Almost the end of the year! Download stats...

From AGS: 646
From Softpedia: 119
From ModDB: 63
From GameFront: 17

Total: 845

Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy! - FIRST TRAILER

And now for something completely different (again, if you weren't at Adventure-X on the Saturday...):

New Trailer for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots

This is the trailer shown at Adventure-X in London a couple of weekends back...

Vaguely interesting stats...

... would it surprise you to know that the shared dev folder for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots that we're using on Google Drive currently holds:

• 1.2Gb of data
• 119 folders
• 2,337 files

?

That's just the tip of the iceberg since we're not even finished with Act I yet!  (Did I mention that this game will feature 3 acts?)  Although don't worry, the finished game isn't going to be quite so huge in terms of download size - we save A LOT of space by making our WAV sound files into OGG for the game once they've been edited. 

Latest ratings and comments on the AGS Games Page

We're up to 586 downloads, 10 ratings and 7 comments now on AGS Games Page (believe it or not, that download to rating / comment ratio is actually much better than the average over there - but if you want to rate or leave a comment, please feel free!  Of course comments left on this blog are great too :-D).

Ratings:

Visual: 77%

Immersion: 73%

Puzzles & Pacing: 90%

Overall Enjoyment: 80%

Obviously pretty pleased about those ratings.  We always knew the graphically our game could never compete with the best indie adventure game titles, but the main thing is that people enjoy the game - which they clearly have so far.

Comments:

"The puzzles were spot on and the voice acting was good. I'm looking forward to playing the full game!"

"A great little game with nice graphics and humour which plays on pop-references to sci-fi that most of us love and enjoy. Nice novelty with some of the interactive elements."

"The overall production quality of this demo is top notch. The animations are fantastic, the humor is lovely, the references are many, definitely a wonderful game."

"I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete."

"I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!"

"I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game."

This last one is by Rob, who's one of the team... so yeah, he's probably biased.

"Ok, so I did have a hand in creating the game and doing some voices but that doesn't mean I can't have an opinion! This was a really well made demo put together by some great people (CaptainD and Taxler Endiosk). They had a lot of this in place before I ever lent a hand to the project and I want to congratulate them on a job well done and a demo well made!

Story line is funny and immersing, sprites are quirky and neat, music is excellent and the voice acting ain't too shabby!"

New eBook - direct download link

After a slight misunderstanding with one of my team members, I can now provide a direct link for you to download Captain Disaster: The Games, The Stories.

Here's the link!

If anyone does review it (or has any comments) please leave a comment here pointing me to it.

Captain Disaster: The Games, The Stories - FREE eBook now available

Captain Disaster: The Games, The Stories - featuring the stories and a rundown of the adventure games' development process - Available now from lulu.com (I'll have another download location up soon which won't require you to log in or anything, but it's taking longer than it should have to get sorted out!).

It's completely free on Lulu too, but I think they still insist on you logging in.

Demo Download Stats 14 weeks on

Today marks 14 weeks since the official release of the demo for Captain Disaster in: Death Has a Million Stomping Boots.  The current download stats are:

From AGS: 560
From Softpedia: 106
From ModDB: 61
From GameFront: 16

Total: 743

Background Test - Shipwreck

Meet... The Freedomator!

Coming Soon: Captain Disaster - The Games, The Stories

To be released in the near future... an ebook about making the Captain Disaster games, all the original stories and one all-new story, plus some other random adventure gaming goodness.  I'm going to release it on a "Pay If You Want" basis to help raise a few funds for helping to develop the games.

It's amazing what you can find in the rubbish dump on Acturus-1...

New screens - just to prove we're still here and working hard on the game.

There's a Hole in my Galaxy - BACK IN PRODUCTION!

I know, you didn't even realise it was out of production... well it was just a temporary lapse while Hurricane Sandy came and went, as our programmer for the project lives in the affected area.  He's back on the case now, thankfully uninjured, and ready to roll, so look out for more TAHIMG updates soon! 

Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots Logo

Team Disaster Logo

Latest demo download stats

I thought it was time to check again how many people have downloaded the demo so far:

From AGS: 430
From Softpedia: 93
From ModDB: 57
From GameFront: 11
Total: 591

Although the downloads have slowed down, it's still nice to see the numbers continuing to go up, even if it is slowly.

Quick Update...

