Proun will be launched on June 24th for PC, and you will be able to set your own price! To celebrate, I have made a new trailer that shows the features of the game:
Pay What You Want means that you can choose yourself how much you want to pay for Proun. Really like it? Pay me for it! Just want to give it a quick try? Then don't pay and just download for free! Feel guilty afterwards because the game turns out to be more awesome than what you paid for? Buy it again! ;)
So, the big question: why? Why like this?
Most importantly, I would like as many people as possible to enjoy Proun. If I set a fixed price, some people won't be willing to pay that and thus won't play Proun.
Another aspect is that I have only recently started to really make money with making games, but it is still less than the legal minimum wage in the Netherlands. I have been making games for at least 50 hours per week for several years now, and it would be nice to actually make a living out of it as well! Not that I should be complaining: I currently earn just enough money to pay rent and buy food, and I enjoy every single minute of this creative life!
I initially announced that Proun would be free for a couple of reasons, not just because I wanted as many people as possible to play it. There is also another reason. If people pay for your game, then it must meet certain minimum quality standards. The game needs an installer. It should run on almost any PC with almost any videocard. I should test it on many dozens of computers to see whether it works everywhere.
Since these things are no fun to do and since I made Proun in my spare time, I did not feel like doing them at the time. So by releasing the game for free, I thought I could get away with that.
However, for some reason I ended up doing all these things anyway. (Maybe because I am a psychotic idiot? Sounds reasonable! Blub-blub-blub.) There is an installer now. And graphics settings. And the beta has been tested by 10.000 people. Somehow, whenever I can improve something, I cannot keep myself from doing it, no matter how boring the work.
So in terms of quality, Proun is commercially releasable now! :)
Some people may complain that Proun doesn't have as many tracks as Need for Speed 37, but I personally think games don't always have to be big, just as they don't always have to be expensive. I did the best I could to make a small experience that is really good and really special. My dream is that to some people, Proun may be a little gem. My favourite game of the past 10 years is Machinarium, and yet that game is pretty small too: I finished it in only five hours. Short to game standards, but these are some of the best five hours I ever spent. I guess Proun can't compare to that, but I hope Proun will be a great ride nevertheless!
Not that Proun is small for every player: if you like hardcore twitch action, then getting highscores on the insanely fast highest difficulty will keep you going forever!
Another reason to make Proun Pay What You Want, is that it feels like a very fair method to sell something. Why should I tell you how much this game is worth to you? Why not decide that for yourself? Deep down inside I don't like the cold rules of capitalism (although I do believe that it is the best system known to mankind), so I'd like to see if doing things in a fairer way can work.
To give gamers a little extra incentive to pay something for Proun, I have added a fifth bonus track to the paid version. This track is shorter and even more colourful than the other tracks, but if you like Proun, then I am sure this track will be a nice extra! ^_^
I am incredibly curious to see how this ends up. How many people will pay anything at all? How much will they pay on average? What will be the highest price some benevolent person will pay for it?
About a month after Proun's release, I will share the numbers of this experiment here on this blog. I guess some of you may be just as curious as I am to see how this works out!
Monday, 13 June 2011
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Awesomenauts trailer released!
At Ronimo Games we recently announced our new game, Awesomenauts, and today we have released the first trailer!
There is also a bunch of new screenshots on the Awesomenauts website.
The first thing everyone notices here is the incredible theme song that Sonic Picnic created. They did a great job at reviving eighties hair metal and created just the right tune to get gamers pumped up for some hot action with the Awesomenauts! This will shine even more once we reveal the intro animation (!) that comes with it...
However, I would like to point your attention at something that few people will notice with these short bursts of gameplay footage: the graphics. When we made Swords & Soldiers, we hardly had any tools, as I described previously on this blog. Since then our team has grown and we have spent many months creating real-time editors for levels, animations and particles.
During Swords & Soldiers, our engine (the RoniTech 1) was a very minimalist creature, but now with Awesomenauts the RoniTech 2 has evolved into a grown-up multiplatform engine with tools and everything else one expects from a full 2D engine.
