*HELP* (serious), positive vibes needed ..

[MrBob]

Well, I've not been around here long enough to understand what's what. But financial ruin lonliness and despair runs through us all at times. It's part of the thrill of human existence. Like many, to get me through mine, and reconnect with the non-human world I have my so-called "hairless" fluffly guardians to cheer me up and drag me back outside. So here they are, lookin like a right couple of scallies that would sell you hash with teethmarks in.

[moosedude]

I have the upmost respect for both giles and jeff, not many people in the industry have the courage or the conviction to create their own vision of what a computer game should be. I think no matter what anybody else has said, the pair of you should be exceptionally proud of yourselfs and your creations. Not many people in the world can count above zero when asked about how many games they've had published.

Not many people in the world can claim to have inspired so many other people into the industry either most of the regular posters here will testify to that

I also think this could be one of those times where you need to step aside from yourself, one step to the left for a few weeks to allow yourself to quantify what actually has happened, take some timeout and try and *relax* for a bit, to let your brian catch up with what has happened.

[mattley]

Please hang in there and do waht you do well.

Please don't be TVR. TVR was a great compny, wrecked by people who were never going be customers anyway.

Keep up the good work, and dont let idiots grind you down.

[Dio]

Space Giraffe, the game, is a work of art. Jeff is a proper game artist - and I don't mean this just in an arty-farty way, but in a makes fucking good games kind of way.

[sack]

I have the upmost respect for both giles and jeff, not many people in the industry have the courage or the conviction to create their own vision of what a computer game should be.

I'm sure there's probably a big chunk of 'em who are there in the first place after playing Llamasoft games.

I mean yes I was interested in computers and I might've gone on to try and do something computing related - but I'm damn certain it was Ancipital that sealed the deal for me.

[biscoradio]

I've been (mostly) lurking here for years. I bought an Atari Jaguar after reading a review for Tempest 2000. This was my introduction to Llamasoft and it was all I needed to be hooked. The game grabbed me, brought me into 'the zone' and hours were lost in instants, and instants of gameplay lasted for hours. Next up was the Jaguar VLM cd attachment. Again, this was something that was sorely missing from my life. I'd sit and listen-watch all my cds, loving every minute of it. Defender 2000 came and more hours were lost dodging falling tombstones...

And then there was the nuon. I've got two nuon dvd players for their different lightsynths and tempest 3000 wrapped me up in goodness for many sleepless nights as well.

And a few months back when Space Giraffe was released, well, that made me get an xbox 360. I had been wanting to play with the lightsynth and had messed with it at friends' houses, but it wasn't enough to make me purchase a console. Space Giraffe is. It's brilliant. It provides me a level of joy and immersion that no other game does. While you may be sitting around sad about whatever reviews and whatnot is bringing you down, know that people like me are getting our asses kicked by your creation - using it to escape the same feelings of sadness that you are dealing with now - and it is helping us tremendously. Alot of things in my life are shit right now, but I can lose all that within 5 minutes of powering up Space Giraffe. Thank you.

[Yak]

Thanks to everyone who's tried to cheer us up, we do appreciate it .

I should explain though, it's a bit more than just being upset about some snide comments and some people not liking SG. If that was all it was I'd be happy enough just to ignore it and carry on as normal.

the thing is, ideally what was supposed to happen with SG was that it'd bring in enough income to be looking after us while we got on with the next game, and I was hoping maybe even a bit more than living expenses in order to begin to restore a bit my savings, which basically got reduced to nothing over the long period of time that SG was in development.

Even if that didn't happen we expected to at least get enough out of it to keep us comfy while working on the next round. I've long since resigned myself to the fact that we'll never get rich and have an easy ride, but I don't mind doing the work so long as we can feel secure and happy.

Instead what happened was that SG brought in such a tiny amount of money that Giles and I might as well have been flipping burgers at McDonalds - we'd actually probably have been better off doing that actually. And all my savings are gone, and I am told that there is enough in the Llamasoft account to continue to pay us for six months. After six months I have no income, and having no savings either, that means after 6 months the mortgage wouldn't get paid.

I love my house, I have lived here 10 years now, and the very thought that me continuing to be here could even remotely be called into question is enough to make me feel physically ill. It was bad enough when it was just a possibility, but now there's an actual date attached, six months. Six months isn't that long a time. Stuff I did in June seems like yesterday. Likewise 6 months from now isn't perceptually very far away either. Hey, in fact it'll be my birthday. Joy.

