Q: Where is the community? (from elunir)

A: We're a small team (more on this later), which means we wear a lot of hats, and every minute of time we have is precious. We've been debating about what the best avenue is to build the community. A forum is ideal, but requires a bit of overhead - even if that overhead is just checking and responding to the forum daily. We'll probably get there eventually, but we're not sure if it makes sense for our small team, or to have the more "traditional" conversation through comments and news posts.

Q: Why is the development so slow? I want this game!! (from Kindlesmith, leandro213, ds39uuca, UndefinedM)

A: Our team is currently one programmer and one artist. The programmer is working full time, but the artist is working on assets in his spare time. Even with this small team, we've made some decisions to get features built faster, such as buying in-game assets rather than producing them ourselves. These assets are intended to be replaced eventually, but until we reach that point, we have placeholder assets that don't look horrible.

We plan to bring on more team members, but we want to make sure those team members are the right fit. We don't have any substantial capital for hiring, which means until our income becomes stable, we're looking for people who are both skilled and will work for experience or for equity in the company. That combination of requirements makes potential team members a rare commodity.

Q: How will Mage Tower differentiate itself from Dwarf Fortress, Towns, Gnomoria, A Game of Dwarves, etc? (from Janppa, stuntaneous, yhann, and many others)

A: Before I dive into the meat of the question, I want to mention our development process. Rather than having a specific vision for what we're building say, 4 months from now, we focus on the next patch, the next feature, the next update, and build pieces at a time. This helps us in many ways, like preventing crunch time, reacting to gamer's opinions, and being very agile in our strategy. In the software development world, this philosophy is called Agile software development. So, although I have some ideas about what Mage Tower will become, I'm not so attached to any one idea that I can't cut it.

However, I understand that as a player, you want to know what this game will become! Aside from what it already represents (a cleaner, more modern interface for DF-style games), the biggest thing we're shooting for is a larger world view. At its heart, Mage Tower is still a management game, and management games are usually rooted at a specific place, with specific boundaries. Although we're not planning to allow complete freedom on where to build, we're hoping to build a world that can continually expand as you explore. You might find a town 10 minutes walking east of your tower, conquer it, and build another tower as an outpost in its place. You might later find a competing tower of mages further off in the distance, and begin to plan how to defend or overthrow them. Basically, we're hoping to build a larger world to give context to each tower, but restrict certain interactions to only happen in certain areas (such as building and combat). It's a sneaky way to avoid some technical complications with allowing building anywhere, while still expanding the world.

The next biggest differentiator is factions in the world. In many games in the DF-style, you can gain favor or make enemies with different factions, but you don't always see these factions outside of your base. Since the world is explorable and expands, you'll have exact context of where factions are, where they might be expanding, and make decisions around those factions. Looking at the town-conquering example above, you may have conquered the town before realizing that further east of the town lies a castle, which sent in knights to reclaim the town after your actions. Since you choose how to interact with these factions, you can befriend or anger these factions as you see fit. You can ally yourself with the villagers to ward off the dragon, or team up with the dragon to burn the landscape.

The last differentiator I'll mention is the theme. Although many DF games have some level of magic involved, the focus in Mage Tower is to build the mechanics directly off of "knowledge" and magic. As mages gain levels in different knowledge, new activities become available, and in some cases, new features appear in the game. In addition to magic, the work ethic of mages (compared to dwarves) is pretty...lazy. Why lift a finger if you can just make something float? Those theme decisions are driving a lot of our design decisions, which should create a different "feel" to the game than normal.

I'm sure we'll touch on this topic in the future as we build more of the game, but hopefully that gives you a better idea for what our roadmap is.

Q: Why don't you just ask to use the "Game of Dwarves" engine? / Don't use that engine, it's not that good! (from: mjgajda / neronix17 )

A: Game of Dwarves was announced around the same time we finished the prototype for Mage Tower. We were watching it closely and nervously as it was released, knowing that if it was successful, it would cut into our niche. Unfortunately for players (and fortunately for us), it looks like Game of Dwarves could use some improvements. From my brief experience with it, it seemed like the team was very comfortable with 2D, but it didn't transition well into 3D.

