Iocaine Studios Blog

Since there’s been a bit of interest in the forums lately about the design decisions made in Hyperbol, I’d figure I would discuss them in a blog post.  I’ll be the first to admit that some of the design decisions we made weren’t ideal, but we were still learning how to be a team, and I was learning how to be a designer.  That being said, here’s an insight into my mind and why I designed some things the way they are and how I came up with them.

The birth of “ThreadSpace: Hyperbol” occurred some time after we showed off Hyperbol at the IGF in 2005.  Hyperbol was our student project polished up with shiny textures and with a gameplay mechanic of flicking projectiles off of a launch pad.  After seeing how people reacted to the controls and gameplay, it was clear I had to think of something better if we wanted to make this game commercially viable.

The first thing I attacked was the “Launch Pad” by changing it into an actual ship and letting the player fire directly by clicking on it instead of dragging the mouse over it and flicking it.  Based on tester feedback, this was definitely a step in the right direction.

The next thing was a stronger emphasis on multiplayer since we didn’t have the resources to pull off a single player campaign.  I conjured up “Starport” as a way to increase player involvement and bring about a sense of progression in the game.  I think this was my WoW development experience seeping in.  Certain aspects of Starport I think are awesome.  Other parts, like the Sector Map, makes me wonder what the heck I was thinking.

Level progression and itemization was pretty formulaic, mainly due to development constraints.  While it did help to give players a sense of progress, it singled out the inexperienced players too quickly and allowed higher level players to pick them off as “easy kills”.  Even though the player’s level only determined how long they’ve been playing and how extreme they could take their ship, the visibility of weaker players was like a giant bullseye on their ship.  Since the game is more skill based than item based, a player that has been playing longer would be at an extreme advantage over a new player, regardless of the ships they were using.  We set out to make a skill based game, and even had skill restricted servers, but since the player base was so small, matchmaking only served to divide the community further.

The camera system was another big complaint we heard.  It was too unintuitive and awkward for new players.  Once players got used to it, they loved it, but it was too foreign for some players to get into, so it really failed in my opinion.  A camera system needs to be familiar to players and simple to pick up and use.

For a game released by 4 college students on no funding, I think we did okay.  A lot of mistakes were made, but to me the important thing is that the team learned from them and we’re applying that knowledge to future games…and maybe even an upcoming patch for our current game

We’re still here working on that video.  We took a break on Sunday to catch up on some sleep, but not that much.  We’ve discovered that Java Monster Mean Bean is tasty and keeps you up.  Stu has been experimenting with Red Bulls and is now crashed on the couch.  I think in total we’ve had 12 cans of Monster, 24 cups of Starbucks, and 3 Red Bulls.  The video is now complete, but it’s going to take a while to render.  We’ll probably post clips of it, or the whole thing, in the future.  After tonight, we’re going to take a few days off to detox…

While freeing up some hard drive space to render the video, I came across a VERY old video of Hyperbol from 2004 O_O  This video was made before we officially formed Iocaine (it even has an old logo).  The goal of that video was to show off to publishers in the hopes that they’d give us money to make the game.  It didn’t work :-p

The version of Hyperbol in the video was our IGF 2005 version, before we remade it completely to make ThreadSpace: Hyperbol.  You can see a bunch of similarities and a bunch of differences.  Pay attention to how projectiles are fired ;-)  Oh, and yes, that is my voice narrating, and yes, the voice script rambled on and sounded REALLY cheesy.  We were still learning

Sorry guys, this isn’t a post about Hyperbol: The Musical :-p

Occasionally, me and Stu need to burn the midnight oil to get something urgent done. Yesterday we had to get a lot of work done for a video, and it was clear we would be in for another long night filled with pizza, Monster (an energy drink), and Starbucks. The video isn’t for Hyperbol, it’s for our next title, which hasn’t been announced yet. The video is mostly to pitch the game to some publishers, so time is of the essence.

From a prototype of the game we hacked together, we were able to record some great video that will hopefully impress the business peoples. Me and Stu haven’t really slept (I think I passed out for an hour if that counts). We’re still working, making this a 32 hour work adventure so far, after about 3 starbucks runs and 2 boxes of pizza.

