PRJ566 Update - engine, life cycle, and revenue

To put it simply, game programming is ridiculously complex to jump into. I've been really lucky to bounce things off my brother as the PRJ class game progresses and to have him as our image designer. After I gathered some resources and sketched out a few things he was able to start work on one of the characters. It was just some initial imaging, but I was completely blow away with how quickly he put together a fairly decent model (he's creating the character as a 3D image and then using flash to take some shots and create a bunch of png's that we can integrate into a sprite sheet). The group also decided on AndEngine (can't remember if I mentioned it), it's a 2D game engine that utilizes OpenGL, it's very awesome... though I feel a bit like I strong armed the group into it. Ah well, they can kill me later if it's a mistake. :)

We have been running into problems in documentation life cycling though. The way the class is structured we're being veered into waterfall design (SDLC) which is fine, but when it comes to coding the whole group would prefer to do test driven coding (originally part of Extreme Programming Design, but recently has been gaining reputability on it's own, separate from Extreme). We'll be approaching both this semester and next semester's professors to check that this is a feasible feature before implementing it into our documentation. Seems like a good decision, yeah?

Oh, and other problem we can't seem to decide on is revenue. So far I'd like a free game, but it might be nice to gather some revenue from ads in order to pay for the server, and other unforeseen costs. My brother did warn me that he'll have to look into getting a professional license for 3DS max if we do end up making any revenue, but that's if you charge for the game, we're not so sure about advertising income... I suppose that's something else I should look into or maybe ask around, that's usually easier.

To be quite honest though, I've been incredibly nervous entrusting this game idea to other developers and designers, but thus far I'm so happy. Ivan's been doing a great job at the software architecture, even when I press him about why he's chosen the systems he has, Justin's really creative, even coming up with a ridiculous back story that was so perfect, and Natesh has been able to handle the responsibilities of project lead so well. We've had problems with people shouting and making rackets in the study rooms and he was able to handle the confrontation so well. I don't know if I could have kept my cool as well as he did in some of the situations we've had. Oh! and of course Jonathan (my brother) has even given some input on how to change the characters to make them a bit more cartoonish. I really wanted smooth lines, no sharp edges (much like the design of Lilo and Stitch) and a really soft look to the game, and he seems to completely get that. I can't wait to see how this game turns out, I'm so excited.