Our prototype, however, focused on the interface first, knowing that the interface was critical to how the game would feel. This is probably partially responsible for why there aren't as many features in the game - we focused a lot of energy towards polishing the user experience. We looked at Game of Dwarves and realized "we don't want to make their mistake" and are taking much care to tweak the interface to an optimal level.

Also, Paradox is awesome, and I hope that Game of Dwarves doesn't make them shy away from the genre, since they seem like a great fit for that type of game.

Q: Is there a Linux version coming? (from: d10sfan [twice!] and sheldonh)

A: The first time this question was asked, Unity 4 was just released, and we hadn't upgraded yet. Now that 0.1.3 is out and we've upgraded to Unity 4, we really don't have any obstacles left. However, the release of 0.1.3 was already dragging enough, so we decided to release 0.1.3 without Linux, test the Linux version, and release that with the next Mage Tower update. Linux was the primary reason for updating to Unity 4 so soon, so it'll be in the next patch/update.

Thanks for all your questions! If you have any more questions, please use our feedback form or comment on Mage Tower on Desura. If you haven't already, follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay up-to-date on our latest news.

You can also buy or download the demo of Mage Tower on Desura:

Full questions (taken from Desura):

Click below to buy Mage Tower! 

This update adds a few new systems, providing more ways to interact with the world. Time now passes, giving a day/night cycle to the mage's world. Mages get tired the longer they study and work without resting, and they can build beds to rest in. Now that night can fall, mages need to build torches to see what they're doing, and their studying speed will slow in darkness.

Same as the previous release, Mage Tower is available on Desura. The demo is fully featured, aside from being unable to load previously-saved levels. If pre-ordered on Desura, saved levels can be reloaded and will have access to all future updates for Mage Tower, at a discounted price.

0.1.3 Changes

On that note, go download or play the demo, and make sure to give us feedback! The game is available below through Desura.

The biggest changes in this version are the additions of studying and desks. Mages will now spend their free time studying, which improves their knowledge. When tasks need to be done, they'll leave their desk and return when finished (if there are enough desks to go around, of course).

This release also marks the availability of Mage Tower on Desura. Loading saved games has now been disabled disabled in the demo, but it is available in the pre-order version from Desura. This means you can play the demo, and if you enjoy it, save your level, buy the game, and reload it later. Otherwise, the demo has all the features of the full game.

If you like the game, please support us by pre-ordering. You can buy it now at a much lower price than during its final release, and it helps us accellerate our development.

0.1.2 Changes

• Building: Prevent building on higher floors
• Building: Added furniture
• Building: Added cancelling
• Building: Can now build next to floors
• Display: Fixed zoom on high levels
• UI: Revised mage management screen
• UI: Added individual mage screen
• UI: Allowed management of mage's roles
• UI: Added tooltips
• System: Added studying, idle tasks for mages
• System: Mages now increase their knowledge
• Backend: Changed file structure to greatly compress file
• Demo: Can now save, but not load
• Bugfix: Cancelling out of mage manager doesn't crash game
• Bugfix: Out of bounds handled
• Bugfix: Various visibility issues resolved
• Bugfix: Allow building on lower floors
• Bugfix: Handles large amount of blocks placed at once
• Bugfix: Many loading issues resolved

On that note, go download or play the demo, and make sure to give us feedback! The game is available below through Desura.

0.1.1 Changes

• Bugfix: Can now build on upper levels
• Bugfix: Mages can't get stuck in walls (or at least, one major case was fixed)
• Bugfix: When mages run into walls, they realize the error of their ways and figure out where to go
• Bugfix: Mages will now find the shortest route
• Bugfix: Mages don't try to build something unless it has supporting structure
• Bugfixes: A bunch of other tiny things along the way
• UI: When using the menus or pressing [Escape], the current tool resets
• UI: Added buttons for movement and rotation (zoom controls...just ignore those)
• UI: When no tool is selected, the world can be dragged around
• UI: You can now build on top of blocks that don't yet exist, queueing your building plans.
• Backend: Added rigorous automatic testing to better handle bugs

We have quite a list of future fixes in the current version, but we think it's stable enough now that we can add another feature or two to add more gameplay. Go download or play the demo, and make sure to give us feedback!