Here’s a picture of Stu working with the video

We probably won’t be done until tomorrow, then we’ll take a few days off to recover and let our organs rest a little. Ahh the life of an indie developer.

UPDATE: I made tons of spelling and grammar errors, probably due to the lack of sleep.  Thanks Mnemo for pointing them out

Without going into too much detail, the team has been thinking of some features we’d like to add to Hyperbol to help address several issues and increase interest in the game. Please keep in mind that everything I will mention is still on the drawing board, but is planned for future patches. However, there is always the chance that something might not make it in due to technical or financial difficulties.

Camera/Controls Simplifying
One of the biggest complaints we hear from new players is how awkward the controls are. When we first designed the camera controls, we thought it was the best possible controls for the game. However, we soon learned that a camera system needs to be familiar in order for players to adopt it. Our bad. We’re going to be splitting the controls into 2 flavors, basic and advanced. The advanced controls are what you see now, so veteran players won’t need to worry about this change. The basic controls will remove a lot of the camera complexity and also be smart-locked onto the player ship. There are some other tweaks planned for basic mode, but a lot of it is still on the drawing board. If you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear it in our feedback section of the forums

Tournament Support
Since a lot of Hyperbol is based on what ships a player has in their arsenal, we want to provide players with a game mode that can level the playing field, and also become appealing for tournaments. In the Tournament game type, players will be able to choose from a preset list of ships (possibly overridable by the server) and will be unable to use their own ships. There will also be an option to disable production stations, well, more like make them “invisible”. You’ll still see the interface for the prod station, but you won’t have to deploy it. You’ll still queue up your modules, except now you don’t have to worry about someone blowing it up. We’ll probably make this a server option that can be used in other game types like Deathmatch.

Co-op Servers
Similar to training servers, this game type will pit players against AI’s and allow them to rack up experience and credits. While the bots aren’t too much of a challenge for seasoned players, this will at least provide a nice atmosphere for new players and veterans to play side by side against an artificial foe.

Replays
This is in the maybe maybe maybe category. The game engine was never designed to support this and will require SERIOUS changes to get this working. Don’t expect this feature any time soon, but it is something we want to have. You’ll be able to record your games and play them back, share them with friends, post videos, etc.

Clans
Join a group of friends in a clan. Share a common clan logo. View clan stats. Most of this feature will probably be web based.

Once again, all of these features are NOT guaranteed. Just wanted to give you guys an idea of where we’re heading with the game and what to maybe maybe look forward to

Apparently you guys on the forum have been bugging Mnemosyne to get me to write a blog entry, so our new intern actually got me to do it :-p

I think in the last blog I mentioned something about the team getting an actual office. Sadly, that hasn’t happened since we don’t have the money to do it yet. We’ve been working on a few ventures to increase our cashflow. We’re getting contract work still, but it’s slower than before. Because of this we’ve changed gears a little and have devoted more resources towards internal projects. I can’t say much yet, but expect to see some interesting changes with Hyperbol in a few months. We’re going to try some things to increase the playerbase and spread more awareness of the game.

The other thing we’re doing is maybe looking into XBox Live Arcade for something. Can’t say what it is, but I can say it isn’t a port of Hyperbol (sorry guys). If this gets anywhere, we’ll formally announce it.

That’s it for this small entry. I’m hungry and want a sandwich now.

First, let me introduce some stuff we’ve set up for our fans. We now have a MySpace and Facebook group set up so you guys can do whatever one does on MySpace and Facebook. It’s possible that maybe some of the Iocaine devs are members of these groups

We’re not ready to announce our next game yet, but I can say that we are working on something, and a few people have seen it and love it so far. Last month I was up at GDC meeting with some people and showing off this game we’re working on. While showing off the game, someone walked by that happened to be a fan of Hyperbol and was intrigued with what our next game is. Luckily I haven’t seen any posts on our forums from someone claiming to see it, so if you’re that person, thank you for keeping our secret!

The next game is very different from Hyperbol, but will still be in the ThreadSpace universe. We’re going for a game that will be easier to get into and more forgiving to new players. Also, it’s going to focus more on single player than multiplayer. We’re really trying to address a lot of the problems found in Hyperbol and make a game that will be an absolute blast for most gamers.

