Galactic Civilizations II is consuming us..

The hours are starting to get to us. 

Stardock, as a company, is 7/8's a Windows desktop software developer and 1/8th game developer/publisher. At least, that's how revenue in 4th quarter came out to be.  It's not that the games do so badly but rather our other products are so popular.

But right now, nearly everyone in the office is on Galactic Civilizations II.  One thing that really hurt us is turn-over.  In all the years we've done games, we've never had anyone leave a game project before it was done.  This time, we had two people leave.  They left on good terms but the fact is, despite what Game Developer Magazine occasionally writes, game development doesn't pay nearly as well as regular software development and in both cases, they left game development for "Regular" development jobs.  One was an engine developer and one was a key animator.  And on a project like this, it's hard to absorb those kinds of losses.

And so we do our best with what we've got.  We've put more people on the project from other areas so that the core team can focus on the things that only they can do and the parts that others can do can be done by newcomers to the project.

It's times like these that I can understand why many developers find console development so appealing.  Why does configuration X have giant stars? Dunno.  Why are the textures getting funny on configuration Y? Dunno.  Why are the overlays disappearing on configuration Z? I dunno.  I can definitely see why Civilization 4 went Windows XP-only.  But we want to make sure Windows 98, ME, and 2000 gamers can play our game.  Luckily, our non-game testing center is now on GalCiv II so all those "I dunnos" are quickly becoming knowns.  But time grows short and the hours grow long.

We also have a lot of "It would be nice to have".  Soren from Firaxis (Designer of Civilization IV) has been on the beta and has been providing some really useful suggestions.  For instance, now when there are no more units to move, the turn button glows green a bit to indicate to the player that it's okay to hit the turn button.  A number of other tweaks and changes have been made based on his feedback.  Since Civilization IV came out, we've been trying to avoid "stealing" too many ideas from that game.  But I love Civ 4 so much. It's how game design should be done.  GalCiv II is very different in most ways but there are enough 4X user interface similarities that there are some nice touches such as the visual turn button cue that we can add in.

The cut-scenes are most worrisome.  We have a lot of video in this game -- far more than any other 4X strategy game probably ever.  The dynamic campaign is meant to convey the story of the Dread Lords and so we want to present that story.  The screenshot you see on the left is a single frame from a cut-scene from the campaign.

The team has been putting in 12 to 14 hour days now since we got back from Christmas break.  We've got another two weeks to go before we have to wrap it up and send it to manufacturing so that we're at stores on February 25th.

At least I can honestly say that the game is turning out very well.  Everyone we have had play these last few builds have remarked at how fun it is and how much better than the first one it is. 

A few stats:

Music: GalCiv I had about 10 minutes of music.  GalCiv II have over an hour of music.  Video: GalCiv I had a handful of cutscenes of various quality.  GalCiv II has a LOT of cut-scenes.  And I don't think the gameplay is even remotely comparable now.  Going back and playing GalCiv I is painful -- no zoom out, weird interface, limited strategic options, ugly graphics, inconsistent pacing.  GalCiv I was a good game -- for an indie developer.  GalCiv II takes it to a whole new level (I think anyway).