Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!cbmvax!jesup From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer Subject: Re: Mike Farren Tutorial. Message-ID: <20192@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 29 Mar 91 00:39:30 GMT References: <1991Mar24.204206.11145@starnet.uucp> <23835@well.sf.ca.us> <20148@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1991Mar27.065420.16067@starnet.uucp> Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Distribution: comp Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 64 In article <1991Mar27.065420.16067@starnet.uucp> sschaem@starnet.uucp (Stephan Schaem) writes: > > Nope not 5 years.A year and a half (but 4 people working on it). > Simply some people like chalenging project. If you're being a professional then this must be balanced against the expected revenue stream. > Also what do you do when you need tools that dont exist! > You create them.That take time if you want to do it right. > I would say if we ended up with a game like any other something > would have went wrong... One advantage of tools: you can use them again for the next game. > And what do you know about the project to think it could have been > done faster in C? Many studies have shown that programmers can write about the same number of lines of code per day no matter what the language (debugged lines). So in C it would probably be done sooner, though it would be larger or slower or both (but in many cases that doesn't matter, or you can mix them and do parts in asm). In some cases, pure ASM makes sense (and perhaps in your case). > But its true that was exesive and we will never do such project > complex project again! The only thing we got out of making such > a game is lost of money, but people told us Amiga games sold very > well and we beleived it... Thats why we thought it would pay to > investe so mutch in a game. You should have determined (a) how much work it would take to complete the project, (b) what it would sell for, (c) who would be likely to sell it for you, and how much in royalties you would get. You should have done all those things BEFORE getting far into the project. I vague "amiga games sell well" is a very chancy thing to invest 6 man-years in - a bad business decision. It may be that you should have cut down the project initially to 2 or 3 man-years (at least for the first version), and plan a sequel to be more complex if the first one succeeds. > And now I know why the majority are not interested in producing > quality amiga games. You need to be more than a hot programmer. You need to be a good designer (and they ARE separate skills, and very few people are excellent at both). You need to be a good businessman (or have one in the company). You may need a good artist (another skill). It sounds like you're missing the businessman (one reason why 9 out of 10 new businesses fail in their fist 5 years). I don't know about the others without seeing your game. I advise you go to the next Computer Game Design Conference (one just ended). They're held in (I think) San Jose each year, sponsered/started by the Journal of Computer Game Design (note: this is NOT a journal about game programming, but about game design - what the game _is_, not how it's done - Lemmings does very well in the design department). -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult." (From "The Zen of Programming") ;-)