Don't give up!

Do you like games, enough to enjoy playing it but what about creating them. Searching the web i found that many people want to create games by themselves. But after some time they found it hard work to do only small parts of it and they give up. Some people like to play some to create and then some combine those to and get to play while having a real time job creating PC games. And to enjoy what we do should be the target of us all. I know its all pretty graphics in PC games but behind those colorful animation artists stand to create a world for us gamers. So please be true to yourself, you are creating a world, it is no small task, be ready and don't give up.

Above this text is a screenshot taken from Guild Wars a great online game with some very nice models.

What 3D software to use? Read on. (download)

How to make a PC game, what software to use? Well if you have money Autodesks Maya sounds pretty nice but what if you are starting as a “garage game designer” and every penny counts. Open source comes to mind and its not a bad idea to start. When you are starting you really need to be creative to be noticed and you certainly need to cut costs to zero. Equipping your computer with open source software is a great idea for start. Because why limit your potential with high cost software at the start when you can just go create and have fun in the making. Some people started with Maya and some other expensive software because they wanted the best from the start, and what happened? They were under pressure because they “had” to create profitable game to just repay the costs of their investment in early game developing software. Free yourself from the start to the end. Certainly if you make a hit, hey go get anything you want but just keep making hits. So one of the software that should not be missed is Blender. Blender is an all-in-one 3D modelling and animation suite. It can be used to produce computer-generated images and movies. It was originally developed by Dutch company NeoGeo, then made available as a commercial product by subsidiary Not A Number. When NaN shut down, one of its founders set up the not-for-profit Blender Foundation and worked to raise funds to buy the rights to Blender. Consequently, Blender is now under the GNU General Public License which makes it open source and free for anyone to use. Recently there was a great project using Blender which resulted in first Open source movie called Elephant Dream which is currently heavily downloaded on various torrent sites. That just proves how much users value this software. Go to http://www.blender.org/ and have fun. And also i provided you with the pdf download of Blender 3DNoob to Pro - Beginner Tutorials which i found on wiki.


Bellow are two quality pictures representing Blenders power.

The rise and failings of a PC game developers.

Most PC players know Croteam a company from Zagreb, Croatia. The company was established in 1993, initially as a “garage games” makers because back then they had six employees. The first game they produced Football Glory in 1993, which was a moderate quality game received more attention from the court actions that were taken against Croteam from Sensible Software because of the similarities between their football game.
With only a minor games produced 1993-2001 their biggest product was released in 2001 as a Serious Sam title, a first person shooter. Serious Sam become a world hit its main features were: large amounts of colourful enemies, enormous open areas, many secrets and its superb game engine.Croteam created their own engine for use in both First Encounter and Second Encounter parts of Serious Sam and it was named “Serious Engine”, it was a little revolution of its time. When other FPS engines f the time had a limited draw distances and poor amount of characters on the screen at the same time the “Serious Engine” was delivering large amounts of detailed models which were very fun to obliterate by players.

The humor and fun within the game was another thing that Croteam delivered in a great style. The story itself was kind of a parody to the other FPS shooters of its time that way the game was shining in the sea of other similar titles. Combining all of this elements in one game it certainly produced a great gaming fun which players around the world appreciated. Reviews from various gaming web sites and magazines were excellent, usually bringing very high marks from editors and players.

But than on October 2005. came highly awaited Serious Sam 2 with the new “Serious engine”. The game was far from bad but it failed to deliver what was expected. Why? Well the players complained it was just an old story in a new cloth and that there was nothing new in it. The price of the previous editions of Serious Sam was very reasonable if not cheap, but after the success the price was raised by a large percentage and that also heavily reflected on the gaming population. Veteran players know what games are worth their money and were disappointed in Serious Sam 2. Marketing also did not help, many complained about the poor game demo which did not help in sales. To this day i haven't found any company which licensed “Serious engine” for its games so that also was a failure. I don’t like to hear about downfalls and i believe Croteam has a great game developers but what was the real reason of Serious Sam 2 failing to deliver? I believe it was many small things combined. Small companies can be destroyed this way so i wish all the people in gaming industries and especially Croteam good luck, don rest on your past glory because it will burn very soon. Watch every aspect of you game because players will certainly see that fruits of your labour are rewarded.