... steady progress is being made on both Death Has a Million Stomping Boots and There's a Hole in my Galaxy.  Also if anyone is planning to go to the Adventure-X event in London on 15th & 16th December you should be able to see something new regarding both games; it's hoped that a playable build of the first part of both games will be available.  I may be there presenting something on the games or if that's not possible Mark from Screen7 (who will be publishing DHAMSB) will present something.

At any rate work continues, although I'm reluctant to give a specific release date for either game at this rate.  More news soon, including (possibly) an ebook release and fundraiser - I'm not saying any more right now because we haven't entirely decided what to go ahead with and how to do it.  Whatever the news is, you'll see it here first!

Costs associated with the game so far

I'm probably going to have to run a fundraiser of some kind eventually, this game is slowly eating away at my very limited finances...

Spent so far:

Description	Cost
Software licence (Goldwave):	£28
Recording equipment:	£5
Domain Name Registration:	£8
Marketing	£31
Payment to musician	£25
TOTAL:	£97

(The last 2 will be paid by the end of this month, the others already paid.)

It's obviously not a huge amount but if it continues to increase without a return, things could get rough.  I might well have some opportunities for backers to feature in the game - look out on this blog or the social sites for Captain Disaster...

Captain Disaster keeps on moving on...

I know things have been quiet here on the dev blog recently, but both games - Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots and Captain Disaster in There's a Hole in my Galaxy! - are steadily making progress.  In particular for TAHIMG we've been doing a lot of work on the plot and interface, and things are moving slowly but surely with DHAMSB too.

(I'm hoping to have something to show of one, or both, at AdventureX 2012, although whether I'll be able to actually attend one of the days is still uncertain.  More news soon...)

Captain Disaster in "There's a Hole in my Galaxy!" - early screenshots and some plot teasers...

Why does Captain Disaster have to travel to the past - and the future - to atone for the sins of humanity?  Just what is that big orange swirly thing in space?!  What does this all have to do with pizza and beer?

Find out soon at a space-bar near you... in the meantime, here are some early beta screenshots from the game.

Coming soon (well, soonish...) - Captain Disaster in "There's a Hole in my Galaxy!"

Current download stats

From AGS: 324
From Softpedia: 54
From ModDB: 43
From GameFront: 6
Total: 427

That's an average of about 18.5 downloads per day since the demo was launched.  I guess that's not too bad considering we're complete unknowns in the game dev world!

Digging Captain Disaster in the Indie Mine

A nice feature about the demo has appeared on The Indie Mine.  Among the things they said about it:

" I was particularly fond of the satirical humour that referenced other overused science fiction tropes. "

" I couldn’t help feeling that the dense protagonist was a clear homage to Roger Wilco of the classic point-and-click adventure seriesSpace Quest."

Everyone thinks this... but I've barely ever played a Space Quest game!  (Shocking admission I know...)

"I won’t spoil the details of the demo here, due to the fact that I believe players should get their hands on it themselves. If you’re up for a sci-fi adventure to satisfy your inner nerd, or even just a promising adventure game, then I would urge you to try the demo for Captain Disaster In: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots."

Poll results so far:

We asked:

BE HONEST... WHEN PLAYING THE DEMO, DID YOU FIND THE IRON RING OKAY?

You've said (so far):

Yes, easily	5 (38%)
Yes, took a while to work out how though	7 (53%)
No, I needed to look up a hint online	0 (0%)
No, I'm still stuck!	1 (7%)
Er... what iron ring?!?!	0 (0%)

So, 5 found it easily, 7 after some thought, and only one person still stuck.  (To that person... if you're still stuck, try looking here...)

Still plenty of time to vote...

Latest download stats

From AGS: 293

From ModDB: 31

Total: 324 downloads

(There are probably a few other sites that are hosting the demo download now but I'm not about to try to keep track of them all!!)

If possible we're encouraging people to download and leave comments / ratings on the AGS games page.

Comments so far:

The overall production quality of this demo is top notch. The animations are fantastic, the humor is lovely, the references are many, definitely a wonderful game.

I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete.

I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!

I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game.

Ratings so far:

8 people have rated this game so far:

If you've played this game, why not rate it!
Rate It Now

Visual:

78%

Immersion:

72%

Puzzles & Pacing:

91%

Overall Enjoyment:

78%

CD demo review on DIYGamer

A nice review of the demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots has appeared on DIYGamer.com.

