Red Sun Games Self-Kickstarter. Take a look.

  Well, it's finally here, Red Sun Games has started its self-kickstarter. For those who haven't heard of kickstarters please check out  http://www.kickstarter.com/ (brief summary of kickstarter.com. It's a website devoted to allowing people to show off what they are working on, and giving everyone the chance to back projects that interest them. Kickstarter is not an international organization as of yet, and what that means is I can't start this on kickstarters :( 

Anyway back to what's important, the game "Where Are You?" Hopefully it will see the light of day sooner then later, providing that you the people are interested in supporting such a project. Take a look here and better acquaint yourself with the game. 

Now that you've gotten better acquainted take a look at this. http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2012.php?id=514 Where Are You? was in the IGF and though it didn't become a finalist amd gain fame and glory like the other entries have, I want to develop the game nonetheless. For anyone wanting to try before you buy as it were, you can try the demo link over here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

or you can go to http://www.indiedb.com/games/where-are-you 

   

    My goal with this self-kickstarter is to raise $4000. This is to give the game the base funding to get it started and rolling. 

   The game was scheduled to be released back in January but due to production issues and then hardware issues the game was shelved. Now that I have blown off all the dust and looked over the code base, I have deemed this project do able. I will start from scratch with a new clean build of the game and fresh original sprites. Please take the time and watch this video if you are in need of any more information. 

                                         This is a must watch. The Self-Kickstarter Video.

For those wanting to donate here are your donation options:

$5 Gets your name in the credits 

$10 Gets you a drm free version of the game and the above option.

$15 Gets you a you in the game. This means I will make you a civilian npc with your name. Plus all the above options. 

$20 Gets you 2 post cards with original art from the game and all the above options.

$50 Gets you a custom made magnet of one of the in game characters. Plus all of the above options. 

If you are feeling so inclined to donate more please contact me with the amount and I will let you know what your benefit package will be. Also please note that if your backer package includes a physical item i.e. post card or magnet please include $4 more dollars for shipping. 

Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions or comments at jptechgamer@gmail.com

Also if you like this please follow Red Sun Games on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Red-Sun-Games-Studio/215246351828718

Thank you for your time and support. Let's make dreams happen!! 

Do it yourself Kickstarter is on the way.

  Well, after writing my last post no less than 4 hours ago, I've decided to put together my own Kickstarter video to showcase my indie studio, my games and my hopes. Look for the video in the next day or two.

  Games to be talked about will be Where Are You? and the new game Journey To The Center. 

This is for real, and if you are interested in bringing these two games to life please stay tuned.

If reading this post has already gotten you interested in helping out, please by all means donate and your contribution will help, plus if you watch the video and read the next blog post you will find out just what you will receive as a benefactor.  

  

So let's see what's new.

    Lots to do and lots of time to do it in... Wait a minute... Let me say that again. I'm starting a new project and if you've been following my facebook and possible my twitter you might have seen my info on this new project. First of all my first game Where Are You? has been shelved, for the time being, as I've looking at the mountain of work to be done just to the existing code... All I can say is Oh My GOD!! it's horrendous. I also lack a certain expertise in the field of coding to be able to go through and fix everything, because of this I have decided to shelve it for now and come back to it when my coding skills can do it justice. 

   Now you might be asking yourself what am I going to do in the meantime? Well the answer is simple, start a new game. I am currently working on a new title right now. The game itself is still in early stages and I have only had the time to do the animations for the main character. Here are some screens for some movement tests. 

                             As you can see my character resembles a cross between builder bob and Mario.

                                                                   And he falls to his death

   The game is a fairly simple platformer with some minecraft, puzzle, and Mario elements added in.

This games code base is easy for me to work with and I don't have any conflicts with RPG elements, like I had with Where Are You? With this game I will be taking it slow and working very carefully on all the elements of the game. I want to put out a game that looks good, but also plays good. I will be making a new indieDB profile for this game and I will be posting pictures and updates there, and of course here as well. 

  

In other news I am planning on building a sound recording room for recording the narration, dialog and sound effects for the game. This will be a fairly simple process and after reading about the closet adventures of the Bastion sound producer I thought about doing a similar thing, but since I do not have a large enough closet for recording purposes I have decided to build a budget sound room. 

The last piece of news was my disappointment that Kickstarter.com does not host international projects that are not based in the US. What I was happy to find out was Kickstarter will open their site up to international projects later this year. 

Well that's all for the updates from me. I will be keeping the blog more up to date on this, and other projects that are in the pipeline.

 Bye for now.

Checkout my new Blog

Checkout Life on the Rim a new blog about the stories of Eric the Red a Nord with a destiny.
 http://storiesfromtherim.blogspot.com/

Bite the bullet in more then one way.

