It's official - we don't know what we're doing

I worked up a rough map of the Emeralda world in Unreal Editor on my home computer. Then I tried to install Unreal Editor on my laptop so I could meet Bill at Blue Saucer and show him what it looked like. My laptop is only 5 years old. But it wouldn't run Unreal Editor without warning me that it didn't like the inferior shader engine that my graphics card supported. I ran Unreal Editor anyway, and it was DOG slow. I mean, I could've brewed a pot of coffee while it was opening.

I compared Unreal requirements with my laptop. Unreal requires:
- Windows XP or Vista
- 2.0 GHz
- 512 MB RAM
- 8 GB of free space on the hard drive
- NVIDIA 6200 (released 2004) or ATI 9600 video card (released 2002)
And that's only the bare minimum.

My laptop, purchased in 2005, has:
- Windows XP
- 1.59 GHz (.41 GHz shy)
- 448 MB RAM (64 MB shy)
- 74 GB hard drive
- Radeon Xpress graphics card (released 2004, but without Shader 2 support)

Then it hit me--the possible players in our major demographic will likely NOT have computers that support Unreal. We need to consider what hardware our possible players have access to.

After all, when Bill had a hard time convincing some of his existing customers to install and log on to SecondLife, we realized that we needed less of a barrier-to-entry for our game. For example, what possible player in our major demographic would have the patience to create a SecondLife account, download and install SecondLife, log in, make their way through Orientation Island which almost forces you to customize the appearance of your avatar, and in which it's difficult for a new person to move the camera to read the instruction boards, read our instructions on how to get to Emeralda, and THEN play? We realized we needed a one-click install, a one-click start, simple ways to move around, and a good UI. This minimal research guides us in part of our game design.

Now we need to do more focused research. Do most of our possible players have gaming computers? Then yes, we can use Unreal. But what if some of our possible players only have access to computers at libraries and coffee shops? Then, they won't be able to install anything. They might only be able to run Flash or Silverlight games in a web browser.

Man, we went about this backwards. Speaking for myself, I dreamed up a gorgeous, immersive 3D world with a 3D press that could somehow convey tactile feedback that was a close to reality as possible. We should've started with what our possible players are willing to do, and what hardware they have. We could've done that while hashing out the backstory, minigames, and methods of teaching.

I've asked Bill to email his customer base with these questions. I hope we get lots of responses.

We are developing a fun and easy game that will teach etching and printmaking, but we need to know the kinds of games you like, and how powerful are the computers that you have access to.

If you take the time to answer these quick questions, you will receive (something).

Feel free to answer only some of these questions.

Questions:

1. What kinds of games do you enjoy playing most on the computer? You can list game names (like Tetris, Myst, Viva Piñata), or game types (like puzzle, action, adventure, arcade, first person, etc), or whether you only play Flash games on websites.

2. What kinds of games do you hate playing?

3. Do you like detailed 3D environments that you can move around in by simultaneously using the mouse and multiple keys on your keyboard? Or do you prefer simple 2D environments that you can explore with only the mouse or arrow keys?

4. Do you have regular access to an Xbox 360, or a Playstation 3, or a Wii? If so, is it connected to the internet?

5. How powerful/fast (or how old) are the computers that you have access to?

If you have the time to answer this question in detail, and you have a Windows computer, here are some handy steps:

To find out the operating system, speed, and memory:

1. Right-click My Computer (on Windows 2000 or Windows XP) or Computer (on Windows Vista or Windows 7), and then click Properties.

2. A window should pop up, titled "System Properties" (on Windows 2000 or Windows XP) or titled "View basic information about your computer" (on Windows Vista or Windows 7).

3. Look for "Windows" to find the operating system. For example, "Windows 7 Home" or "Microsoft Windows XP".

4. Look for "GHz" or "MHz" to find the speed. For example, "Processor: AMD Phenom... 3.00 GHz" or "Computer: ...795 MHz".

5. Look for "GB" or "MB" to find the memory. For example, "Installed memory (RAM): 4.00 GB", or "448 MB of RAM".

To find out information about graphics card:

1. If you closed the system properties window, right-click My Computer (on Windows 2000 or Windows XP) or Computer (on Windows Vista or Windows 7), and then click Properties again.

2. If you are using Windows 2000 or Windows XP, click the Hardware tab.

3. Click Device Manager.

4. In the Device Manager window, click the arrow or plus sign next to Display adapters to expand the node. What does it say in the node that appears? For example, "NVIDIA GeForce..." or "ATI RADEON...".

Thank you so much for your time!

It's official - we're moving to Unreal 3

Since neither Bill nor I can spare money each month for land in SpotOn3D or SecondLife, and since using Unreal Editor 3 will cost only $40 one time (until we need to license the game), we're going to go with Unreal for now. Once the game is made, we'll probably port to SecondLife/SpotOn3D, but it makes more sense to develop with Unreal now.

Post-mortem note: Man, I wasted so much time fretting about the restrictions of the SecondLife development model that it blocked me on everything. But that's probably due to my all-or-nothing mental issue. :o) Must not let that happen again.

We still love you SecondLife/SpotOn3D!

Melissa showed me an awesome book, Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume 1: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3. I'm going to use that to ramp up/refresh my Unreal skills.


Update: WOW, Unreal Editor 3 has some great improvements over Unreal Editor 2004! The new Properties window with better tooltips (see pic), shortcut tools, snapping to avoid BSP errors, better organization of UI elements, applying on materials to meshes and wrapping textures in the materials, fixes to packaging errors, giving a visual warning when you put your player start too close to the ground, etc. This totally validates our decision to move to Unreal. And when I read that Unreal was used to make Bioshock, I no longer had a fear that I wouldn't be able to take the harshness out of this first person shooter engine to create a mellow learning game for our target demographic.

Yay! My articles were published!!

Finally! I wrote them so long ago, one of them is already a little obsolete.

The one that relates most to our project:

Using Expression Blend to create educational games and tools for teachers

Another loosely related one:

Creating games in Expression Blend: Simon Redux

The third one doesn't really relate.

Beta testing Office Live Workspace

Oh my! Once you get going, tools come out of the woodwork. I got an invite to try out Office Live Workspaces, http://workspace.office.live.com/. (Actually, probably everyone with a Hotmail or Live or MSN email account got the invite.)

It's cool! It's like a Sharepoint site, but I really like the simplified features. You can EASILY create multiple workspaces, allow others to view them, post a range of document types, and organize them. I LOVE IT! All it needs is version control so you can see previous versions of a document. An http:// sourcesafe.office.live.com. :o)

It's a wee bit buggy, but not in any way that would cause loss of data, thankfully. Dates sometimes don't show up, or you can't save documents back to the server (you have to re-upload them), and I'd like to be able to store non-Office type documents to new folders (not just a Note, Excell spreadsheet or Word doc), but it'll TOTALLY serve our purposes.