It's #StarWarsDay! #MayTheFourthBeWithYou @SaberRiderGame #星銃士ビスマルク callxyz.com/srfund

Howdy Pardners!

Today we have updated our Demo version. This is a bug fix release. Some people had reported some problems with 4K screens and high resolutions. This problem should be fixed now. On the Dreamcast version we had some crashes happening in the option menu and also during the Backer Credits. This problem should be fixed as well. Please try it out.

IMPORTANT! All the previous Dropbox links to the old version of demo are no longer working. From now on the demo can be downloaded here: http://callxyz.com/demo-version

We have also some exciting news for all the people who asked for a Dreamcast Limited Edition or ways to still support us. This is now possible again! Please visit http://callxyz.com/srfund There you can find our new Ramrod Edition for Sega Dreamcast.

New exciting mission for the Saber Rider Game. This is the first mission to include the vehicle-mode. Thank you very much again to Henk Nieborg for the great pixel work!

Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs in now on Steam Greenlight. In order to put our game on Steam, we need enough votes on Greenlight. If you like, please vote for us. Thank you!

Today I want to show some early WIP footage of the first part of mission 1. Beware! This level and material is still being worked on and highly WIP! There is content missing or not finsihed (the beep sound for example XD) and some features are not finished aswell. The music currentely used is from the series OST and will be replaced with the game OST.

Landing area in the desert. First Mission.

This is our character editor for our game. With that tool we are able to modify all the attributes of our characters in the game.

The App Icon for our game.

This picture shows the evolution of the background GFX in our game. It shows also why several hard decision had to be made during the Kickstarter and earlier during production. The first picture shows one of the reference pictures we are using from the TV show. The second picture shows the not planned flash like GFX used in the Nintendo 3DS video. After huge complaints and poor Kickstarter support this material was discarded. Reworked Pixel Art was shown during the second half of the Kickstarter to reflect the true goal of our project which helped bringing the Kickstarter to a success. It took Henk just a few short discussions, the reference material from the show and the reworked pixel art from the Kickstarter and turned everything into a true master piece.

Beware of loose cannons!

Because of recent events I felt the need for this longer blog entry. This should also help people who want to do their own game project and crowdfunding campaign. When you want to develop a game, at some point you probably need to hire more man power. This is a very crucial task. If you hire the wrong people, you are going to losing money and it can create huge problems, for the project and for you. These problems will prevent you from focusing 100% on your project. You don’t want that to happen.

Rule number one: Beware of loose cannons! I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

When I started the planning’s for the Saber Rider Kickstarter, I also had to look for people filling in several positions. Such positions are most likely programming, graphics, music and so on.

It turned out that my choices for the programming and graphics positions back then were very poor.

I had to let go the programmer already shortly after the Kickstarter finished because of massive problems happened before, during and after the Kickstarter. I was even forced to spend money to hire a lawyer in order to stop him spreading lies. That was only semi successful because we do not life in the same country. He refused emails, mails per post and even registered mails. I could have spent more money for an injunction. I was just not willing to spend more on that matter because it would not have changed anything in the short term. The lawyer costs were already at 1800 Euro and that was money from the project! By German law he is supposed to pay this money back. But since he hides in a different country and feels save there that probably won’t be happening, except if I would show up in person and kick the shit out of him.

The matter with the GFX artist was even worse. The work with him started out good but it went downhill from there. It took him ages to complete one sprite sheet. At one point I spoke with him and told him that this is not working out that way. No change. A bit later I cut money from his monthly salary, no change.

We always had endless discussions on Skype but at the end they were just useless and a waste of my time because nothing was achieved. This is a huge issue if you have problems to stay focused in general. I had to answer the same questions over and over again. The delivered sheets contained errors which I had to fix myself since he refused to do corrections. He left animations out we showed in the Kickstarter in the hopes I won’t notice. He always wanted to go the cheap and easy way and questioned every decision I made. He always was sticking his nose in things he had nothing to do with as a freelance GFX artist. The whole matter became very nerve wracking and because of the endless debates I started to feel unsure about my own decisions. My clear vision of the whole idea started to get blurry. It came to the point where I just wanted to avoid any more discusion on Skype. At one point I came to the conclution that this won’t work out and work never gets finished that way.

Again, I had to make a hard decision and let him go. All of his work had to be tossed away and had to be done again from scratch because no other GFX artist wanted to complete that material. That was in march this year. Oh, well! Yeah, he took that personally and tried to start his private vendetta against me. I won’t go in detail but several people contacted me and told me what lies he spreads and where. I didn’t even know some of these people before! He even contacted team members and several other contacts of mine to bother them with his weird stories and his grudge. The answer he mostly got. was that they don’t want to get involved in his crap. He likes to play Sherlock and tried to find out anything about me. I felt stalked. I also had to ban him from all Saber Rider channels but of course he still has some minions there and is just waiting for any mistake I make to use it for is advantage.

As you can see, both persons created huge problems for the project and for me. Such persons are called “loose cannons”. You don’t want such people in your team.

In the end, however, it was my fault, because I was too credulous and hired them in the first place and it will be your fault if you make the same mistake!

So, when you plan your own game and funding, make sure you have the right people who share your vision of the project/game. Make sure they follow you and not the other way around. If you work with freelancers and also “veterans”, check them out good! Check their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Podcasts...! If you find something there you don’t like or something that gives you a bad feeling, don’t hire them. Always let them sign a contract and very important a NDA!!! Do not let you fool by the fact that somebody is a “veteran” in the business. That just means he is working a long time in his job. This does not necessarily mean he is good at it or more important good for your project. I have experienced the good and the bad side of hiring “veterans”. Choose wisely! Keep your ears open and your eyes on the mark.

The bottom-line is, that both people have been replaced. The programming side is in the right hands. The same goes for the GFX part. However, the whole issue took a lot of extra time and money. It also took massive amounts of energy from me. Already during the Kickstarter, I was completely out of energy and it got worse each day. Having to deal with loose cannons won’t make it better. During the summer, I reached my limit and ended up with a huge burnout. I got depressions and panic attacks. So be very careful with your decisions during a project because that will affect anything including you!

Stay save!

This is our Level Editor to build levels for the Saber Rider Game. It is possible to make changes in a level during the game plays. Because we don’t use a common engine like Unity, we had to code also the editor from scratch. When we started the Kickstarter, this was not planned because Dreamcast was not among the main goals at this time. The original plan was to use Unity for PC and 3DS. Unity has already most of the tools inside. Naturally there is no Unity for Dreamcast, so we had to come up with a different solution. We are using a Framework, which allows us to code the game just once and compile it for a broad varity of systems. This includes also Dreamcst (but not PC Engine). The drawback is that we need to make all required tools ourself and this cost extra time, unfortunatly. But hey! We are doing a 16-Bit style game and back in the 80′s and 90′s that was the same way. We are going all way! :D

This is what we are using to build a level. It is the playfield content for the first mission. We are working with a 16x16 pixel grid. In the first mission you have to investigate Outrider activities in New Dakota, a small Town in the New Frontier with a Silver Mine nearby. Off course the town is infested with Outiders and guess what your job is...

Many people asked us for another chance to get a Saber Rider Sega Dreamcast Limited Edition. This is what we came up with. What do you think?

Today we perfecting the Parallax system for our game. This runs on a regular Sega Dreamcast in 240p. Up to 10 layers are possible.

A little Saber Rider pixel art today.