Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Final SpaceRocks! update

Yesterday, I decided to stop development on SpaceRocks. I have learned pretty much everything that I can learn from that project, and am at the point of diminishing returns. I implemented nearly every 1.0 feature, and some of the 1.5 features.

The game has definitely been a success for me. I spent less than the target 80 hours in development, and have a playable game (albeit with crappy graphics).

Why is development stopped you ask? I'll tell you.

  1. I really feel like I've learned nearly everything that I can from the game. I'm ready to start on a 3d project, so I can learn the hard stuff.
  2. With the release of the XNA beta, I'm going to start work on a new game, that will be built via XNA, allowing it to run on XBox and PC.
  3. There is no way to monetize SpaceRocks. In addition to being one of hundreds of clones, I'm pretty sure there would be licensing problems if I tried to sell it.
  4. My dad made a request for a game several years ago. Back then, I couldn't conceive of how to build what he was asking for. Yesterday, during the keynote at GameFest, I thought of a game concept that mostly provides what he was asking for, while also having the potential to be a money-maker. At least, a money-maker if you consider that my dev costs should be near zero.

If those aren't enough reasons for you, try to convince me otherwise. As far as I can tell, no one ever actually played the game. I'd be totally willing to open source the project, if any developers are interested in contributing to the game, and building it further.

If you are a developer, and would like to see the source code to the game, just let me know. I'd be happy to provide it to you.

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