What project/s have you abandoned?

Following on from my last thread "What's your current project" which was great, thanks for all the replys btw!

I am wondering who has abandoned their projects...

What were you writing it in?
What was it called, what genre was it?
Have you postponed it or completely given up?
What made you give up?
How far completed do you think it is?

I'll go first again.

I was writing a remake of Chaos in B3d called "Limbo", a turn-based strategy game. I completely gave it up last year because I got stuck when it came to the AI and also because the artwork I made was not good enough and I couldn't do any better. The code is about 70% complete.

Instead I took and modified the original Chaos adding about 20 new spells to the game which took me about 6 months.

I started writing an RPG a little while back. It's kind of cancelled.

It was only 1% completed, the design was 30% there
It was called: Temporal Quest
It's been downsized to a smaller RPG more in the form of zelda on the NES
I may change it's name and design completely now though, as downsizing it won't really go with the original design.

Lander, Sphere Racer 2, Asteroids, Aeroplane racer, Uridium, Alien Breed, Carrier Command, Droplet, Helicopter, Drop Lift, Dragon Shootem Up, Various Driving games, Pong, etc etc etc

Fricking 100s!

why was lander abandoned, that looked really really good!

Like all of them... Got bored of it, stopped holding any interest for me.

I rewrote lander quite a few times actually, each time it was better. The last one actually had suspension and folding legs which looked pretty cool when it landed.

I'm sure if I rewrote it again it would be even better still.

I have the attention span of a gold fish though and I hardly ever fini...

A few things were abandoned. Otheres weren't complete but were never intended to be complete. Others still are on hold.

Cygnus X1 and Cygnus X2: Supernova (both created before the other PC games named X, X2 etc). Supernova was going to be a hybrid RPG/Action game where you could control a ship directly but also command the other ship from an RPG style view/pick system. Worked well and had a few tech demos on here but the tech got old and hard to maintain, plus I started to work with Evak and suddenly realised how crap my GFX were ;)

A side-project from Supernova was the Cygnus Level Editor. This was a sweet bit of coding to prove i could do such a program, it was node/entity based scripting system, and had kind of fake-OOP (load a boned mesh and the bones are accessible through OOP style code). You attached code to each node to trigger events, and the system loaded seamlessly into blitz project using just two funcs. Development stopped when a major flaw was found in the design that meant it needed recoding over. I still feel a dippo for allowing such a problem to exist, but I no longer need the program. Was going to release it and a version is available floating around somewhere!

Quads/Quads2: Both the same game, my introduction to Blitz3D really, MarioKart style racer with terrain based tracks. Still have the code, Still fun, Newest version actually had a mesh based track but it didnt seem as fun. This turned into:

Cygnus Car engine/Quads3/Fun Racer- which ended up being a tech demo and completed a couple of years ago as the Fun Racer with Evak. i love this project and to this day it remains a little demo I play on occasion. Multiplayer makes it awesome, and with playability over a 512/128 connnection between the UK and California,the code couldnt have been that bad either, specially considering it was my first attempt at a properly implemented network code that worked with physics....

um... Den Bros 4- a creation between quads/quads2 that took media from blitz and graphics from mario3 and made a 3D platformer, quite fun, but not at all original. 7 modes of playability. Never intended to finish it but did intend to learn from it, and that I did! :)

Mashup: basically my version of FMC with Evak. Never intended to finish this in B3D as we needed a bit more in the way of technology for the visuals. The game is on hold and is one of many in a list to do once Flow is complete.

Um, Thats it really, Oh, I was writing that Pole Position/ Outrun game last year but proper work took my time out of it.

Crazee Golf, written in Blitz3D. A 3D crazy golf game which I have given up on completely. Don't think I even have the source code any more. Gave up because differing opinions with the graphics guy. I felt he was concentrating on pretty scenes at the expense of interesting level design from a playability point. I suppose I was a bit too focused on the programming side rather than game design, too. It was a working game with 3 levels, only 1 of which was decent to play. Still needed menus, computer players, moving obstacles and the code to handle collisions between more than 1 moving object.

lol @ rob.

I am the same at times, I dont like to say that I can completely canned a project tho, at the moment the projects I have that are well over 60% done but in my to do on a rainy day pile are.

Solar Shatter : a space combat simm that was going to be multi player with about 30 people per server, trading, fights the works.


Sheep Blaster : A worms clone but with sheep, I actually had a lot of fun with this, added weather effects which had an impact on the course of your rockets and nades.


Pirate Gems: A match 3 game, which I really should finish as iv had some offers for it, but simply cant get the drive to do it. its also nearly finished.


BustaBlox : an arkanoid clone that I never finished could never seem to get the ball collisions to work as I wanted.

And there are some others, but the rest are all under 50% complete.

I once started a Klax clone, just with nicer gfx. I already had a 3d implementation with shadows for each stone and stuff like that but then i was playing the lynx version over and over in order to find out the level mechanics. I found the gameplay so perfect that i ended up playing it so much and then realised that a) it would be a lot of work to get it done really the same way ( i didn't want new elements) and b) that it was kind of stupid as i already enjoyed the game in the emulator this much.

No screens as the source lies on my pc and i'm on mac right now... :O)

Gah...hmmm.

