Sunlight

I have previously discussed pitching your games to publishers , but that was from a very specific perspective: if you already have plans for a game and are trying to make a publisher interested in that. Once a studio has gained some credibility the opposite can also happen: sometimes a publisher is looking for a developer for a game they want made, and they ask a bunch of game studios to pitch for that project. Around four years ago (early in development of Awesomenauts ) this happened to us twice, in both cases with well-known publishers looking for a fresh and different take on a famous franchise they owned. Today I would like to show the concept art our artists made for one of those, and explain how these kinds of pitches work. Note that things like this are almost always under NDA, so I cannot mention the name of the publisher or the franchise involved. An NDA ("Non-Disclosure Agreement") is a common type of contract used in the games industry in which two parties agree t...

Scrum is one of the most used project management methodologies in the games industry. I know many companies that use it, including we ourselves at Ronimo . Most companies don't use pure Scrum: they change parts to fit their needs. This is so common that there is even an official name for it: ScrumBut (as in: "We use Scrum, but ..."). Any Scrum purists I have met are strongly opposed to ScrumBut, but when talking to them I learned that their views are so rigid and stubborn that they don't understand that one of the core concepts of Scrum is fundamentally broken when used for game development. The purists I met simply deny the problem and come up with fancy crap like this: "ScrumButs are reasons why teams can�t take full advantage of Scrum to solve their problems and realize the full benefits of product development using Scrum. ... A ScrumBut retains the problem while modifying Scrum to make it invisible so that the dysfunction is no longer a thorn in the side of ...

We recently announced that we our new game is Swords & Soldiers II . We didn't actually show any real gameplay yet, so today brings an exciting moment: here's what it looks like! It�s beards, mead, sheep, demons, axes, wenches and barbecues! Hope you like it!

Bugs are usually caused by simple things like typos and oversights. As a programmer, this might make you think you need to become smarter and concentrate better, or maybe you conclude that bugs are simply part of any programmer's life. Both are of course partially true, but there is more to it than that. There are methods that can be used to reduce the chance of creating bugs (even though such methods won't fix all of them). One of those is better coding structure. Ideally code is structured in such a way that mistakes and oversights are not possible, and that the code is easy to understand. In practice these goals are often not fully achievable, for example because they contradict with the amount of time you have to build it, or the performance requirements, or maybe the problem you are solving is just too complex for easy code. Nevertheless, striving for good structure does make a big difference. Today I would like to give a couple of examples of common coding practices in C+...

For the extended soundtrack of Proun+ I am composing a series of short sketches for grooves for the new songs. I already posted seven of them a couple of weeks ago and today I present the final six. From here on I will select the best ones and start turning them into real songs. I would love to hear your opinions on these, since that will help us choose which to expand on. Keep in mind that these are quick digital sketches. The final soundtrack will be played entirely by live instruments and produced by professional musician Arno Landsbergen , so they will sound much better just because of the real instruments and good production. The one below is pretty different from the rest. Arno and I wrote " Groove Sketch L " together and Arno recorded it live. This means that the sound is much better right away, making a comparison to the rest difficult. It also shows that everything is better on a real Hammond organ: what an awesome sound these things have! The Mellotron halfway (st...

Today Ronimo Games turns 7. Seven years old already, it definitely doesn't feel like we have been around for so long already! This week was also marked by the biggest amount of awesome news in a single week so far, so let's have a look. Most importantly, we announced our new game: Swords & Soldiers II for WiiU. This game has been in the works since November 2011, so it is good to finally reveal it. Right now we are not discussing any specifics yet: more information will come at GDC in a couple of weeks, where press will be able to play it. What I can say right now is that I think the game looks incredible and I am really stunned at the quality of the graphics and animations that our art team has been creating. It is pretty incredible to read online that the original Swords & Soldiers has so many people who remember it fondly. These are just some of the heart-warming quotes I saw in the comments beneath news articles about the sequel: -" Hp hip hooray. One of my ...