The result is that artists can decorate our worlds and animations with all kinds of details. Leafs move in the wind, waterfalls flow in the background, dust swirls up when you walk and we even have some aliens peeking from behind rocks once in a while. The level in the trailer contains some 6000 objects, and that is excluding the static ground over which the player walks (and which actually fills half the screen). Many of those 6000 objects are particle systems that emit dozens of particles. If you look at this trailer really closely, you can see all kinds of details and parallax layers.
As we release more info and footage of Awesomenauts over the coming months, I will show clearer examples of this, and discuss how we managed to create a real-time editor that gives artists the possibility to literally animate every property of every object. And I guess I will also have to discuss the challenge of getting a good framerate in the vicinity of team of artists-gone-wild...
Anyway, for now enjoy the awesome trailer! And as soon as I get back to regular posting on this awesome blog, look forward to lots of awesome articles about the awesome tech of the awesome Awesomenauts!
(Sorry, from now on I will try to keep the usage of the word 'awesome' to a minimum...)
PS. Next week, when the storm that is called E3 has lessened a bit, I will release a new trailer of Proun and announce the exact release date and method!
There is also a bunch of new screenshots on the Awesomenauts website.
The first thing everyone notices here is the incredible theme song that Sonic Picnic created. They did a great job at reviving eighties hair metal and created just the right tune to get gamers pumped up for some hot action with the Awesomenauts! This will shine even more once we reveal the intro animation (!) that comes with it...
However, I would like to point your attention at something that few people will notice with these short bursts of gameplay footage: the graphics. When we made Swords & Soldiers, we hardly had any tools, as I described previously on this blog. Since then our team has grown and we have spent many months creating real-time editors for levels, animations and particles.
During Swords & Soldiers, our engine (the RoniTech 1) was a very minimalist creature, but now with Awesomenauts the RoniTech 2 has evolved into a grown-up multiplatform engine with tools and everything else one expects from a full 2D engine.
The result is that artists can decorate our worlds and animations with all kinds of details. Leafs move in the wind, waterfalls flow in the background, dust swirls up when you walk and we even have some aliens peeking from behind rocks once in a while. The level in the trailer contains some 6000 objects, and that is excluding the static ground over which the player walks (and which actually fills half the screen). Many of those 6000 objects are particle systems that emit dozens of particles. If you look at this trailer really closely, you can see all kinds of details and parallax layers.
As we release more info and footage of Awesomenauts over the coming months, I will show clearer examples of this, and discuss how we managed to create a real-time editor that gives artists the possibility to literally animate every property of every object. And I guess I will also have to discuss the challenge of getting a good framerate in the vicinity of team of artists-gone-wild...
Anyway, for now enjoy the awesome trailer! And as soon as I get back to regular posting on this awesome blog, look forward to lots of awesome articles about the awesome tech of the awesome Awesomenauts!
(Sorry, from now on I will try to keep the usage of the word 'awesome' to a minimum...)
PS. Next week, when the storm that is called E3 has lessened a bit, I will release a new trailer of Proun and announce the exact release date and method!
Monday, 30 May 2011
Awesomenauts announced!
Last week we have announced Awesomenauts, our new game at Ronimo Games! It is an online multiplayer game for PSN and XBLA. The gameplay combines MOBA with platforming. Most people don't seem to know about that genre yet, but MOBA means Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. It is the term used to describe games like Defence of the Ancients (DotA), League of Legends (LoL) and Monday Night Combat. Only Awesomenauts is a platformer, so that makes it quite different in many ways.
I don't have time yet to get back to regular posting on this blog, but we have been working on Awesomenauts for quite a while now and it is going to be really awesome (hence the name), so I felt like sharing this with you! :) Also, Awesomenauts features lots of interesting concepts and technology, especially on the engine and tools side, so you can expect a load of posts here on this blog later this year. Our multiplatform 2D engine, the RoniTech, is now at version 2 and has finally grown mature with this game!
For the moment we are not disclosing all that much info on Awesomenauts yet, since we will be showing it in motion for the first time at E3. I really hope the press and gamers are going to like it! In the meanwhile, here are some screenshots:
Ow, and for those wondering: I am doing some final bugfixes on Proun and will indeed release it in Spring! So that means June 20th at the latest! I haven't decided on the exact release date yet, but you can expect it within a month!
