PHI - INTRODUCTION

BUILDING A FOUNDATION

Naturally many people ask me what my game will be. When it comes to unique selling points and basic marketing endeavors, that question is actually most important and it shouldn't be too hard to answer. But trust me, it is. Most of us indie people are very deep into our ideas and we occasionally tend to make and explain things too complicated. Of course I want to avoid this situation and will therefore not only try to categorize and separate my posts but more importantly first build a stage for this whole endeavor. This post's purpose is to do precisely that; to build a foundation, to serve as an overall introduction which will not get too much into the game yet and display overwhelming information without context. I know I am testing your patience, but we are almost there, the next posts, which are really directly dealing with the game are already prepared and will go public sooner than you think! As you might have noticed, at least the working title is out already; the name of my game will be "Phi", a subtitle is still pending.

I see all of what is happening here during the next rather long phase of carving out my idea of the digital stones as a learning process. I am certain, that although I try to sort the information, some things may remain unclear for some time, while others might even get boring. You must understand that I don't get into this with a completed project management schedule, milestones, deadlines or even a 100% finished game design document. I know things like that are not only a nice-to-have but rather a necessity! Still, I don't fully have these things yet. I have the basic concept, a rudimentary schedule and a ton of ideas, but creating such procedural basics is one of my top concerns at the moment and for that, the stage that has been built with these words will also help me a lot. I come into this with the idea of creating the game as transparent und public as possible, but since I also don't want to spoil the fun and surprises I will be trying to keep most spoilers and secrets generally out of my posts. If it is however unavoidable to leave out the information completely, certain passages will be edited unreadable (darkened) and it will be up to you to read or skip it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not starting with nothing here... I put massive hours of planning into this project already. I just want to make you aware, that I see this blog or rather my development logs more as an open diary which should meet two basic goals:

• HELP ME TO WRITE DOWN AND ORGANIZE MY MIND

• GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO FOLLOW ME AND SUPPORT ME WITH YOUR INPUT

Yes, all your ideas, criticism, advice and opinion is cherished here! A famous game designer I met on my travels to Japan once told me that it is always easy to watch something finished from the distance and find lots of holes and flaws. It doesn't require any skill at all standing there, pointing with the finger and stating "I would have done that better". True skill means to be here, to be on the spot; creating and finishing something by yourself, just to realize with a smile that there will always be someone standing somewhere else talking about having done it better.

In light of those words, that many of us bloggers and videogame critics should probably think twice about, I know that I might also do something some of you won't like, but...

• PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT I DON'T NECESSARILY CREATE THIS GAME FOR YOU, BUT FOR ME. Sounds hard, but I think that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Most of you already know my taste regarding videogames and the contemporary industry behind it. I am sure most of you will agree with my philosophies, goals and the final picture.

• Being an active and supportive part in the development of this game could never harm and may eventually lead to something that really has a profound impact because there aren't too many holes and flaws left when it's done.

At some point during the final phase of developing the prototype representing the game mechanics the goal has been stretched out to set up an independent website just for the game, which will be updated and maintained parallel to this blog. It is my hope that from that point on information about the game will be a lot more accessible, organized, short and understandable. Until that time I trust you will stay with me and not get confused about the partially long blog posts, which regarding the pre-preproduction of my game can be found here under the label Development for now.

Play more! Wait (a bit) more!
 

NEW HORIZONS

 AND THE CITY SMOG

Hello everyone! Thanks for sticking with me during the last couple of weeks... finally, it is done - objective "moving" accomplished! I don't know why but it was an awful lot more work than the last times. Anyway, it's done, boxes are empty, the bed is made, the desk shines from unprecedented tidiness, ice tea is cooling down to drinking temperature in the fridge and (al)most importantly the internet connection has been established and my PCs are set up!

Why did I leave a modern 150 m² loft on the countryside and move to a mediocre 42 m² suburban apartment? Well, sometimes I still question that myself and I somehow feel like a sardine in a can to be honest. But actually I know why... because I had to. It was one of those rational decisions of life - economical, if you want. Given extreme uncertainty but also great responsibility I had to find a place that is easier to afford. Furthermore the new place also had to be closer to work for me as well as for my fiancé. I am happy that regarding those two points the new apartment is perfect and I am sure after a while I will also get used to this tiny space. Thinking about my foreign exchange year in Tokyo, where I lived on approximately 12 m², that shouldn't be too hard. A more negative catch however is that I can't smoke here so much anymore... but yeah... is that really all that negative, you tell me.

