PROBE 233.23.A CONNECTION ESTABLISHED INCOMING TRANSMISSION: Blog "Use of Weapons"

- posted on Thu 30th July 2015 12.00AM









This update introduces a host of new features including guns, colonist emotions, social interactions, and console commands. There's also been an overhaul of balance and the colonists priorities which will improve game play dramatically.







Emotions and Sanity



Colonists now experience emotions. Emotions will develop as they perform tasks, communicate with other colonists, and encounter the environment. You'll notice that colonists exhibit emotional outbursts such as breaking down in tears and cheering. Head over to the Maia wiki to see the ways in which you can influence their moods.







Social



Colonists now crave social interaction. These interactions may involve hugging, chatting, waving.....[Read Blog] No Comments.

Minecon 2015!

- posted on Thu 9th July 2015 12.00AM

Hey everyone!



This weekend we were invited to showcase Maia at Minecon in London! Simon, Nick Dymond (Maia''s sound designer) and I headed over to London to demonstrate the game to the energetic Minecrafters and their not always so energetic parents.







We had a fantastic time and got great feedback from some very enthusiastic players. A lot of young players stuck around our booth for hours, playing and replaying the game and helping other new players to learn.







Getting to meet a lot of other indie developers was also a highlight of the event. Since it''s only my second event with Maia there was still a lot of people for me to meet. The sense of community among the group was very apparent and I found everyone very welcoming.



;

Photo by Ian Bui



Thanks to Mojang for inviting us, John Polson for organising and Multiplay for supplying the equipment.



We''ve got an interesting update coming up soon...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Development Log 30.03.15

- posted on Mon 30th March 2015 6.27PM

Hey!



It was great meeting so many of you at EGX Rezzed 2015. The Machine Studios team had an amazing time showing off the game and seeing how players reacted to the latest build. We were really happy to see so many people playing for long periods of time. One person ran in at 11am on the Friday and played for over 2.5 hours! The glowsticks were also a hit, all the players looked like they were heading off to a rave.



The venue was really nice. There was a lot of light and fresh air which made a refreshing change from being in a dingy convention hall.



I think the rest of the team agree, it would have been great to have a chance to look around the other games on show, but we were extremely busy. We also got to meet a lot of YouTube content creators and streamers who were really interested in the game. (If you are also interested in creating online video content of Maia let us know!)



We had a great time after the event each night too. On the Friday we went out for sushi. I had never had sushi before so it was interesting, even so, I don't think I'll be rushing to have it again. Ruairi ended up getting super late night ice cream, which he now advises against. After Rezzed was over we went to Loading Bar where the extra glowsticks came in handy...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 04.03.2015

- posted on Wed 4th March 2015 12.00AM

Leanne has finished up her work from last week and has working on another animation sequence used for colonists banging on doors and other vertical surfaces. We're going to use this to allow the colonists to show their frustration at locked doors or being trapped in rooms without doors.



In the office today, we have been doing a fair amount of preparation for Rezzed. We ordered several shirts to make ourselves easy to find at the booth and some more promotional trinkets for the team to give out. We've also been discussing other inventive ways we could promote the game.



Aside from a mandatory trip to the barbers, sorting out payments, tax and organising promotional material for Rezzed, Simon has been busy looking into acquiring a space suit [For research!]. This evening he's going to be working on some code to begin to rework the tutorial.







I'm still looking through and cataloguing articles, currently I'm on 130! The more articles I collect the more the list is starting to represent a time line of events. As someone new to the company I've found this really beneficial.



-Caroline



[Thanks for all the feedback on the daily posts, we're glad you've enjoyed them...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 03.03.2015

- posted on Tue 3rd March 2015 12.00AM

As you might have read over the last week, the team has been working consolidating the known issues and bugs in the game. When Ruairi finds a bug he carefully creates replication steps and posts them in our bug tracker. Working with Simon, a severity is picked and then each issue is then assigned to him to work on.







Here's the list of bugs currently assigned to Simon, starting with the most severe:





Colonists are Walled in by bad base generation.





Lander crew get stuck if impassible object is in front of lander





Tasking IMP to Dig inaccessible wall causes slowdown





IMP stops collecting Material (even with Hopper)





Loading Multiple times can cause AI shutdown.





Right clicking on an object in blueprint phase causes crashes





IMP placing fossil breaks.





