This is more of a direct update from yesterday than anything. The conclusion that we, as a team, arrived at is that the animations probably will not be done by 1 person. So, we’re looking for more. I’ve posted an advert on the list that belongs to Craig and have both the artists scouting their perspective schools for talent. Specifically that wild talent that sees things like deadlines as things to conquer.
Hopefully, we’ll get several. Which brings me to the Plan and the title in a way. What I would like, is to have several animators added quickly, and then give them characters to work on. So an individual animator is responsible for individual characters. Basically, since the 6 characters that still need animating are a lot of work for one person, spreading it around would make it more, well, possible for a normal person with normal person things to do. That could work I think.
Now, armed with a plan and waiting patiently for email or phone calls or bat-signals, I can almost, almost breathe again.
The mistake I’ve made, the biggest mistake I think I could have, is assuming that just because I’m on the tail end of my work it does not mean that everybody else is too. I’m reaching the end of over 2 years and 230 posts worth of effort, and I forgot that my Team is desparatley trying to get their 2 years worth done in months. That list over there => is really quite large. Borderline biblical in its proportions. For a game of this type, the kind of game that would’ve once been played on Super Nintendo used to take 2 years and 15 guys. We’re doing it faster with fewer.
The Lesson is this, in games, even indie games, you succeed or fail as a team. We’re not there yet. But when we do succeed, it’ll be a very, very good thing.
I remain confident.
– In other stuff, I’ve made a cut. No matter what the song says, the first cut is not the deepest. The Last Level, has been chopped for IGF. After thinking about it, I’ve decided that it goes with the Wall level, in that it doesn’t make a legitimate addition for either plot purposes or from a gameplay perspective. I really do like the idea of it, so it’s not cut forever. The later HD version will have it too. But we don’t need it right the hells now.
This should also give The Ron some much needed wiggle room for the rest of the art. This cut also puts him at the halfway mark art wise. It also gives me some extra days since I no longer have the build the level I designed. All I have to do is make a small adjustment to a scene for it to work.