Introduction
Developing for the Amiga since the Commodore crash has been a
nerve racking and emotional rollacosta ride and Bloodline has
been through all of it!
It is important
to remember while reading this that all of the people who have
worked or is working on Bloodline had or have other real-life
commitments like school / college / university or work, or in
some cases both. These elements always came first as people rely
upon them for their future more so than the project. Bloodline
in some cases came second for the developers. In no way was this
a bad thing, never would I allow someone to jeopardise their educational,
work or family for the sake of Bloodline which started out and
still has the feel of a semi-professional hobby. Exams are important
as is bringing in money to pay the mortgage every month...but
then we are Amigan's and we all now and have probably experienced
that in some form or another :) The large gaps you may notice
from conception date to present day in my diary include those
"time-out" periods for exams and other commitments.
This diary is taken from my point of view in the design process
and then the management element, the full diary of everything
everybody who has or is working on Bloodline would probably fully
a bookshelf :)
1997 Diary
March 13th
1997
From a discussion that has started on the Blitz Mailing list it
was suggested that the best way to promote the Amiga is to convert
existing PC games. One suggested publishing house to contact was
Blue Byte.
March 28th
1997
Response from BlueByte was positive but following up their e-mails
leads us to believe they will not allow us access to their source
code and gfx. I can understand their worries and was not surprised
by their response.
Next plan
of attack is to create our own titles as high quality shareware
or to produce our own publishing deal to control the advertising,
production and distribution of the product. The latter sounds
better via a third party and the former if we cannot find a publisher
/ distributor.
We are quite
a large group, roughly 18 of us, all of us coders with some of
us with limited graphical skills. There is no structure to the
group yet so we're all trying to do things our own way. Liz Tucker,
coder of Blitz Map, has suggested we all go away and type up our
game ideas and come back before the end of the month where we
can all openly judge them and decide upon a game and style to
do.
April 17th
1997
While on train thought up idea for an interactive RPG while reminiscing
about playing games like Chaos Engine, Sword of Vermilion and
Zelda. Like the idea of a top down type action RPG, retro style
well suited for AGA graphics with no need for powerfully processors
or big box Amiga's. Liz already has an engine in AMOS that uses
semi-isometric view point ala Chaos Engine.
Decided that
game will need a detailed storyline, something like a backbone
to all the adventure, puzzles and characters in the game. Most
Amiga RPGs are something and nothing, either lacking in action
or have too much adventure, neither both. Our game should have
a good balance of the two to cater for all types of players while
not trying to hard to please everyone. It needs to be original.
Game will
be based upon the world of Ravenstark, an in-depth RPG I have
been designing for a few years. Will take elements of that storyline
and fit them neatly into a separate story. Decided that main character
will be called Dafel (pronounced Dav-ell), his ex-master
Samson and his new master the Priest-King. Decided to throw in
a few twists and turns in the story, also add a lot of conflicts.
Thinking about using religion as the core of the story, about
how people fight over beliefs that are usually pitiful and shallow.
October
17th 1997
Small demo working. Looks good. We can get a two-thirds full scrolling
area on 320x256 screen on 256 colours with about 4 enemies plus
Dafel on the screen at one running about 9-12fps on 030/50 machine.
On my 040 I get 12fps. Put screen shots on web site and offered
demo to publishers to see what will happen.
October
24th 1997
Lots of responses from publishers! Heard that Paul Berkey has
picked up contract with Sadeness for Foundation. After talking
to Paul decided to accept Sadeness offer.
November
6th 1997
Hired another map graphics designer. Lost 3D modeller :(
December
9th 1997
Completed design for Dafel, story now complete. Concentrating
on the detail for levels.
Working coming
in from Ben. A lot of time elapse but not much progress. I think
work is too much for him alone on the animated intro. Will probably
have to cut it back.
