Trying To Be Everything At Once: Star Prospector | True PC Gaming

Jason and Mark McGrevy allow us to get a detailed and informative look into the world of their sci-fi RTS title, Star Prospector.? Learn how much dedication and passion for game development is needed to create a sprawling science fiction world from a simple two-man team.

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Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role with the development of Star Prospector.

Cryptstone Games is a small indie studio made up of my brother Mark and myself. Mark founded Cryptstone and started developing Star Prospector well over 5 years ago, and he is responsible for all aspects of development, from early concept art and the initial ideas and story behind the game to all of the programming including game engine design & development, graphics programming, sound, music, artwork, modeling, and all of the other administrative and marketing tasks necessary to bring the game to market. I came on board late last year during the final few months of development and helped with level design, testing, marketing and promotional work for the game.

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How did you get started in developing PC games?

We?ve both always been avid PC gamers, and still remember getting our first Apple II+, and then our very first PC. Mark has been working in the graphics programming and game development industry since graduating University with a Computer Science degree.? He worked for Alias Wavefront before moving on to Sony and working on games for the Playstation 2. We?d always kicked around game ideas and suggestions, and wanted to one day set up our own game company. He started working on his own engine a few years ago, and later asked me to join him at Cryptstone and then a few months later Star Prospector was released.

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Where did the idea for Star Prospector come from?

We?ve both always been fans of RTS games, but at the time, the majority of RTS games were focused on multi-player type play. Mark wanted to make a single player RTS game that also could feature some of the elements of RPG games like Diablo which he could integrate with the RTS mechanics. Games like Total Annihilation, C&C, Warcraft 3 and other games like Star Craft were also huge influences.

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What are some of the successes and failures you learned from in developing Star Prospector?

Seeing the game available for sale online on multiple sites, is of course a great success and extremely satisfying. I think we underestimated the difficulty, time and labor involved in bringing our game to market. As first time indie devs we were perhaps naive to the fact that promoting your game needs to start very early on, and it can be a 24/7 endeavour. As a result, finding time to code and finish your game, while also dealing with marketing and PR for the game on a daily basis can be very challenging. We also underestimated the challenges in approaching the large digital distribution sites, and how difficult it would be to have the major distributors as well as larger press sites take notice of your game.

Jason McGrevy

In its current form, how close is Star Prospector to your initial vision?

Mark had initially started working on the game engine a number of years ago, and at the time had envisioned a very different type of game to what Star Prospector eventually became. He had initially intended to have the game be more of a real-time Alpha Centauri type game, but the final game is very different in that there is more emphasis on units. Also, something unplanned and different was the recent addition of a new Tower defense game within the game. That was totally unexpected, and happened by chance as part of some DLC we added which snowballed into a completely new and additional game mode. Proves that you need to be flexible and open minded to new ideas throughout the game development process, you never know where things will go!

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Some devs admitted their games were too hard upon release because they became experts as they developed the game.? Talk about setting the difficulty levels for Star Prospector and if you faced a similar challenge.

We spent a lot of time tweaking and we did go back many times and adjust and in some cases completely revamp the damage, health, resources and other stats within the game, we even added another difficulty level at one point. I had joined Cryptstone around this time, and essentially became the lead tester and (self-proclaimed) resident expert for the game, so I? was able to provide a different perspective in terms of difficulty settings. We also had a number of other testers who played the game and provided feedback. I think it?s very important that you expose your game to as many people as you can, and where possible, as diverse a group of people as possible. We found it very easy to assume that all players would have experience with standard or classic RTS controls and interfaces, but found that for some, these controls were not necessarily intuitive, and as a result, tips and in-game tutorial information was added to the game. We made a lot of changes to the game based on feedback from our testers.

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Were there any challenges you faced in ensuring Star Prospector would run on the various PC system configurations?

During testing we also tried to have the game played and run on a wide array of systems and GPUs and as a result, we were quite fortunate in that many of the compatibility issues for the game were ironed out during the testing phase.

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Please talk about developing the art style, level design and music for Star Prospector.

We always wanted the music to be electronic, synthesized and ambient, and we?re pretty happy with how that turned out. The levels and missions in Star Prospector are randomly generated, and that posed quite a design challenge as mission briefing text and objectives would have to be generated ?on the fly? for each new mission as a result. In addition, while levels were randomly generated, we also had to ensure that every level that was generated would work with the game?s pathfinding and AI systems.

In terms of art style, Mark wanted the graphics to be close to the quality found in most big studio RTS games, and not necessarily look like a stereotypical indie game. This also presented a challenge given that we did not have the budget or additional manpower to have other artists and modelers do the work. All of the modeling and art work on Star Prospector was done by Mark. The challenge he found with unit and building design was to keep each unit?s function identifiable while at the same time having player units distinguishable from enemy units. He has amassed a massive amount of concept art, and we have started compiling all of the artwork into a digital concept art book that will provide some insight into the game development process.

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Outside of creating the game itself, what is the toughest aspect of being an indie developer?

Probably trying to be everything at once, and constantly changing gears, while maintaining focus in all areas. Some days Mark was jumping between writing a piece of music for the game, drawing some concept art, sending out PR and marketing e-mails, sifting through thousands of lines of code trying to find a bug, designing and updating the website, and writing new code for the game engine. Makes it very difficult to maintain focus. Obviously, the financial burden of being an indie developer is always in the back of your mind as well, and developing your game requires a tremendous investment of your own money and a great deal of time. In Mark?s case he spent a number of years working on Star Prospector. You essentially have to put your life on hold until the game is finished!

