After six months of developing BlitzBotz, I have decided to cancel the game. I work alone, and as much fun as this game has been to make, I cannot ignore the fact that I want to continue to work alone, and this is not the type of game that a single person can operate. BlitzBotz will remain a proof-of-concept, and I will turn my attention towards my dream game, which is a free-to-play 4X/RTS hybrid.
The beautiful thing about being an Indie developer is that you get to work on whatever the hell you want to. I have no publisher, or anyone else for that matter, telling me what needs to be done and when. Nobody else has invested their time or money into this game, and for me to continue working on it would be taking my attention away from the game I really want to make, and more importantly, to play. I have been a freelance programmer for over a decade, the vast majority of my time working on web-sites that use asynchronous data calls to update web pages in real-time without the need for a page refresh. I have become a veteran at a long list of programming languages, most of which I will probably never use again. I have done all this for 10+ years with the hope that one day I would possess the skills required to create the games that I want to play, and with a little luck, have a bit of success while doing it. To continue working on BlitzBotz at this point would be akin to lying to myself, and sacrificing everything I've done up to this point to finish a game for the sole purpose of proving to myself that I can. And as the saying goes, pride goeth before the fall.
Admittedly, there was a lot of hesitation in coming to this decision. I was concerned mostly with the idea that I had done all this work for nothing, and I cannot stand the idea of giving up on anything. There is no doubt whatsoever that the creation of this game over the last several months has made me a better programmer, and I now feel at home working with both Unity3D and SmartFox. I will take what I have learned and apply it to a game that, when completed, I will want to continue working on and playing. The game is open-ended, meaning that there is no end-game, which will provide me with the ability to continue creating new content for it over and over again, and do so solo.
My apologies to anyone who was looking forward to playing BlitzBotz, but trust me when I tell you that all of the elements weren't there. It was a good concept, an incredibly fun project, but that is as much as it will ever be. I will chalk this up to a learning experience, and a chance to get even more time with these softwares under my belt, and will move on to what I consider better things. And as arrogant as it may sound, when it comes to the games I create, and the games I sacrifice my time and money to create, my opinion is the one that matters. My heart isn't in it anymore, and I will take my own advice that I recently gave in these forums back in early July...
'...Last but not least, don't feel guilty from walking away from a project altogether. It is, after all, your time and effort you are spending, and you should be spending it on what makes you happy (corny, I know, but still true).'
Thank you to everyone for your support, and I hope you do not hold this against me in the long run. I promise you that if I continued working on this game knowing that it was not the project I wanted to work on, the game would have suffered for it. And in the end, this 4X/RTS hybrid will be that much better for the work I put into, and the knowledge I gained from, BlitzBotz.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to programming a vast, persistent universe that players will be able to conquer one piece at a time. Today, this galaxy; tomorrow, the universe!