A lot of things developed recently and actually the hills in front of me seem to flatten out. One of the more positive factors is that I am again a few more kilometers away from my family, which - as harsh as it may sound - makes me sleep a lot easier, secondly I will start to work in Vienna at a great place already this week and lastly it seems I have a good chance to get out of the shit company I have to call myself boss of. -Which really is the last corpse in my basement... I would be so happy to finally get out of this crap but unfortunately negotiations and discussions about selling or consolidating the company take a lot of time and energy, while - of course as always when it comes to business - no positive outcome is guaranteed.


Personally I am looking forward to my new job, by the way as clerk in a second hand videogame store (yeah!), much more than being head of a company. Don't get me wrong, if it was a company about videogames, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but unfortunately the company I have now, was founded out of necessity and basically does nothing I can even the slightest bit relate to. My new job pays almost nothing, but still enough to cover my rent, I work with videogames and only between two and three days a week, which is awesome because it gives me a lot of free time that I can put into the development of my own idea. Even during work I can use the internet, work on my private endeavors or just relax because I will mostly be alone in the store and allegedly there are a lot of days when just a handful of people show up!

So... how is the plan? Well, as announced before, from now on development of my own game and of course my blog will have a high priority in my life. So far things have played out well for me and after moving, finding a great part-time job and getting some more distance from negative influences, I would love to fully start public development of my game as soon as possible. Unfortunately there is still that company factor... and well... that I can't control. So while (for now) there will still remain a constant dark cloud above my head, that could every second drown me in a rain of problems - and therefore take me away and keep me from concentrating on my real task for an undefined time span - I think, I still need to get started. After all this company issue could still take several weeks until it will be resolved... one way or the other.

During the following week I want prepare some information about my game and after that get it out to you. - I know you have been waiting too long already. Please stay tuned and continue to stick with me. I can't do that alone.. that much I am certain of. Thanks again to all you friends and interested followers out there on the web. Special shoutouts to +Emberheart Games, +Blake Price and of course +Fangirl Review for the constant support and doing great inspiring stuff of their own!

Play more! Smoke more!

DEVELOPMENT SECTION - STILL ALIVE?

HARVEST TIME!

Dear followers, readers and friends!

As some of you might recall, a while ago I wrote a post titled Announcing Determination where I told that I want to get back into some Indie development myself. I already prepared additional posts about my idea, I set up various development environments, sketched a bunch of stuff... but (un)fortunately things got a bit out of control already days after this initial post.
I wanted to do a remake of an old game. My research brought me to the point where I could not start to freely twaddle about it, and legally it turned out better that I didn't. In the end I got official word that I am not to do what I wanted to do and my endeavour was crushed before you even heard about it. - Ok, I thought, let it rest. It's not that I have no original ideas myself...
However, also at that time I have been contacted that a class about videogame development, with a focus on art and character design I have registered already long time before, has finally reached it's minimum number of participants and was about to start. So, in the end I was quite lucky that I didn't get into anything because the class alone took about 30 hours per week of my time over the last four months! Nevertheless it was a lot of fun and it did pay off greatly since it was not only theoretical. Not only that it refreshed my skills with 3D modelling, sculpting and texturing, I also learned a lot about 2D characters, colors, design and functionality in general and I could greatly improve everyday workflow by learning a ton of neat tricks in a variety of programs along the way.

So yeah, now you also know why I wasn't too active on my blog for some time. I also met some very nice people in the class and we will probably do something together in the near future. Because I also don't want to get rusty again with - or rather further improve - the 3D stuff, I will use this section of my blog to showcase some of the things will be doing from now on... well... maybe I will restructure the site a bit, I don't know yet. For now it stays here and I would love to get some comments and critique about the stuff. Please enjoy some of the more or less final works from the last months:

Play more! Create more!

ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT EXPO 2014

A BRIGHT LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Days before the biggest videogame event of the year the internet seemed nervous. Torn between big expectations and the still visible scar of recent disappointments. You could feel it. The virtual air was full of electricity; "Who will come out best?", "Will Microsoft redeem itself?", "Did anybody hear something from Nintendo?",... Probably the most important question on everyone's mind however was: "What new games will be announced?" or rather "Can we now finally speak of a next generation of gaming"?

Well, to make it short: Yes, we can finally speak of a new generation of videogames. And the titles that will soon eat up the miserable rest of our souls are more beautiful than ever, vast in numbers and even more incomprehensible in terms of playtime.


