Re: Direction of Linux games...

[Joel Utting <joelu@geocities.com>]

Keith Lucas wrote:

> >Did you *ever* see one of those make it into development?
> >
> >Ideas are cheap too.
>
> There's a comment that floats around the movie writing industry (because they
> have the same problem) about the fact that everyone has an idea, and everyone
> wants to be involved right up to point where boxes of very horribly blank typing
> paper arrive and need filling with words and then there's no-one in sight to
> help.
>
> (There's another one about how writing is easy: you just stare at empty pages of
> paper until your forehead starts to bleed. You think software engineers are
> bitter? You haven't talked to enough writers. They're BITTER.)

I'm a writer and a short film maker and I'm _very_ bitter. So bitter I decided to
generally give up those pursuits and concentrate on programming. If you've ever
tried to get four people who claim they "really want to be actors" to stay in one
location for three hours for nothing, so you can get the shot right, just to get
your script which took you a month to write to come across on film, when they can
think of a million better things to do - you'd be bitter too.

> Computer games, like movies have an aura of get-rich-quick. Everyone wants to be
> famous/go to parties/drive a Ferarri. Like the movie industry it does actually
> involve a lot of work, and there's a big difference between the kind of people
> who says stuff like "it's Alien meets Dallas" and the people who actually put
> footage into a can.[1] Likewise everyone wants to have written a winner game,
> but few people want to write one. The tense is rather important. The trick is
> just to let it all wash over you, and smile inwardly, because you know that the
> website with the outrageous claims that they'll better FFVIII is as near certain
> as anything the only end product.[2]

A friend once said to me - "A writer writes, a programmer programs, a talker...just
talks", he then added, "What do you do ?"
I couldn't answer. I think it was still mostly the third option.

> [1] At this point, a disclaimer. I am not a film-maker. Despite my best
>       efforts...

I'm not either, despite my films.

> [2] I'm bitter about the amount of effort that goes into this stuff. "We're
>       going to write an RPG, we've got the best story line ever click here to
>       download (1278 bytes). We've sketched almost nine of the main characters.
>       We've got a logo. Last updated 3/4/95". If they'd work together ever so
>       slightly they might get somewhere.[3]

Oh, you've seen our web page then...

> [3] Yes. I have finished computer games. No. You've never heard of them. Because
>       I have not hubris enough to think the world needs to see the fruits of my
>       learning curve.

Unfortunately I did. You can find it somewhere, hidden on some free FTP sites. An
awful dos game called "Spasm". I vowed never to release something as unimpressive as
that again. Four years have now passed, and not a thing has left my hard drive for
the murky depths of the internet.

Bye - Joel.