My apologizes

[Momor]

Greetings,

It's a VERY long time since I haven't posted here. I used to be addicted to the Pascal Games Programming community, I really learned a lot here.

In the last few years, things have really changed for me. I switched from a classical IS/IT job to the tremendous world of casual games developing at Big Fish Games, Inc. I'm now living of my long-time hobby, I still can't realize it.

I'm the guy behind the Travelogue 360 (http://www.travelogue360.com/) games. These games are all made using Delphi/Freepascal, and are available on PC and on MacOS.

I realize now that I've spent a lot of time grabbing some information everywhere on the net, including on this site. But it's a long time since I haven't helped anyone. That is not fair.

I'll try to spend more time from now on PGD, just because it helped me so much.

So ... cya soon !!! :)

[Robert Kosek]

Hey, I remember you. Vaguely. :P You were pretty scarce back when I signed up.

I am glad you're making a living off of making games with Pascal! That is really nifty. And I'm glad you've decided to help everyone else out too.

[arthurprs]

Hey, I remember you. Vaguely. :P You were pretty scarce back when I signed up.

I am glad you're making a living off of making games with Pascal! That is really nifty. And I'm glad you've decided to help everyone else out too.

[savage]

Greetings,

Momor, it's great to have you back. You wrote some of the most interesting cutting edge stuff, back in the day. It's also great that you are making a living out of game programming. Now all you need to do is port some of those games to the Nintendo DS and GameBoyAdvance and also the Xbox 360 all using Object Pascal.

I hope you have not lost some of your Voxel stuff it would be cool to see it running on an Xbox 360, just for laughs. I may have to pick your brain about it. Btw, are you using OpenGL on MacOS X by any chance? If so, I may need to PM you about a prospective real world project.

Welcome back.

[WILL]

Well I've said it twice, but welcome back all the same! :D

I remember you quite well Momor. ;) For those that don't he was one of the community pioneers, team leader of the DGDev Team that made a lot of the more stand-out games early on.

So give us the wrap sheet man. How many games have you made in this new turn of career and how well did each one do exactly? There are a whole bunch that would love to go the route you have, it might be good insight.

That said, anything BIG coming up? Any big projects or such next?

[Momor]

@Savage : A voxel thingie on the XBox ? :lol: I don't have a XBox yet, so it may have to wait ! About MacOS, yes my games make use of OpenGL via SDL, feel free to IM me if you need !

@Will: In January 2006 I submitted to BigFish Games a very rough casual game proto I had in mind. They loved it, and decided to help me to make a full game out of it. 8 months later, Travelogue 360 Paris (http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/1238/travelogue360paris/index.html) was released, being the #1 top seller for a full month period ! This game even won the Best Technology 2006 Casual game award (http://www.zeebys.com/winners.php), Delphi rulez !

Since then, I've been hired fulltime by BigFish, we've released the Rome (http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/1697/travelogue-360-rome-the-curse-of-the-necklace/index.html) based sequel, and I'm currently working on the third version of the game, due before the end of this year. These games are selling quite well, even though they have a restricted audience due to the 360¬? feeling making some players sick.

Making these games is actually a real fun, I had to go with a photographer on all these pretty locations. And you can't imagine what kind of deals you have to make in order to get some authorization papers signed :lol:

For the future projects, nothing is sure yet. As most of the casual games developers, I'm more attracted by hardcore games, but they sell really bad in this casual industry. So I'm listening my producers, who feel pretty well this weird market :wink:

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Momor,

I just played the game and it reminds me on the Abracadabra game Wagenheimer made :) It's the same principle, but he uses still images, while you use your "in the bubble" view...

Great to know that games made with Pascal are really sold outside!

[jdarling]

Hello Momor,
I'd be interested in hearing more about BigFish and how they manage submissions and such. Quite a number of people here on the boards have asked about how to go about getting setup with a publisher and for the who is who in the industry that will work with Delphi/Pascal. As an example, PopCap requires that eventually the game be migrated to their platform and that in the end it will run on a Cell Phone in some version.

How does BigFish look at the games and what do they expect? What do they provide besides a sales channel (all be it a very successful one)? What I mean is, what is required to approach BigFish and what do they expect to see? Do they want documentation, design plans, completed artwork, or what? Will they help the developers build out those things if they are not currently available (artwork seems to be the big thing that stops everyone here IMHO). We have seen quite a few good games come by, and the PGD Annual always ends up generating some good games. What would be the chances of getting BigFish to back the compo? Say, publishing the winning game after helping to make sure its up to a commercial level?

Just some general questions from a marketing guy :)

[wodzu]

Hello Momor.

Big gratulations for your achivements :) I hope you will continue your good work and share your experience with us.

[Momor]

Hi Jdarling,

As a previous indie developer, I must recognize that the Bigfish developer relations are very good. Every game submitted using the submission email addie gets reviewed, and replied. I know it just sounds like marketing bullshit, but I ensure it's the truth, I know the guys (& girls) who do that.

I would say that submitting a game or even a game proto is the contact entry point. After, all relies on how good is your game or game idea. If your game gets published as "the game of the day" - which is strongly to happen if it's a serious project, then you'll get the amazing exposure of the portal. If your game converts well, then everything can happen.
In the case of a prototype, things are less systematic. You'll get feedback, of course, but your game mechanic will really have to show a lot of potential to get more help from BigFish. That's the drawback of an ever-growing list of indie studios everywhere.

As for the submission, only the game is required, no specific doc. From the technical side, it's important that your game runs without any component installation (all DLLs need to be bundled in the game folder). There's no framework to respect, you only provide the EXE & data for Win32 (no sources), so Pascal works perfectly with it.

About submitting PGD compo entries, that's a good idea provided the entries show enough contents. As far as I remember, though, these entries were not very "casual", but who knows ?

[Legolas]

\ME is wondering about a next PGD compo aimed to casual games... :think:

BTW, welcome back home! :D
(I remember some nice games you made like FROOGZ and RUNOUT)

[WILL]

I think there could have been a couple of casual games submitted. It would likely have to have been picked from 2 simpler genre though, but it was possible.

BigFish Games does seem to be earning quite name for themselves. At least in our little corner. :) I wonder if they would be interested in investing into some developer tools like what Garage Games has done with Torque.

[Eriken]

Hey Mo! ;)

Good to see you're doing what you want to do, and good luck with the sale :)

Have fun :)
___
Erik