   Well I have been fighting eye strain for the past while, as I posted in my last update. Today I decided to bite the bullet and start up work again on the game. So I worked for about an hour on the game and find two problems, the first being what I knew already. My eyes became sore, irritated, and difficult to focus. OK so that puts me KO for games work today. After realizing that the pain behind my eyes had turned into a full blown migraine, I took two Bufferin (Japanese equivalent of Aspirin). Still got my migraine, but it has been kind to me while I type this.
   My second problem came while I was working on the game. So before I tell you what the problem is I will tell you a little story.
   Back in August when I first starting thinking of building games, with the new found knowledge that I had learned, I stumbled upon the IGF contest and thought "hey I want to try and enter that" so I asked my wife if it would be OK to work night and day on an entry. She said that would be OK. So from the last week of August till October 17th I worked night and day to produce a demo for my entry. During that time I was struggling with the games concepts and mechanics, it was a huge undertaking. I AM BUT ONE MAN, scaling a mountain.
   During production I ran into several problems and coding issues. Sometimes things never worked right and sometimes things got broken when new things were added. Well due to the deadline and my fear that I would never be able to make the cut off date, I cut corners, bypassed code, and cut out important features of the game that would be beneficial now.
   Fast forward back to today, when running some tests and organizing the new content for the game. Those overlooked and bypassed part of the games code have come back to bite me in the ass. After figuring that I need to fix them, and then trying to fix them. Have determined that in my hast to produce the games demo, and bypassing too many things, if I fix those problems, I will create a domino effect with several other systems.
   I have foolishly integrated the problems into the games so much so, that if I fix them it will break the game. The only way to fix this problem without having to spend hours upon hours of code hunting for the new problems. I have decided to do a clean build of the open world elements of the game. (These being the only parts that were having issues during production) I will rewrite all the code for these parts and then integrate the platforming elements and stitch them in so that everything works perfectly. If all goes well I should have access the features and elements that I damaged back in early production, such as controller controls for the game. This just keeps getting better and better.

What's Next?!

  For the past 5 months I've been working hard on the production of the game. But all that has been brought to a grinding halt because of 2 different things. First, I had a computer failure, that I was spending the time to repair, during that time I was not using the PC for no more then 2 hours a day. When I had finished to repair my work station computer, I was so happy and started working on the new content of the game, I also  indulged in some gaming. To my dismay I discovered a new problem.
  Over the course of the last 5 months I had been getting headaches, sharp pains behind my eyes, sore shoulders and back. I didn't know what exactly was causing this, I believed that it was due to over working at the schools and the very dry environment that I'd been working in. This only turned out to be part of the slightly larger problem. I was dragging my eyes through the dirt, I was spending hour upon hour working on a computer, without any rest. I have subsequently developed a sensitivity to the glare and constant shifting from screen to documents and screen to environments. Now I can barely spend 2 hours straight looking at a screen without feeling a headache and or a sharp pain behind my eyes. 
  I noticed this during the time when my computer was offline, and when the computer was back up and running, so was my headaches and problems. So as I said in the beginning of this post I have brought my production to a grinding halt. That is until I get a pair of computer glasses. I am currently searching for the best pair that suits me. I've checked my vision, and I do not have near or far sightedness. I just need glasses to use the computer. I do not wish to get Glaucoma, so I will do everything I can to prevent that from happening. Game production will continue after acquiring my new glasses.
  Game release date will now be moved to TBA(To Be Announced) I can not say exactly when release will be. I am but one man carving away at a mountain. So it will be finished when its finished. For sure in 2012.

Hard Start To 2012 and A Long Road Ahead

    Well, on January 10th the nominees were announced for the IGF. Sadly though, Where Are You? was not selected. For me this was OK, as the game is no wheres near ready to be shown to the public as a fully functional game. Also to keep in mind that the games, alpha and IGF demo builders were conceived, and created in under 3 months. That was a big accomplishment me. I will try again next year and see what happens. Developing games is a long, stressful and for the most part enjoyable job. I will continue to develop Where Are You? and work on my secret project on the side.
   I  must also say congratulations to Tom Francis creator of Gunpoint  http://www.gunpointgame.com/ and Kan Gou creator of To The Moon http://freebirdgames.com/to_the_moon/ for their nominations in the IGF. Good Luck to them.
   In other news, I am sorry to report that Where Are You? Episode1 will not be released this month. Development of the game was going along as scheduled, until I hit a wall. A week and a half ago while compiling the games data a total system failure occurred. Apparently the water cooler that was cooling my CPU had a faulty seal on the water cooler block. This seal failed when the CPU heavy task of compiling was started, causing the closed water cooling system to leak onto the CPU and Mobo. This in turn fried the CPU, and Mobo. I then set out to replace the 2 parts. After getting replacement parts and finally changing everything out, another problem presented itself, the computer wont post.... $(^% So now I am in the process of solving this other problem.
You may be wondering what this has to do with the game, well this has everything to do with the game. My latest build of the games continuing levels are saved on the systems hard drives and because of the failure happening during compiling, I am yet to know the damage that may have been done to the games data. So needless to say I am a little worried about the state of the game.
   At the very least the game will be released mid to late February... I hope. Well I must return to my teaching, I carry the weight of 3 jobs plus a family. Until next post.