Don’t Panic! We’re not going to abandon Hyperbol. When there are bugs to squish, we’ll squish ‘em! Plus, we’re going to release a patch for Hyperbol within a few weeks to address some issues that were reported on the forums.

As for the team, we’re all doing okay. We’re actually going to try to move into a real office in a few months, though I am going to miss this dining room. There’s something wonderful about being able to roll out of bed and into your “office”

I know it’s been a while since the last entry, sorry about that! We’ve been pretty busy just trying to keep things afloat. Hyperbol was released in July, being the first title ever released by Iocaine Studios. We were thrilled and excited, and actually thought it would be downhill from there. Boy were we wrong!

Hyperbol didn’t sell very well. It’s a difficult game to get into and very different from anything out there. On top of that, we didn’t market it very well. This was our first crack at releasing a game and we were under the impression that some partners would help us market the game a bit, but they did not. The sales from Hyperbol got us by for a few months, but it became clear that we needed some other source of income to keep things going. We approached Atari with our problem and they offered us something that would help for the short term.

We were asked to develop a new game for them, but with a catch. This game had to be developed within 4 days…and we were asked to do it on a Thursday, which meant it would be due on Monday. The team panicked. There was no way we could make a new game from start to finish in only 4 days. We really needed the money though. Our debt was increasing and bills had to be paid. I sat the team down and discussed our options calmly while they all looked for sharp objects to throw at me.

The requirements for the game were pretty lenient. We decided to do it in Flash since a web game could be done in a short amount of time. There was a problem. We had never done anything in Flash before. Plus, I had to convince the team to work over the weekend, which was a life threatening task, but eventually I convinced them.

Friday morning was spent learning Flash and doing a rough design of the game. On Saturday, we built the engine, made some art assets, and started integrating the gameplay. By Sunday, we had something playable, but buggy. By Sunday night, the game was fun and pretty balanced. We submitted it to Atari on Monday and made enough to feed ourselves for another month. The game is called Star Control. We were going for a fighting game with ships. Something you can play with a friend sitting next to you for a few minutes at work. You can check it out at http://www.atari.com/us/starcontrol/ (keep in mind it was only done in 2 days)

After that, we tried following up other development leads, but nothing really panned out. Our original plan was to work on a sequel or expansion to Hyperbol, but with no source of revenue, that wasn’t going to be possible. Things were looking grim and we were all frantically looking for options. Then, almost by some miracle, we were contacted by a company with the prospect of doing contract work. It was nothing too glamorous, but it was something that could keep the company going and the team fed.

And that’s where we’re at now. Happily doing contract work and staying afloat. We’ve brought on some interns to help out and have just started working on the next Iocaine title. It’s too early in development for me to announce anything, but rest assured we’ve learned a lot from Hyperbol and plan on making something that gamers will love

- Jason

Some people think I exaggerate when I say that me and my team work in my dad’s dining room. It’s no exaggeration :-p I took a picture of Nick’s reaction to seeing it mentioned in this review

Matt, Nick, and Stu at our “office”. Nick’s reacting to the great review.

The overall setup is pretty simple. I moved the dining room table against the window to leave an open area in the middle. Matt and Nick have their systems set up on that table, while Stu is on a fold-up table against the china cabinet, and I’m on another fold-up table (can’t be seen in the picture) that is perpendicular at the end of Stu’s table. We have a few fans set up to keep things cool (sweaty programmers is something we’d like to avoid) and a whiteboard on the side without a table so we can doodle when we need to.

We have a few servers set up in the room too, including the famous Starport server. We really aren’t a big company, and would love to some day have a proper office, but right now it’s not financially feasible. Oh, another thing is that we’re right next to the kitchen, which makes for easy coffee access (we drink a lot of coffee). Across the way is the living room with a few big couches for us to crash on if we get too drained or need to stay all night to get work done.

I’m always at the office since my work machine is my also my home machine. The other guys have laptops that they bring over when we have our “Iocaine Days” (the days they come into the office). We try to keep our work schedule to 5 days per week, but sometimes there’s more work to be done and some of us work through the weekend from home.