Some quotes from the review (well, preview, but it's the same thing really!):

"Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots  is a great example of an AGS produced adventure game with a great sense of humor."

"As a fully-voiced, well animated game, you can tell a lot of effort has been put into the production of Captain Disaster."

"The demo for Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots is a simple and short experience lasting roughly forty five minutes, it is ridiculously funny and filled with inside jokes to the science fiction genre."

"The puzzles weren’t too difficult, except for one that  made me  end up looking for the solution  on the Adventure Game Studioforums."

Sneak Preview of Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy

I'm not going to give too much away right now, but just to give you a bit of a taste of what this game is going to be like...

It's a parody mixing up the plots of the FIRST and LAST ever episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (with quite a lot of Red Dwarf thrown in as well).

More details to be released soon...

Team Disaster announces new freeware Captain Disaster game in development

Well folks, development of Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots is ongoing, but we are happy to announce that another game is being developed in tandem with this - Captain Disaster in: There's a Hole in my Galaxy!  This second game will be completely different to DHAMSB, and will be released as a freeware title; it will be a smaller game with a much shorter development cycle than Stomping Boots has.  Neither with There's a Hole in my Galaxy feature any boots, stomping or otherwise.

Two new team members, a programmer and an artist / animator, have recently joined Team Disaster, and we will be introducing you to them properly soon...

Keep visiting the dev blog for more news on both games, or you could join up to our of our social media outlets for the latest news too.

Onto the rest of the game...

So now that the demo is well and truly out there, and we have received a lot of encouraging feedback (and only one report of a game-breaking bug - fixed now!), it's time to really get our teeth into the main game - although for the section of the game that the demo covers, we are going to add a few extra bits and pieces so it's a nice surprise for you when you play the full game!

More news soon...

Another mention, another download location...

Okay, so you're probably not looking for another place to download Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots demo from... but if you were (just pretend), that other place would be GameFront.com.

We got a nice mention in Wraithkals' Indie Update - the fifth game in the overview of the week's releases.  In particular I appreciate the fact that they've bothered to write someting about the demo themselves rather than simply rip text from another site (which I've already seen done about the demo more times than I can count!)

"Captain Disaster in Death Has A Million Stomping Boots is full of clichéd jokes and pop culture references with old-school visuals to boot!"

We have ratings!

At long last, 5 whole people have rated our demo on the AGS games page... and good ratings they've given to.  We'll see how the averages pan out as more people vote, but the reaction is very encouraging so far!  Especially pleased about people's opinions of the puzzles and pacing of course!

Hints and Tips...

Yay, the demo is officially not too easy!  We now have our own thread in the Hints and Tips section of the AGS forums.

Here's the thread... just in case you get stuck (I'm sure you won't... :-D)

Linux User? No problem!

It hadn't really occurred to me to think about whether our game would be compatible with other operating systems although I know several projects are under way to post AGS games to other systems.  Anyway, slightly unexpectedly I got a report back from someone that they were playing it on Linux, Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit with Wine, and apparently it works perfectly - which is nice!  So if you're a Linux user, hopefully that won't rule you out from playing the demo!

You can download the playable demo of Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots from AGS or ModDb.

What they've said about the Captain Disaster Demo - GameBoomers forums

"What a great little game! I tried the demo and was able to complete it without help! Unusual for me... Will be buying this one when it is complete. -- I thought it had a great funny/cute factor!"

"I think you're off to a great start and I look forward to seeing the whole game. Keep up the good work!"

"Fun game! Looking forward to the full version also."

What they's said about the Captain Disaster Demo - The AGS Games Page

"I really liked it. I thought it was funny and engaging and challenging without being too frustrating. I really wanted to keep playing and would have bought it immediately if game was complete."

"I really loved this demo and literally laughed out loud at certain parts of the demo! I can't wait for the full game, the humour is brilliant and the voice acting really adds to the experience! Great job guys!"

"I really enjoyed the demo and I look forward to the full game."

Stats and Polls...

Downloads from AGS: 222
Downloads from ModDB: 16
Total downloads: 238

In the poll, opinion seems to be strongly in favour of the iron ring puzzle not being too difficult.  A surprise given some of the feedback we've had, but quite a bit of time left for others to vote yet...

