dcfedor

I plan to fill-in the current map rather than expand it. I'm having a hard time filling all the space :)

I would like to explore other areas of the world in future NEO Scavenger games, though!

I can say for certain that NEO Scavenger would not be what it is today without FlashDevelop. ActionScript coding in Flash CS4 was extremely clunky, and I saw a huge boost in productivity when switching to FD. The open source community saw a need in the marketplace to fill a gap, and did so better than any commercial tool, in my opinion.

Haxe and OpenFL have also opened doors for me. My next game(s) are almost certainly going to be based on Haxe, OpenFL, and likely HaxeFlixel. I've already had success with those tools in making pipeline tools for NEO Scavenger. Them being open source meant that I could fix issues as they arose without waiting for official patches. It also means that I'm not at the mercy of a private organization if they stop supporting it (looking at you, Adobe).

I've enjoyed being the "only cook in the kitchen" for a while, but I'm starting to realize how limiting that can be. I think part of my reason for going solo was to prove that I could do it. I'm pretty happy with what I've done now, and that need to prove myself is diminished.

That said, I still have a major problem "letting go." I am a control freak, I guess. But despite that, I think some of my coolest experiences have been when collaborating with a team of a few to a dozen. Larger than that, and it starts to lose luster.

I'm strongly considering running my business as a single-employee shop with 100% contractors on an as-needed basis. I've read about various film and game projects, and there's something cool about teaming up with the right people for the job, doing it well, disbanding when you're done, and maybe reuniting again in future projects. I'd like to try a "rotating roster" like this.

I think I'm soured on the idea of full-time employees because of my experience at BioWare. A lot of effort and money went into keeping people busy all the time, even if they weren't strictly needed. E.g. downtime between projects, or projects that didn't need certain skillsets at the time. We couldn't just fire them and re-hire later, because that wasn't very respectful of the person.

And as a result, I think dev costs were much higher than necessary. It also severely limited what games we could make. You can't suddenly do a 2D, hand-animated game anymore, because what will you do with the 100 3D modelers, animators, and riggers from your last 3D AAA game?

Thanks for the encouragement! And we definitely pass some of that thanks on to our open-source tools devs!

I know, I know. I'm just learning the controversy now. Sorry!