Mister Tins

Life goes on

Submitted by mimec on 2014-04-24

Mister Tins is now officially in sale, which means it's officially dead, and that's not a big surprise to me. I guess it's time for a brief post-mortem summary of what went right and what went wrong. Well, the good thing is that I finished it, and it was fun, not to mention that my long time dream to make a game has come true :). I still think it was quite a good idea, and a bit underrated, but looking back I think there are at least three reasons why this whole project was doomed from the beginning:

  • Modern games are driven by artists, not by developers. It's just no longer "let's do the hard work and write the whole code and then we'll just throw in a few textures and the game will be ready". On the contrary, you take an existing engine like Unity, and then all the hard work is graphics, models, animations; the programming comes down to scripting a few events. I'm oversimplifying, but you get the point.
  • Modern games take a lot of work. Even a simple indie game requires a team of at least a few dedicated persons and often takes years, especially when people have another full time job. I spent six months, but in reality only during the first few weeks I spent significant time on this project. It's good that I started with something simple enough that I was able to finish it, but it can't compete with all the professional games in the market.
  • Another thing, which is perhaps not a strong requirement, but certainly helps, is when you can participate in various events and shows, contact other game developers, potential players and especially the press, long before your game is finished. Obviously, it's easier when you live in a large city in USA or Canada, not in some shithole in Poland…

In conclusion, if I'm ever going to get involved in another game, I'd certainly be joining an existing, dedicated team of artists, who need a coding monkey, and I'd teach myself Unity. Anyway, it's not going to happen very soon :). The good news is that now I finally have some time to release a new version of Saladin and WebIssues, work on redesigning my book, and simply read and play some games.

Also in my personal life there have been some changes recently; for example, I'm getting a divorce. I could make a similar list of things that went wrong, but I will spare you the details. Let's just say that one day you think you know someone, and then it turns out that your goals and values are so different that you simply can't go on any further. At first I was really upset because I hoped our son could have a "normal" family, especially that I din't have one, but the truth is that now I spend much more time with him than before we separated, and I'm definitely going to do everything I can to make it up for him. So I went through the whole denial-anger-regret stages and in the end I think it's for the better for all of us.

Luckily, there have been some positive changes too. I renewed an old friendship and made a new one, and that's something you can't overvalue. It also may have bigger consequences, because I think that I finally found a team of dedicated people and we have a chance to work on a very interesting and promising project - maybe it's not a game, but it's not one of those boring warehouse/financial/enterprise kind of applications either. So, life goes on…

Mister Tins released

Submitted by mimec on 2014-01-08

I just released the first beta version of Mister Tins. You can download it for free and play the first five levels in demo mode. For now the full version is only available for beta testers and press, if you're interested then please contact me. In a nutshell, Mister Tins is a puzzle indie game for PC in a top-down perspective view. The goal is to move boxes to open doors, jump between platforms and different floors, avoid obstacles and find the exit from a labyrinth of rooms.

Here's the official trailer of the game:

You can find more information about the game on the official blog of the MiMec Games team.

Issues and Tins

Submitted by mimec on 2013-11-13

Today I released version 1.1 of WebIssues, a major release which introduces lots of very nice and useful features. I must admit that I'm relieved that this project is finally over. It's also perfect timing, because I'm getting seriously involved in the indie game which I announced some time ago. The game is now officially called Mister Tins and it even already has a Facebook page and a blog (where I will probably post more often than here in the nearest future).

What started as a quick test project, has now become a playable and quite enjoyable game (at least for me). It's still very far from the first official release, but at least now I'm convinced that this is really what I want to do. It's what I always wanted to do and what I probably should have done a long time ago.

I'm not saying that I regret what I've been doing for the last few years. I definitely wouldn't be half as good programmer if it wasn't for WebIssues. I would even go as far as saying that I wouldn't be half the person I am today if it wasn't for all the open source projects I've been involved in. All this technical and non-technical experience should now pay off with this new project.

Of course, there's no guarantee that I will succeed. I know that there is a lot of potential in what I'm doing, and the whole idea of the game, while simple, seems quite innovative. On the other hand, there are many factors involved, and not all of them depend on me. A lot of luck is needed to provide what people need exactly in the right moment. Also, creating games is a team sport, and experience taught me that finding the right team members is not easy an task. But the best thing is that I've reached one very major goal, which was releasing WebIssues 1.1, and I can immediately concentrate on the next goal, without losing the momentum that I have.