Project No More War Angels

By: Derek Yu

On: March 30th, 2007

War Angels, the very promising pseudo-sequel to the classic “Klik” game Factor X, has been canned in favor of something called Project Explosion. That’s right… Project Explosion.

From my experience there is always a point during a long project where development feels more like work than fun. There is always a point where you feel like you could do better if you started over. Why? Because you learn things during development. You grow, you get better, technology gets better… games in general get fancier. It’s inevitable. At that point, you have two options: you can sac up and finish what you started, knowing full well that, even though you’ve made some mistakes, your current game still has a lot of value, or you can give up and start your next game immediately. When you chose the latter option, you tend to rush the development of your next game and put undue pressure on yourself early on because all the time spent on Game #1 is now tacked onto Game #2 before you even start. What are the chances you’re going to finish this game (a bigger, and even more ambitious project), if you couldn’t finish the first one?

Of course, there is always the possibility that you never should have started a project in the first place, that the current project is a hopeless mess, that it’s time to cut your losses. I’m hoping this is one of those cases. But damn did War Angels look fine to me.

Posted in Action, Community, Developers, Previews, Shoot-em-ups, Videos | Tags: Hamish, Moonpod

http://www.arsecast.com DrDerekDoctors

Without wanting to sound like a shit, the ability to finish a project – even when it feels like work more than fun – is what defines a good developer for me. It’s a skill which I still don’t possess in abundance myself, but I’m a lot better at it these days.

That said, if the first project is a completely unworkable mess, sometimes it is best to cut your losses. But with luck you grow as a programmer and you don’t repeat that mistake too often, coding your engine in an open fashion with extensibility in mind.
grumpy

Poor Hamish, having to make games to make money :*(
AngryBeardMan

THIS. IS. STUPID!

*kicks Hamish into a pit*

Just finish War Angels already.
isador21

You fuckin kidding? this is the closest to finished I’ve seen on this page for the past weeks !
plus, looks very playable :3
lexaloffle

First of all: noooooooou!

But, man. This is why I don’t like showing stuff early. The War Angels footage looked beautiful, but may have required only 10% of the game to be completed. Show something like that and before you know it, you have 1000 project managers around the world peering over your shoulder whipsering ‘looks good, let’s ship it!’. With moist lipped clicks.

I completely agree with the sentiments about finishing. The far-away-castle principle that Derek described can be a killer. But so can the fallacy of invested resources – it can take a lot of guts to make the decision either way.

ok, so I just made both of those names of principles up, but you can guess what they mean.

If Hamish wants to knowingly tackle an even larger beast, even though it is likely he’ll be ripped to shreds, then I take my hat off to him. There is no greater burden than a great potential. etc.

But yes, if it’s because of the far-away-castle thing, then shame on you Mr. Hamish No More War Angels. Shaaame!
fartles

Damnit where is the games journalism?! The real news here is the existence of a faindfiles domain, and why the Project Explosion forums are hosted there. Did Hamish and Moonpod have a falling out? Is FAIND coming back? I WANT GOSSIP.
Lorne T Whiting

I was totally wondering that myself, Fartles.
http://26k.org lowpoly

Man, disappointing :/

I guess I have selfish reasons for wanting to see this project come to life, despite having never met nor spoken to Hamish before. Aside from the game looking great and all that, I was always inspired by the project’s development because it seemed like he was on track to do what so many indies, myself included, could not: Finish a game.

I would always say to myself, ‘Damn, War Angels has been in production forever, but at least it’s going to be made.’ It loomed in the back of my mind as a motivational milepost. I guess it will have to exist now as a cautionary tale of over-ambition.
PoV

That’s a real shame. I wonder who was footing the bill for Machinae Supremacy doing the soundtrack. :{
BenH

Now THAT would have been awesome! :(
moi

You must ALWAYS choose to finish your game.
AngryBeardMan

THIS. IS.

…

Yeah, was Moonpod paying him to work on it? I sure hope not. Geez.
Derek

Whether Moonpod was paying him or not, there was a lot of time invested, I’m sure. :(
Blip?

