Hi all,
This post will be rather long. So please do excuse!
I typed up a little text just now, explaining how my current project, ScapeSkate, came to mind. Now since this doesn't have much directly related to gaming, I thought it'd fit here the best.
I tried to keep it as less geeky as I could. Why did I? Well, maybe someone is interested how things worked behind the scenes. And, I'm not done with the game yet!
How ScapeSkate came to mind
It's pretty unspectacular. So I was bored on some afternoon, if I'm not mistaken it was a tuesday. I went through my sound
folder, actually searching up sounds for one of my projects in progress, when I came across some pretty cool skating
sounds.
I listened to them for a while and imagined: "What if I were to take them and..." By that time, I had a temp folder already
created. "... make it into an Audiogame?" after that question, the sounds were neatly organized into folders, so I could
work better with them later.
Then I sat back. The chair squeaked loudly as I began thinking, interupting my thoughts for a moment. A door slammed, and
that's how the ideas came into my head. Falling right into the house with the door.
I wasn't going to go too spectacular. I had complex 3D scenes in my head, but then my other projects cried out my name.
After each became a hug and a sudden close of EdSharp windows, I had the code for the game open. But then, how to start?
With thinking. What did I need? Sound library! So, promptly, a PureAudio.dll joined the folder. What else? I gave good old
User32 a call over there, asking it to do some key handling for me. It said with proper payback, it would. So, after I got
that out of the way...
All the internal stuff started to happen. I began writing and writing...
I didn't have much in mind at first. I changed my mind about a dozen times, until I had a first, somewhat playable version
ready. It was pretty horrible, but I decided to post it anyway.
I had many ideas. The walls had been rewritten maybe 3 times since I didn't like how they came out, the sounds had been
re-done about 2 times as well.
I spent about 3 hours perfecting... Ahem, making it playable for someone.
So I gave it out to private testers. So private that I'll just name their names as Bob, Jake and... Carl? Sounds good.
Actually it was Pitermach, Robjoy or Erion or Rob, and Aaron, but whatever.
They liked it, so a first beta went out to AudioGames.net. Now since I'm not subscribed to Audyssey and hardly ever check
Klango, neither of them had a message from me, I just hoped someone would mention it.
Then, a day later, I was talking to Peter via IM. I have no idea why, but I tried to fool him into thinking I got into a
car crash... Neh, that didn't work out too well. He just knows me too good. 
I just did that to pass time while I was writing on the next beta. Then, suddenly, Lirin, or Tom, began to message me. I
was like "Whoa dude! He likes the game!" to myself. He messaging me was probably the best thing that could have ever
happened to the game.
We ended up talking alot. He gave suggestions, I began implementing them. It was him who motivated me enough to make the
second beta and publish it.
Thanks to the critisizm on the forum, I had nightmares about riding a skateboard around the town, drawing an MP5 and
generally pwning everyone.
I was happy to wake up to... A very cold morning. I just knew I'd do something huge that day...
After recovering from a hangover by not drinking, and a very odd IM conversation with Erion (Robjoy on here, but you can't
stop me calling him Erion!), I thought I'd get back to work, when I got messaged by Lirin. He offered to record the self-
voicing parts of the game. I was like "Dude! No way!" and he was like "Sure dude" and I was like "Awesome man!" and he was
like... You get the idea.
I typed more code. And code, and code, and code... Until Lirin, after about just some hours, said "Dude I'm done!" and I was like "Dude! No way!" and he was like "Sure dude!" and I was like... You get the idea.
So a bit later, I had my speak functions all set and ready. With a flick of my dragony tail I put the sounds into their place, and waahaa! After just a minute of code, it worked.
I rested my paws for a little, and thinked more. Then I wrapped up the game, and magically dropped it into the Box of Beta 3. And this is what you've got now!
The game is much more developed than I had ever thought it to be. And hopefully, this is what will get me somewhat known and at least give me some reputation in the audio game world.
I can claimb myself a pretty horrible game designer, I think. Most of my games imho are a mistake to me somehow. But this one may be one of my jewls I will keep in my cave. And I'll share it with you!
