To anyone who visits this blog regularly, above all, I thank you! But also, I hope you will keep Lila Dreams on your radar. The project is at a standstill, but it’s not dead.
Cave Story took five years to be created, and it’s not even an online game. I’m not saying expect that kind of epic time frame, just that the previously planned release date worked on the assumption that there would be funding and a team. Well, it’s just me and my pocket lint now. 
Lila Dreams is no longer slated to appear on Kongregate as a premium game. In fact, Remnants of Skystone is the only premium game which will be released in the future. Kongregate will not be green lighting any more games. The economy is bad, so certain things had to give, I’m told.
[Correction: I was under the impression that Skystone was the only other game to be released after Zenning, but it sounds like I may have misunderstood what I was told. My apologies. I didn't mean to confuse or misrepresent anything/anyone. I wish the best for all the developers who will release their premium games with Kongregate!]
This is actually not a bad thing! Since I retain all the intellectual property rights, I am now free to pursue other ways of getting the game off the ground.
The Project
The current circumstances are that I can’t continue the project immediately. I have to build my way up, starting with some other projects which are all designed to get me to the point to where I can work on Lila Dreams again. I need backend infrastructure. I need client code. I need art. And so on. That’s all coming, but being one person, I can only do it in stages.
The Technology Platform
I am pretty sure that I will be using Unity for the client. Lila Dreams will be a 3d game. Being web-embeddable or downloadable is also a nice option to keep open. Plus, there’s a fast growing number of people working with Unity, so I think the pool of talent will be rich enough to tap into later.
The Game Design
I am going to make some fairly big revisions to the design as described in this blog. The game has to be scaled down to a size I can manage alone. I have some ideas for directions I want to go, but I’m still contemplating several different possibilities that I like equally. The difficulty is to choose which one best fits this setting and what I want the game to be about in terms of multiplayer activities.
The Future
My plan is to keep quiet about the project for a while. I don’t want to raise any expectations until I have something tangible to show for it. I don’t want to reveal anything until it’s a certainty, be that gameplay, art, or business model. I will post here from time to time, but there won’t be a lot of noise until significant progress is being made.
This is indie game making, and this is reality. I am sorry to those I have disappointed, but I hope you will give me another chance later. This is a game that I won’t stop working on.
So, some time from now, when you see that Lila Dreams is back in production, it will really be back in production!
12 comments ↓
I’m sad to see this project get put on hold; I was looking forward to playing something this innovative. But, what the hell, not everything’s an instant success story.
Good luck!
I actually like the game concept and was willing to sign up for it; I guess I’ll just wait awhile longer. Heck, I’ve waited long for Final Fantasy XII.
I remember reading about Lila Dreams a while ago on TIGSource, and came here today to check how it’s going. It’s sad to hear that it has to be delayed, but am gladdened to see that you have not given up hope. Keep up the good work, I look forward to playing this game when completed.
I do hope at least the game would be a 2d side-scrolling style, the art designs are better that way!
I’m sad now, but I will go and play ICO and be happy again while I wait for this game to come out. Let’s hope LOVE won’t be delayed too.
Lila Dreams and LOVE are the two games I’m waiting for most.
I do understand perfectly; However, in my humble opinion…DONT use unity! There is an ongoing battle of 3D engines, and who will win is still uknown. There is nothing to be sure that unity will not be dead three years from now, as many other web technologies died in the past. Moreover, and I am speaking from experience (I do 2D and 3D animation, also did modelling for some games), pulling of nice graphics in 3D is much, much, much harder than in 2D. You get a good, talented illustrator and you have your nice 2D graphics. As for 3D, having a talented artist is not enough: you need a talented modeller, a talented texturer, and a talented coder, and you have to keep in mind one million constraints due to machines power, browsers limitations, etc. It requires much more work. Plus, you would be competing with all the “professional” MMORPG which are all in 3D, whereas 2D would make Lila Dreams stand out.
And I haven’t begun of speaking about the coding part, with much, much, much harder physics, collisions system, etc, and gamers that are used now to perfect systems and are not really likely to forgive, say, half a body in a wall or feet under the ground while climbing a hill. Also, populating the world is much harder, not ending up with large, empty areas is much harder, overall interacting with the world is much harder. In 2D, I can think of so many ways for a player to lift a stone and throw it. In 3D? it is a burden to implement.
On a personal level, all I can say is I fell in love with every mockup screen of LD I’ve seen before, and I hardly see them translated in 3D with the same level of magic and details.
