2 months before the game is set to go out and now things are REALLY gelling together (even Burt admits to this seeing the game in action), Alf has got his magical oar of doom and he's stirring away. The story is that some schoolkids (get this - SCHOOLKIDS!!!) came into the office and looked around. They played the "stamp a mole" DC game one of the newbie programmers is working on (very cool, by the way!), and everything else they could see. They saw the PS2 dev kits and gasped (if only they knew) and Music 3 for PS2.
Then they saw our game, with blood, guts, and very, very Hellishly grim surroundings. Because one of these kiddies said "oh, this looks too grim!", Alf has took it as read that grim is as grim does and this one brat is the considered opinion of the ENTIRE world. So, we need to put fluffy bunnies in our game now. Oh, and make it brighter. Arrrrggghh! It's HELL!!!! It HAS to be grim!! There was rumours as well that Alf wanted our biker friend to be... flying. On a jet pack. Christ on a bike, Nooooooo!!!
We really don't need this. We have 2 months to go, and the city and the monolith level are built and completed. I feel that in a month's time, we'll have all the levels built. I want all the levels built by then, ooooh, yes. We then have time to add additional props which will give the levels even more personality - zombies on crosses which can be shot, animated bits and pieces, etc. etc. I've reassured some of the art team that they should uproot the seed of doubt placed in all our minds. Toks mentioned the tone in content of Doom, and Alf snapped back "Noo! I don't want Doom on a bike! You give me Doom on a bike, and I will be most unhappy!". We're not doing Doom on a bike. We're doing Quake on a bike.. ;)
It's like, we've worked inhumanly and inhuman hours in the short development time we have and Alf says "well, you've worked really hard on this project, but now you must work HARDER for me!". It can't be done. I'm very proud of this game and the work we've achieved on it, and I'm sure many development houses will be astounded at the progress made in such a short time. There has been a concern for some more speed tunnels/areas and I'm adapting the monolith level to have a fast tunnel section - which includes stalictites, rolling boulders and everything else set to kill you outright.
Will Alf ever be satisfied? I dunno. Even when we get everything sorted out with the game, and everything is fine and luvely, I still think Alf will have doubts. Even when the game is polished X amount of times and is completely playable, there will be the doubt in the back of his mind. I'm pushing on, though. Everyone is pushing on. We will finish this game, and when we do, we can give ourselves huge pats on the back and reassure ourselves what we've done is bloody fantastic. We don't need doubt in our minds, not at this late stage.
The demo is playable! Waaaahoooo! Well, we are in a much more rosier position than we were a short while back. Now we have baddies which have different animations, which fall down and die when shot, or attack you when you get too close. We have zombies which pop up out of the ground and attack you (in a way..!). We have the biker animations now tied in to the actions, so he leaps off his seat when he hits the ground hard, or a wall, and also is set to use his pistol. We have strafing. We have a bloody unnecessarily huge speed tunnel for the demo which will soon be filled with rocks following you, stalictites dropping from the ceiling and all manner of crap after you.
Burt has also produced a batch of new sound effects, some of which involve him grunting down the microphone. Ahem. He's also produced some cheesy (his words!) music for the demo, with a.. god, Burt, noooo! - Techno ambience to them. His opinion is that when he was at Psygnosis, they always used different music for their demos, so Burt's gone for the more cheesier approach. I've e-mailed him some suggestions, even in going so far as getting him to check out the excellent but can't-be-heard-much-except-when-loading Quake III Arena music, which mixes rock, techno and gothicness very darn well indeed. Oh, god, Thank you, Quake III Arena! (Check out this link for Quake III Arena music)
Burt also included a sample which says "I've lost my mind". Burt says it's quite apt at this time. I know what he means.
Another late nighter, only because tomorrow is ANOTHER demo deadline day, except this is the demo deadline day where Alf blows his top if things aren't produced on time. Unusually, we're pretty much in the clear from Alf's random anger because - hey - I've put in the hours, and it feels good that a huge chunk of my arse isn't going to get carved out. Ernie seems to be the man in the big shiny sniper target. Oooh, yes.
