The MGC Times

Quarterly Newsletter Issue #2

President's Corner

Our newsletter finally has an official name, thanks to the winner of our Name Our Newsletter Contest, forum member Rogue! Rogue submitted the winning entry, “The MGC Times”, and earned herself a free copy of Dirk Dashing! Here was Rogue’s response to the news: “Wow! I am so excited! I didn’t expect to win. I just wanted to get people started! Thank you!”

In this issue, we’re going to take you behind-the-scenes to give you an exclusive look at the production of Dirk Dashing 2! And we have an announcement for our next contest at the end of this issue. Enjoy!

- Troy Hepfner

Dirk Dashing 2: Behind the Scenes

Production is well underway for our next game, Dirk Dashing 2: E.V.I.L. Eye!

Most of the past three months have been spent creating art assets for the game. Troy has been busy painting numerous textures for the game’s background graphics. Dirk Dashing 2 will have a much wider variety of locations, so it will require a lot more scenery than the first game did. But this is a good thing, because each level will have a unique look to it. As before, the majority of the artwork is being painted by hand, using a combination of acrylic paints and watercolors. Below you see some samples of the new artwork Troy has produced.

Each of these sample sheets took several hours to draw and paint. The first four sheets shown on the left are building textures. If you look close, you can see several different-colored stone and brick patterns, some chimneys, windows of different sizes and shapes, rooflines, and other scenic items. On the bottom in the middle is a repeating texture for a concrete sidewalk, and on the bottom right is a city skyline.

All of these textures, and many others, were then imported into the computer, cleaned up to remove unwanted pencil marks and blemishes, and scaled to the proper size for the game. It is a painstaking process to covert the hand-painted elements into a set of graphics that the game can use. Each hand-painted sheet requires a full 8-10 hours to process, plus lots of water, diet soda, snacks, and upbeat rock music playing in the background.

After the artwork has been processed into the computer, it can be brought into a sample level in the game to see how it looks. Oftentimes a graphic element will need to be reworked because it doesn’t quite look right. Sometimes we can make the necessary adjustments in the computer, but occasionally a graphic will need to be completely redrawn and repainted. Here is how some of the artwork in the previous two photos looks when combined into a single scene in the game:

The sample level you see above will give you an idea of what the first chapter in Dirk Dashing 2 will look like. You can see the brown brick texture in the foreground buildings, the sidewalk, and part of the city skyline in the upper right, as well as a couple of other hand-painted stone and brick textures on the two distant buildings in the middle of the scene. And you can see Dirk standing on the sidewalk, dressed in his usual tuxedo and ready for his new adventure!

In the next couple of months, we will be building the first level in the game. The first level will take the longest to create, because it will involve programming for the game’s new features, many of which will be introduced to the player along with some instructions. It will also require animation for the new characters that Dirk will meet. In our next issue, we hope to show you some finished screenshots of the first level in Dirk Dashing 2. In the meantime, you can always follow our development progress in Troy’s blog at: http://www.mygamecompany.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=17

Stay tuned!

Our Next Contest: Share Your Story

For our next contest, we would like you to share a personal story involving one of our games. It can be a humorous story, like watching your young daughters arrange their dolls to look like a Fashion Cents screenshot. Or it can be an interesting story, like sharing how your fourth grade students like to play our games on the big projection screen in computer class. These are actual stories told us in letters we received in the past, from folks who included these photos:

Submit your stories publicly in the contest thread on our forums at: http://www.mygamecompany.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147

You can submit more than one story if you want, but only one story from each entrant will be eligible to win. You are welcome to include photos with your story. The submission deadline is August 31, 2008. Afterwards, Victoria and I will select five stories as finalists in the contest, and then the community (forum members) will vote for the winning story in one of our weekly polls.

The winner will receive a free copy of one of our games. The winner can choose any game he or she wants. If you already have all the games you want, you can pick out a game to give to a friend or relative as a gift.

The contest is open to anyone (no purchase required), but forum membership is required in order to post your submissions and to vote for your favorite story at the end. Forum membership is free. To register for membership, go to our web site at www.mygamecompany.com, click on the Forums tab and the top of the page, and then click on the Register link in the Welcome block.

Good luck to everyone! We look forward to reading your stories!

My Game Company