Unlike most professional games we started this one with only a vague idea of what the setting and the story would be. Trying to decide it before even getting a feel for the game is very hard because if you spend too much time on it, then it’s very hard to change later on. So therefor I like to work with iterations, making the game look better bit by bit. This way I can test out different ideas and see what works best.
This is one of the luxuries of indie development I think. Doing a lot of experiments and knowing that you can change your mind as often as you’d like. Of course we try to not just keep changing because we can, but it’s nice to know that the option is there if we need it. We try to work with deadlines to not fall for the desire to change it AGAIN but sometimes it’s really worth it. Take a look at our initial look and then compare it to our latest screenshot:
Here’s a little video showing our editor tool that lets us switch between different map skins. Right now we only have the old one and the new ‘portal’ skin. We called it portal because we were hoping to go for the same sterile look. ( Don’t mind the UI of the editor please, we’re working on it :)
I’m aware that it’s much easier to work like this when you’re a small developer, because it would cost a lot of money to do this in an AAA environment. So not everyone can afford that, but there are SOME who do. And one of those studios that actually can is Blizzard, perhaps that’s why their games always look so incredibly polished. Check out this video of how StarCraft 2 looked in the beginning. ( I do not mean the first couple of builds in the video, those were just very early builds. I’d like to point out the builds towards the end, where the game looks pretty much done, but they still took their sweet time to make it perfect.)
While the art in the second iteration certainly fits the theme of a robot more, the first theme is definitely still good!
Definitely true about the quick iteration times. I think anyone who wants to learn programming should start of with quick iteration projects, similar to what you've been doing here.
As an exercise the company I work for took a one week break from normal activity and had each programmer work on starting and finishing a project with artists in support. I suggest others try this exercise. Make sure to actually publish at the end of the week, that's one of the most important parts!
I like the old one more :(