Adventure (Atari 2600) remake - DarkBasic - 90% done - abandoned

Meteor Blast - DarkBasic - 100% done - not released due to possibly getting sued by hasbro

Tunnels and Trolls: Heroes of Khazan RPG - Blitz3D - 5% done - I actually had a team for this and had consent from the creator of Tunnels and Trolls - he sent me a bunch of stuff about the game and even a free boxed set - this is one project I'm truly sad that didn't happen

Air War 1946 - Blitz3D - 10% done - ran into a bunch of flight sim problems. I've recently figured them out though so I may revisit this in the near future.

Unnamed Nature Simulator - 5% done - I even had a 3D artist make a 3D model of the main character for $$ - this is one of my cool unique ideas. I will be revisiting this one for sure.

D&D 1983 - Blitz3D - 10% done - I even had a pretty decent site set up for this one. But the vastness of doing an RPG is just overwhelming. Plus I doubt I could add any value to the DnD name.

Orbicus - BMax - Casual puzzle game that sits at about 40% done. I'll probably finish this one maybe before the end of the year.

Edmund and the Orb of Fate - BMax - A puzzle game that's a spin-off of Orbicus. This is too art intensive atm. Will have to revisit it.

***Will add more as I remember them.

Ditched this one about four years ago:



More here

Sniff - so many nice looking games. I refuse to abandon mine - I'll die first.

Be a pity, but die I will....or finish of course.

Initially BlitzMAX, eventually C#.

CATs - doesn't really fit into a well defined genre.

Postponed.

Besides time constraints, mainly Visual Studio.

5% or there abouts.

1. B3D
2. Space Harrier Reloaded (3d rail shooter)
3. Guess I given up on it.
4. Laziness
5. Perhaps 5%.

Shed fulls... I usually get the main engine sorted, then, let it sit in back-ups for a while and just tinker! :)

He's the ones that stand out:-


Blitz3D, Blitz+, C++, C# with XNA and a visual basic one.



Not going to go in specifics, but a 3D platformer, online poker game, a simple game that uses my own DX9 engine (The engine is the project), a sport game and a puzzle game.


Postponed until I can get into the habit of actually finishing a game... Though, my first BlitzMax project is coming along real nice, and I'm going to look into selling it commercially! YAY



Probably like everyone else, a combination of big ideas, not enough time. My general 'snag' is place holders are great, but getting hold of decent media is a chore and once I run out of patience looking for media, then thats usually it, unless I stumble on some on my net travels.



I say, all my decent projects are done programming wise, they only need decent media... so going off a limb... probably 50%-80% complete. My current BlitzMax project is probably now at 90%-95% finished, and I'm still happy! :)

Dabz

I've started and cancelled so many...

I cancelled an Amiga racing game (mainly because BlitzBasic was so buggy).

I didn't cancel that many RiscPC games, mainly because I did utilities... :) I think I did cancel (another) Walker sequel.

Cancelled a few DBPro/GSDK games (one involved collecting objects), Trailblazer type games and a missile command clone. The main reason is that 3D collision detection isn't terribly good.

As for BlitzMax, I've cancelled (i)BloxedOut, Humans On A Planet 2. However, I am working on a 3/4 player Dance Dance Revolution type game, which shouldn't be cancelled.
(i)BloxedOut was pretty near complete, but I got bored with it...

For Unity, I cancelled a a Trailblazer type game, mainly because it was causing so many problems.

Forgetting everything I did before I got BlitzPlus 2.5 years ago...

- BPlus
- Iron Fist ( http://www.greyaliengames.com/free.php scroll down a bit). It was a scrolling platformer beat 'em up. Had *many* more ideas but never put them in e.g. shop, special moves, training, keys/doors, adventure game elements, experience points.
- Postponed, maybe ... (I'd remake in BMax)
- 6 months later (part-time) I realised it would take YEARS and may not generate much income based on the Indie market and so moved onto more achievable and commercial projects.
- less than 50%. BUT the demo is totally playable from beginning to end and not bugged either. I always like to make sure my work in progress is playable so I can go back to it and go "cool".





- BPlus
- Jewel of Orion ( http://www.greyaliengames.com/free.php scroll down a bit). It was going to be a vertically scrolling shoot em-up. It's actually a remake of a game I never finished in C++ for DOS called WingWang. I made that in 1998! You can find it here: http://www.jakesweb.com/programs/index.html but I doubt any modern PC will run it. It might run in DOS Box with a soundblaster emulator. The DOS game is actually more complete but the BPlus one is better written and more flexible.
- Cancelled. I may well make another shooter in BMax and use the same name.
- actually I just started it for fun one night, was quite into it, just got some neat alien scripting done but basically other commercial projects took priority.
- 10%? Again it's totally playable, not much there but it works.

I abandoned SpaceBall, a game only playable on internet, 5 vs 5 players. It was a very nice ideas where you had to score goals playing with your teams and a ball.
It was written in Blitz3D, but I had bugs with network code and Physics. It was 30% done (mainly the engine, the graphics were just for the development!).
Website: http://spaceball.online.fr/

Even my finished games can't truly be said to be finished - they are just released freely on the internet when I have done as much as I am willing to do with a minimal front end - usually just 'press start' and 'press quit' options.

My problem is not the coding or the graphics but rather the generation of ideas with enough depth to be worth making that would be fun to play.

I only have one - prototype really, called Postal Possum.

If I get round to it, it'll be my way of learning how to institute multi-player.