Hey Guys!

These past few months have been really really hard, for myself and Gil working on this Soccer game. We both burnt out, especially me, we hit a point where we had just drudged ourselves through this project for too long and hit the end of ourselves and our own capacity.  Today the Lord spoke in several ways to myself.  Firstly through Jonathan Brodmann who is currently doing the music for the soccer game.  Gil met Jonathan at his Church, and it was divine providence which connected them.  Even then I had no idea how good Johathan’s music would be.  Just today Gil sent me the rough draft of the main track for the game and I cannot begin to express how amazing and uplifting this track is, no way in our own capacity could we have found someone, the right person to make a track like this.

Which made me think, in spite of all my incapacities, God is going to move ahead with this game with or without me.  That he is carrying it and not I nor Gil are going to be the ones that see it through, but are simply participants in it.

Can’t say things have been easy, there’s been days which have been big struggles. Myself, Brenton Keegan and Dan Wilkinson have almost finished a casual space game, the deadline is next week.  It’s a really fun game and I believe it’ll do well.  We’ll have spent 4-5 weeks developing it which is a good development time, compared to 18 months for the soccer game.

The Lord is good and He is the one who will carry us through this, and we will bring Glory to Him through testifying of the unbelievably amazingly awesome GREAT things he has done.

God bless!

David

Hey Guys, just letting you know we’re still developing strong. The project we’re working on has so much potential it’s amazing

Please enjoy the first CDN podcast!

And a little fun I got up to the other week

I’m also going to CGDC Winter Retreat 2009.

Thanks for supporting Rebel Planet, and if you haven’t already go and buy Axys!

- David

Here’s an easter egg for you.

Just letting you know, we are still working on a particular unmentioned project (it’s underwraps until it’s polished).  Our active development team at the moment consists of 4 people:

• Gil Ruiz - artist/designer
• Kendall Stump - artist
• David Lancaster - programming
• Peter Churness - webdevelopment/overall genius

Things are moving along really well, Kendall and Gil are great guys to work with.  We’re really putting the quality into this project and it’s a matter of time before release.  We’re aiming for a September-October (I think it’ll take longer).  But release dates are painful and there’s always a good chance I’ll be posting here in 3 months time saying we’re almost done we need more time.  The game is not a Christian game, we’re focusing our efforts to bring in some income to fund what we’d love to do.  We’re all really excited about the game’s potential, it has lots of innovation.  Experience tells us that the feeling of excitement is usually short lived, and the words of Peter Churness ring true:

“The good things that happen (the things that immediately give us a burst of exicitement) are never really that good, and the bad things (the things which make it look like everything’s going to end) are never really that bad.” - Peter Churness (Epicly Awesome Game Developer and pastor)

Simply because the emotion experience is always short lived, the down times and the up.  The journey we are taking is such a long one that the ‘moment’ is not even close to revealing what’s going to happen later down the road.  For us what we do is a journey of faith as every part of our life is just like Abraham.  God has given us no reason to doubt, he’s proven himself time and time again, for all the times we were disappointed and things were bleak, we pressed on and God has been good.  We have our dreams and ambitions but in the end it’s about God fulfilling His purpose in our lives. I’d sure love to make some great games in the process though

David

Hi readers and fans of Rebel Planet, been a while since anyone has posted so I’d like to give you guys an update.

We have been working with Gil and Kendall, two great artists, on various projects. Orion has been put on the backburner as we now attempt to gain the resources we need to complete it. I haven’t touched it in a few months. I can’t say much about the projects we are working on except that we are excited about their potential.

I’ve also been programming a Christian casual game with Brethren Entertainment, it’s been 6 months since I started and it will be finished soon. Will give you more details once it’s available.

David Stevenson the voice director of Axys Adventures and actual voice of Axys (and half of the characters in the game) is now the lead singer of band Manic Bloom, they are just about to release their EP and once they do I’ll fill you in with an interview I’m currently undertaking with David.

