Children of the Void: Project Update, February 2013

[MMXAlamar]

Children of the Void
Press Release February 3rd, 2013

Children of the Void

Project Update: February 2013

The month of January has been fairly quiet on our side, although we have seen several new creations by our staff in art, audio, and 3d design. We are also working on new concept art displays just for you!

Todo for February 2013

In February we are going to perform several major overhauls on the CotV including the following:
• Plan of Operations – Draft Finished, Due 2/9
• Game Design Document – Due 3/9
• Schedule for Production – Due 3/16

Please note that some of this work has already been completed and we are just going through revisions to finalize and optimize these areas of design and production. We are by no means starting completely from scratch, but we are however redoing the foundation of Children of the Void in order to reflect a more organized and efficient pipeline and structure for game design and production.

Summary of Plan of Operations

The Plan of Operations is going to be the tactical way that we approach making the game. The plan is divided into design and development. Each section is vitally important and all prior steps must be finished before moving onto the next. Research is a section in development instead of design, because my personal belief is that we should put our ideas out there first, so we allow the research stage to influence and even contradict our preconceived notions.

Design (Preproduction)
• Stage 1: Concept
• Stage 2: Goals
• Stage 3: Planning

Development (Production)
• Stage 4: Research
• Stage 5: Development
• Stage 6: Evaluation

Game Engine

We are still sorting issues out with the game engine. Unfortunately this is a major problem with no-budget indie games. The team’s train of thought is moving towards licensing an engine commercially, which would change the game, but allow us to move forward without uncertainty as to which engine we’ll be using to produce the game.
The team is likely not open to any suggestions from outside, because we have been looking at potentially every game engine out there. The ones that seem to consistently top the list are Unity, UDK, and Torque3D. All three of these engines have been successfully utilized in the production of games.

Progress of the Game

I know you all have been waiting very patiently, and we hate to disappoint, but let’s be truthful here: making a great game takes a hell of a time, and most fail and fall into oblivion. Children of the Void is not destined to fail, and we’d rather linger in development hell and find our way out than give up.

We are still a startup game and getting our act together, and at this stage we have no clue when the game is going to be presentable (e.g. a tech demo). This is precisely why we are going to follow our Plan of Operations and design our project timeline so we have exact deadlines.

With that said, the concept, goals, and timeline for the game will be made clear as crystal over the next two months. Only then will we be able to start producing according to schedule in a fixed and reliable way. In order to accomplish this, I plan to have meetings with all the Project Managers every weekend in February and March.

That is definite. And as a bonus to all who are following Children of the Void, I will make our timeline public so you can yell at us to get our asses in gear if we do not meet our own deadlines. This is not just a team effort on our behalf, but a fan effort on your behalf as well. Don’t be unrealistic, but please do not hesitate to reach out to us and let us know what you think.

We look forward to impressing you all this year and we would love to keep you as fans and give back as soon as we’re ready and able to. I will be releasing a very important update in a couple of weeks so hang in there until then.


Sincerely,

Ari Wigdor (Alamar)
Director of Project Management
Children of the Void

[GrayFace]

It would be very interesting to hear about the research you've done on engines and problems you've faced with them.
It's strange that you haven't written about production goals, such as

We are currently in progress with Town (Area 1), which should be 100% finished by the end of February.

(I see that "100% finished" won't be possible without the decision on engine)

[MMXAlamar]

Hi GrayFace,

The reason why I haven't included anything new on production is because we're going to be reevaluating everything in the project so that we can estimate some hard numbers for the production cycle.

According to the current schedule, we will have a production plan to publish by the beginning of April. This will also include our next decision regarding the game engine.

-MMXAlamar

[Holloweyee]

Here is some alternative engines that you might not had think of:
Panda3d (Python / C++)
Leadwerks (Basic / C++)
Irrlicht (C++)