Assassin's Creed Unity
Halo 5: Guardians
Halo: Masterchief Collection
Destiny
Sims 4
Far Cry 4
Batman: Arkham Knight
Yoshi's Wooly World
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Tom Clancy's The Division
Mirror's Edge 2
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Alien Isolation
The Order 1886
Star Wars Battlefront
Rise of the Tomb Raider
FIFA 15
Mortal Kombat X
The Legend of Zelda
The Evil Within
Mass Effect 4

and many, many more great games will be released in the near future. I am surely not exaggerating when I say that after this event gamer hearts all over the world need quite some time to get back to their normal rhythm. I liked most of what I have seen and the games that really made my piss my pants were definitely the new Assassin's Creed, the new Batman, The Division, the new Zelda and one indie title called White Night. Of course there was also the new Halo but somehow the creators of the franchise - be it now 343 or Bungie in the past - are never really good in presenting their product at the appropriate time. The trailer of Halo 5: Guardians was basically nothing. Sorry, but you need a bit more than that if you want to make my blood go faster. And all this Masterchief Collection stuff (remakes of the older Halo games) didn't impress me a lot. Is this really requested fan-service or are they still trying to milk dead cows even more? Since you can always switch back to the original graphics, I really hope this time you did a better job than with Halo Anniversary and you also touched the code of the games a bit. Because just changing the graphics is not enough, which is why Halo Anniversary was rather unplayable and in the end not very good!

Anyway, since you all have probably seen a lot about the games I don't want to tell you again why they are good. - If you haven't, check out the links I set above and get blown away yourself. I would rather use the rest of this post to talk about some general impressions I had from watching the event:

First and foremost regarding the games... Are you people - gamers and mostly creators - not the least bit concerned about the path you are choosing with these games displayed? To me it seems like immersive was yesterday and now we should invent a new word like "ubermersive". Was it just a damn good presentation and far from the blunt playtime truth or is seriously every game as long as displayed? - That infinite? From watching all those great games I got this distinct feeling that most of what we are to expect is basically a never ending story; "The universe is infinite", "You can travel all the way to those big mountains in the back", "We will see how big it will really get", and so on... You know, it's not a bad thing if game worlds get bigger and offer the players a lot to explore, but on the other hand this might also not be such a good thing either. Do you honestly expect us to put 100+ hours in every game we play? Who has the time for that? And if we, the people who need work hard to pay the more or less justified prices of those games, had the time, do you honestly think we could play even half of those titles? I hope not. Most of us will have to make a choice. - Do I play Assassin's Creed Unity or do I rather want to put the little free time I have into the new Batman over the next couple of months? Excuse my Russian but that is bullshit! I think the industry is tiptoeing on some very thin ice there. When did the console wars become game wars? More than ever does it seem like everyone wants to make his game as big and as long as possible, to hook-up as many players as possible for the longest time possible and prevent them from playing anything else. - That sounds like "trapmersive" to me. Have you ever thought that this might backfire on the level we are currently? - Especially since you always release all the major titles within just a few weeks? Just imagine that most of the gamers will just buy one or two selected titles and they will be hooked on them for let's say three months each... wow, that sounds like a lot of revenues, right? At least for the few titles that got consumed to the very last crumb. But what if you are with one of the games that nobody bought... well, that's a damn sad story then, right?

What did you think about the presentations in general? I must say, I was quite surprised from the approaches and the different shows. Not considering games (!!!), for me, Microsoft did the best show. Ok, it seemed a bit stiff and to be honest I can't make too much of Phil Spencer at the moment. Was it just the pressure after last year's disastrous Xbox One presentation or did you also think he just faked all the "I am a real gamer" attitude? As much as I want, I can't tell. Both Microsoft's and Sony's show were great to watch and left me with a professional impression, although the developers on stage seemed a bit crazier at Sony's side.

Eye candy, people! Remember all this many green screens? Or the one very long screen in the back from Sony? How can you not even show up in person at all, Nintendo? - Digital Event, my ass! You know, we get digtal events all the year, but at the biggest and most important videogame event of the year, could you please show up in person? That would make you soo much more real and personal...


Microsoft also did not waste any time on any new techno-gadgets, like Sony did with their PlayStation TV or their Oculus Rift copy or Nintendo with their even more ridiculous amibo dolls! This time Microsoft was all about games and that I appreciated most! Yes, Sony also showed some games off big-time (and probably more than MS did), but in the end it simply felt like too much blabla from which I can't even remember half by now. And Nintendo did in no way better; nobody on the stage and for the most part just some Japanese developers explaining the simplest things over and over with more words than necessary, while drinking tea, playing with wool or watching fishes. Oh, and those stupid, badly animated sequences in-between...Sorry, but I didn't like them at all.


