Thoughts

Its been way too long since I posted anything here and for that I’m sorry. The programmer that had joined the project turned out to be far too busy to work on a project like this and ultimately left. Real life is important and people have to do what they have to do.

I got pretty bummed out during that period. It turns out that if you don’t know anything about programming, its pretty difficult to work with one and try to explain these difficult abstract concepts. Axel was an excellent programmer and no doubt would have created amazing things.

It was shortly after Axel left that I let the composer know how things were going and that he might want to rethink working on Optera. I didn’t want Jose to be led into thinking there was more progress than there really was.

During this period my wife and I also found out we had to move! Well things got kinda hectic for a bit and Optera got totally neglected. It actually felt great to let go. After all that work and stress and thinking, I just stopped.

Although it felt good to let it go, I now find myself thinking about Optera more and more. It really should be made. Whether its free, costs money, or has annoying adds to support its server, it really should exist. Where else can you witness the evolution of an ant species in real time? What other game can insects evolve just as they do in nature, where a player can evolve to exploit the characteristics of an environment that otherwise may have killed it? What else would I want to play, in the heart of winter, when its bitter cold, gray, and lifeless outside, just to sit there and listen to the insects, the rain, see the beams of sunshine hitting the leaves on the warm forest floor. When I forget what the crickets sound like in later summer I can play Optera, and hear the summer sounds all over again. When I need to fantasize and go off on an adventure – I can go deep underground into the heart of my species’ colony. I can move eggs, dig tunnels. A little adjustment of this tunnel here, make this room slightly larger, its getting too warm. Maybe block off this tunnel, its too dangerous.

I spent so much time designing this game, but I’m not sure I’m equipped to manage programmers. I’m not sure I have the time to do what needs to be done. If I could just get some basic prototyping done, it might relight the fire. Just some basic programming. Should I take a class? Should I just go back to doing the art? I don’t even know if the art will work the way I want it to.

I don’t know what the purpose of this post was but I needed to get some thoughts out.