Hey! We’ve made a fun little tool that tweets our subversion commit comments on Twitter. You can see the comments by checking http://twitter.com/oxbot

What…?

Subversion, or SVN for short, is a version-control system that keeps track of our project files when we work on Project B and other games. Think of it as a wiki for files that we add and update files on. Each time a file is modified, SVN keeps track of who made the changes, and makes backups so that changes can be reverted if necessary.

Each commit is also tagged with a small comment describing why the commit was made. It’s this comment that our bot picks up and puts on twitter.

Why…?

Because we can! Also, because this will let you keep track of Project B. We want to be more open about the project, and this is a step in that direction. Actual game information, such as screenshots and a game name, will come later.

/ jeb

A few weeks ago somebody gave me a link to an interview with Ira Glass on YouTube. I had never heard of Ira Glass before, but I found this part about having good taste to be very inspirational:

I think a lot of game developers have this kind of problem. They know what they want to create, but the finished product didn’t really turn out as they had thought. It can still be a good game, but it’s missing something. It’s nice to hear a solid reason why you should keep on going, and not just empty phrases like “believe in yourself.”

The other parts of the inteview are interesting as well.

/jeb

I found a small document lying around in my folder for Oxeye-related stuff. It described the different phases that our projects go through before a release, and I thought it would be fun to share it with others.

Oxeye consists of five people who are in different stages of life and with different abilities to spend time on game development. Our process for selecting which game to work on thus needs to be rather “loose.” The most important thing is that we feel that we are having fun (and releasing games is fun!). Our process can obviously not be applied to all kinds of companies, but on the other hand our company is not the kind of company you read about in business books.

The Concept Phase

In this phase there’s only a game idea and a very short draft for the game. A game concept should be descibed so that it fits on a single A4 paper. I think we have 7 of these concepts on our office wall at the moment. To be honest, I think the font size has gotten smaller for each new one, but we still try to keep these concepts as short as possible.

Light Prototyping

In this phase one or two of us creates a simple prototype to test the game idea. Nothing more than our valuable time is invested on this prototype. Games such as Jet Engine Nights and House Globe are considered light prototypes, even if House Globe never was intended to be anything else than a TIGSource competition entry. Anybody can start a light prototype when-ever they feel like it (unless there’s a time-crucial deadline coming up, of course).

Heavy Prototyping

In this phase at least 3 of our members have decided that we want to put a little more effort on the prototype. The difference to “light prototype” is that we can use our savings on buying stuff for the prototype (such as music and other material we can’t create ourselves).

Green-lighted

Only one game can be “green-lighted” at a time. The green-lighted game will be our main project and all effort will be put into completing the game. A prototype can only be green-lighted once everybody agrees that it’s a good idea, and that we have some kind of plan on the scope of the game and how long it’s going to take to finish it. Our current project is “Project B.”

Green-lighted games can still be abandoned, though. Every two months we have a reschedule meeting (using Skype) to keep track on progress and to update the plan. If we realize that we have mistaken ourselves on the game idea or our ability to create the game, then it will be dropped. Obviously not an easy decision to make!

/jeb

“Whaa?! What’s this? They’re EXPELLING me from the Society?! Who put vegetables in the pot this time? I will SHOW them! Oh yes… putrid peach soup, they will regret this!”

Agatha puts on her cape and prepares for the long journey to Blue Hill, where the witchcraft society’s leaders rule the esteemed organization. For who would believe the worth of her crooked fingernails if she didn’t qualify as a member? No, things must be set right!

With frantic eagerness, she bangs her bony fists on the great castle doors, announcing her arrival,

“Let me in! How dare you lock me out? These walls will not stop ME! I’ll turn stone into tofu if I must!”

From a small window above the ugliest of the witches, the Keeperwitch, points out her wart-ridden nose,

“Oh, we’ve been expecting you, Agatha! Why don’t you fall inside?”

“Fall? Did you’re as stupid as a faun, Keeperwitch! Now unlock the door!”

With a small *tick* the door opens… under Agatha’s feet! She falls down, straight into the Blue Hill’s prisons. The welcome committee is already there – all of the society leaders: Broomwitch, Greenwitch, Fairywitch, Nightwitch, Manwitch, Robowitch, Keeperwitch, Sandwitch and the meanest of them all, Master Witch! They all carry smug smiles on their faces, bringing Agatha to the boiling point!

“There’s no locking ME up! I will turn you all into salted slugs!”

Which is where our story begins…

… but it sure looks cool:

Thanks Alex

/jeb

During the last couple of weeks we’ve been working on a small game for TIGSource’s Procedural Generation competition. The deadline is tonight, and we are just finished! The game’s called “Because it’s Fun, Fay”, and is about a woman called Fay who has been trapped in a tower by a lonely fairy known as Cornipolous. Not interested in being anybody’s pet prisoner, Fay decisively begins to find her way out of the tower. Cornipolous knows there are many dangerous monsters around, and he doesn’t want her to get hurt, so he’s forced to assist in her escape.

You can either play yourself or cooperatively with a friend, but in both cases the objective is to get Fay and Corn to the top of the tower, where an evil boss awaits. The topic of the competition was that the game should be different every time you play, so the game’s level and boss are randomized when the game begins. Download the game here:

• Mac OS X: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF_Mac.zip
• Windows: http://www.oxeye.se/files/stuff/BIFF.zip

Like the mods for Harvest, this game has been written completely in Lua. This has been an interesting experiment, and feels like an easy and quick way of testing new game ideas. You will probably see more of this from us

Hit the jump for a screenshot from the game…

Read More

It’s 2PM and Jeb and Thewreck are still sleeping, reason?
Yesterday we attended the Swedish Game Awards Grand Finale at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, representing Harvest. By representing I don’t mean just exhibiting the game, I mean social representation too (AKA drinking beer with fellow Indie-spirits discussing Indie-glory).
Great success! If anyone of you ever stop by Skåne, give us a call!

I must say, after having been a bit disappointed by some of the downloadable games at the SGA web site I was pleasantly surprised by this year’s line-up, especially by Blueberry Garden and Swarm!
Hit “Read More” to see the winners and video coverage of the ceremony!
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During the early years of thewreck’s life (yes I know I’m speaking of myself in third person!), he spent most of his time either making games or playing them.

It all stared a time long ago, in the age of the Amstrad. His father had just sold the tape-version in favor of a diskette version! Oh the joy of basic 1.0 – Many text adventures and fake operating systems later thewreck felt ready to take on his first sprites – and on what system you ask?

On the Atari of course! This is where he made his first acquaintance with Clickteam through their game making environment STOS. It came complete with a lovely scripting language and a sprite editor! In it he made many feeble attempts including the legendary ninja game where the shuriken was on the same sprite as the character (what was he thinking really?)…

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In my humble opinion, the best part about working with game development is that it potentially involves many different skills, like programming, sound editing, composing and graphic design.
The downside of this of course being that each branch comes with an expensive license for the application involved.

Or does it?
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I was given the heads-up about an interesting article over at the indie game developer Grey Alien Games. Jake Birkett, who runs Grey Alien, had attended Casuality 2008 in Amsterdam and seen a lecture by Reflexive and Enkord on the topic of making games for passion or for profit.

During the presentation, Reflexive and Enkord explained which of their games were made for passion and which were made for financial reasons (also some were made for both reasons). They showed this on a simple diagram where passion was on the left and financial was on the right. Then, very interestingly, they revealed whether those games were a financial success or not based on if they had made a profit or loss.

Their conclusion was that games made for passion had a better result on average. That feels good, there’s hope in this world after all.

Read the whole article here.

/jeb