I don't have time yet to get back to regular posting on this blog, but we have been working on Awesomenauts for quite a while now and it is going to be really awesome (hence the name), so I felt like sharing this with you! :) Also, Awesomenauts features lots of interesting concepts and technology, especially on the engine and tools side, so you can expect a load of posts here on this blog later this year. Our multiplatform 2D engine, the RoniTech, is now at version 2 and has finally grown mature with this game!
For the moment we are not disclosing all that much info on Awesomenauts yet, since we will be showing it in motion for the first time at E3. I really hope the press and gamers are going to like it! In the meanwhile, here are some screenshots:
Ow, and for those wondering: I am doing some final bugfixes on Proun and will indeed release it in Spring! So that means June 20th at the latest! I haven't decided on the exact release date yet, but you can expect it within a month!
Monday, 18 April 2011
Why I made a graphics-only trailer of Proun
I just released a new trailer of Proun! I am really happy with the atmosphere in this one, so have a look and enjoy! Be sure to turn up the volume and set to full screen for the optimal Proun Trailer Experience (tm):
(The beautifully brooding music I used for this trailer was created by Igorski. You should really check out the other weird, atmospheric music on his website.)
As you can see, this trailer has a pretty different approach to the previous trailers: it is entirely in slow motion and doesn't show the player's vehicle. Quite an odd choice, really, so why did I go this way?
For starters, I was inspired by a recent trailer of Fez, a beautiful indie pixel game* that is currently in development. I love the atmosphere in this trailer, which shows slowly rotating landscapes with atmospheric music, and I figured something similar would work nicely for Proun as well.
However, there is quite a bit more to it.
Proun is a game, not just a piece of graphics. Proun's graphics are very readable and do not distract from the gameplay, so I think the gameplay and graphics complement each other well. However, they also hide each other: when you are looking at the graphics, you will probably bump into an obstacle. And when you are racing really well, you will probably be so focused on avoiding obstacles, that you will not notice the artwork. Lots of people have told me that they didn't even notice the beautiful graphics until they watched someone else play. So I wanted to make a trailer without the gameplay, to let the graphics really shine, just for once.
Since Proun is a racing game, it also needs some information for the player. What lap are you in, what position are you placed, how is your time? Interfaces almost always distract from the actual game world. They are often pretty much a necessary evil in any game, usually to inform or enable the player**. In Proun, the graphics are all about minimalism: creating as strong an image as possible with very few elements. All those necessary numbers in the interface totally break with Proun's simplicity. So in this new trailer, I liked being able to for once leave out all the gameplay elements, making the graphics stronger.
Finally, why is the player's vehicle not there in this trailer? Where is The Big Ball At The Centre Of The Screen? Well: since it is always there, it would make the entire trailer very uniform. In a previous blogpost, I talked about designing the camera movement to prevent motion sickness. Tying the camera to the ball works really well, but results in a ball that is always at the exact centre of the screen, at the exact same size, and always pulling the player's eyes towards it. Leaving it out here, allows the player's eyes to drift around the screen more easily.
So, a lot of deliberate thinking went into designing this trailer. I hope it worked and resulted in some powerful imagery! ^_^
*"Beautiful indie pixel game" should be read as “a beautiful game that is developed by an indie pixel", not as “a pixel game that is developed by a beautiful indie." I deny having any kind of opinion whatsoever on whether Phil Fish is beautiful or not.
**Although in really old games, the interface was sometime also used to make the playing field smaller on the screen and thus achieve acceptable framerates, as Peter Molineux recently explained in this talk about the classical game Populous.
(The beautifully brooding music I used for this trailer was created by Igorski. You should really check out the other weird, atmospheric music on his website.)
As you can see, this trailer has a pretty different approach to the previous trailers: it is entirely in slow motion and doesn't show the player's vehicle. Quite an odd choice, really, so why did I go this way?