Some level of popularity at least!

Though still, sadly, not enough ratings for the site to generate an average rating. :-(

Download the Demo

Small milestone reached

We've reached 200 downloads from AGS Games Page!

Still not enough ratings for it to make an average though... :-(

Captain Disaster Demo mentioned on IndieGames.com

We got a nice mention on IndieGames.com today.  Among the things they said were:

• "a lovely retro-flavoured offering"
• "expect tons of weird references, odd puzzles, funny bits of dialogue and a generous serving of sci-fi humour"
• "some of the silliest voice over around"
• "seriously surreal and most promising demo"

Current Download Stats...

So far the demo has been downloaded 147 times from AGS and 7 times from ModDB (their download link only went live today though).  So 154 downloads in total... hoping this increases as press coverage expands!

Also a quick request - if you've played the demo I'd be really grateful if you could give it some ratings on the AGS game page (whether or not you liked it, there still aren't enough ratings for it to have an average rating - and we really would like to know what people thought of the demo!).

Download Mirror

If anything's wrong with the main download you can also get the Captain Disaster demo from ModDB.

Poll - was this puzzle too difficult?

Of all the feedback about the demo, one thing has kept coming up - the puzzle about finding the iron ring to help get past the hand scanner seemed to baffle people.  We're already going to put in an extra hint or two in the full game to help people with this, but what did you think - was this puzzle too hard?  

Voting on the top right of the blog until the end of September.

Haven't played the demo yet?  Download it here.

Demo - got an opinion? Need help?

Of course you could comment here on this blog or on the AGS forums, but there's lots of discussion (and a few hints requested / given) over at GameBoomers.

Captain Disaster Demo reviewed at i-luv-games.com.

We got our first proper review of the demo at i-luv-games.com.  The reviewer there liked the demo quite a bit and thought the voice acting was campy enough to suit its purpose (well I suppose that's sort of a compliment! :-D).  He also mentioned the animation, music and puzzles in particular.

Hopefully the first of many reviews...?

The Captain Disaster Demo in 13 screenshots:

 At the time of posting this 110 people have downloaded the demo... click here if you're not one of them!

Demo update...

... up to 94 downloads now... if you're not one of those 94, head over to the Demo Download Page!

We're already working on a few improvements and additions to the demo - not for a new demo release, but so that what you get in that section of the finished game is even better than what the demo currently contains.

On the basis of the demo release we've had a publisher approach us about distributing the game when it's released, so we must have done something right!! 

Response to the Demo Release...

... early days yet and not many downloads (46 so far), but a reasonable amount of press coverage and a few comments back on forums etc, and I'm very pleased to say that so far, it's been universally positive.  Considering my stress levels about how well (or not!) the game would be received, it's also pretty good for my health!!

DEMO RELEASED!

Get your hands on the Captain Disaster Demo now!

Wow that was hectic... at the last minute things cropped up, issues and potential problems arose, and all sorts of things that we thought were done and dusted suddenly had to be re-evaluated.  We will learn from the experience though! :-D  

Demo Release Date set

Yes you read that right, finally we're announcing the official release date of the public demo of Captain Disaster in Death Has a Million Stomping Boots.  Ladies and gentlemen, that date is:

[DRUMROLL...]


Friday 24th August 2012

Mark it in your diary!

Set a reminder on your mobile phone!

Tell your friends!

Tell your enemies!

Tell your pets, especially if they are goldfish named Sushi!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

I can't take it, you hear me?!?  Writing and recording hundreds of lines of dialogues and responses, sometimes needing to rewrite or rerecord them... it's all too much, I tell you!!!

Er... which is another way of saying that beta testing is nearly complete, and we'll be announcing the demo release date very soon. :-D

Full Steam Ahead...

... beta testing is in full swing now with lots of little bits of incompleteness being sorted out.  In one way it's quite exhilarating knowing that we're getting ever closer to our (as yet super-secret and unannounced) release date for the demo, on the other it's kind of soul-destroying to nitpick your own work to death until you're pretty sure that no-one else will be able to nitpick for you after you're done the release.  I suspect this is a feeling that most if not all people who've created and released an adventure game will have had...

Captain Disaster in an adventurous lantern...

Captain Disaster got a mention as an in-production game in the July 2012 edition of adventure game ezine Adventure Lantern.

