That’s not the kind of destruction I’m talking about here though. I’m talking about the various game engines, and I use the term very loosely (as you’ll know doubt have seen in other articles), that have been unable to cope with the stresses we’ve placed on the poor souls and as they’ve failed, in turn our hopes and dreams have failed too. Oh yes, an awful lot of things have fallen to pieces just as they began to look like they could be our saviour.

The first time I can really recall this happening was during the first attempted development of Zip n’ West, when we were using Flash MX as a game engine. It all began so well, John was more than happy working out key frame animation and the like. I’d discovered that actionscript was essentially javascript and therefore very easy to code. There were also massive amounts of tutorials and forums that we could turn to if we ran into difficulties. I’d started producing a working prototype of the game and as time passed I coded more and more features to accompany the wonderful imagery that was coming my way from the other lads. We had a grand plan in place of how the game would play out from start to finish, that was admittedly probably far too grand for us to achieve at the time, but that was pretty standard so we weren’t worried about that at all.

During the development we found ourselves repeatedly asking the same question, “Why, if there are all these articles showing you how to do brilliant things in flash, hadn’t the people who wrote them made a game like we were instead of phaffing around on forums?”. Well, soon enough the answer became all too apparent. Whilst flash was wonderful at all the little features we wanted to use in our game, when you tried to put them all together it failed miserably.

Essentially flash was not designed to be used to create the kind of game that we wanted to. Our plan was quite simply far too grand for it. We’d pushed flash further than it should ever have been pushed at that time, and it had broken. It was the most productive we’d ever been at that point and although we’d learned a valuable lesson, it had been a painful way to do it. It left us with no choice but to abandon the game without really having anything to move on to, which was the first time we’d found ourselves in that situation.

My advice to you is the same advice that’s lead us to where we are now, there’s a reason people all over the world are out there making games the hard way, that reason is simple, because it’s the best way.

In between looking for work and residence, the group set about planning for their next project. The obvious choice was to play it safe and make a sequel to the project that had given them such a sense of achievement, but the planned Dome XIV was unfortunately ill fated. Let’s face it, educational games are a bit boring when all’s said and done. The next thought was to return to good old Zip n’ West, but in an unforseen act of sanity, the group realised that it was probably too big a project for them at that time, so they decided to do something new.

The only thing they were sure of at this point, was that they wanted to create their next project using C++ and, preferably, DirectX. This proved to be something of a stumbling block, as despite their numerous degrees and awards, none of them could program in C++ (De ja vous anyone?). Fortunately, Jim knew a man who could…

Let’s look back a few years to 2003 when Jim was still studying at Coventry University. There’s a group of friends sitting in a pub that they refer to as ‘the library’, for reasons best known to them, who’ve recently formed a ’study group’ known as ‘The Pork Pie Club’, for reasons best known to no-one. Now, one of the group is someone we’ve met before, Jim, who at this point, as we’ve mentioned, still has a fairly large amount to learn about programming, but he is getting there. Fortunately there’s another lad sitting close by who’s far more adept at the aforementioned artform, known as Chris Siddall, or to the group as ’Little Chris’ or ‘Other Chris’ (all the good nicknames were apparently taken…).

Now, at this time Chris was, unfortunately, not a great Pool player and he most certainly could not hold his liquor, but what he could do, what he could do better than anyone else in the ‘Pork Pie Club’ and possibly better than anyone else at their University, was program. He’d been programming for years and could code in VB, Java, C, C++ and most likely many more besides. Clearly, him and Jim had a lot to offer each other. Many games of pool and even more pints of beer, plus one rather dubiously completed Java coursework, followed and not only were the two now friends, but ‘Chris’ had become known as ‘Sid’ (now that’s a much better nickname isn’t it?).

After introducing Sid to the rest of the team, some modest plans were made for the next project. It was a top down, 2D, flash style affair that could be completed very quickly and would be a stepping stone to the next, more modern and professional, game. Those more avid readers of this here website will know that, in typical Psync style, it didn’t quite work out that way…

…

Anyway, that brings us up to date. It’s 2010 and not only can Sid handle his drink a lot better and play a mighty fine game of pool, but we’ve also nearly finished our first attempt at a game since we grew into a five piece band. If all goes well ’BL!TZ: Requiem’ will be finished and released soon, then we can get on to the next stage of Psync Interactive, which will hopefully lead to that shelf in HMV before we’re too long in the tooth. Fingers crossed!

The year is now 2005 and the only one of the four who hasn’t left Coventry is Jim. He’s now in the final year of his degree course and has been given the daunting task of producing a fifteen thousand word dissertation alongside a completed project. He’s had a bit of a slow start to University life (zero programming knowledge, remember), but now he’s got the hang of it, he’s doing alright for himself. Viz, by this time, had already made his degree course look something akin to a play school lesson and walked away with not only a first class degree with honours, but also a couple of awards, just to rub it in. John had spent the intervening years blazing his way through his degree course and somehow still found time to have a crack at games development along the way. As for Richard? Well, he’d discovered that University wasn’t for him and had moved on to other things.

Now at this point, Jim’s in a bit of a pickle; that dissertation isn’t going to write itself. The only upside is, he’s been told it can be on anything he likes, so long as it’s in the realm of computing, and he can use anything (and I stress anything) at his disposal. In fact one particular lecturer, who shall remain anonymous, actually pointed out to a crowded lecture theatre that, “If your Dad works with a supercomputer, then use that supercomputer!”. Well, unfortunately for Jim, his Dad worked in a car factory and they definitely didn’t have any supercomputers there… but what he did have, now that they had all come back, was a budding games development company in his kitchen, so he decided to use that for his final project instead.

Now, this may on face value seem like a rather obvious and easy choice to make, but it’s worth pointing out that Psync had never actually produced a completed project, and putting your future in the hands of Psync Int. was a little bit risky to say the least. A meeting was quickly arranged and it was decided that, for better or worse, they were going to have a crack at it. Obviously, Jim would have to do the bulk of the work himself (it was his project after all), but the others agreed to help out where they could, without it getting to a stage where such help could be called ‘cheating’ (such a nasty word).

The idea was simple, they would produce a 2D educational game aimed at school children. Rather than including a complicated game engine, levels would essentially be made up of a series of on screen questions that the user would need to answer correctly in order to progress. True to the emerging style of this particular group of developers, the idea changed overnight to incorporate a fully 3D environment with real world physics, included at least one playable platform level, and was designed to be at least twice as big as anything they could feasibly achieve in the allowed time frame. Yes, that night, Dome XIII was born.

This was a new age for Psync Interactive, the machine began to wurr like never before. Over the next six months, productivity grew and grew to a point where sleep was sometimes forgone altogether. The most infamous of these occasions resulting in a mammoth 42 hour shift! An experience that would live long in the memories of those involved.

During the summer of 2006, the first deadline ever faced by Psync reared it’s ugly head and the project would be submitted. Did it work? Not exactly… a lack of sleep doesn’t really promote accuracy or quality assurance, but it wasn’t a million miles off. In fact, thanks to an early decision to half the amount of levels in the game, and a greater emphasis on FMV sequences, it was virtually on the money.

A few months later, the results were announced and Jim had bagged himself 85% on his dissertation. Coupled with some fine performances in the other six modules he completed that year, he’d managed to achieve a first class degree and the highest mark by a student on a computing course that year. It was Psync’s first completed computer game and it was a notable success.

This brings us to another key stage in the life of Psync Interactive, it’s time our heroes left the sanctuary of education and faced the big wide world alone, or perhaps not quite as alone as they thought they would…

See you for part three next week.