That fucking 6 months is the first thing that enters my head when I wake up too early in the morning in the middle of yet another anxiety jag. The fucker is in my head all day, twisting my guts, destroying any chance of peace. ther only way I can try to fight against it is to work, and so I do, and at times when it's going well I almost start to feel happy again, but eventually the time sentence wins out and I'm in full-on anxiety again.

It would actually be easier if I *could* blame Space Giraffe, say to myself that I made a mistake and a bad game and that it'll be better next time, but in truth I can't. SG was and is basically good. Sure, if we'd've done a better demo mode and adjusted the psychedelia level we might have got a few more people in, but I suspect we'd only alter the numbers by 10% or so by doing that.

Even working hard on the new game isn't without anxiety. It's probably about halfway done now, but as yet it's not even officially in existence for XBLA. For all I know they may not like the fact that I'm disappointed with SG sales, and just tell me to piss off - and all my work would be for nothing and I'd be even *more* in the shit.

Added to all this anxiety is the real sucker punch which has basically all but broken my spirit, which is just the sheer misalignment of our hopes and expectations with what actually happened. We worked so hard on that game, and it got really stressful towards the end, but we pushed on because we knew it'd be worth it, we knew we'd made something special, and it'd be OK once it was out, we could have a rest, nice weekend in the Dam for completing and then maybe Barbados at Christmas (and take my mum). Best case we thought we could do pretty well. Worst case we thought at least we'd be set up for the next round of development.

When none of that occurred, and the stress never actually stopped, and it all just slid through to the state it's in now, sickening anxiety and a 6 month sentence... it's thrown me into pretty bleak depression. Giles is handling it rather better than I am and at least is keeping some small spark of hope alive, but I know it's not easy for him to see me im pretty much continual torment over all this. There isn't a day that I don't thank Goat for his patience and strength in putting up with me through all this.

Right now I'm just in a downward spiral, trying to keep working, waiting to see some little spark that'll help me to believe that it'll be OK, the death dive will stop and things will start to get better again... but it's not coming, it keeps not coming. And always the 6 months.

Normally I work pretty well to a time deadline, but this is different. I don't think anyone works their best with a gun to their head.

Some nights like last night it all gets too much and I just cry, and feel like I'm having some kind of breakdown. Giles always manages to talk me out of that state in the end, but the next day when I wake up it's all still there, nothing's changed. Anxiety, depression, 6 months.

And in the face of all that the noise made by those hateful people is only an incidental sting, really, and easily ignored. Although I wonder why they are so goddamn hateful sometimes. Jeez, you'd think I skullfucked their mothers or something. I'm just a guy writing shoot-em-ups FFS. If you don't like me and/or the games then just piss off and shut up.

Anyway thanks to you all for being supportive. I really hope to Goat that in a year's time we'll be able to look back on this dark time from a better place.

[Axeman]

That is really a case of 'up shit creek without a....boat'

I am sure there are plenty of people here that would help out and do some asset/coding work for you if needed; I would gladly help you guys out with anything you need to finish your next game in time.

You seem to have a good group of people here that I believe would be more than happy to lend a hand.

[Arganoid]

Are there any plans to investigate the kind of system proposed here?

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=6 ... c&start=75

(See post by Felonious Feline)

Obviously there is no guarantee that such a scheme would produce enough money to be worthwhile, but it may be worth a try.

[the2bears]

Jeff,

Wake up every morning and think to yourself, "I'm going to keep this place, it's good, and I live here." Go to sleep thinking the same thing. I cannot stress enough the simple changes that thinking positive thoughts can bring about. I realize I've written something that is not easy at all to do... especially when you are so passionate about this... but you've got to start somewhere. Start by "just thinking good thoughts", every night and every morning. This will work itself out in a way that's good.

Bill

[TMK]

Just, continue to make games, please.

[sirenbrian]

Those before me said everything I wanted to, only better, so I'll restrict myself to a couple of minor facts that might put things in a different light.

Re: Frogger - XBLA is widely seen as a casual gaming outlet, so yeah, games that trigger fond memories and "let's buy this game for little Dakota because I used to play it when I were a lad" are going to be an easier sell than a challenge like SG.

