Hello everyone! Another week, and another step toward the end of the development trail. I have been very busy and everything is coming together very well. It is a very humbling and enjoyable experience to watch your ideas come to life. Developing this game has been a very interesting experience filled with a lot of stress, pressure, reward, excitement and exhilaration. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. However, now I will share the plans for this week. I will also give a release window.
Last week I started fleshing out the manufacturing process and it is almost complete. Before I talk about what was achieved, I want to use this week to fine tune some of those things. During these Monday Update blogs, I am quick to share things about what I am putting into the game before I really had a chance to do multiple passes on how it will work in the final game. One example is how marketing employees will work. Before I said that they all count toward the department as a whole, but now with careful consideration, each marketing employee’s skills get applied to a specific project. So yes, marketing employees have to be assigned to a marketing project just like engineers have to be assigned to a product that is being created. This will afford the player more options and control over their decision. So instead of hiring employees to add to the effectiveness from a department (Macro) perspective, I am allowing each employee to be self-contained, yet team oriented. So as you can imagine, you assign teams to projects, not just one employee (unless they are the only one you have available).
In this game, as I have mentioned before, I want to hand full control over to the player. As you might guess, that has brought about some interesting challenges. As it pertains to the manufacturing process, I want to talk a bit about those challenges, although I have solved just about all of them and I am also working on more areas that I will continue to refine. In the game, you will be able to choose where you market to and where you ship those products to. All of this will be your decision to make. So from how many total units to mass produce to where each one goes, will be all up to you. So this means that you can literally make some interesting choices that can have far reaching consequences. Do you have enough money to ship to every location you’ve marketed to? So, this means you might want to make sure that you market to places that you can service right away. Although it seems like a small thing, the game does not hold your hand throughout this process at the moment. However, I am planning on adding an option for the player in case they want a little more of a guided experience. However, for me, capturing the essence of being in control of everything is important while making sure to not swamp the player in micromanagement. Although the game lends itself a bit to micromanaging, I want to make sure there are options for players that don’t really want such a hands-on experience. That will be challenging given the nature of this game, but it is something I am aspiring to. So as a result, I consider this a challenge, but one I am excited to resolve. So this week, I will continue to focus on the marketing and manufacturing side of things. This is one part of the game that will warrant two weeks of pure focus.
So here we are moving fairly fast toward the release of the game. Given my current forecasting, I am targeting this year as the release date. Hovering somewhere between June and October as the release date. I know it’s not a more refined date, but given that I am really the main programmer/designer for this specific game, I have to give myself a bit of breathing room. The reason for this is because the last big pillar that I need to add in and refine will be the AI, and that can come with challenges that could take some time to navigate. As a result, I can’t confidently say that I can release this game on this specific date. If I did that, I would be putting myself into a corner. I apologize to those who would prefer an exact date, but I am very confident that I can release the game within that window. However, the good news is that at the end of April I will have a much better idea of an exact release which could be sooner. Thanks for reading everyone, please share your thoughts below. I’ll see you soon!
Arctic Wolf: Will there be an option to build multiple engines/versions of them in game like sound engines, graphics engines, simulation engines & physics engines as well as the ability to add artificial intelligence?
WEB: You will only be creating game engines so far in the game.
Arctic Wolf: While creating a game engine will we be able to make it in-house or open for all? Can we add graphics card support as well as multi-platform support? Also can we make the game engine open source?
WEB: So far this is the plan, however I will be able to answer better once I add that module into the game. As of right now, I haven’t had a chance to detail that function out just yet. I will share more about the specifics of this when it is in the game.
Arctic Wolf: What are all the products that we can develop games/game engines for?
WEB: Consoles and Computers. Games can be made in Tech Executive Tycoon for Consoles and Computers just as in the real world. Choosing your platforms will play an important role in the game. Developing for multiple platforms will take more time to complete and bug test. More details soon to come regarding the details of how this will work.
Arctic Wolf: Can we update/redesign the game engine to add new features such as UI, bug fixes, new scripting/programming language support like unity & platforms?
WEB: Yes, the plan is to allow the player to constantly update your products. However, you will have to weigh the viability of the tactic. After a while it might be more beneficial to simply create a more updated one. However, yes this is the plan and it will play a big role gameplay-wise.
Arctic Wolf: Will there be industry standards that we have to follow? Like a regulation that restricts how much power we can put into a CPU/GPU? Or can you just research? Let's say if your building a console/desktop CPU/GPU will you have to follow governing regulations regarding the design of the CPU/GPU, or will you be able to research however you want whether it be a terrible CPU/GPU or a good one?
WEB: A very interesting question. The plan is to have more aspects that you the player will have to consider, but I don’t want to place restrictions on what the player can do. However, the consequences will be there for badly designed products. In the end, the sales will suffer as well as company reputation, so I think there is enough hand slapping for bad decision making at the moment.
Lucas Santana: What engine are you using in the game?
WEB: Unity Engine
Lucas Santana: In the game can we select an option to make a product have mod compatibility?
And in processors have an option to do this open to OC or no?
How could this impact the sales or the life of the product or the reputation?
WEB: Yes, the details are being figured out. It will make the process of developing the product take longer. Over clocking will be a thing later in the years as the technology becomes available.
It would impact the sales for those customer groups who are interested in that sort of thing, like your PC gaming crowd.
Thanks everyone for your questions, feel free to keep them coming!
