1998
Diary
First
Quarter 1998
Doom and gloom from Amiga. No one much excited about developing
for the Amiga any more. Hard to hire people. Group now consists
of myself, Liz, Rick, Ben and Ruben. Ruben is our musician and
is working on the CD music.
Had
idea for some sort of surround sound type audio engine using
the 4 channels of Paula. Spent 2 weeks testing the idea and
asking friends about coding practices for trig to calculate
the position of the sounds on the map.
Found
major bug in engine. REWRITE NEEDED! This is bad and will take
1-2 months. Falling behind deadline for Sadeness but nothing
can be done.
Hired
new graphics people, 2 map and 2 3D modellers. Work resumes
on Dafel. There are now 9 of us working flat out of Bloodline.
Third
Quarter 1998
Converted core engine to C++ in a few weeks. Liz has spent ages
doing this and was disapointed to see that speed was even slower
in AGA! We are all feeling a bit depressed and no one really
has hope for Amiga after all the troubles. Hard to motivate
myself and others at the moment. Deadline's come and gone, new
deadlines set.
Hired
new Blitz coder! Paul West has offered to write for us a c2p
library. In 2 weeks we had a working core engine using his specially
made Blitz library Mildred.
3
weeks later and engine now fully working in c2p mode! We're
getting 27fps on 030/50 AGA in 256 colours! We've had to slow
the engine down to get a realistic speed for Dafel to walk in!
New
bandwidth in speed has opened up a whole new array of visual
ideas. We've added real-time snow flakes to the snow level.
It looks really impressive. Over cool effects we have added
are real-time shadows cast by characters. Actual shadows are
cast over map graphics and blend to a dark or light shade of
grey. We're adding rain to the Swamp level, a variation on the
snow. Snow can also fall in different ways and can change at
any time to suddenly swirl one way or another. It looks really
realistic and with the added sound effects really adds atmosphere.
Recoded
AI engine. Now faster and more intelligent. Added super and
sub class AI for characters. Some good attributes like sight,
sound, smell and intelligence added. Also created 3 super classes
of rogues; very fight alone, clans; they fight as groups or
against other groups, and, ambush's; very lay in wait and attack
when you get too close.
Music
from Ruben is really good! Will add lots of atmosphere to some
levels! Thinking about using spooled CD sound effects as well
as the FSG sound effects.
Forth
Quarter 1998
Bad news. Lots of developers and publishers leaving Amiga market
and just giving up, Sadeness amongst them. We no longer have
a publisher and everyone is feeling low.
3D
modeller has left the group, will need to find another soon
if possible. Only the hard core developers are left now in the
Amiga arena and they are hard to convince to work on a commercial
project.
Moral
very low, work slow coming in. Decided to cut down design to
help increase development speed. Bloodline is a huge game its
unrealistic to get it completed with all the ideas I want so
back to the shareware idea we originally had.
1999
Diary
Third
Quarter 1999
WoA99. Contacted Andrew Korn, got ourselves a stand in the "basement"
:) Last change to sell Bloodline and our other projects (MagicK
and Scavengers). Created a press pack to hand out to publishers.
WoA
went well. Epic to the rescue! We were quite pessimistic about
being at WoA, not sure what would happen but Epic has given
us our confidence back and we signed a 3 year deal with them
to publish everything we make or convert. At least there is
some commercial life left.
Deadline
is tight for Bloodline completion and will need to hire more
graphical people.
Fourth
Quarter 1999
Trying to find graphical people who best match the style of
our main map designer. It's a hard process and find people is
hard these days in the dwindling Amiga development scene. Quality
is varied, but there are still enthusiastic people out here
like us which is great to see!
Amiga
future looks bright again under Gateway. This QNX row is a pain,
talked to their coders at WoA who seemed interested in our views.
It's
hard to develop for a phantom machine so how can we support
future Amiga's and their markets? Epic have some great ideas
and we are more then happy to follow them. Gateway seem vague
and after recent events we're not saying anything for sure until
we see *something*. All bark not bite from Gateway at the moment.
Found
new map graphics guy. Working with current map designer, new
levels started finally! A lot of things have fallen into place
at the same time that has picked up development for the graphics
team!
Gateway
failing to convince anyone. Everyone unhappy. Liz has decided
enough is enough and we've lost our main coder. Future for Bloodline
looks bleak until new coder is found. Good point is that code
is 70% complete so a conversion should be easy enough.
2000
Diary
First
Quarter 2000
Hired C++ coder! Liz in contact with new coder in conversion
process. Liz is sad that she is leaving the Amiga market but
most now concentrate on her full time job that actually earns
her money! It's easy to forget for a development group like
our own, development becomes harder when you have other commitments.
Most of the reasons why people leave groups like our own is
because we are only a part-time job in a way. There is no money
in the Amiga to hire an office and people to work in it. Its
hard, and its depressing at times, but why do we carry on? Probably
because it's a challenge and that's what we all like!
Second
Quarter 2000
Epic deadline hard to meet with new coder and C++ engine. Reason
for switching from Blitz to C was because we could not find
any good Blitz coders.
C++
coder has left. Too much work for little time remaining, now
left with 30% complete C engine and 70% complete Blitz engine.
Stuck for what to do next!
By
luck, received an e-mail from Blitz coder asking if he could
do some work. To his probably surprise I offered him to complete
the work on Blitz engine. I know of the coder and have seen
some of his work previously so I know he is capable of doing
it.
New
Blitz coder (Peter Thor), has rebuilt the engine in a matter
of weeks and recoded some of the graphical routines. We're now
getting 60fps on RTG/AGA. Original RTG code is broken. New one
in development.
Huge
increase in map development! Our main map designer was looking
for a workplacement in the UK. I managed to secure him a place
where I work. Every evening and weekend for the next 5 weeks,
he was chained to my desk doing map graphics. All 5 levels now
complete graphics wise. Some little bits need adding and finishing
but those tasks are small.
Using
the 3D modellers from MagicK and Scavengers to work on Bloodline
:)
Hired
a new 3D modeller!
Third
Quarter 2000
Finally 3D models are coming in! 50% of models rendered for
complete game in about 60 days. Another 60 or more days needed
at most to complete the rest of them. There are 5 people working
in 3D modelling and rendering! Production is excellent and along
with the map graphics, a release date is looking realistic again!
In the last 3 months we've done more work on gfx than in the
last 2 years! The right people are working on the project now
and everyone has gelled together all with the same purpose of
completing the game. 12 people are now actively working on Bloodline.
Each day brings us closer to a release date.
RTG
code working again! Soon I will be able to scrap my TV output
and return to my BVision output!
Working
on data structures for game which drives the various engine
modules such as AI, level loading, player attributes, level
enemy attributes and puzzles. Bloodline is a non-linear game
so the data structures need to be strict and yet generic to
work for all levels. Its hard to do but is liberating as its
finalising the 5th rewrite of the design!
A
lot has been cut out of the design but it has made the game
much leaner and compact than before. Release is more realistic
with minimal amount of quality removed. There is a method in
the group now that can adapt straight away to the need of the
every changing design process to match deadlines.
Release
estimated sometime in the fourth quarter 2000.
-
Jace Hayman 24th July 2000.