For starters, I was inspired by a recent trailer of Fez, a beautiful indie pixel game* that is currently in development. I love the atmosphere in this trailer, which shows slowly rotating landscapes with atmospheric music, and I figured something similar would work nicely for Proun as well.
However, there is quite a bit more to it.
Proun is a game, not just a piece of graphics. Proun's graphics are very readable and do not distract from the gameplay, so I think the gameplay and graphics complement each other well. However, they also hide each other: when you are looking at the graphics, you will probably bump into an obstacle. And when you are racing really well, you will probably be so focused on avoiding obstacles, that you will not notice the artwork. Lots of people have told me that they didn't even notice the beautiful graphics until they watched someone else play. So I wanted to make a trailer without the gameplay, to let the graphics really shine, just for once.
Since Proun is a racing game, it also needs some information for the player. What lap are you in, what position are you placed, how is your time? Interfaces almost always distract from the actual game world. They are often pretty much a necessary evil in any game, usually to inform or enable the player**. In Proun, the graphics are all about minimalism: creating as strong an image as possible with very few elements. All those necessary numbers in the interface totally break with Proun's simplicity. So in this new trailer, I liked being able to for once leave out all the gameplay elements, making the graphics stronger.
Finally, why is the player's vehicle not there in this trailer? Where is The Big Ball At The Centre Of The Screen? Well: since it is always there, it would make the entire trailer very uniform. In a previous blogpost, I talked about designing the camera movement to prevent motion sickness. Tying the camera to the ball works really well, but results in a ball that is always at the exact centre of the screen, at the exact same size, and always pulling the player's eyes towards it. Leaving it out here, allows the player's eyes to drift around the screen more easily.
So, a lot of deliberate thinking went into designing this trailer. I hope it worked and resulted in some powerful imagery! ^_^
*"Beautiful indie pixel game" should be read as “a beautiful game that is developed by an indie pixel", not as “a pixel game that is developed by a beautiful indie." I deny having any kind of opinion whatsoever on whether Phil Fish is beautiful or not.
**Although in really old games, the interface was sometime also used to make the playing field smaller on the screen and thus achieve acceptable framerates, as Peter Molineux recently explained in this talk about the classical game Populous.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Pause
I would really like to actually finish Proun soon, so I am going to put this blog on hold for a month or two. Writing for this blog is a lot of fun, but takes several hours every week, so it slows down Proun too much for my own good. Especially since this blog, playing in a baroque orchestra, furnishing my new appartment and working on Proun all need to be cramped into that same bit of spare time I have!
When this blog returns, I will have a lot of stuff to talk about, like my 2.5D area light shadowing technique, real-time camera mapping, the awesome in-game tools we developed for Ronimo's Secret New Game, Tha Prototypinat0r, and a lot more!
To give a teaser and pause this blog in style, let me show you an image of another topic that will be discussed at some point after the break. This is a model I generated with my SolidMotion script:
I'll be back! See you later! ^-^
When this blog returns, I will have a lot of stuff to talk about, like my 2.5D area light shadowing technique, real-time camera mapping, the awesome in-game tools we developed for Ronimo's Secret New Game, Tha Prototypinat0r, and a lot more!
To give a teaser and pause this blog in style, let me show you an image of another topic that will be discussed at some point after the break. This is a model I generated with my SolidMotion script:
I'll be back! See you later! ^-^
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Meta-shapes emerging from perspective
Perspective is a beautiful thing. Look at an object from a different side, and you get something new. Move your head a little bit and sides disappear and appear, lines align or dis-align. All kinds of things are happening to the world in front of you, just by moving around.
I have been fascinated by this for years now. My mother sometimes asked me why I was staring at something and slightly moving my head to the left and right. Well, to change the composition, of course!
I am aware that this is probably a quite strange hobby of mine, but let me give an example to show what I mean. The photograph below was in De Volkskrant (a Dutch newspaper) a while ago.
I think this is a powerful composition. The big boat, which is balanced in the view by the small boat to the right edge. The strong perspective in the containers, which leads the eyes towards the distance, where the ship is heading. Almost all important lines here are either exactly vertical or horizontal, or they lead to the same point at the horizon. Simply a strong composition.
