From the Back Burner to the Front
Hey there! Mike from All Balls Entertainment here, I’ve been developing games for about ten years now. In that time I’ve released a few games, but they never seem to end up the way I had originally planned. Even worse, for the last five years, I’ve been struggling to release anything.
On a dour note - this is the last time I’ll attempt releasing something.
With that being said - I’m going to do it right. I’ll aim to take what I’ve learned, between the mistakes I’ve made, the various Youtuber discussions and the sprinkling of successes I’ve had, and attempt to bring my idea (the madness inducing, fever dream), and actually produce the project I’ve dreamed for you to play - Ray & Stoic Gronk.
This game has been in development hell for the last five years. The first version (the current version found on Steam) took about two and half years, and was about 70% done, but it was just not good - like a good first try, but didn’t have the staying power and needed a lot of fixes. The second version ended up becoming way bigger than I could handle and was scrapped after a year of development.
Frustrated, I took a break, and worked on some other projects. While there’s nothing wrong with this, none of these new projects captured the same interest to see them through. What I’m realizing with game development is that even the smallest of projects can be daunting - I love creating mechanics, but they all require artwork and I suck at artwork. There’s also still a lot of problem solving involved - and for me, solving problems feels good, when you’re invested.
If I’m going to pour this much energy into something, it might as well be something I’m passionate about. I’ve been married to Ray and Stoic Gronk for five years now, and while my interest dwindles from time to time, I still keep wanting to come back to it.
As an aside, I have a habit of starting devlogs way after the events that they took place, and not posting them anywhere, so I’m basically just writing to myself. Worst of all, even if I were to post them - they are so goddamn long and cringy - I don’t want people to read them. This time, I’m starting the dev log on day one (yesterday I decided to return to Ray, so I count that as day zero), and hopefully I’ll post it sooner than later.
With all that, I’m starting this journey with three goals;
Goal One - Finish the website
It’s just sitting there, and it’s costing me money. Like my games, I’ll have something, then feel compelled to keep it a secret until it’s “finished”. But the finish line never comes. Likely graphics on this space will be sparse, but they will come - just like updates on my game.
Goal Two - Plan the game
This means actually planning what this game should look like by the end - otherwise it will never get finished. Ideas will evolve, but the core should stay the same. At this point I’ve started the planning process, and created a roadmap of what needs to be set up at this point - it’s early, so it’s open ended, but at least now I have a plan.
Goal Three - Picking an artstyle
This is arguably the worst part about me making games. I have an idea of what might look cool, get halfway through then change my mind - this is costly when I hire artists, and it burns me out when I do it myself. When I hire people, they deliver something that doesn’t quite hit, and when I do it, it looks like shit. This time around, I’ll be creating low poly 3D models -think Nintendo 64 - they should be relatively easy to create and when it comes to animation, they should all be consistent. Thankfully, this time around, I’m not alone in the art direction, as I have an amazing artist who will help me with the concepts, look and color scheme (Fun fact - I’m color blind and it becomes abundantly clear when I pick anything but shades of grey).
TL:DR - Ray & Stoic Gronk is back on the front burner. Other than a bit of backstory and ranting, what you can take from this is that I’m in the planning/prototyping phase to make sure things go as smoothly as they can. Aside from planning, I’ll be focusing on building the mechanics and feel of Gronk along with some early assets - and we’ll take it from there.
Thanks for reading!
Mike