Take the depth of Dwarf Fortress, add a bunch of lazy mages, and update the interface to modern standards? That's Mage Tower in a nutshell. We're starting small and building it bigger and bigger, and you'll be able to play it the entire time!

Many companies nowadays allow users to buy early versions of a game during alpha or beta. Soon, Mage Tower will be following that path, allowing you to pre-purchase the game and play it immediately, rather than wait until it's complete. For now, a demo is available.

There's a LOT we want to add to the game, but we're a small team, so it will take a while to get through the list. For now, here's what you can look forward to:

• Mages with character! Their own interests, knowledge, and traits
• Villages, dungeons, dragons, and mines!
• Magic! Enchantments, golems, mind tricks, and explosions
• Collossal towers floating in the sky
• Powerful magic that carries risk as well as reward...

We're building something really ambitious - a world that you can build to your own whim, while carefully balancing resources, knowledge, and external threats.

Recently the "company office" underwent a major revision, making it much more enjoyable to work in and usable.  Unfortunately, we really only have "after" pictures, but there's still plenty to see.  Here's a breakdown of what we did:

• We replaced the old wall-attached desk with a new T-shaped desk.  It lets 2 people work at once, but the new desk at least doubled usable desktop space.
• By removing the old desk, we moved the file cabinet from underneath to be able to put two full desktop towers underneath.
• We ran a network cable to a switch underneath the desk, rather than using the previous wireless bridge.
• And, arguably the most interesting, we covered every vertical surface possible in white board paint.

 Now, we have a great place to collaborate, visualize our ideas, and well...doodle!

This is a view of the desk, set up with two workstations, the main one on the left with 3 monitors.  Any vertical white surface you see is now white board - most of which have something written on them already.

The wall facing our backs has the biggest usable space, and that's where a lot fo the brainstorming tends to happen.  You can see some state diagrams, UI prototyping, and a few other random doodles.

Doodles can come from anything - even some brilliant WIP terms like "super stone."

We also put a cat door between the office and utility room - to keep the noise and smell out of the main room.

Here are the two desktops and a switch, out of the way and safely under the desk.

And of course, there are doodles all over from visiting friends. 

This is an awesome Christmas gift from a friend of the company.  Seems awful familiar...

One thing that you'll have to understand is that I'm a bit obsessed with BrodyQuest.  I'm fully aware of how ridiculous it is, but IT'S SO AWESOME.  It's also the first thing I soundcheck with whenever I set up audio equipment.  My wonderful fiance decided to surprise me by creating the full progress of BrodyQuest on the overhang in the office, complete with cutouts for Brody, his guitar, and the friends he picks up along the way.

Above is almost the entire drawing of OfficeQuest.

And there you have it!  A ton of pictures of where we work, with some details about Codename: Jenga snuck in there.

Thanks for reading!  If you have any comments or questions, or have suggestions for topics for future Red Button Bulletins, contact us either on Facebook, Twitter, or email (info [at] redbuttongames [dot] com). Follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Life-work balance in IT

The typical job in IT / application development expects 40 hours week, with some overtime.  Depending on what role you serve in the company, this could mean pushing operating system updates, deploying a new version of an application, or crunching to meet a deadline.  Even though there is some "crunch time" in the way game developers use the term, the typical issue IT/developers tend to run into is constant availability.  A given work week might only consist of 40-50 hours of work, but some of those hours tend to be during inconvient times.

Quality of life in game development

The typical job in game development has a similar baseline for hours (40 hours / week), but it tends to ramp up much more during crunch time - typically running 60+ hours / week for weeks to months at a time.  Although there isn't as much "emergency time" needed as a job in typical IT, the sheer commitment of time is much higher.

