Ziggurat - New Heretic game !

[Canadian*Sniper]

I have to say, this looks really bad ass and I'll be sure to buy myself a copy once the funds start coming in again. It's a breath of fresh air to see a fps that's not a call of duty clone and has that fast paced, arcadelike feel. It's also pretty hype to have a dev drop in and say hi.

[Adam]

I'm not sure what you would find interesting

We spent about 10 months making the game, and we had a basic build (first dungeon set, some weapons and enemies and the basic handling) in about 5 months.

We wanted to make sure that the game felt right before starting to add a lot of content. It was really important for us to make the core of the game as good as we could, because it's a really simple game so it had to work just right.

After some tests, the controls and camera movement were finished and we spend another 5 months adding the rest of the content.

If you want to know something more specific, just ask and I'll try to answer as soon as possible

Ok, question time.

Q. What role did you play and what aspect did you find most challenging?
Q. What engine does the game run on and why did you choose that particular one.
Q. Did you make an early prototype first on a different engine?
Q. How did the game evolve as time passed on? Was there major changes and/or features dropped?
Q. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into game development?
Q. What are you looking at working on next?

I understand if you want to skip some of them (or adapt them depending on your role), I am grateful for any insights you may offer.

Thanks in advance.

.

[soy1bonus]

Here we go!

Q. What role did you play and what aspect did you find most challenging?

I did visual effects, sound design, UI design and programming, some level design and graphics programming. I also made the coffee

The most challenging thing for me was learning how to make good looking particle systems. Our previous games were much simpler but for this one we wanted to make it look as good as we could, and I didn't make any complex particle effects before.

I usually make the music in our games, but for this one we needed something epic and symphonic, and I'm terrible at that stuff. Also, I didn't had enough time to do it.

I "wasted" a week trying to come up with some music but I quickly realized that I would need to spend too much time to make something that sounded good. So in the end, we used some Creative Commons music that I think it sounds great.

Q. What engine does the game run on and why did you choose that particular one.

Ziggurat runs on Unity. We used our own engine before but we reached a point were it took too much time to do anything advanced. Unity is great for the most part and we bought a bunch of plugins from the Asset Store that work pretty nicely (the motion blur, advanced pathfinding and some others).

A lot of people seems surprised that a Unity game looks this good (it looks like an Unreal Engine game, some say) but it's a game that is mostly about artistic design than technical prowess. Everything is hand painted and the game doesn't have any weird post-processing techniques.

Unity allows us to work quickly and test everything right away. I have tried UDK before and I don't think we would have developed Ziggurat faster in that engine.

Q. Did you make an early prototype first on a different engine?

No. This is our first game in Unity and the prototype was also made with it. We wanted to test if the engine could be capable of handling smooth FPS gameplay so we had to make the prototype on the same engine. That prototype eventually became the full game.

Q. How did the game evolve as time passed on? Was there major changes and/or features dropped?

We focused early on on two things: gameplay feel and visual look. We wanted to have an early working version as soon as possible, so it had to be something simple that we could improve upon.

We're big fans of fast paced shooters and we also play a lot of console FPS games, so it had to feel right both with mouse+keyboard and gamepad. On the artistic side, it had to be the best looking game we ever made. We were going to use this game as a way to show other companies (Sony, Microsoft, ...) what we were capable of doing.

We released the game on Early Access this August and there we tried to add as much variety to the game as we could. Some gameplay stuff had to be changed (the shrines worked differently when we first added them), but I don't think we dropped anything completely. We just changed it until it felt right and balanced. The people on the Steam forums during Early Access really helped us to flesh out all the changes.

Q. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into game development?

Pick a simple engine (Unity, GameMaker or something similar) and make a finished game in a month. Before Ziggurat we made more than 20 games that were made in about 1 or 2 months each. And our first games were made on our spare time after we came home from work.

Don't try to make a masterpiece on your first game. Just keep making simple games, trying different genres and gain experience. We couldn't have done a game as polished as Ziggurat without having made all those games before.

Also, publish your games somewhere. You need to be in contact with your audience, hear their issues and fix them. Sometimes it's hard if you find someone annoying complaining all the time, but it helps you develop your social skills and to test your patience

Q. What are you looking at working on next?

We're doing different things right now. We're starting to work on porting Ziggurat to consoles. We're also designing some new content for Ziggurat (new enemies, perks and environments).

We've been talking about some new game ideas, but we haven't started prototyping yet. We're good at making smooth gameplay and interesting visuals (not so good at story, though) so we'll probably be playing to our strengths.