Check the bottom of page 6... hopefully next month's edition will cover the demo release!

More media coverage on GameZone

"The latest trailer for Captain Disaster has crash landed onto the good ol' internet, and this time around we get a closer look at the actual gameplay in the upcoming adventure title. The game looks pretty promising thus far, and the gameplay is definitely inspired by classic adventure games on the PC, which is to say if you dig these types of point-and-click offerings, you should definitely watch out for Captain Disaster.

What really makes the game stand out to me, though, is what appears to be the terribly incompetent hero. I can only imagine what types of things the character will say and do throughout the course of the adventure."

http://www.gamezone.com/news/new-captain-disaster-trailer-shows-off-adventure-gameplay

Time to start testing...

... we've now reached the stage where almost everything is in place for the demo - with a few tweaks here and there, along with the addition of some voice lines, the demo is pretty much complete.  Not ready for release yet though as we now begin an extensive testing period to make sure any bugs or errors are ironed out before we actually release it.  We're currently looking towards the end of August -  we have a specific date in mind but that won't be made public until we can be 100% sure of keeping to it.

Producing the demo will have taken approximately 4 months from the date we first began to develop the idea.  Bearing in mind how much bigger the full game will be I do wonder if my estimate of releasing the game by the end of the year is a little too optimistic, but we have learned quite a lot along the way that should  help speed up development so I'm still hoping that 2012 might be possible.  Of course Resonance (and possibly The Journey Down HD version) is going to sweep the 2012 AGS Awards so maybe leaving it to next year might have some extra merit!  I would hope that we'd be in with a shout for the Best Demo category though. 

More news soon!  (Actually I was going to post another video for you but our programmer felt we were releasing too much that should be a nice surprise for people when they play the demo, and I grudgingly had to admit that he does have a point...)

The Release Date - when it ISN'T!

I saw on the AGS boards recently that the 8th game in the legendary Ben Jordan game series (legendary in the AGS community, anyway) is planned for a release date of 8th August (8th game, 8th day of 8th month - neat, huh?!) - anyway that will blat away all other news for a while when it comes out, so our release date will probably be somewhere in the region of a couple of weeks after that.

Watch this space... more info soon!

Trailer and game preview at i-luv-games.com

We got a really nice mention on i-luv-games.com about the new gameplay trailer, along with a preview of the game.  We've also had some nice feedback on the AGS forums.  Which is nice.  All right, I'm going to stop saying nice now...

Since we ran into a couple of snags with development and my original release date estimate was probably a little too optimistic, we're looking at releasing the playable demo in August 2012.  Watch this space for more info!

Gameplay Trailer Released

This shows you some of the locations and a bit of the gameplay in the demo:

Disaster Area - in-game screenshot

The redesigned Disaster Area in-game, in one of the establishing shots from the demo:

Testing - what?!

Beta testing games is just insane sometimes - things that have been in place for weeks or months and working perfectly can sometimes just disappear completely!  Just played the latest build (we must have gone through at least 20 since April now) and a graphical element has just vanished into thin air.  I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this... maybe the broom alien has been active behind the scenes?!

Ship External View - Updated

The ship "Disaster Area" needed to look... well, more of a disaster.  I think I've achieved that with my edit of the original design!

Theme Tune Sample

Okay, here it is - 30 glorious seconds to give you an idea of what it will be like!

Theme Tune

Just heard the first rough version of the theme tune for Captain Disaster - sounds very cool already!  I'll post a sample of it in a day or two but for now, take my word for it that you're going to love it.  It's kind of a modern take on the classic sci-fi theme tunes of the 70s and 80s.

Alien Marketplace WIP - developing a location

Since I haven't heard from our background artist for a long time despite repeated requests for updates, I have to assume he won't be able to continue working on the project.  Therefore I decided to have a go at creating the background myself - still needs work but here is the development from the basic concept to a more detailed location.  I'm not happy about how flat a lot of it still looks, but at the same time I'm quite happy with how it's starting to look and, while undoubtedly not as good as the previous WIP by our artist, it fits the cartoony style of the existing backgrounds already used in the game better.  Once it's in the game with characters and animations in place, some of the scene's faults will be largely hidden I hope!

In-game screenshot: Talking Pizza!

