Burning Ambition Part 10: The dream becomes a bit more real with a working demo

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Burning Ambition Part 10: The dream becomes a bit more real with a working demo

by Christopher Buckner on Apr 30, 2008 at 10:00 AM

burning man studios After months of talking, debating writing, art and music production and numerous people coming and going, we have finally come to the early stage of our first working demo.

The journey of getting to a demo phase is a long and difficult one and there is still so much more for us to do. Even so, if your company manages to get to this stage, then you have been doing most things right.

By now you should have a core team, all of whom you will more then likely count as friends. But while a lot of work has gone into getting to the point of demo production, it strangely comes down to a few people who have any real say on the actual demo production.

As we at Burning Man Studios learned early on, without a firm grip on management and production leads, you won’t really be able to settle on any production path or be able to decide exactly what will (and won’t) make it into a demo. As BMS was still working on Ruthless Earth, every team member had a say in what was going into the game. Things were chaotic and very frustrating needless to say. Even at the early stage of demo construction with Conquest of Heroes, only a tinny handful of people have any say.

While any independent company should always focus on finding the best people to develop their game, finding a good level designer should now be on the top of your list. A good level designer has to be able to walk two lines. One, he or she must be able to understand the artistic and story driven needs of the lead designer. Two, the level designer must also understand the technical needs of the programmer and the available technologies you may or may not have at your disposal.

With the demo of Conquest of Heroes, I (as the lead designer) was faced with where the demo events should take place and what should happen. There are so many possibilities to choose from.

Ultimately, I decided on setting the demo in New York City, as this is a location that can be instantly recognized by anyone around the world at first glance. New York also plays a key role in the overall story and, in more recent history, seeing the city in ruin and chaos brings an emotional response from viewers. All of these are key when you are thinking about your demo, but it is also important to know that a demo is just as its name implies.

A demo normally will not (or shouldn’t) represent the end of your production. Instead, it should be a representation of your game’s overall goals and outcome. In many respects, the development of a demo will take twice as long as working on two or three game levels for the full production of your title.

As work has begun on our demo for Conquest of Heroes, it has been important to allow the level designer the freedom to work out all the possible events and outcomes that might happen inside the demo. However, it is key to make sure that your level designer is a realist and is able to take direction wells. It can be easy to loose track of what you want to happen and what can really happen within the game. We story and art designers tend to demand our cake and eat it too, even if it isn’t quite possible.

When any independent development company reaches this stage of production, you should definitely know which game engine you will be developing on. You might think this is a easy decision at first as there are hundreds of free, cheap and capable engines out there to choose from. But the main problem is finding both a engine that is not only easy for our programmers and level designer to work with, but also filled our demand for high-end graphics.

After going through the Torque Advance, Source Engine and talking to a number of fellow developers, none of these really met either my or Steven’s vision for Conquest of Heroes. We ultimate decided to follow the trend that seems to be happening now in large-scale game production, and that is developing Conquest of Heroes with Epic’s Unreal Engine 3.

I can’t and won’t go into all the legal issues about using the Unreal Engine 3, but if you are serious about using it for your own game productions, then by all means, go for it.

The Unreal Engine may meet all our basic needs, but that isn’t to say it hasn’t left a few unanswered questions, namely how it works being used as a MMO engine. Again, this is where having a realistic level designer comes in handy, as they must be able to determine the capabilities and limitations of the engine and, if possible, how to break those barriers.

A working demo is really the last great milestone for any independent developer to reach before they know whether or not they are ready to move into the most difficult and trying process of making it in the video game industry - full production.

A demo will mean many things to the people who have put months of blood, sweat, tears and money into production. If pulled off, it will certainly open a few doors for the independent developer as well as more challenges to overcome. While we at Burning Man Studios are ready for those next challenges, it isn’t to say that we don’t still recognize there are difficulties that lie ahead that might sink this adventure we call independent game development. Nevertheless, it is how you as a person and team face what lies ahead that will define your game and company.

With the closing of this series, I wish all you dreamers and visionaries the best of luck with your endeavors. It is the pioneering spirit and determination to face all the challenges ahead on that will insure that your indie company becomes a force to be reckoned with.

Read all 10 weeks of “Burning Ambition: How to make your mark on the videogame industry:”