We made two failed prototypes before Ziggurat (a Heroquest-like gane and a 2D platformer/shooter) so it's too soon to tell what our next game will be. We'll try to develop some ideas and we'll keep working on the one we are more comfortable with.

Oh, and you can see a screenshot of both prototypes , along some of our older games, in the secret rooms inside Ziggurat. Just keep an eye for a big crack in the walls.

Also, I'm not sure if you've tried, but Ziggurat uses cheatcodes from some old games you might know
The only "new" cheatcode that I made (and I'm not sure anyone found it yet) is "carmack". Try to type that in the game...

Phew! I hope you found some answers kind of useful. The best advice I can give you is that working hard pays off. We're not big marketing guys so for the most part we let the games speak for themselves.

If you have any other question or you want some tips on a certain part of game development, don't hesitate to ask! I'll try to do my best!

[Adam]

@soy1bonus

Wow! thanks a lot for answering all the questions,
It is great to get that much insight into a games development.

Do you have a development blog? I checked Milkstone's website but didn't spot one.

I noticed your games list too, It is a shame that Australia's Xbox Live service doesn't support Indies, we miss out on all those great titles.
Is there any chance that you will be bringing these (xblive indie) titles to Steam one day?

Thanks again,

Adam.

[soy1bonus]

We don't have a development blog right now. We did post some programming articles back in the day, but our free time is very little nowadays

I would like to do some videos about particle fx, a lot of people has been asking what tricks do I use and I think they're easy enough to fit into small videos.

Yeah, it's a shame what XBLIG could have been but it was great while it lasted. It was our only chance to publish games in a real console without doing almost any paperwork.

We have two ports on steam (Little Racers Street and White Noise) but they're a bit ugly (I did most graphics and I'm basically a programmer). The gameplay is good though, we've always tried to make fun gameplay. But Ziggurat is in a whole other level. It's all about how much time do you put into a project I guess...

[ArDaMaX]

hey guys been a while, yea seven this game freaking rocks put about 70 hours into it so far , been a blast to say the least

[ArrrCee]

Just wanted to concur, that I bought this over the holiday break a bit ago and yes it rocks! Definitely worth your time if you like Quake and Heretic/Hexen.

[Ebisu]

While it does look cool, I am turned off by early access. Developers have no excuse to charge for unfinished games, and it seems that ever since Steam has been allowing it, video games as a whole have gotten even worse. I might try it when it is released.

[ArrrCee]

While it does look cool, I am turned off by early access. Developers have no excuse to charge for unfinished games, and it seems that ever since Steam has been allowing it, video games as a whole have gotten even worse. I might try it when it is released.

Before you read the rest of this (TLDR) Ziggurat is released and it's great!

Now...

I can see where you're coming from but this is a new age of gaming. The important thing to remember is that we have more choices now of what to play than we did when Quake was first out.

Gamers want more options and some times those options will not always be the best. Sure, you might buy a dud from some guy trying to make a quick buck, but you might also buy a genuinely awesome game (like Ziggurat) for only $15 bucks (cheaper if on sale) that was created by a tiny team and you're blown away. And now you don't only have BIG companies as options! That's a win for everyone really.

I think the original idea behind early access that a lot of people miss is you're basically preordering a game from a small team who probably needs the money to focus on the game and finish it. I know many people go to gamestop and preorder a game before they've even played a demo, where with early access that's basically what you're getting is a demo with a promise that "Hey this will be finished."

If you don't want to support that idea, I don't blame you. However the point stands that Ziggurat isn't early access anymore. It's a full fledged game and the developers have kept their promise and stayed dedicated to the game by releasing some thing worth playing. I think that should really be what you look at.

[ezzetabi]

I just voted for in in gog dot com, do the same gentlemen!

[Ebisu]

Ziggurat isn't early access anymore. It's a full fledged game and the developers have kept their promise and stayed dedicated to the game by releasing some thing worth playing. I think that should really be what you look at.

Well then, I might check it out. I understand your ideas, but I still hate the idea of paying for an unfinished game.

[Ebisu]

**Someone hacked into my account for some reason and posted something very obscene. I'm purging this horrifying laceration from your sacred servers**

[Ebisu]

**Someone hacked into my account for some reason and posted something very obscene. I'm purging this horrifying laceration from your sacred servers**

[golden_boy]

Dude... keep it civil please.

[ArrrCee]

Dude... keep it civil please.

I think a "friend" or someone got on his account and posted. Unless he just felt like being super personal honest with everyone out of nowhere?