My story

I've been lucky enough that neither of these issues really define my balance in my career.  It's rare when I work more than 40 hours a week at my main job, and when I do it's only to make up for hours lost the week before.  As far as work goes, it's been balanced pretty well.  However, I tend to take on commitments to fill up whatever time I have left.  Only a couple months ago, in addition to working full-time as a Business Intelligence Consultant, I was doing contract programming work, starting Red Button Games as an official business, and doing a ton of programming and planning work for a charity gaming group I help run and participate in (72 hours remain).  My biggest long-standing issue in life-work balance is over-commitment and spreading myself too thin.

The Future

All these points in mind, I realized that since I was starting a company, I can make whatever goals I want.  It's really tempting to put all my time towards the game (since I'm so passionate about it), but I realized I really need to focus on avoiding the three major pitfalls: costant availability, commitment of time, and over-commitment.  I hate the American system of only having 2 standard vacation weeks, so why not have 4?  I love the idea of taking an afternoon to just play something, so why not?  And most importantly, by going full-time working on the game (instead of working on it part-time AFTER a full-time job) I free up a lot of the stress and over-commitment I've dealt with my whole life.  I'm getting married, have a house to maintain, and have a beautiful summer to enjoy - not sitting in a codecave my whole life.

~Daniel Frandsen, President of Red Button Games

PS: Make sure follow us either on Facebook, Twitter.  You can also contact us via email: (info [at] redbuttongames [dot] com).

Problem

In Codename: Jenga, players will be building a structure, a "tower" of sorts.  We wanted the tower to have realistic physics, but we also wanted to allow some fantastical structures.  The universe in which the game is built needs that hybrid, straddling reality and fantasy.  So we needed a way to calculate how much "realistic stress" is being put on the building as a whole.  The "world" is a 3D grid - so each block has 4 neighbors adjacent to it, plus a block above and below.  The algorithm discussed below accomplishes that.

Terminology

A couple terms for those learning or need a quick reminder:

Set - A collection of objects.  The only use this collection has is to determine whether an object exists in the set.  There is no way to get a list of objects in the set, to iterate through the object, or to order it - but it's VERY quick to determine if an object exists.

Queue - A FIFO (First-in, First-out) collection of objects.  When getting the next object from the queue, it gets the object that was there the longest.  Think of it as a line at the coffee shop - the first person in the line is the first to get their order.

Block - A grid element in Codename: Jenga.  Not every object is literally a "block", but logically that's what they're called.

Leaf - An object in a tree or graph with no children.  In this case, it means that it's a block that we'll start calculating from.

Algorithm

The first step of the algorithm was to develop a method to "calculate everything" and would deterministically come up with the same output.  The general design of the algorithm was to start at the ground floor and iterate generation by generation until no more connecting blocks could be found.  As each block was added, if it caused additional stress it would add the stress to the total.  The first iteration of the design used the following steps:

• Add all ground level blocks to [SearchSet] and [SearchQueue]
• {A} Get next block [CurBlock] from [SearchQueue]
• Check neighbors of [CurBlock]
  • If neighbor is a generation earlier than [CurBlock], it can supply support to [CurBlock]
  • If neighbor isn't in [SearchSet], then add it to [SearchQueue] and [SearchSet]
• Add up the support of all neighbors, record the end stress and generation of [CurBlock]
• If blocks still remain in [SearchQueue], loop back to {A}

This is a simplified breakdown - but you get the idea.  It iterates over the 3D grid of blocks, sets the stress level and generation, and moves to the next block.

Metadata

Each block contains pieces of metadata - the weight generation, weight value, weight support, and external support.

Weight Generation - A number that represents how far away the block is from the "root," or in this case, the ground floor.  This is helpful in determining which blocks support other blocks.

Weight Value - The amount of weight stress the block puts on the structure as a whole.  A floor for example, has a value of 0.1, while a solid block has a value of 1.

Weight Support - The amount of support the block provides to blocks above it.  A floor's support value is 0, while a solid block has a value of 1.

External Support - The support that a block receives from the blocks below and around it.  The more external support a block has, the less stress it puts on the structure.

