Taco
10-20-2013, 02:22 PM
http://www.solecismic.com/frontierblog/?p=607
No, it’s not a Stimulus Package
Front Office Football Seven is getting nearer to reality.
Three months ago, I took questions about Front Office Football Seven, as it had been under development for, really, five years. Though more serious development started early this year. At the time, I hoped I would release the new product in November.
November approaches, and it’s a lot closer. Many key new features are in place and tested. I have my final “beta” list – the new product will be feature-complete soon. What that means in the software world is that when this list is exhausted, nothing new will be added. The entire focus will be testing and preparing the product for release. Since I test as I develop when I get later in the cycle, my alpha is the same as my beta (but nothing like my gamma, and certainly not in the same world as my delta).
If I had to guess, I’d say beta will begin the second week of November. Maybe the third. The bulk of the testing will focus on multi-player play, because that stresses the game more and many of the new features focus on the multi-player experience.
It won’t be a flashier game. I’ve cleaned up the graphics somewhat, but my philosophy of game development is that a cleaner, simpler interface is better for long-term enjoyment. I will not sacrifice screen space for bells and whistles. I don’t like full-screen products. I think I’ve hit maybe 1998 when it comes to a modern look. Which is an improvement over 1996, where I was last time. Now if I could only charge real 1998 prices for entertainment software, but I digress…
At beta, a product release is about a month away. So I’m hopeful to release this in the Christmas rush. That’s certainly manageable from a development perspective. The question remains how this product will be released. Is it a Steam product, which provides an internal marketing that can’t be matched? Do I stay with ViaTech, which is a smaller ViaTech than it was ten years ago, but it’s familiar, gives me the opportunity to release the exact moment it’s ready and, I’m told, has a new library that solves the myriad of installation issues some of have faced with Windows 7/8. If Steam is the answer, I may need to take a week or so now getting the product into Greenlight (which may end up failing entirely, of course). I may lose the opportunity to release by Christmas. I’ll have to get my hands on a web cam (no small diversion – I don’t own a smart phone, and have no desire to get one).
Or do I find an entirely new avenue for production? Thankfully, this does not mean printing CDs myself and spending the next three months non-stop shipping them all over the world. Been there, done that too many times now. I’ve faced my full life’s allotment of hostile post-office clerks (Carnation, Washington and Amherst, New Hampshire, I am talking about you).
So the rest of the year will be quite busy, and I will be entirely focused on what it will take to finish development and get Front Office Football Seven out the door. The feature set really hasn’t changed since the interview in July. Maybe a tweak here and there. I’ll keep you posted when things change.
As for this blog… WordPress no longer supports php4 and my ISP is rather slow to upgrade. I don’t want to take the time to learn a new blog installation. For at least a year, comments have been broken here. I’ve reverted the blog to the most basic WordPress theme. I’ve removed almost all of the plugins (spambots are ridiculous these days, so to prevent dozens of spam comments a day, I took some time to locate an old version of Akismet that works with php4). I took out the captcha plugin and have switched to pre-moderated comments. All the error messages are gone, so somewhat of a discussion is possible, though I will probably not publish any comments along the lines of “will feature-x be in the new game” or “when will it be released.” That will be covered when it’s released and a free demo will be published so people can review the basics of the game and help file.
Anyway, that’s the latest. I remain very busy and very focused on the new product. Thanks for listening.
No, it’s not a Stimulus Package
Front Office Football Seven is getting nearer to reality.
Three months ago, I took questions about Front Office Football Seven, as it had been under development for, really, five years. Though more serious development started early this year. At the time, I hoped I would release the new product in November.
November approaches, and it’s a lot closer. Many key new features are in place and tested. I have my final “beta” list – the new product will be feature-complete soon. What that means in the software world is that when this list is exhausted, nothing new will be added. The entire focus will be testing and preparing the product for release. Since I test as I develop when I get later in the cycle, my alpha is the same as my beta (but nothing like my gamma, and certainly not in the same world as my delta).
If I had to guess, I’d say beta will begin the second week of November. Maybe the third. The bulk of the testing will focus on multi-player play, because that stresses the game more and many of the new features focus on the multi-player experience.
It won’t be a flashier game. I’ve cleaned up the graphics somewhat, but my philosophy of game development is that a cleaner, simpler interface is better for long-term enjoyment. I will not sacrifice screen space for bells and whistles. I don’t like full-screen products. I think I’ve hit maybe 1998 when it comes to a modern look. Which is an improvement over 1996, where I was last time. Now if I could only charge real 1998 prices for entertainment software, but I digress…
At beta, a product release is about a month away. So I’m hopeful to release this in the Christmas rush. That’s certainly manageable from a development perspective. The question remains how this product will be released. Is it a Steam product, which provides an internal marketing that can’t be matched? Do I stay with ViaTech, which is a smaller ViaTech than it was ten years ago, but it’s familiar, gives me the opportunity to release the exact moment it’s ready and, I’m told, has a new library that solves the myriad of installation issues some of have faced with Windows 7/8. If Steam is the answer, I may need to take a week or so now getting the product into Greenlight (which may end up failing entirely, of course). I may lose the opportunity to release by Christmas. I’ll have to get my hands on a web cam (no small diversion – I don’t own a smart phone, and have no desire to get one).
Or do I find an entirely new avenue for production? Thankfully, this does not mean printing CDs myself and spending the next three months non-stop shipping them all over the world. Been there, done that too many times now. I’ve faced my full life’s allotment of hostile post-office clerks (Carnation, Washington and Amherst, New Hampshire, I am talking about you).
So the rest of the year will be quite busy, and I will be entirely focused on what it will take to finish development and get Front Office Football Seven out the door. The feature set really hasn’t changed since the interview in July. Maybe a tweak here and there. I’ll keep you posted when things change.
As for this blog… WordPress no longer supports php4 and my ISP is rather slow to upgrade. I don’t want to take the time to learn a new blog installation. For at least a year, comments have been broken here. I’ve reverted the blog to the most basic WordPress theme. I’ve removed almost all of the plugins (spambots are ridiculous these days, so to prevent dozens of spam comments a day, I took some time to locate an old version of Akismet that works with php4). I took out the captcha plugin and have switched to pre-moderated comments. All the error messages are gone, so somewhat of a discussion is possible, though I will probably not publish any comments along the lines of “will feature-x be in the new game” or “when will it be released.” That will be covered when it’s released and a free demo will be published so people can review the basics of the game and help file.
Anyway, that’s the latest. I remain very busy and very focused on the new product. Thanks for listening.