Life at an underground game company.
Posts tagged contest
Today’s Updates! As Promised!
01 year ago
by Azrael
in Double Cluepon
Here we go with your promised update report!
Updates on Emerald Kingdom:
We have brought on a new developer. His job will be to work on the Emerald Kingdom client, as well as what we call the StoryTeller tool. To that end, he has been looking through engine code and bringing himself up to speed. We expect a more full report from him at the end of this week sometime. Needless to say, things are picking up. Emerald Kingdom’s artwork has progressed out of concepts into full time modelling. We have begun to build up an asset bank for things as they will appear in the game. Woo Woo!
Updates on WireWorks:
WireWorks entered it’s second Alpha about two weeks ago.We have obliterated most of the more flagrant bugs out there, and we opened the testing pool a bit more. That being said, we are now moving to getting it feature complete so we can move into Beta Testing. When that happens, we will open up the testing to a full invitation only beta, followed by release. So far though, the game is very tight, and very fun to play.
Updates related to the forthcoming webcomic:
As you may, or may not know, we have a webcomic in the works. The initial scripting for the first run of panels has been completed and had it’s revision. We have begun building up an infrastructure for it’s online publishing. Yay for our side! That said, we think it’s heading in the right direction, and should start off with a bang. I personally cannot wait to see the first episode hit! We also finalized some material for what will be a graphic novel at some point down the line.
Oh yeah. We released a contest on Deviant Art today. Check it out!
Ready, Steady, and Go.
02 years ago
Our current queue for character work.
The interesting thing about game development is that you have to develop new techniques to simply manage the sheer volume of things that need to get done, versus the stuff that you want to do. My job, as producer is, as I have said before: coordinate the efforts of everyone toward a common goal. That goal being Emerald Kingdom.
What’s even more interesting, having never produced a game before is that I have no idea how other companies do it. I have to learn and grow as I go along. The learning curve has not been so bad. I am lucky in that my partners are all good people who know when to brush me back, and when to let me dive ahead. I would even go farther than that. All of us have a really good knack at getting along, and working together.
Having never done this before, I find myself looking to outside sources sometimes. The advice of Raph Koster is highly valuable in a certain sense. But then so is some of the ideas of Daniel James, even John Carmack has something to offer Double Cluepon. Even if they are not aware of it, they contribute to the company every day.
Some days, it’s exhausting. Some days, it’s aggravating. Every day, I find something rewarding out of it. It’s not all about the art, last night I made a pass through our back story material for a note spree. We have a round table meeting on Saturday to base line ourselves, and get on the same page. I enjoy getting all of us in the same room to get down to brass tacks. While things are steadily moving forward, when all of us are in the room, you can really feel how fast things are moving. I love that feeling.
Concept Progressions on the wall.
The other day, we released a smattering of artwork. This is stuff we have been working on, however it does not even scratch the surface. The walls of my office are littered with concept art, progressions. Not just our favorite sprites, items, clothing, maps, architecture. You name it, there’s a sample of it.
Some days, the art moves slowly, some days it gets cranked out at light speed. However, the important thing I keep reminding myself is that it’s consistently coming along. That means more than anything. We have a great deal of momentum, and it does not show any signs of slowing.
Every day, I work with the Art Department heavily. Every evening I get into our development wiki to go over things, update pages, review new story/dialog/quest material. It’s a nice workflow for me. I love my job. It’s the best job in the world.
REMINDER: Tomorrow is the last day for our design a beast contest!
CONTEST: Design a monster or beast.
02 years ago
by Azrael
in Emerald Kingdom
Design a Beast Contest.
Now that we here at Double Cluepon have our house in order, we thought it might be time to really start getting you, our faithful watchers involved. To that end, we are announcing our first contest. Let’s be blunt. We are a bunch of talented people. But we cannot come up with everything. Where we fail, you can win.
So, we want you to design a beast or a monster for Emerald Kingdom. You can do a simple sketch/drawing if you want, but that probably wont be used to be honest. Our artist will do the concept of it. What we are really looking for is the following:
- Name of the monster/beast.
- A good description of how it looks.
- A good description of how it attacks.
- Its size.
We really want to see what shakes out here. That being said, while there is no theme for this contest, one of the things that would influence us judges (aside from a crate of liquor or Guinness) would be some kind of mascot character. Ragnarok has it’s porings, Emerald Kingdom has its…?
We will select three winners, based purely on the judging by Double Cluepon Employees. Upon winning, you must be willing to assign all rights to your winning submission. Now, before you get your hair follicles in a knot…here are the prizes:
First Prize: 1 year subscription to Deviant Art, 1st round call for Alpha testing, and of course, your monster/beast will be included in the game.
Second Prize: 6 month subscription to Deviant Art, and of course, your monster/beast will be will be included in the game.
Third Prize: 3 month subscription to Deviant Art, your monster/beast will be will be included in the game.
Okay, here are the rules:
- Contest runs between today, 11/24/2009 and 12/4/2009. The deadline for submissions: 11:30 PM CST on December 4th, 2009.
- Contest is open to anyone, however you must have a DeviantArt account to claim one of the prizes.
- You may submit as many items as you like.
- You may submit drawings, descriptions, even a beast evolutionary history.
- All submissions, while they can be posted to your dA gallery, they must still be emailed to cont...@doublecluepon.com.
- Winners will be determined by the employees of Double Cluepon Software based on detail, articulation, and completeness of the description, as well as any other supporting materials. Winners will be judged at the next Double Cluepon Software employee meeting, on December 5th, 2009 Winners will be announced on December 8th, 2009.
- Any use, re-use or theft of other game property, art, or descriptions which do not belong to you will disqualify you. In other words, if it is not your own original work, you will be disqualified. You may use original work from your past, or do something new. Using someone else’s obscure drawing will be a bad idea.
- Judging of the winners is final.
- You must have a DeviantArt account to claim your prize. Prizes will be awarded once rights transfer has been successfully completed. No cash value equivalent will be issued for subscriptions.
We look forward to seeing interesting entries. We know we have a lot of talented watchers/followers. Here’s to you, and good luck!