Along those same lines, I was thinking about the whole "it needs a better tutorial" argument - why not put it an two-level tutorial. One that demonstrates the basics and leaves it at that, and one that holds yer lazy hand and explains every damn thing to you. Monsters, basic strategies, the lot. Put a suitably disdainful message before the second one ("You wimp! Can't figure it out for yourself, OXM Dan?!" and let them see it if they want to.

Monitor their gameplay for the first 10 minutes or so - if they fail to use a basic command (like they never aim a Hoof Shot), pause the game and tell them they seem to have overlooked an important command, without which they can't play it properly.

Alright, enough of that - Jeff, your work is a lot of fun and I hope to play more titles in the coming years. I bought a Llamasoft tshirt, but if there's a direct paypal account I'd like to send a payment directly to you commensurate to the amount of joy I'm getting from this game. Except level 48...and "Portal"...and any of those "left is right" levels. I'm deducting 10p each for those

[Yak]

I don't think it's by any means an irretrievable situation, *if* a few things do actually start to go our way. If we can generate a bit of income to tide us over, if we can get GR+++ onto XBLA it *may* go a bit better than SG purely because the original Gridrunner did actually sell well in the US back in the day - we may actually catch a tiny part of the Frogger effect that so upset me before, enough to be significant. We know now we can't sell at 400 points and in truth I don't think going to 800 would make that much difference - I admit I was wrong and trying to be "too nice" with SG, I should have put it at 800. And if we do that in a reasonable time frame it should keep us going, and if I follow that up with a new Llamatron, then maybe we'd be good after. Llamatron is something I haven't wanted to deploy trivially, but it is well-loved, and its time may well be right in this context, after GR+++.

Truth is if it weren't for the damn lifesucking mortgage we'd probably be more than fine even with just the SG level of things. It's frustrating because it really wouldn't take that much in either direction to have us completely fucked or reasonably happy, but I almost feel powerless to push it one way or the other. I know how to make a nice game, but I don't know how to make that work most effectively for me.

[arron]

Your ability to make it as Llamasoft, will depend on your ability to make games. I believe that you do good work in what you do. I believe that you and Giles have the ability and talent to carry it off, and there are people who will always respect what you've done and what you are to do. And if there is anything I can do in my ability to help, then one only has to ask.

Unfortunately, there are those people out there on the internet, who come in many forms..the jeering teenager who hasn't had the scrotum to do anything worthwhile with their lives who spouts bile from his dark fortress[1] through anonymous postings on the internet..the embittered wannabe developer failure who for either hatred or jealously takes every opportunity to kick a person when they're down because they can't do it when they're standing tall..or even the opportunist who through the spread of misery is counting their gains in advertising through hits on their website. The only way such dimly lit people appear bright themselves is by snuffing out much brighter lights, and claiming the credit for what they've done. You're better than all of these people. You can't let the idiots get their leaden chains around you and drag you to the floor.

I don't really do fluffyhugs, but I do try to inspire where necessary. If you wish to truly write or play the game, you have to be the game. And through true classics like Ancipital and Iridis Alpha that has been the case..as has the guy who wrote them both. If things had been different, I'd have been a games programmer myself..and I'd have Jeff to thank for that too.

[1] filthy unlit bedroom that his mum keeps threatening to tidy for him.

[TwistedScrote]

Just my tuppence worth....


It's shit to hear that you are having a rough time, because SG is a corker of a game, I've enjoyed the hell out it and it's still the best 400 points I've spent on a game on XBLA.

I've no doubt that GR+ will be a good seller as well, and will by association lead to better sales of SG in the future. Chin up chaps, you've introduced the world to Llamasoft and SG can be considered the first important step on the journey. There's no way on earth that people round here will let you get into trouble with your morgage.... but it won't come to that at all, GR+ will come out and pave the way for the monster hit that llamatron will be.

On a serious note, having a friendly chat with your morgage provider NOW rather than later will be very helpful. You may be able to 'take a break' on the morgage or reduce the payments for a few months... most banks and building societies are normally a bit grown up about these things if you contact them early.

Ten years of being a valuable customer counts for a lot, so a 10 minute chat with them monday morning might just take a burden off you and give you some more breathing time.


Whats the worst they can say?