Technical Development Philosophy
The programming team is responsible for coding the engine, game, tools, and support infrastructure necessary for building our game. We have a very experienced development team. Several members of our team have led the technology development from conception to launch [and beyond] for three different MMO games: Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online. What worked and what didn’t for these games definitely influences our development philosophy as well as our development process.
At Spacetime Studios, our development philosophy centers on “keeping things simple.” Throughout the development of our technology, we strive to avoid overcomplicated designs and any unnecessary complexity.
Prototype. Play. Iterate. One of the first things we accomplished as a team was developing a game play prototype as quickly as possible that allowed us actually to play our game. We used this prototype to mitigate risk, make very important decisions, and use it as a platform to be able to try new ideas. It also was a huge morale booster for the team to be able to play something early that was so much fun.
Build the technology around the needs of the game. The game’s design has a very large impact on the engine and we plan and design to make sure the technology can meet the needs of the game’s vision.
Content creators should have great tools. From the Art pipeline to Zone creation, in order to create great content, you need great tools. It should be very easy and intuitive to create and iterate game content. The tools should be stable and enable developers to get work done. Developers should know at any point in time what is wrong with the game and how to fix it without the need for consulting a programmer.
The game should be playable at all times. Playable certainly doesn’t mean feature complete, but what is there should work and work reliably.
Don’t fear change. Systems are engineered as flexible as possible to allow change where appropriate. Our framework allows us to try new things and not be afraid of trying new things.
I’m really excited about where we are in the project’s timeline. We’re nearing the end of the preproduction phase of the project where we are building the engine, game systems, tools, and pipelines necessary to create content for the game. After preproduction, we’ll then enter production where all of the game’s content is created by the artists and designers. The programming team will then focus its efforts of optimizations, tool/pipeline workflow enhancements, and developing any systems that were not necessary for content creation.
The working atmosphere here is collaborative and iterative — programmers are in direct communication with the designers and artists that will be using their systems/tools. We constantly play test the game and review our tools and pipelines to make sure they are effective. Additionally, we’re not just building a game, but an online service. We need to have the infrastructure in place to immediately react to the needs and feedback of our customers (internal and external), whether they are stability issues, game balance issues, critical game play issues, etc. For us, the game isn’t over when it ships. We will have to support the game, continue to add content to it, and monitor and ensure a healthy player base.
I am proud of the team we have built. Although we still have several key tools and systems that need to be implemented, it has been a monumental effort and we’re just now starting to see the results of our hard work. Lastly, we’re constantly looking for talented programmers skilled in object-oriented design and C++, so if you’d like to join our team, check out the available jobs posted and send us your resume.
- ALS