The final stress value for a block is calculated once external support is calculated:  [External Stress] = [Weight Value] * (1 - [External Support]).  External support is additive - so if a block is supported by multiple sources, the block is very stable.

Iterative!

But wait a minute...the algorithm above recalculates everything from scratch.  We don't want to recalculate the entire tower if we only added or removed one block, that'd be really expensive!  So we needed to refine the algorithm for how it's going to be used 90% of the time - recalculating local changes and figuring out how it affects the whole.  This ends up being really complicated, since there a lot of things to consider, but the key to local calculations was the Weight Generation data.  Using the data stored in each block, it's very easy to start at one block and find the set of affected blocks.  The general rule is: if this changed block has a generation smaller than its neighbor, add the neighbor to the recalculation set.  This rule is iterated until no more blocks are found that match the rule, and a variation of the above algorithm is applied to that set of blocks.

Once the set of recalculation blocks has been created, you find the leaf blocks with the smallest generation, and start the calculation there.  There is some additional filtering to prevent the recalculation from going outside the set, but the logic is essentially the same - recalculate support, determine possible support based on Weight Generation.

Destruction

Just when I thought everything was resolved, I started trying to remove blocks.  This got tricky because much of the algorithm depended on the "starting block," which was usually the block that changed.  However, when removing a block, there's no longer a seed to start the process!  This involved even more sets to track various coordinates - the removed block set, the recalculation set, and the leaf set.  We're still debugging this algorithm, and the logic is a bit too complicated for me to wrap my head around without examples or visual aids.  Trust me though - things get tricky.

But What About the Fun? 

This algorithm alone doesn't do much, but it does give us a lot of data we can use for cool effects.  In Codename: Jenga, you'll have a power source to support the structure.  If your power source is a higher value than the stress on the structure, then your structure is fine.  But if the stress ever surpasses the power source...well, things are going to fall apart.  And that's the biggest hook we'll have in our first alpha/pre-beta release - the structure creation and destruction.  We think it's a really cool concept that hasn't been done very well (if at all?) before, and it's part of the foundation for the world we're building.

Thanks for reading!  If you have any comments or questions, or have suggestions for topics for future Red Button Bulletins, contact us either on Facebook, Twitter, or email (info [at] redbuttongames [dot] com).  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Our previous two games, Olu and All Your Creeps, were both written with Microsoft's game framework XNA.  Our next game, currently just called Codename: Jenga, is being written with Unity.  There's a lot of reasons behind the shift (rather than just a bulleted list), and it isn't any one reason why we're switching - it's a combination.

Engine/Editor instead of API

XNA does one thing very well - provide a managed framework for programmers to build games.  However, for any non-technical team member, it's a headache to use.  It's built around the idea of a codebase, with some afterthought put into content management.  There is no designer to speak of, and there's technically an "engine," but really it's just a set of classes that saves you some time.  Unity, on the other hand, is an editor and engine first, with the ability to customize any object with your own scripting.  At any point during game execution, you can pause the scene an inspect it and change any publicly-exposed variable (such as location in a scene or material). Also, it is generally more malleable since everything is exposed through the editor.

3D support versus 2D support

Although both tools can do both 3D and 2D, XNA is targeted towards 2D games, and Unity is targeted towards 3D.  XNA includes an extremely optimized sprite batch system, and Unity's coordinates are always three dimensions - even if one is only used for layering.  Throughout the process of building Olu and All Your Creeps, many systems I built from scratch would have been available from the start in Unity.  This sort of leads into the next point as well...

Many more systems included in the engine

XNA provides very few systems out of the box.  For example, you can draw a 3D object, but without animation.  If you want animation (2D or 3D), particles, or physics, you'll have to find a third-party library to use.  Unity provides all of these (and many more) in the engine.  It provides plenty of options to manage content, adjusting import settings, swapping textures, changing shaders - all through the editor.  In XNA, you'd have to develop your own tools or solutions to these problems.  Either that or just change a setting in the game and restart.   And in case Unity doesn't include a solution or the included solution isn't good enough...

