One of the first things I learned about the production of video games was that, while the game itself is important, one of the more important parts of creating game content are the tools used behind the scenes.

The first ever thing built in StoryTeller. Ugly but beautiful. Note the Junkworks Building!

Early on, we recognized that content creation was going to be 50% of Emerald Kingdom. Possibly more, so while we were writing specs for Emerald Kingdom, it emerged that we were going to need some rather robust tools to create the world for the game. It was out of this discovery, that StoryTeller was born. StoryTeller has been in active code development now for what amounts to no more than a week, in terms of work done. That being said, we had to get some specifications down on paper (or in our case, a wiki) and then our new software engineer, Zach took to it. After a flurry of work yesterday, we have object placement working so far. It’s terribly rough, and it’s highly crude. The interface can be uglier than a blind date.

So with that said, in the span of about 40 hours, StoryTeller has:

  • Zoom In/Zoom Out.
  • Drag
  • Grid selection
  • Tile selection
  • Tile Paint/Delete
  • Object placement
  • Asset drawers (where we keep things we want to use for building)
  • XML File loading.
  • Adding assets (tiles, objects)
  • All kinds of other stuff, some working, some not.

All in all, not a bad job for the small amount of time it’s been actively worked on. The overriding specification for StoryTeller is this: creative people should not have to talk to a code developer to implement their art or vision. That goes for the people who draw (the artists) to the people who write (the writers, and quest developers) right down to the producer (the person who oversees, and maintains the vision of the finished product). A good tool should enable, not obfuscate. Simply put, when StoryTeller reaches a stable point, where it becomes useful on a full time basis, Emerald Kingdom’s world will begin construction. With the way we have done the specs for StoryTeller, building Emerald Kingdom will not take long. Why you ask?

Because while Zach is working on StoryTeller, and Doug is working on the back end of things…

Amy and the Art Department are creating model sheets.

Thynity, drilled down from a concept, into a model sheet.

From those model sheets, she has been putting together the assembly line for animating everything from Gremmies to Sprites. Clothing, Items…even Buildings, as you can see from the above picture.  We are also adding another artist in the next week or so, to aid and speed up this process. (Wheee, Double Cluepon will be 6 people!)

While that is going on, story material is still being produced and edited. The Web Comic is being moved forward.

In short order: by the time StoryTeller gets to a usable point, which is not too far in the future…we will be ready, and we will have the supplies we need to paint the world. I have found that working in game development is not unlike cooking: there is an art to preparing all of your ingredients so things are all done in the proper order, so you can then assemble the dish.

WireWorks .85 Alpha. Note the updated menu.

Let’s also not forget WireWorks! WireWorks is approaching Beta. Sound has been plugged in, as well as numerous other planned features. One of the newer features added is a selector which will allow you to go up and down in the level ladder by 5 level increments. All of the menu functions have been enabled, and as I said previously, the sound is there. Sound is currently being tweaked. In addition to that, we will be updating the menu screen once more, to add a mute button for music. While we happen to think the music is great, and not in any way overbearing, some folks just don’t care for background music. We strongly believe in options, so one more menu board revision!

One of the more interesting features to have been added to the main playfield thus far is the “fuse” or timer/ticker. You can see it in the next shot.

The "fuse" timer bars, which tick down the time till the gel starts a flowin!

We had always planned for a good and intuitive timer in the upper left hand box. It’s finally been implemented, and works quite well. Note the three node board. Things start to get tricky with three nodes. At that, the version of WireWorks which will be in Emerald Kingdom will have high level 4 Node Boards! (Red, Green, Blue and Yellow) Nonetheless, the game play and timers are still being tweaked a bit more. Once WireWorks hits beta, we will be opening up the testing pool a bit more. We will be starting with people who have signed up for our mailing list. Random folks will be getting Beta invites for testing WireWorks. We’re betting the beta testers will have a great time playing.

Wheee, Elphie teaches you the ropes.

Speaking of playing, the other thing which has been implemented, is the “How to Play” tutorial. Elphie in all her glory. While the actual dialog is something that is not set in concrete yet, the routine for it is. We will be tightening up the how to play, with all the needed details and proper grammar over the next few days.

We can’t have Elphie acting illiterate! We know for a fact that hooked on phonics worked for her.

That’s about it. In wrapping up, we have not dieded. We’re all just busy busy busy. Making stuffs. For you. =)

Ja Mata!