Mark McGrevy

How did you go about funding Star Prospector and did you receive financial or emotional support from friends and family?

Star Prospector was entirely self funded. As I mentioned Mark had planned to write his own game for quite some time, so the majority of what was invested in the development of Star Prospector came from Mark?s own savings.

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Tell us about the process of submitting Star Prospector to the various digital distribution platforms and if you encountered resistance in doing so.

We knew it would be a challenge approaching the big distributors, but even so, I think we definitely underestimated how difficult it would be to get recognized, or in some cases, even have your e-mail opened. We started to look at a number of other sites for distribution and we were fortunate to have some connections that were able to put us in touch with some good folks at Gamestop-Impulse, and some of the other smaller sites followed shortly after. We are still crossing our fingers for Steam.

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Did you research similar titles when trying to come up with the launch price?

We did look at other games both in the indie and RTS genres to get a feel for the market and pricing on these types of games. We initially released at a higher price point, and then subsequently made adjustments until we found a price that we felt worked for most people.

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Can you tell us why you chose to release a demo for Star Prospector?

Being a small indie game, it was hard to get noticed and develop a presence for the game. We felt that a demo would give players the opportunity to try to share the game, and hopefully help spread the word about Star Prospector.

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How important is it to get instant feedback about Star Prospector from users through online message boards and other social networking sites?

We definitely value feedback from the gaming community, and we have learned a great deal from this feedback that we will take forward with us in the new game currently under development. We initially were very diligent about checking every forum and comment we could find on Star Prospector, and we literally kept track of every criticism and suggestion that we received for the game, many of which were implemented in the 1.1 DLC release a few months ago. What we quickly came to realize though was that it?s impossible to ensure that your game will be everything to everyone. Many people want to see your game be ?like? another game, and as such share features, characteristics, even graphic and art styles of other games that they enjoy. It?s simply not possible to satisfy everyone, and often in trying to do so, you end up changing the very game you had initially wanted to create? the result can be something you don?t even recognize. As such, we implemented and added suggested changes and features that we thought added value and enhanced the game, and that would integrate with our initial vision of Star Prospector.

Star Prospector Concept Art

How much value do you place on the opinions of those who review Star Prospector professionally?

At the end of the day, you would be foolish not to value the opinions of the professionals, as often they have the power to make or break your game. That being said, we found that many times our game was compared in terms of game play, graphics and art style to other big budget games like Star Craft, and that at times, we were not categorized as being indie. As a result, some reviews were a little harsh and perhaps unfair, and I think failed to see the game for what it was intended to be, a polished, single player Sci-fi RTS game with RPG elements, developed 100% by a lone indie dev on a modest budget.

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How do you feel about the various indie bundle promotions and the ?Pay What You Want? pricing methodology?? How did your stint in the IndieFort Bundle turn out?

We found? being involved in the IndieFort Bundle to be a wonderful experience. While it may not make the devs millionaires overnight since the games are often sold for a fraction of their original price, it does a very good job of getting publicity for your game and the devs, and in addition, we managed to meet some amazing industry people and other devs through the process.

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What are your thoughts on how the PC gaming industry as a whole are dealing with the problem of intrusive DRM and piracy?

I think Piracy will always be around in some form or another, and as a result, DRM is often necessary. I remember the first time I saw ?Star Prospector rip? come up in a google search, it hits us hard, but it?s going to happen, and I guess to take a positive away from it, at least someone thought enough of the game and we were recognized enough to have someone take the time to pirate it LOL! We even had people contacting us demanding we provide the 1.1 DLC download for their pirated copy of the game. I think people who download pirated games need to be conscious of the fact they are doing so, let alone the risks in terms of downloading viruses and cracked copies of games from some sites. There does need to be some level of deterrent and anti-piracy to ensure that people remain cognoscente of the fact that downloading cracked games from these sites, no matter how easy, is still piracy, and directly impacts the devs. I think anti-piracy measures should be at the download/install level only and for game updates and DLC, and not in the form of consistent online validation.

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How do you feel about individuals posting videos of Star Prospector?

Again, as an indie dev, our biggest challenge is probably being recognized and having our game noticed. Let?s Play videos and player reviews are wonderful for spreading the word, so we love to see people post videos on our game.

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How do you feel about DLC and its current implementation in the PC gaming industry?

DLC certainly can be awesome if utilized properly. DLC should enhance the core game, not the other way around. Some games like League of Legends which are free to play have a fantastic and very successful model. The game itself draws you in and the DLC only serves to further enhance the players? experience. We offered our recent DLC for free as a bonus and thank you to players for our game, and we really see it as a means to hopefully improve the main game and attract new players to Star Prospector.

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How do you feel about the online modding community in general and specifically if mods were created for Star Prospector?

We would welcome it! The player community and word of mouth is the best means of marketing games for indie devs. The folks who take the time to mod our games, are true fans and valuable allies in spreading the word about indie games.

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What advice would you give up-and-coming indie PC developers who are trying to break into the business?

I think first and foremost, do something, anything to get your hands dirty, even if you start out with mods, or writing quick iOS or Java games. Contests like Ludum Dare are also a great way to see if you have what it takes! Start small and simple at first, you never know where you?ll end up.

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We would like to thank Jason and Mark for their wonderful answers.? You can pick up Star Prospector via Desura, Impulse and read up on more information using the official site.

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Source: http://truepcgaming.com/2012/11/02/trying-to-be-everything-at-once-star-prospector/

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