Unity's Asset Store

XNA's community is strong - at least, in the early days it was.   However, one area I felt it always struggled was sharing reusable code and systems.  A few solutions became pretty popular to solve common problems (EasyStorage comes to mind), but it was hard to seek out solutions and spent time integrating them into your codebase.

Unity's solution to this was the Asset Store.  It provides a place for anyone to sell anything related to game development - from game assets to UI systems.  It created a culture that sharing your reusable content was valuable - and the more "plug-and-play" your system was, the more valuable it was on the Asset Store.  So far I've only bought a pathfinding and UI system, but these polished systems saved me dozens of hours in work.  And due to the modular structure of Unity's scripts, they're much easier to "plug-and-play" than a normal addition to your codebase.

Same development environment

This is a short note - but I'm still using C# and Visual Studio for "scripting," so there isn't much of a transition from a programming perspective - I'm just using different systems.

Easier and wider cross-platform development

This is the BIG one.  If there was one reason that I chose Unity over XNA, this is it.  XNA lets you develop one place and deploy to Xbox 360, PC, or Windows Phone 7.  The codebase can stay the same - but many limitations of the deployment you can only determine by testing.  Graphics card not working well enough on a testing PC?  Then you'll be troubleshooting until you figure out what part of the code to revise.  They've improved this by creating two "profiles" of PC's (high-end and low-end), but you're still left with the risk of PC development - every system is different.  Not to mention that you're limited to XBLIG, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, and PC.  I'm not going to address XBLIG concerns in this post, but I will say that many people would not expect their game to succeed on XBLIG.

With Unity, there are 6-7 different platforms you can develop on (depending on how you define "platform").  We're targeting PC/Mac/Web at first, but can easily expand to mobile when we decide to go down that path.  And for PC - there are already predefined performance profiles for different graphical levels (which can be further customized).  It helps mitigate some of the risk associated with deploying a game to PC, along with not knowing every iteration of PC specs.

Familiarity

Although we used XNA for our previous two games, Jesse (our Art Director) has used Unity for over 2 years - so we have a resource on the team that's very familiar with the tools.

XNA is still a good choice for many people - it just didn't make sense for our next project.  My hope is that this info doesn't necessarily drive people away from XNA, or blindly toward Unity, but educates on the benefits and risks associated with both.  As always, you can contact us with questions, either on Facebook, Twitter, or email (info [at] redbuttongames [dot] com).  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well!

Q: Tell us about the game already!

A: Now, now, patience is a virtue, but all right, you've been reading patiently for a couple of sentences!  In essence, Codename Jenga is about building a world and managing the chaos that affects it.  This is purposely a vague term, because it shares similarities between games as broad as Dwarf Fortress to SimCity, although the depth has more in common with the former.

Dwarf Fortress is about (among many things), building a world that feels alive, due to the depth of gameplay detail its creators have attempted to create.  However, anyone who has played (or tried to play) Dwarf Fortress is very aware of its faults.  Its interface and graphical design are dated and hard to use.  Its player feedback is confusing at best and non-existant at worst.  Its world feels alive, but the graphics don't do it justice - a deliberate choice made by the designers that we're taking a different path on.

SimCity shares many of the core "fun ideas" that Dwarf Fortress uses, but is a lot more accessible.  Both games share the activity of creating a world, and managing the chaos that ensues.  Codename Jenga will be doing the same, although with a different theme than either Dwarf Fortress or SimCity.

Q: That sounds awesome, but I still want to SEE it, and play it!  What's the release schedule??

A: We'll announce formally as soon as we have something to show (right now, things are very prototype-ey).  The formal announcement will probably be sometime in July or early August, with the demo and preorder becoming available in late August or September.  The demo will be available for free to play on the web, PC, or Mac.  If you preorder, you'll receive the latest version of the game as its updated, leading up to the release, at a cheaper price than the final cost.

Q: Can't you tell us ANYTHING ELSE?

A: It has tiles, but they're in 3D, sort of.

And that's it for this week!  As always, you can contact us with questions, either on Facebook, Twitter, or email (info [at] redbuttongames [dot] com).  Follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well!