However, something else in this photograph caught my eye. There is a meta-shape here. The edge of the ship and the horizon exactly coincide, creating a new line. This line does not actually exist, but the perspective creates it. It only exists when this scene is looked at from this angle. It is a meta-shape emerging from perspective.
In Proun, I have partial control over the camera. The player can rotate it around the cable, but cannot look left or right. So I can create meta-shapes like this, and unconsciously, the player will sometimes see them. In the screenshot below, two balls form a new meta-circle that only exists from this perspective.
(The purple ring of the bigger ball could also be called a meta-donut, although I don't know whether it would be a meta-donut-with-chocolate or just a normal meta-donut-with-sugar.)
By the way, last week, when I watched the incredibly beautiful Tron: Legacy in 3D at the cinema, I realised that this effect is actually destroyed by 3D. Tron features a lot of incredibly strong compositions, but I feel that the 3D tears them apart. I think the lines and shapes form a stronger image when flattened. So to my surprise, this was actually the first time that I wished I had watched a movie in 2D instead of 3D.
Finally, there is something else hidden in the photo of the boats. By just taking the main lines, I can create an abstract composition. This is a very simple thing, but since the original image has such a strong composition, these lines could form the basis of a new composition in Proun. I could place coloured objects to create a 3D scene that features these lines when looked at from a certain angle.
I won't deny being a crazy idiot, staring at random things while moving my head around. But at least I can pretend it has a purpose! ^-^
I have been fascinated by this for years now. My mother sometimes asked me why I was staring at something and slightly moving my head to the left and right. Well, to change the composition, of course!
I am aware that this is probably a quite strange hobby of mine, but let me give an example to show what I mean. The photograph below was in De Volkskrant (a Dutch newspaper) a while ago.
(Photo by Joost van den Broek)
I think this is a powerful composition. The big boat, which is balanced in the view by the small boat to the right edge. The strong perspective in the containers, which leads the eyes towards the distance, where the ship is heading. Almost all important lines here are either exactly vertical or horizontal, or they lead to the same point at the horizon. Simply a strong composition.
However, something else in this photograph caught my eye. There is a meta-shape here. The edge of the ship and the horizon exactly coincide, creating a new line. This line does not actually exist, but the perspective creates it. It only exists when this scene is looked at from this angle. It is a meta-shape emerging from perspective.
In Proun, I have partial control over the camera. The player can rotate it around the cable, but cannot look left or right. So I can create meta-shapes like this, and unconsciously, the player will sometimes see them. In the screenshot below, two balls form a new meta-circle that only exists from this perspective.
(The purple ring of the bigger ball could also be called a meta-donut, although I don't know whether it would be a meta-donut-with-chocolate or just a normal meta-donut-with-sugar.)
By the way, last week, when I watched the incredibly beautiful Tron: Legacy in 3D at the cinema, I realised that this effect is actually destroyed by 3D. Tron features a lot of incredibly strong compositions, but I feel that the 3D tears them apart. I think the lines and shapes form a stronger image when flattened. So to my surprise, this was actually the first time that I wished I had watched a movie in 2D instead of 3D.
Finally, there is something else hidden in the photo of the boats. By just taking the main lines, I can create an abstract composition. This is a very simple thing, but since the original image has such a strong composition, these lines could form the basis of a new composition in Proun. I could place coloured objects to create a 3D scene that features these lines when looked at from a certain angle.
I won't deny being a crazy idiot, staring at random things while moving my head around. But at least I can pretend it has a purpose! ^-^
Friday, 4 February 2011
10 Tips for the lonely programmer
On the original version of Swords & Soldiers for the Wii, I was the only full-time programmer in a team of 7 developers. On average, there was also 1 programming intern around, but still, this means that the number of programmers was really low. Especially if you consider that this was our first console game!
When working in such a situation, you really need to think smartly about what you make and what you don't make, and plan your entire programming routine around this.
I think about these kinds of problems a lot, so for a presentation at the Festival of Games in April 2010, I boiled my ideas down to these 10 tips for the lonely programmer. Obviously, this is no rocket science, but I think these guidelines may help young gamedev companies and student projects.