It sucks, but I can’t blame him.

When you’re a very small and independent developer, getting your game out there has gotta be terrifying.

So far, Moonpod has had two big successes. But that is all. Two. They’re still relatively (relatively) new and in the process of gathering customers.

I’m sure he was in constant anxiety knowing that if his game failed, the reputation of Moonpod would fall drastically and they would lose significant business.
Derek

Well, I have to say that the same anxiety will follow him into the next project, if that is the case. Maybe moreso, now that he has dropped War Angels.

Regarding Moonpod’s reputation, War Angels was of a high enough quality to maintain that rep, at least from what I saw. In any case, what’s more important is that Moonpod thought it was good enough, or they wouldn’t have supported him in the first place. Also, Hamish gave no mention of that as being a reason why he decided to move on to a new project.

Btw, Moonpod’s had two big successes. But they’ve also released two games. Pretty good batting average, if you ask me. :)
ZombiePixel

You just know when (if) he releases Project Explosion there’s going to be a flurry of “We lost War Angels for THIS?!”
http://www.josephkingworks.blogspot.com Joseph

Finishing projects is the hardest thing to do, especially if you haven’t completed a project before. Hopefully this one gets done…
negative zero

Wat’s project explosion about?
Blip?

“Once again I was living a lie. It was better than the “I have to go to school and get a job” lie, but it was still a lie and still caused me great difficulty. I did NOT have the skills to make the game I said I was going to make. I toiled away for 2-3 years under immense frustration. I didn’t get much done, but I learnt a hell of alot. After trying everything and anything to save War Angels and get it done, I realised I’d need to start the whole project over if I was to get anywhere with it. The engine needed to be remade, and perhaps the art. So restarting it is what I did, and all was well, at least for a month…”

Sounds like it was scenario #2. At least, from what he said. I’m not entirely sure I buy it.

Still.

I can’t think of anything else to say.
siiseli

yeah it was scenario #2 from what I have understood by our conversations over messenger
Hamish

Hello everyone,
Thanks for your concern. I feel really stupid about it all but I suppose it’s better to admit defeat than to keep pretending everything’s fine.

The main reason it wasn’t working out was even though it looked cool , making any content for the game, levels, enemies stuff like that was a nightmare. The engine was very difficult to work with and graphics took alot of time to get right. It was start again or release a shoddy game that I wasn’t happy with. I’ve looked at it from every angle but what I really had was a game that looked nice and played like shit. So it was definitely scenario #2.

And Derek is a smart guy, I did exactly what he described in his post right there, I’ve realised it now and I’m on the way to finding a game I can make which is both awesome AND finishable.

I paid for Machinae Supremacy myself and their music should be in whatever I make next.

I bought the faindfiles.com domain a while ago and now I use it as my personal webspace, I haven’t had a falling out with Moonpod, infact they’re great about everything and we’d both like to still work together.

I finishing a game is all about finding your motivation really. If you got any more questions feel free to ask them, I think I answered everything there
Hamish

I think I should also emphasize that my forum there is a work in progress forum, I’m experimenting with alot of ideas and didn’t expect it to be used as news. There’s probably alot of info that’s misleading on there right now so I’ll tidy it up a bit.
fartles

You’re the man, Hamish, and I hope Project Explosion turns out as awesome as War Angels looked to be.
Shabadage

Damn it! Oh well, Hamish, you already know I loved WA back when it was the FX2 demo (Flowers and candy!) (Damn, that was a while ago wasn’t it?). Alright, well that eats my net access for the next two weeks; back to the rig I go.
Nathan

Really unfortunate, but very understandable coming from an eerily identical past.

I personally chose to switch fields completely, and am extremely pleased with the choice. Life is much more enjoyable and I feel so much happier.

(If this doesn’t make sense to some of you comment-readers, go check out his post over at the Project Explosion forums)

Game development is fucking tough (I’m sure all of us have spent many years). Making a good game is even tougher. Making money on your game is just more difficulty on the pile.

There are so many more rewarding, easier ways to make a living out there.
Nathan

To each his own though, of course.