I have to say that these were two of the best years of my game making career so far. I'll be telling the story of the development of the style from the original game to the "updated" (late 1960's) feel of the online F2P game. How we designed and built new props, repurposed old props, and got nearly 1 million triangles drawing to screen in a Flash game (not easy).
October 2016 update
Ok now I am confused. My page on Evil Genius has disappeared. The forces of good will not thwart me... I'll dig out the old images and write a new page.
It is also with great sadness that I have to report that due to dwindling player usage there will be no further updates (not that there have been in a while). I would love to say that the plans for Evil Genius 2 were progressing well, but it is not and seems to be stuck in development hell.
I loved my time on EGo and I think we did some stunning work with a small team on a tight budget and short time scale.
We had some wonderful user comments basically saying that we had created a real game rather than the usual Zynga style WhateverVille or other Give-us-your-money-Sim-Builder. That is probably part of the reason its popularity has dropped off.
Shame really..
Wish you'd post more on this. I've been pretty impressed with EGO's graphic style, including your painted popup graphics, and its performance. I think your experience in optimizing 3D content would be informative, and I'd also just like to see more of your artwork and process.
ReplyDeleteHi Crimson,
DeleteThanks for the comment, I loved the style of the original game so when I got the chance to do a "clean" game rather than the usual urban grime dystopia fest that most modern games seem to wallow in I grabbed the opportunity with both hands
I'll re-post the page I wrote a while back when I can find it again
I hate to admit it, but am only just now seeing your reply. I agree completely about the appeal of clean designs and details over the grunginess of most (Western) 3D game art, and hope you get the opportunity to do more in that vein.
DeleteWith the game being shut down in a few days now I've been trying to grab whatever mementos possible. I wish I had the hardware to see everything in super high resolution and quality before it is gone, but I've spent a lot of time enjoying it the last couple of years nonetheless and am grateful for that. You all did great work on EGO and it's a shame you won't be able to show it off in action anymore.
I too was sad to hear the game was to be shut down, but it has been making quite a big loss over the last year. There were still a good few players but not many were spending cash and Rebellion can only cover the rather excessive Amazon Web Services costs for so long. Personally I think the free to play model gets in the way of the longevity of a game as the server costs are the same whether you have one player or 1,000 players (though get to 20,000 players and watch those server costs rocket). Now the game is shut down I might be allowed to show more artwork and do the article you suggested.
DeleteFingers crossed
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DeleteFingers crossed! I'd love to see more of your work from the project and learn more about your process.
ReplyDeleteI agree that that the 'freemium' business model seems difficult to do successfully, though linking the game to FaceBook and long-term social game mechanisms probably made that unavoidable.
(please ignore the previous reply)
Doing crunch on Rogue Trooper Redux at the moment. I am hoping some time will come up soon so I can post more on this
ReplyDeleteI hope you're hanging onto some of the work files and taking screenshots along while working on the current game update, too. Your blog could use a few more meaty posts on your working process. ;)
ReplyDeleteEverything I post to do with Rebellion work goes through a lenghthy "should we let him publish this" process and circumventing that is really not worth doing...!
DeleteThat's a shame. Looking forward to seeing the results in the game, anyway.
DeleteJust saw the announcement about Evil Genius 2. Really hope you're aboard for that!
ReplyDeleteNo news on that. Still crunching Rogue then I'll find out what I am on next. EG2 would be cool - heres hoping :-)
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