As always, aside from the three console giants, also some publishers had their own show and I must say that also those were pretty astonishing. Still, why did the EA guy wear such a ridiculous and snobby suit? Just a second... did they really have a live string performance on their show? Yep, something definitely smelled like big money on that stage. But you know, somehow Ubisoft even topped that... not with their needless dance show but with swearing! - I swear! I thought I was in the wrong movie hearing those top-ranked executives and producers tell stuff like "you are fucked" or "holy shit". Don't get me wrong, it's not that I am offended by cursing in general, but is the biggest gaming event really the right place to curse for these representatives of a major publisher? - In front of all the world? In front of children? What is this? Did they think this was cool? That they would related better to a mature audience? I am sorry, I am very much mature, I am a gamer and I curse all the time, but somehow I did feel a bit offended by such a transgression. I know games break every boundary nowadays and our children are fucked might have lost any moral values by now, but please... you are grown people, public figures,.. how about keeping some decency? Swearing on stage at your grade of representation is NOT cool! And btw. a push-up contest is also not necessarily the reason why I watched your show...

Judging from the presentations it became clear to me that every console giant needs to work a bit more on themselves; Microsoft still needs to become more believable and trustworthy again, Sony needs to step down from their big horse and become a bit closer and personal to their audience without introducing one techno gadget after the other and Nintendo (better sooner than later) needs to grow up. - Making cute games is one thing but presenting them in such a way is another.

All in all and especially game-wise this was a great E3, probably the best I've ever watched. I am glad that console gaming finally made it to the next generation with all those awesome titles. Not only the standard AAA franchises look better than ever and seem to explore new aspects instead of giving us the same sequels again, but also a ton of great indie games are rolling our way.

I am very happy to play those games soon and I seriously hope we gamers will really have the time to get into the bigger part of them!

Play more! Celebrate more!

8/10

THE INDUSTRIAL ASSESSMENT OF VIDEOGAMES

Seriously, what's the deal with those reviews from "official" platforms like ..., ..., ... & Co? I wanted to write something about that for a long time and now, since I am currently watching whatever reviews of Watch Dogs I can gather, I finally found the motivation to write some words about this industrial nonsense. I mean... Who is watching this? - Oops, guilty... let's rephrase: Who gives a shit about those reviews? Not necessarily about the Watch Dogs reviews but about these kind of reviews in general. What is this?

Let me tell you...


It is completely useless. It's nothing more than a summary of what you can do in X game. It shows you the options and game mechanics. Admittedly those reviews are doing a good job with that but in the end it's nothing more than a bad substitute for the long neglected courtesy of putting an instruction manual into the game. Basically those reviews are just extended versions of trailers and gameplay footage that we all have already seen a thousand times. Does making me see the same game mechanic over and over again make that mechanic better? - Or more unique, for that matter? To me all those "industrial" reviews seem to be bought. Honestly! In marketing games it's a lot about unique selling points. These mass produced reviews seem to try making something unique that in fact is not, by mentioning it again and again. And that's basically all they do. Oh, well... and at the end of each review you get a number like 8 of 10. Well that's something really seizable, is it?

Let me tell you also what those reviews lack: They lack an opinion! - And an honest one for starters. How about something like "This game feels soo good", "Wow,... I have played #insert title and this game takes that aspcet to a new level", "I love how the controls respond and how much detail they put into the textures", or "They completely messed up the Auto-Aim functionality", and so on. At no point watching most of these "professional" reviews I feel even a bit addressed as the passionate and playful gamer that I am! If I tell a friend about a game, I can not only tell him all the small but still important details that might even ruin some of the gaming experience, but above all I have an opinion. If something is good, it's good. And if something is shit, it's just that. Those are things that cannot be represented by a number at the end! Honesty, people! And also a lot more insight. - How does it feel? How does it make you feel? If I want see what the game is about and what the mechanics are, I watch a trailer. If I click on a review I want get a damn review and not a biased and extended summary of a trailer!

In conclusion I sincerely doubt those bigger fishes will ever grow some nuts and tell some real opinion without putting lipstick on the pig. They simply can't afford that and they know it. - We know it. A few honest, detailed and real reviews and the publishers probably won't send them anymore free copies of their future games. I assume that's the way the gaming industry works nowadays. It's kind of sad but there's also no need in writing this anymore pretty than it actually is (not).

Again I could torture myself wasting precious time on such reviews and I hope next time I will not again start watching the industrial reviews but instead look out for the more private and honest ones from the beginning. Although I am not too fond of those so called "rants", the truth remains that probably any given guy sitting in front of his webcam in his room, addressing an overall audience of maybe a hundred people, has a more valuable perspective. - Because at least he has a perspective!

Play more! Review more!