It's better to get it working quickly and then add stuff, than to get stuck with more than you can chew. Especially since everyone overestimates his own coding speed.
For example, do not try to tweak the walking speed yourself. Make sure a designer can do this.
Emphasis on the word minimal. Make sure to create something so that levels can be designed and such, but also make sure to not waste half your project making more fancy tools than necessary. Notepad is a perfectly fine level editor.
Keep your code clean at all time, even close to deadlines. Once code becomes a mess, everything you add will also be a mess.
The more bugs and crashes your game already contains, the more difficult it is to see whether what you just added is broken. You will need to fix those bugs at some point anyway, so just do it righ away and keep your game stable.
No need to compete with Uncharted 3. Don't spend your time optimising for the ultimate performance. Instead, focus on making the game good and accept that maybe some computers won't be able to run it.
There are a lot of rules about good programming on the internet. Many of them are a lot of work and not necessary for a small project. For example, it is totally okay to not build your own memory manager and it is no problem to do lots of dynamic allocations in run-time. Just do what works for you.
This is not for student projects, but for start-ups. Interns love to work for real games. Don't feel ashamed if you let an intern create some awesome tools for your project.
Say "No" to almost every idea you hear, especially closer to deadlines. To keep the game concept simple, you will have to protect it from getting bloated. If there is time left, you can always add stuff later.
Game designers and artists depend on your work, so be sure to involve them in why you choose to build some things instead of others. Ask them simple questions, like this one: "I don't have time for option A, but either B or C can be done. Which do you want?" Involving them makes them less frustrated at hearing "no" so often. Otherwise you may end up like this:
Feel free to print these 10 tegeltjeswijsheden and hang them on your wall, and refer to them at all times.
Also, feel free to tell me these are all incredibly obvious. ^-^
PS. For those who expected dating tips after reading the title: that is not part of my field of expertise, so you will have to look elsewhere for that... ;)
When working in such a situation, you really need to think smartly about what you make and what you don't make, and plan your entire programming routine around this.
I think about these kinds of problems a lot, so for a presentation at the Festival of Games in April 2010, I boiled my ideas down to these 10 tips for the lonely programmer. Obviously, this is no rocket science, but I think these guidelines may help young gamedev companies and student projects.
It's better to get it working quickly and then add stuff, than to get stuck with more than you can chew. Especially since everyone overestimates his own coding speed.
For example, do not try to tweak the walking speed yourself. Make sure a designer can do this.
Emphasis on the word minimal. Make sure to create something so that levels can be designed and such, but also make sure to not waste half your project making more fancy tools than necessary. Notepad is a perfectly fine level editor.
Keep your code clean at all time, even close to deadlines. Once code becomes a mess, everything you add will also be a mess.
The more bugs and crashes your game already contains, the more difficult it is to see whether what you just added is broken. You will need to fix those bugs at some point anyway, so just do it righ away and keep your game stable.
No need to compete with Uncharted 3. Don't spend your time optimising for the ultimate performance. Instead, focus on making the game good and accept that maybe some computers won't be able to run it.
There are a lot of rules about good programming on the internet. Many of them are a lot of work and not necessary for a small project. For example, it is totally okay to not build your own memory manager and it is no problem to do lots of dynamic allocations in run-time. Just do what works for you.
This is not for student projects, but for start-ups. Interns love to work for real games. Don't feel ashamed if you let an intern create some awesome tools for your project.
Say "No" to almost every idea you hear, especially closer to deadlines. To keep the game concept simple, you will have to protect it from getting bloated. If there is time left, you can always add stuff later.
Game designers and artists depend on your work, so be sure to involve them in why you choose to build some things instead of others. Ask them simple questions, like this one: "I don't have time for option A, but either B or C can be done. Which do you want?" Involving them makes them less frustrated at hearing "no" so often. Otherwise you may end up like this:
Feel free to print these 10 tegeltjeswijsheden and hang them on your wall, and refer to them at all times.
Also, feel free to tell me these are all incredibly obvious. ^-^
PS. For those who expected dating tips after reading the title: that is not part of my field of expertise, so you will have to look elsewhere for that... ;)
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