Dev Timeline

FLARE [ARCHIVED]

Dev Timeline

Clint Bellanger
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 01:52
Clint Bellanger's picture

An engine is nice, but I'm here to make games.  So I wrote a rough blog about Flare's timeline to its first game.

http://clintbellanger.net/rpg/blog/20110410

Flare Timeline

April 2011: Flare v0.13 "Quests"

In late April, Flare v0.13 will be released. It will contain talking NPCs and support for simple quests.

May 2011: Flare v0.14 "New Game"

In late May, Flare v0.14 will be released. It will contain a Title Menu, New Game Menu, and Load Game Menu.

June 1st, 2011: Feature Freeze

The engine will receive a freeze on major new features after v0.14. Any programming done after v0.14 will focus on making options in the existing engine configurable.

  • Translation support
  • Menu themes/design options
  • Minor AI config options
  • New base powers, items, etc. as needed
Focus changes from Engine to Game

At this point the focus of this project will switch from making an engine to making a game. Basically, if I can't build a game with this engine then it's useless.

June 2011 through May 2012: Art Assets

I expect to focus an entire year on creating art assets for Flare. More tile sets, creatures, equipment, NPCs, powers, etc. During this time I will be plugging the art into the engine with new test maps, side quests, etc.

June 2012 through Nov 2012: Tell A Story

At the end of 2012 it will be time to pull the assets together into the first Flare game. There should be enough variety to tell a decent story -- even a 20 hour single player campaign would be great for a project like this.

Dec 2012: Post Mortem

Assess the engine as a stand-alone project. Possible outcomes:

  • If the engine is worthwhile, build a second game. Aim to reuse as much of the old code as possible. Refactor as necessary. Make sure both the first and second games run on the same engine.
  • If the engine is mediocre, consider a rewrite. Design it from the ground up to support scripting engine, multiplayer, etc.
  • If the engine is worthless, it ceases to be supported as a stand-alone engine. Instead it's basically the beta code-name for the finished game.
Clint Bellanger
joined 15 years 1 day ago
Monday, April 11, 2011 - 02:04
Clint Bellanger's picture

Version 0.01 of this project was released on January 1st, 2010.  So right now I'm 1 year, 4 months in.

People say that Flare's development is fast.  For a most solo effort (I've done about 90% of the code and visual art) done on nights and weekends, it's fairly fast.  It's been that way so far for a few reasons:

  1. I keep moving to the next thing.  If I gave myself the time I would rewrite 90% of the code and redo 90% of the art.  But that's a sure way to never finish a project.
  2. I keep the scope narrow.  If I added multiplayer, there would not be a game until 2013.  If I also added a full scripting engine, more like 2014.  3D rendering, the game might never be completed.
  3. I'm the main coder and artist.  I welcome contributions but this is still very much my project -- I know where I'm going, I don't need permission from anyone else to get there.

Even with all this speed, the release of the first game is looking like the end of 2012.  3 years from scratch to a game is pretty fast for a game of this size.