Of course I do not intend to tell you what to do; but you are saying it yourself: “The game has to be scaled down”; well, why then do it in 3D? Make it technically as easy as it gets, and concentrate on the mood, the graphics, the system, etc. Those are what matters. 3D is only a little polish, that doesn’t really change how much fun the game is, but it is a polish that can cost a lot. Just remove it, and leave it for Lila Dreams 2 if Lila Dreams 1 works well.
I am saying all this because I am too working on my own game, with the same issues that you are facing. And I, too, thought of going 3D, and began designing for 3D, having ideas of gameplay, etc. Then after going in that direction for a while, I just understood that if I was going to do this, the game would never ever be finished. 3D requires a team, there is no way out of this.
So I reverted back to 2D, with the idea that if the games works well, then maybe I can lift the funding or find volunteers to help for the second episode.
Well; just my two cents. I really do not mean to play smart or tell people what to do. It’s just that I really like your project and I fear that you are going on a path that leads to infinite production time.
Good luck anyway, and I’ll be waiting for your updates!
Thanks for all the encouragement! As always, it really means a lot to me.
Xannax, thank you for your passionate and well reasoned comment. I am very fortunate to have so many people who care about this project.
I can’t describe here, in detail, my reasons for wanting to use 3d (it should maybe be a whole post, probably), but I will mention:
A) visual versatility (camera, asset reuse, etc),
B) 3d rendering does not necessarily mean 3d freedom of motion,
C) 3d art can have as much style as 2d art,
D) a 3d MMO can be made by a single person (though I don’t expect to remain a team of one forever).
That noted, you have totally valid points. (Except maybe the Unity one.) :p And, if it turns out to kick my ass, I can always turn around and crawl, whimpering, back to a 2d Flash client. 8)
But I have to try to do what I most want to do first. Failing that, I have backup plans.
We’re all routing for you!!
however I have one thing to say…
PLEASE DON’T GO 3D MOVEMENT!!!!!!
The 3DMMO market is totally saturated and thus there is little to no room for innovation to stick. No matter how good your gimmicks are (which by the way, the ones you let us in on are brilliant), unless your gameplay is perfect, you won’t keep any players for longer than a month. I hate to be harsh but I can’t see any other way.
I really think you should play Little Big Planet. I know I said it before and you gave a very fair answer but you should find a way. Borrow a PS3 or something because there is a lot of ideas I think you could glean from that game in terms of 2D motion in a 3D environment.
Listen to us giving you suggestions… like we know any better really >.>
Let me know when you’re game is done, I’ll be there opening day!
HA! See?
(just joking)
Regarding 3d movement, I haven’t fully decided. Making that decision is part personal preference, part technical, and part gameplay. I’m not going to get hung up on it, though, because the side view isn’t what makes the game fun.
Regarding gameplay, the reason Lila Dreams is different in some ways is because I haven’t found any MMOs that don’t revolve around killing creatures over and over. Some combat is fun, but combat because there’s nothing else to do sucks.
My goal isn’t to compete with mainstream MMOs. It’s a boutique MMO, afterall. The gameplay will not revolve around the same activities that every other MMO offers. I’m not too concerned about saturation of a market in which I’m not competing.
Ok, I grant you that to some degree it is the same market (and it certainly competes in terms of a player’s choices of how to use free time in general–movies, gaming, dating, rock climbing, sewing, etc all compete on that level), but Lila Dreams will find its audience because it won’t appeal to everyone. It’ll get called stupid and boring by some. And that’s exactly how I want it. I’ll take the smaller audience if it means I can make a game that I love and respect.
what happen to ‘Push Button Engine’? Will it still be used in future games?
I think PBE is a great engine. I will happily use it, if the need arises. But a lot depends on how successful I can be without Flash. I’d really like to focus on one technology and become an expert with it, but if it turns out that I can’t succeed financially with Unity, of course I’ll use Flash.
I still like Flash. It’s just my time is limited and I want to dedicate it to the biggest priorities. I’ll be keeping an eye on PBE, though.
To be very clear, using Unity is the plan until it fails. If it turns out to be unfeasible, I’ll change directions.
A big reason I want to use 3d is because it is so immersive. I have huge passion for creating atmospheric, interactive places. 3d facilitates that better than 2d in many cases, IMHO (caveat emptor, of course). So I want to aim for that, and Unity is the best available path right now.
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