When games are unexpectedly good

They also made another design choice that was a bit controversial. Which was fine, since it was just going to be a training project. LightWeight Ninja isn’t tile based. You know how most side-scrollers have a lot of repeating graphics in them? That’s because they’re tile based. They typically have a level editor that lets them go in and select from a palette of objects and put them on the screen. This makes creating levels easier and it uses a lot less RAM. But the interns figured that with today’s systems having at least 32 megs of RAM, gamers would be willing to have a side scroller that eats up 10 megs of it in order to have free form levels, where the graphics are all unique. You can have rounded surfaces and a lot of variety. The results have been really cool in that each level seems totally different. And when you create the artwork for your game in Corel Draw with nice rounded pipes to run around on, for instance, it really shows up well.

Because it's not tile based, the pipes can be as curvey as we want them to be

So now the game is about a month away from release. But wait a sec, you haven’t heard of this game right? There are no previews, no press releases, and until recently, it didn’t even have a home page.

That’s where the 'I’m in big trouble' comes in. The game has no marketing budget set aside. It wasn’t supposed to be a game worth marketing. At the end of last year, when we got together to budget out where marketing dollars were going to go, Light Weight Ninja didn’t get a penny.

While the people who happen to read this article might say, “Ah, but the massive plug this article gives it is marketing”. I’m talking real marketing. I’m an engineer. I code. Real marketing involves those guys and girls who bathe and everything. Putting together press releases written in words that people understand. Sending out preview kits to magazines. Getting demo versions ready to go. Since I’m in charge of the ultimate marketing budgets, it’s my fault the game has no marketing budget.

The good news is that the game will probably do well anyway. Or at least we’ll get a hard lesson on how well good games do without any real marketing. And a few people have been moved off of Galactic Civilizations marketing to LightWeight Ninja. We’re going to push GalCiv’s release back to 3Q 2002, whereas Ninja is coming out in a month!

The moral of the story is, don’t confuse ability and experience. Anyone who’s looked for a software development job in which the company requires X number of years of experience is seeing the mistake we’ve made at Stardock with this particular project. A group of teenagers, most of whom were in college at least part time, led by a female developer (another unusual thing in the game industry), managed to create what may be one of the best 2D action games ever. But will anyone have heard about it?

I’ve learned my lesson. The next project, a 'real' one. will be a side scroller, too. It’ll be a satire called “Commander Jill’s Impossible Persian Mission”. And if you really are into games, you’ll know where each word in the title comes from. :)

Brad Wardell is currently on the rack in Stardock’s public pain amplification center. Once properly re-educated, you can reach him here. His home page is here. Oh and Stardock’s home page is here. LightWeight Ninja's homepage is here.