Spiking a Path

I have posted the release candidate for Classic Monster Hunter on the Ultimate Retro Project repository so anybody who can compile Java can try it out. Those of you who don't know how to compile programs or just don't want to put the effort in will have to wait until June. I have still been thinking about what I am going to do with the site and my thoughts have started forming a series of plans. One of these plans directly relates to this development blog so I will outline it first.

Right now I have a separate RSS feed for Blazing Games announcements and the feed that Blogger automatically handles for this blog. I am thinking that I may drop the sites feed and simply have all my announcements here. I would also probably cut back on my posting to every Thursday with the only other posts being shorter announcements for things such as the repository update above and industry news that I think the people who read this would care about.

I have a bunch of thoughts on how to better monetize the site which I will be trying to test out over the next year. If I am lucky one of my plans will actually pan out and I will be able to turn Blazing Games into a real company.

One of the things that I have been trying to do in the past but never quite got working was the idea of releasing early builds of games. Making a game is a lot of work, with a weekly release schedule being a heavy burden, so if I can take a game and slowly build it out to what I want it to be over a number of revisions then visitors will still be able to play new material every week even if it is just new enhancements to an existing game. The first game to get this multi-release treatment is Thirteen Spikes Unlimited. Here is the revision and release roadmap for Thirteen Spikes Unlimited:

• 0.1.0 internal development release
• 0.2.0 First official release on June 13, 2008
• 0.3.0 Development build for Skinning support
• 0.4.0 Official build supporting skinning targeted for February 13, 2009
• 0.5.0 Development build where campaigns are tested
• 0.6.0 Official build supporting campaigns targeted for March 13, 2009
• 0.7.0 Development build for built in campaign editor
• 0.8.0 Official build supporting campaign editor targeted for November 13, 2009
• 0.9.0 Development build for 1.0 version
• 1.0.0 Targeted for August 13, 2010
  

More details on my other plans will be posted when I am closer to actually implementing them.