The Monster Island game we attempted to make a while back (until we hit yet another dead end), will soon be released free as a proof of concept game as per it’s last state in beta. Peter’s working on the installer so if you’d like to spam the forums asking him to hurry up you’ll get to check it out sooner. It has been a long time since Axys and even though Monster Island isn’t a Christian game we hope it will be a fun and safe alternative for you to enjoy.

Games prototyped since Axys:
Galedor
Orion Version 2
Axys Chaos Trigger
Wicked Mansion
Monster Island
Orion Version 3

The future is quite promising yet unknown, Gil keeps mentioning how he doesn’t know what’s going to happen with everything we are doing, but he knows it will lead to something good. The process has been long, and we’ve gained much experience from it all, hopefully the experience we have now will make whatever we do next a blast! Everything we do is a process, and our uncertainty with the future is similar to your unknown knowledge of the inner workings of Rebel Planet which you now have some more insight on You may or may not be aware but back in August 2007 myself and Peter hit a dead end with everything, and we decided to let go and move on from Rebel Planet. It wasn’t until a few months later when I started working on the Glorious Combat code and met up with Gil and Kendall that many many things began falling into place. It has been a great journey, we’re all excited about everything that has and will happen this year

Thanks for reading and thank you for being a fan of Rebel Planet!

David

 I recently picked up Mario Galaxy and I must say, playing the game was the most enjoyable experience. The music was excellent, the emotional experience drew me in. But of course after I finished the game the excitement wears off and the game becomes just another game in my mind, but it did me justice, the experience was the best. When I play such amazing games I can’t help but ask myself why the experience was so exciting, why it drew me in, why was the game so successful and why do so many people love games like this? I really wish I knew the answer to all these questions so I myself could successfully implement such techniques in my own games, however I’m left with simply analysing what I see and making the best conclusions I can.

The number one thing that annoys me in games is losing. Failure is never a nice feeling and attempting a puzzle/mechanic of the game and continually failing creates frustration and boredom. On the other hand games that are too easy and don’t feel like a challenge, those games I quickly lose interest in. Galaxy was somewhere in the middle of too hard and too easy. As I played through the game I found the game enjoyably challenging, not so difficult I got frustrated but not so easy that I couldn’t enjoy it. There was constantly new content everywhere. It perfectly integrated elements from real life, previous games, great innovative ideas all into one. No level was the same. It seems the levels were designed in such a way to give you something so uniquely new from planet to planet and that kept me playing for more. The moment I got sick of a galaxy it wasn’t long until I could play something new. The most innovative puzzle mechanics were never abused. For example look at the flip switch galaxy, fun mechanic, but I can easily imagine a larger more challenging level based solely on that mechanic however the developers didn’t do that. Flip switches were used later on but they weren’t the central focus of the puzzle. Instead the challenging levels later on in the game still involve innovation and new features whilst combining them with mechanics you’ve already been introduced to. Same with the trial galaxies, manta ray, bubble blowing and ball rolling, the player is given just enough to keep them wanting more. When I play a game and it leaves me wanting more then I believe that game is a success. If you play a game and get so sick of and frustrated with the experience you’re left thinking that you never want to play through that game again, that’s bad. I think it’s easy in any game design to grab hold of the most fun/best features and overuse them, for example repeating the pattern too much or using the pattern in more and more difficult ways. I guess Galaxy achieves the hardest thing to achieve, balance.

Not to mention the perfect polish the game comes with, outstanding level design, perfect implementation of shaders, flawless movement and camera mechanic, a huge amount of immersive and interactive quality (the number of things you can interact with and the way you interact with them is just outstanding). The control mechanic is really easy to get used to and to think of the many ways you can interact with the world just by spinning and jumping. I think it’s near impossible to match a game like this. The amount of time, effort and resources which have gone into each little thing you see in this game would be overwhelming. And the entire effort gone into the game is enjoyed by the millions that play it, and I think the sheer amount of time and resources which have gone into this game is what makes it the best.

Super Luigi Galaxy!

David

Hey ‘yall. I just implemented a blog for our site. This is where our development team will post WIP shots and other updates regarding development - and maybe a game development tutorial now and then too. Feel free to post comments. We’d love to hear your feedback! (so long as its positive feedback, lol j/k)

Peter