Lunch tends to alternate between me cooking, grabbing fast food, or the team going out for lunch at some restaurant (typically a great Indian place). There’s always a full pot of coffee with a fridge stocked with lots of creamer.

I’ll try to post some more pictures of the team and office later. Right now the team is frantically trying to meet a deadline for a project we can’t discuss yet

This is the first in a series to detail how Iocaine Studios came to be. I’m not sure how many parts it will be since I tend to write without any sense of an outline. I think it’s due to laziness, really. So sit back, relax, sip some coffee (not implying you’ll fall asleep. Caffeine is just really really great), and enjoy my story about how we got to where we are today.

Some time in May of 2001, I was walking to class with my friend, Lloyd. After a few swigs from my cheaply bought cappuccino, it dawned on me that most of my closest friends want to work in the game industry. I bounced an idea off of Lloyd about the possibility of forming a team to work on a mod, and someday form a game company. We still had a few years of college left, so we knew it couldn’t be anything too time consuming. I pitched the idea to Nick, and surprisingly, he was very interested. I then approached my long-time friend, Matt, about the prospect and he was pretty enthusiastic. He wasn’t screaming like a girl or anything, but I do recall a faint giggle squeal.

We were in our early 20’s, and not a whole lot of game dev experience. Nick had a hobby game engine he had been working on, and Lloyd had made a small remake of the classic game, Digger. We were pretty green, but worked well with one another and were passionate about games. Our plan was to work on a mod in our spare time while holding jobs in the game industry to build up our experience. Then after several years, we would leave our respective companies to form a company of our own. It looked good on paper :-p

Over the next few months, we met weekly to discuss the design of a Half-Life mod we wanted to make. I was handling the story and game design, while the other guys were handling the code, map design, and art. The premise was pretty cool and scifi. It took place on Mars, had time travel, and TONS of unrealistic goals (like most great ideas). We didn’t get very far with it since other things started getting in the way.

This was the first level. The player started in a cargo ship.

Me, Nick, and Lloyd got a job at Blizzard doing QA, plus we were going to school full-time. Our game project’s progress started slowing down until it eventually faded away after a few months. About a year later, after Warcraft 3 shipped, Blizzard let go of several QA employees, including us. With this newfound free time, we decided to get back to working on a game project, but not the old Half-Life mod since Nick’s engine had evolved a bit since, and our tastes had changed. We resumed our weekly meetings and hammered away at a design.

This next game, which we lovingly called The Unnamed Game, took place on an alien planet but was more fantasy than scifi. Once again, the game we were designing had pretty lofty and unrealistic goals, but we didn’t care since this game didn’t have a deadline. We got about 60% through the design process before we abruptly stopped in January of 2003 to shift our gears.

Me, Lloyd, and Nick signed up for a class that required making a game, from start to finish. Matt wasn’t able to join us for the class, so we brought in Chris to help out. The game could be anything for the class, but we wanted to work on something we could create and complete quickly. We started brainstorming for several days, pitching tons of ideas to the team and looking for any source of inspiration. I pitched my idea which was a hybrid of a small game I made for a 3D art class called Putt of Much Doom (basically mini-golf with tactile physics and the player directly controlling the ball by moving their mouse) and another game that I loved called Moonbase Commander. My pitch was basically to make a space game where the player launched stuff into a field against other players, where the things they launched did different stuff and could be affected by gravity objects in the field. Sound familiar? :-p

The student project version of Hyperbol.

We built upon my idea and fleshed it out greatly. Defined what the projectiles did, how things looked, and started prototyping the game. We had a fully playable game that supported up to 8 players within 2 months. We called this game Hyperbol. I’ll probably get more into the history of Hyperbol in another entry.

At the end of the class in May of 2003, we presented our game to the class and it was a smashing success! It was addictive that the TA was glued to our game most of the time instead of the other student games :-O

Our presentation in the UCI computer lab. Everyone loved it!

That’s it for this entry. I’ll talk more about what came after in the next post. I’ll try to make a new post every week, probably on Wednesdays. Thanks for reading!