I mentioned last time that the project is on hiatus. It’s a two-person project, and we’re both insanely busy. But lately, I’ve been wanting to get back into it. Grad school takes up most of my time, and my chill out time is spent playing Dragon Quest IX. When I’m between things (mostly, when I’m driving), I brainstorm about Artemis.
The other hobby projects I’ve worked on have all been small enough that they didn’t need formal game design documents. This time, I’ve set up a wiki to organize my ideas. By the time I’m ready to seriously work on the game again, I hope to have every detail planned out there. A wiki seems ideal for this, since everything can be cross referenced (enemies, locations, items, etc.). Someday, when the game is finally finished, it might be fun to make the wiki public and let people see the planning notes. It might also double as a strategy guide, since the goal is to have every detail there.
I mentioned that I’ve been playing Dragon Quest IX. It’s really incredible, and I’ve gotten a few ideas from it. In particular, one thing DQ9 does very well is the massive post-game. Most of the time I’ve put into the game has been after beating the final boss. That said, it’s not a perfect game. My main gripe is that it’s too easy. I’d like Artemis to be roughly the same difficulty level as the original Zelda. From what I remember, that’s a game that got the difficulty just right.
So anyway, the hiatus continues, but at least some progress is being made on planning/design for Artemis. Each week, I put a few ideas into the wiki. I don’t have any particular timetable, but at some point I’ll get back into the programming – and then I’ll be glad I spent this time planning.