(Assets used in the beta build may not be final.  Also, yes you're reading it right, that's a line from insult sword-fighting in The Secret of Monkey Island - well, very nearly the same...)

Demo - Splash Screen

As the official demo release edges ever closer, here's a look at the splash screen:

Work in Progress - the transporter animation cycle

Still a few things to do on this, but I'm pretty happy with how it's looking so far (no sound on this video):

Screen Capture: Transport Sequence

The transporter sequence in action!  Captain Disaster, mid-sequence:

This one's for Zak McKraken fans...

Trailers and Screenshots Page Added

I've added a page where you can see the latest trailers and screenshots for the game.  Again this is in response to some advice from a fellow indie developer and something I really should have thought of earlier! 

Game demo is getting really close to release now (honestly!).

Filed under "Lessons Learned the Hard Way"!

Gah... when you've used filters / effects on a character you've voiced, ALWAYS make a note of exactly what effects and settings you used.  There may come a time when it's necessary to voice some more lines for that character, and you don't want to have to spend time figuring out how to make it sound like it did last time, do you?!

Incidentally I use Goldwave for all my sound recording / editing - an excellent program.  If you're looking for a good sound editor to use with your own games, I'd definitely recommend it. 

A little colour can make a lot of difference...

(This is still a work in progress of course, and in-game it won't look blurry...)

The Build-up to the Demo Release...

... we've gone through a pretty impressive number of game builds so far - since April we've already created and tested 15 builds of the game, each one adding more content - and that's just for the demo version!  I wonder if we'll get into treble figures before the finished game is finally released?

(I'd be interested to know if other devs feel that going through this number of builds so quickly is normal...)

About the Game page added

Partly because I was intending to do this anyway and also on the advice of a fellow indie developer, I've added an About the Game page to the dev blog.  It contains general information about the game - plot synopsis, game features, distribution plans etc - if there's anything else you'd like to see on that page, leave a comment on this post.

General thoughts on game creation and indie game development

When you’re a new start-up indie game developer creating your first major game, you have to accept two inalienable truths – firstly that you are a tiny, tiny fish in an unimaginably massive sea, and that developing your game is going to be a long process that will sometimes seem painfully slow.  In terms of getting your name out there and advertising your game, unless you either have a level of fame in another field, a large advertising budget or happen to get lucky and your game “goes viral”, it’s a case of just repeatedly trying to make one more person sit up and take notice of your game.  Every single person that joins your social networking sites (much as I hate them generally they are one of the best ways to promote your work without paying someone these days, each visitor to your development blog, every time someone looks at your trailer, adds to the snowball.

It’s much the same with actually developing the game itself.  At the start things can appear to build up very quickly, but after a while the expectation that each day you’ll make massive strides towards your game being the finished product becomes unrealistic.  Days, weeks or even months could go by without much seeming to happen.  This hasn’t happened to Captain Disaster yet of course and I’m desperate to make sure that it doesn’t – I’ve been involved in other games that have stalled for interminable periods of time, and it’s really difficult to keep your motivation going when some team members just seem to have disappeared into the ether.  I’m fortunate with Captain Disaster in that my two other main partners in crime have been very enthusiastic and maintained a high level of output, whether in the form of ideas, creating assets for the game or creating the next build; if we can keep it up then we should stay on course for our projected release before the end of this year.

Sometimes real life gets in the way of your project of course – illness, or a family member being ill, can take a team member out of the equation completely for months or even forever ;some things are just more important than game design of course.  In our case, one of our musicians has experienced a long delay getting the equipment he had ordered which was going to be used to create the tracks; fortunately this shouldn’t be too much of a problem as we won’t actually need the music for quite a while anyway.  You never know what’s around the corner, however…

Basically what I’m saying is that even though there are so many indie games and game developers around these days, don’t be fooled; every good quality indie game that makes it to full release is a minor miracle, and any indie game that becomes successful enough to become the developer’s main source of income is astounding.  (So if one day the members of Team Disaster are earning their living from making indie games, please do remember to be astounded!)

My favourite CD quote so far...

My favourite quote so far from articles talking about the game has to be this one from Indie Game Magazine's writer Richard Glenn:

"If there’s one thing that this trailer has crowbarred into my blackened mind, it’s that the galaxy can muster a collective scream of terror if the one thing standing between its residents and catastrophe is an emaciated numpty from Birmingham."