But I am happy with how things are getting on at the moment. I played the demo and loved it, so hopefully we'll have even more success with prospective publishers. Ernie assures me that a demo will be produced for Dream On for Official Dreamcast Magazine - either number 12 or 13. Hmm. 13 sounds better, and actually a bit more realistic.
I've just finished producing two zombie props (one on a crucifix wriggling and one hanging off a spike with a helmet on his head - Andy's idea, not mine!!) for putting into the level which I'll be doing tonight. I also said that I'd help Andy with the monster co-ordinates for the rest of the night, because he's only had 8 hours sleep for the past 3 days. The man is more insane than me..! Still, I have produced a sizeable chunk of my half of the swamp level. The massive swamp temple is built, textured and vertexed coloured and only needs props of lamps and maybe some cobwebs. There's an empty space in the temple which is just yearning for a huge stone spider to be slapped there. I know, I know. I need to build it... :)
But the rest of the swamp level is pretty pedestrian in comparison to the hectic temple. Mark has admitted he may put some more stuff into it, but I reckon I could get everything else built and textured and also vertex coloured by the middle of next week, once again surpassing my deadlines. I thought I'd be pretty crap at assigning time to myself, but heck! All I needed to do was think "Mmm. Late nights." and voila! Levels get done! I have very much enjoyed the swamp temple, though. I managed to do textures on the fly while texturing it, which is a bit of a first for me, but now at least all I have to worry about are props. I am pretty tempted to build the rest of the swamp level tonight, but sanity might overtake me there.
From now on in, it's cold, hard slog. I knew it would come to this, and just under 2 months to go, I am in a position where I can work my ass off to get the job done. And I will. It's just that I don't think certain people in power will actually appreciate what we've done in such little time. A pisser? Yep.
Demo's done!! We have something pretty viable now for publishers to gawp at and see, so we have not incurred the wrath of Alf! Phew! I am must happy about the whole thing - even though I overslept a bit this morning after working TWO DAYS with only 10 minutes sleep. I still feel like now I am suffering from sleep deprevation, though it is worth it. We also now have some replay elements to the demo - as in we can record ourselves playing the game and then play it back, with cameras following the bike around! Absolutely brilliant!
Saturday will have some of the Hellgate programming team and one or two artists putting the finishing touches to the demo before 13 (!) copies get burnt on GD and sent out to publishers like Eidos, Virgin, Crave, Sega, Activision, etc. and see how much it burns their candles. We now have a speed tunnel, plus stalictites falling from the ceiling, plus replay. Alf is happy. All is well. He even commented that "Yes, just how I wanted it to be. Gloomy and grim. Great!". Hmmm.
So this weekend, inbetween bouts of internet tomfoolery (I'm all set to register www.hornydog.co.uk - www.hornydog.com is a porn site. Heehee) and Perfect Dark playing, I will try and produce and finish the two end of level demons for the graveyard (it's almost built anyway - needs a texture!) and the lava demon - which I'm going to love doing, because it's half flesh and half metallic... lurvely! I'm treating weekends as relaxed office days where I can produce what I want instead of people calling me over every 10 minutes. Ahh, the life of a lead artist, eh? :)
I am very happy with everything - the bike is looking top. The boosters exported inside-out, but I'm keeping them like that because they look MUCH cooler. Happy mistakes are cool. I produced some monster co-ordinates for Andy as well. 3DS Max has proved once again what a pathetic package it actually is for game development. Whereas every other 3D package has Y as going up or down in direction, Max has it in Z. So, X,Y,Z co-ordinates in Max become X,Z,-Y co-ordinates. Andy went through 3000 of these co-ordinates, changing them from Max's inconvienience.
The "Why 3DS Max is shite!" list is now up to 6 full pages.
So we now have a demo. Are we unstoppable? We could well be. We sure as hell produced a huge amount of work in such a small space of time. Burt has commented to Alf that we're the best team he's ever worked with. Alf stopped thinking about money for a second, looked at Burt, then thought for a second. In that one, distant thought, he realised what a hard-working team Horny Dog are.
I believe in Santa. Miracles CAN happen..!
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