We started working on AoD back in 2004 which was a long time ago, so long, in fact, that I’ve completely forgotten what it feels like to start from scratch, when you need everything but have nothing. To say that it’s overwhelming is to say nothing at all. If anything it was easier the first time around when our naïve belief that we can do it in two years shielded us from lasting mental harm. It’s not the same when you know that 4 years development cycle is the best case scenario, if everything goes smoothly.
So what does one need to make an RPG?
- An engine would be nice. Fortunately, it’s not my department so I’ll scratch it off my list and pretend that it will magically appear one day. So far, the plan is to use Unreal 4, but if we run into trouble we can always use Torque (the AoD engine), aka oddly comfortable plan B.
- Setting, story, locations, quests, characters – the writer's domain. If AoD’s 600,000 words are any indication, it’s a big project that would probably take at least 3 years out of 4, if not all 5 out of 4, but as long as I’m half a step ahead of Oscar, it’s all good.
Right now I’m working on the 'foundation': history, mutiny, early factions, post-mutiny events, schisms within factions, etc. Basically, the past events that explain why things are the way they are and how "we" got there in the first place. It’s important to see such things clearly when working on quests and leaders who don’t spring out of nowhere but are the product of their age and milieu. Overall, it’s been about hundred years since the mutiny and more than three hundred years since the ship was launched.
- Systems. While the exact details aren’t important yet as all systems will keep evolving throughout the development, gaining more depth and complexity with every iteration, we need to get the 'foundation' right the first time, then build on top of it. More on that later.
- Art. Surprisingly, the biggest problem right now is art. We need a lot of art, all kinds, shapes, and sizes. No, we don’t need it right now, but all these tasks take months and years, so we need to start planning now or we’re going to miss the train.
It feels like a Tetris game where you have to put all these different pieces together and make sure we get everything we need and in a timely manner. Mazin (our artist) is truly exceptional and there is very little that he can’t do well, but he’s working part-time. Even if he weren’t, he can’t do everything as the list is too long, which means that we need to hire freelancers.
That’s where it quickly gets prohibitively expensive. Quality takes time (days) and nobody will work for days for $25. Now we know that the game will still look crappy indie because we don’t have the manpower (the Witcher had 80 people, the Witcher 3 250 people, we have one artist/designer which explains why AoD didn’t snatch a single “Best Graphics 2015” award), so if we can’t deliver awesome visuals, we HAVE to deliver awesome details like portraits, icons, intro art, models, etc.
So what do we need?
- Logo
- Interface
- Intro, Menu, Promo art. Each piece takes 3-4 weeks, so that alone is a year-long project IF the artist is committed and dedicated. Sadly, that’s a big IF so it might take 2 years IF it goes well. When it comes to freelance artists, your mileage varies greatly.
- Visible Things That Must Be Designed:
- Weapons
- Mechs & Turrets
- Anti-Riot Droid aka your faithful companion
- Shuttles
- Mutated critters
- Space Suit and other trendy clothing items
- Gadget effects when deployed
- Non-generic locations. For example, the cargo hold is visually interesting (looks amazing in Excel!), but it's built from generic parts (containers, cranes, etc). A place like the Bridge, for example, or the Neo-Church, or the Breached Hull :have spacesuit – will travel: requires a concept artist’s touch (weeks of work per location).
- Misc; ideally a lot more things should pass through the Concept Art department, but we have to be realistic and never ever bit more than we can chew on.
- Portraits. AoD has 57 portraits. Let’s say we’ll go with 60 portraits because they really do add so much to the dialogue screen. 3-4 days per portrait, that’s 180-240 days right there.
- Inventory Icons. AoD has 252 unique items (not counting different variations like bronze, iron, steel, etc using the same models and icons). We don’t have a full item list yet but I’d be surprised if we end up with less than 200 items, so we’ll have to split the items between two artists to make sure it’s done by 2018.
So far we've finalized weapons, armor, and gadgets. We started with 81-90 weapon icons but reduced them to 66 for cost-related reasons, which is still more than AoD’s 40 weapons plus uniques. It takes 3-4 days per icon (including the back-n-forth design phase), so 6-8 months of work with a dedicated artist, about 2 years of work with a busy artist who’s working with multiple clients, and that’s just the weapons.
This brings us to the issue of costs and art budgets. Any work, be it a portrait or an inventory icon, that takes a couple of days of work would end up costing you $100-300 per item. For example, when I was looking for a portrait artist for AoD, I was quoted $80-100 for a black-n-white portrait, $200-250 for a color one, which explains why you rarely see high quality portraits in games. It's just too expensive. If not for Mazin's generosity, we wouldn't be able to afford them either.
So 66 weapon icons would cost us anywhere from $6,600 – if we’re lucky and find a guy willing to do the top tier work for the low tier price – to almost 20k, which is a lot of money. It's very easy to understand how game budgets quickly grew out of proportions and to the point where you have to play it safe to get your investment back and make a few bucks on top of it.
It’s tempting to invest more, to hire more artists, but I know of three indie studios that either ended up deep in debt or failed to make any money to continue after releasing RPGs that seemingly did well and I’m not in a hurry to join them. I'll go over the indie "business model" in the next AoD update.
- Models (weapons, objects, etc) : Same story, there’s only so much we can do on our own because modeling guns and objects take time from Oscar and Ivan (our animator). So again, you outsource - you pay a lot and drain your coffers faster than you can blink, so it requires an approach so careful and balanced it would make Sawyer proud.
- Animations. AoD has over 500 animations, but that’s mostly melee. Firearms and cover mechanics can easily double that number.
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