The next update I make will be to announce our new game, so stay tuned.

http://www.ionconference.com/session.php?id=4733

Mike Sellers and I go way back, so I’m looking forward to this.

Its hard to exaggerate the impact Gary Gygax has had on the game industry. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for his work.

Playing Dungeons & Dragons and games like it allowed millions of people to express themselves and explore the depths of their imaginations. I have many happy memories of sunday afternoons spent on the porch with friends, a card table, and funny dice.

It’s a sad day, and the world seems a little less fun with his passing.

Like the idea of creating a media-transcendent franchise that will delight audiences for years to come?

Think Seattle is a cool place?

If you answered yes to these questions, then fall in ’cause Thinglefin is hiring.

Artists! Go here and here

Designers! Go here

Engineers! Go here

We’ve got the best of all worlds: the independence and organizational flexibility of a start-up with the security and backing of one of the largest casual game companies around. 

And if you know someone who has said mad skillz, send ‘em here. Share the Thingle.

We’ve settled into our new digs in Big Fish’s downtown office in Seattle and I must say that the transition was remarkably smooth.

As part of Big Fish Games, we have access to resources we never dreamed of as a cash-strapped start-up. The challenge moving forward is to stay true to our scrappy, start-up mentality, while making judicious use of the new tools and “best practices” at our disposal. But its a delightful problem to have, so I’m not at all complaining.

Stay tuned for more concept art and the occasional entry from my fine Thinglefin fellows.

For the record, this is a fantastic development not only for us, but for our upcoming game. The team is continuing to work, essentially uninterupted, on the game we set out to make. In many ways, this is the best of both worlds. We get to do what we love, but with the resources, experience, and wisdom of the best casual game company in the business.

But don’t expect too many changes around here. We’re still walking softly. We’re just carrying a much bigger stick.

In the game we’re developing, we’re working with a number of assumptions:

1. 1. The player can select and control more than one character in a serial format (one at a time).
2. 2. The environment is deformable and can be shaped by the player.
3. 3. The default control scheme is “click-to-move.”

For these reasons, we had decided that an isometric perspective would best suit our needs. Games with an isometric perspective provide an omnipotent feel (going all the way back to Populous) that we thought would convey the player’s role in our game.

That was the theory anyway.

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1. Animation Trumps All - with simple characters, animation becomes extremely important in order to communicate unique personalities and attitude.

2. People Love to Customize - even if they make the most repulsive design ever, they will be proud of it.

3. Keep Things Simple - don’t stray too far from the the base silhouette.  Otherwise you could end up with ”clown vomit” on the screen.

So, with this in mind, check out the pic below to see three simple variations that could be designed using our basic “cat” model.  Expect more variations in future posts.

Cat variations 1

That particular road-not-taken was an example of what I’ll call “gameplay integration”.  Gameplay integration involves taking different pieces contributed from different areas of the team - art, design, and perhaps other engineers - and putting them together to create gameplay.  These programming tasks typically include a generous dose of artifical intelligence work, plus input processing/player control and often some user interface work.  It’s essentially where the end result, the player experience, is born.  For me, it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of game programming.  Our Thinglefin project has ample opportunity for this kind of work, and a recent task made me recognize two distinct pleasures that it can bring.

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