i.e. No box. No manual. No price. No promises.

 

Like what I have released before, it will be a download, for free,

but the only reason I said I'd knock it together was as a break

from things, for some friends. Gunstar liked the idea. So did I.

it's just going to be a fun little hack for friends.

However, people assume I mean it's an exclusive without any

thought as to precedent or context. I was referring to motivation.

i.e. my motivation was not money, fame, or toady appreciation.

 

If people think my friends are limited to people who subscribe

to an old dev mailing list (which ANY body can join if they want,

and do, just PM Sinigord and ask to be added to "UGD-JAG"),

then they're sadly mistaken. Neither do I have to promise or

imply any rewards in the future for being friendly to me now.

 

It's MY very limited spare time though I'm using, and whether

I give it out or just create it for my kids and a couple of friends,

that would be my right, too. (Likewise I could format the disk.)

 

I hesitate to say it, but it's meant kindly. The Scatologic team

surely spent hundreds of hours of their lives creating/releasing

BattleSphere. The Force Design guys are surely doing so too,

right now. Untold numbers of programmers, known or secret

spend their time on home-brew games, open source projects,

or team projects. Unless they're being paid for this, they owe

nobody anything. They are the ones paying, paying with time,

and they cannot recover that. For freeware, not even any $'s.

 

As for me, nothing takes priority over my family and my work,

so when I obtain the chance to spend my time with my family

then Jaguar programming will go on the back burner, again...

Given ONLY 2 hours free, what would you do? Jag or wife/kids?

 

IMHO

If fewer people assumed things on forums, or brought to

forums their own prejudices, they'd be nice places to use but

even if war, poverty, famine and illness was gone tomorrow,

someone somewhere would still be nit-picking about a post.

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

[Paolo]

QUOTE:It's MY very limited spare time though I'm using, and whether

I give it out or just create it for my kids and a couple of friends,

that would be my right, too. (Likewise I could format the disk.)

 

...or just create it for my kids...

 

That's a so lovely statement. This sums it all up.

 

I just liked to point it out.

[Starcat]

Hi Justclaws!

 

I couldn't agree more. I always find it funny that once a hobby developer talks about a project, people seem to think: "Cool a new game, now I just need to wait until the release date gets closer and then I'll be able to play it."

That's what I think too, but only for professional games. In the Jag scene however there are only hobby developers. They don't get paid for doing this, they have to take every minute they spend on the Jag away from something else and every cent that they spend into their developments can't be spend anywhere else.

 

Unlike many people still seem to think, you can not get all that hard work and time paid back in any way. You can not get rich with it, even a break even (money wise) can be hard if you used professional tools instead of freeware. The only reason why somebody would create a hobby game for the Jag is the fun of game development, the experience he gets from it and maybe to enjoy his creations with a couple of friends or if he chooses to release the game to the scene, enjoying it with the scene and maybe getting some kind words or a "thank you" for it.

 

However many forget that creating a game from start to finish is a very complicated, difficult and time consuming process. If you look into the homebrew scene of other systems (especially PC), you will probably count one finished project against maybe 30 abandoned projects and 50 projects that didn't even get started properly.

What I mean is, finishing a game as a hobby developer is not self-evident, there are so many things that can get between it, life, family, no time left, work and not to forget motivation. I think motivation is probably the most common cause of a promising hobby project being canceled. I mean when other things like family or work slow the project down, it can still be finished some time, but when the motivation is lost, the project is lost.

So it's important to stay motivated. Sadly there isn't a general solution how this is done. Everybody has to find his own motivation, but except for that a lot of motivation can also come from feedback on the project.

 

Personally my motivation is, the fun of development, the experience I gain from it, creating a game I always wanted to play myself and of course doing it, just like Justclaws said, for friends in the first place.

Although, in my case, if a game is really good and the fans really like it, it is quite possible that it will be released.

 

Just wanted to share my opion on this.

 

Regards, Lars.

[justclaws]

Hey,

 

Thanks everybody, for the positive PM's, I'm back coding on an Alpine

(after months with a BJL) so I can try it on both systems, to get it right.

Somebody cool is doing me some graphics, so the graphics are likely

to far outshine the code and the gameplay, but hey, that's fun as well.

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

[justclaws]

How are things going for Loony Lander ?

After years away from coding, I'm working on it and others again.

That's the nature of Jag coding - you think you're cured, but then you relapse.

I'm going to release a one-screen one-player demo,

and then finish off the scrolling multi-player challenge which dragged me back.

JustClaws.

EDIT: Added P.S. below.

P.S. Oh heck, "release" is a controversial word. I just remembered all the shit

over this mini-project in the past. Now I remember a reason why I stopped...

The demo will be a game written for my kids, available for anyone to download.

Edited September 27, 2007 by justclaws