For those of you NOT old enough to know - "That Was The Week That Was". It was a TV show somewhere back in the last century. And pure coincidence that it might be "TripWire"!
I guess you've all seen a little insight into the life and workings of a small independent studio this week! With the prep for 1C's Prague'n'Play (getting a multi-player build ready), the Killing Floor Summer Sideshow Event, prepping for next week's 1C event in San Fran (where the press should be getting their hands on the single player) - plus a couple of other pieces (marketing/advertizing-related) - it has been quite a week.
The coders probably did sleep at some point, but not much. The testers were burning the midnight oil along with them. Animators are grinding out the hours - and the rest of the art team isn't far behind. Makes me feel a little helpless at those moments when tech skills are stretched to breaking point.
But the general reception on the screenshots released at Prague was really good. And we do love you all really - just remember that we aren't EA/Acti/Ubi/Blah with vast teams cranking everything ut. And that screenshots are often made to appeal to those who DON'T know our games! We love you all really. Well, most of you. Most of the time. Really! It is one of the challenges as we grow - and grow the fanbase. Some people have been fans of ours for years and will be very vocal about what they see. We'd much rather people took part, took an interest. Just remember that we are the small, independent developer, trying to do a huge number of things...
[Totally separate topic for rant: the shiny new Respawn website describes the company as an "independent video game development studio". Um... "independent"? I was rather under the impression that they were completely funded by EA - rather like IW was completely funded by Activision (to the point where Acti owned a chunk of the company, with options on the rest, which they later exercised, making some people even richer). So how is that "independent"? Please correct me if I'm wrong of course!]
Then we hit a bizarre set of tech issues with the release of the summer event, which we've done before and never seen the issues on. Which, understandably, upset a bunch of people. It upset us, too. I think we've got all the gremlins cracked... famous last words!
In amongst all that, we've been running beta tests. People seem to be enjoying the game. Everyone in the office is busting their nuts to get everything finished.
Its going to be a busy summer!