OT: Would you "give away" your game?

[mnajera]

Since I've started work as a game programmer, I've had less and less time to work on my own projects. As a result, I haven't had time to work on my game, vortex.

I've got 22 levels finished, and that's about all I can do. I figure that I can either sell the finished product for very little (I wouldn't expect to pay too much for only 22 levels), or I could just give the thing away as freeware.

As long as I was giving the thing away, I also thought that I might as well release the source, even though it isn't really good. (That is; since I started working, I've improved a lot of bad habits I once had. My old source code is not something I'm proud of.)

What's more valuable? Earning a little bit of money, or "giving back" to the game development community?

...

In either case (even though I've asked this before), is it acceptable to distribute a .zip compressed folder of the game? By .zip compressed, I mean that I'd like to use the default Mac OSX .zip feature of archiving files.

[Leisure Suit Lurie]

What's more valuable? Earning a little bit of money, or "giving back" to the game development community?

Make what little you can off it. When that dries up, open source it.

[EvolPenguin]

Except Dan just gave away your master plan, so people will wait until you open source it now, and not buy it.

Alex

Edit: Yes .zip is ok.

[DaFalcon]

Yeah, offer to sell it for a while, post it to the shareware sites, add in a reg system/shareware version and see what happens. While those here might just wait, knowing your plan, most people in the world don't read these forums ;-) And anyway, some here might support you anyway.

BTW, how tough is it to create levels for Vortex? Is it hard-coded? Can you edit text files and see the changes in game? I ask because you might consider "hiring" a level designer to get you up to 100 levels or something, and decide on some kind of profit sharing. I'm sure you'd like to see more levels yourself anyway :-) That has to be fun, seeing someone else's imagination at work on your game.

And yes, I for one could possibly be interested in level design :-)

[edit: just found this (http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?p=60648#post60648) thread ... has anything changed since then?]

[mnajera]

Not much has changed since then. I just don't have the free time anymore.

I made a pretty easy to use level editor, but saving & loading was hard-coded. I had to recompile every time I worked on a new level. Making levels is very, very, very boring if you just have colored blocks to arrange.

Now that I think of it, it might be a good idea to just give the game away as freeware. The game has served it's original purpose. Tons of kids got to play it at my school's engineering fair, and it landed me a job programing games.

I just want as many people to play it as possible, and maybe some other programmers can learn a little bit by looking at the source.

If I were to start from scratch and make the game all over again, the programming would be 100% cleaner, the game would have tons more features (like an in-game level editor), and the graphics and gameplay would be a lot better. Working in a professional environment has "forced" me to become a better programmer. Once it slows down here at the office I might just give a sequel (which I would try to sell) a shot.

Anyways, I declare *now* that I'm just going to give this thing away. I'll post the link for it in a few days, once I've got a final .zip to distribute. I still want to include the registration system in the game, so programmers can look at the simple code entry system I made. I'll just include a valid serial number.

(I have to write this in a public forum so I don't forget. Otherwise, it'll be another 8 months before I ask myself "what should I do with vortex?")

[DaFalcon]

Sounds good! I'm looking forward to it!

[w_reade]

Seconded. Don't think I ever posted in that other thread, but vortex is cool. Thank you :).

[mnajera]

Ok. Done. I think. The game can be downloaded from cpgames.com.

I don't have any other mac to test the download on, so please let me know if the file works or not.

As it is now, you need to input the registation number in order to get all of the levels to work (and do fullscreen mode and such). The game plays fine on my 1.25 ghz g4 imac, but I haven't played the game on anything else.

Let me know what you think.

[w_reade]

All works well. Thanks again :).

[edit: 400MHz G4, Rage128 -- works fine. IIRC the last version was nice and smooth and playable, but it seemed impossible to beat the times; I haven't actually tested that this time, but IMO it's nice just playing it, so it doesn't really bother me. And, on general principles, do post the source :).]

[ThemsAllTook]

The last version of vortex I played ran very smoothly for me, but this one is significantly choppier. Changing settings (anti-aliasing, fullscreen) doesn't seem to affect it. A 1Ghz G4 with a Radeon 9000 ought to be able to handle a game this simple without breaking a sweat...

If you don't fix it yourself, post the source so I can fix it for you. :)

Alex Diener

[mnajera]

The last version of vortex I played ran very smoothly for me, but this one is significantly choppier. Changing settings (anti-aliasing, fullscreen) doesn't seem to affect it. A 1Ghz G4 with a Radeon 9000 ought to be able to handle a game this simple without breaking a sweat...

Before, the game was set to render as fast as possible, and the gameplay code was run on a timer. In the current version, both the rendering and the gameplay are run on timers. I think I did this in order to ensure that slower machines could play it, but the framerate can never go higher than 30 fps.

I played the original PC version on my machine at work, where I have a Radeon 9600 XT / AMD 2700+, and the smoothness was very, very nice.

I should let the rendering go as fast as possible, like it was before. In a few days I'll update the binary.

[ThemsAllTook]

Before, the game was set to render as fast as possible, and the gameplay code was run on a timer. In the current version, both the rendering and the gameplay are run on timers. I think I did this in order to ensure that slower machines could play it, but the framerate can never go higher than 30 fps.

I played the original PC version on my machine at work, where I have a Radeon 9600 XT / AMD 2700+, and the smoothness was very, very nice.

I should let the rendering go as fast as possible, like it was before. In a few days I'll update the binary.

My recommendation would be to still cap it, but make your timer fire at 120FPS rather than 30FPS. The human eye can perceive up to about 100FPS, so that should give you the nicest visuals without taxing the computer excessively.

Looking forward to the fixed version!

Alex Diener