Stills Deposit water barrels in inaccessible spots.





Dead IMPs not removed from list, unable to build additional IMPs





Colonist Spawning at corner of Map





Object blueprints are sometimes ignored...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 02.03.2015

- posted on Mon 2nd March 2015 12.00AM

It's the start of a new week at Machine Studios!



Over in Germany, Ruairi has been creating a priority list of known potential bugs and critical issues for Simon to fix before Rezzed and 0.48. Especially focusing on issues that hamper early and mid game interactions and game play, as we want to make sure you have the best experience possible with the game, even in alpha.



He's also been cleaning and updating the issue database so we can post it to the forums and update everyone on specific issues. It's important to us that we are open and honest with our development process and access to raw up to date information is a critical part of that.



Simon has also been accessing the bug list to find the biggest issues we can fix to dramatically improve the game for the next release.



He's also completed the new timer for when you can call down colonists from orbit. Allowing the player to know when they can request more colonists instead of waiting blindly. The "Call Capsule" button will now be greyed out until it is usable rather than hidden, as many people thought it disappearing was a bug.







He is now tidying up the games UI to reduce the amount of visual clutter, and to increase the amount of information offered to the player...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 27.02.2015

- posted on Fri 27th February 2015 12.00AM

Time for another update!



Today, apart from being stuck on a bus for two hours, Simon has been working on releasing a build for Linux which should fix some AI related issues. He also fixed a bug for the 0.48 release, regarding the capsule landing sequence, which could cause empty landers and other strange bugs.







Ruairi has been doing his morning forum sweep. He then tracked down some in game bugs and preformed his daily smoke test. He's also been working on replicating a bug which makes colonists walk though walls. Spooky!



As mentioned yesturday, Leanne, has been very busy working on the new pistol animations. Here's a quick peek.







To prepare for her next animation task, she has been filming herself performing the action she is about to animate. This way she will be able to use it as reference material. We hand animate the characters in Maia as it allows for greater expression and precision over motion captured data.



Separate from writing these updates, I've been looking for ways we can start organising our tasks a bit better, writing risk assessments and sorting out online company profiles...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 26.02.2015

- posted on Thu 26th February 2015 12.00AM

Good evening!



Our animator Leanne has finished the animations that she was working on yesterday for the male and female rigs of the colonists patrolling the base with pistols drawn. She also been fixing up the transitions that allow the colonists to move between the stances of them drawing, carrying and firing the weapons.



Ruairi has been doing his daily scan of the forums and looking for bugs the community have been reporting, whist also completing the daily smoke test of game. He attempted to recreate a few of the bugs on the forums, mostly these related to the AI not building specific objects and interaction issues with the work bench in the game.







Today I've been emailing T-shirt printing companies, researching health and safety procedures for the studio, writing risk assessments, looking into the companies customer outreach and branding, and looking at possible future events we could attend to meet fans of the game.



As for Simon, he's been hunting down a bug that causes black squares on the side of the screen for ATI users and working on some of the UI improvements going in to 0.48...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Daily Development Log 25.02.2015

- posted on Wed 25th February 2015 12.00AM

We've decided to start doing daily update logs so people can see what the team is up to and how the game is progressing. Our new hire Caroline has spent some time catching up with the team.



Today Simon has been working on bugs regarding the airlocks. The issues with colonists refusing to take off their surface suits in the airlock should now be solved. He's also been fixing the workshop table bugs caused by quick saving and loading often. This means the game should work better for those of you who like to save a lot.



Ruairi has been hard at work checking out the bugs that have been reported on the Steam and Maia forums. He's managed to recreate some of the bugs you have pointed out and has been working with Simon to fix these.



Leanne is currently finishing up the first set of handgun animations for the colonists. Colonists firing weapons and defending the base will be a big feature in 0.48. For today she's been polishing the animations created for the colonists drawing their weapons and firing them from a standing position. Things like adding small head tilts and subtly shifting body weight to give impact and life to the animations. Shes' also working on animations for having them patrol the base.



I'm new to the company this week...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Burn Rate.

- posted on Sun 21st September 2014 8.25PM

There's been a lot of talk about alpha funded games getting into deep water recently so I thought it would be interesting to post a blog discussing the future of Maia and of Machine Studios LTD, the business I have now formed to develop it and future games.



First some context. On Steam alone, over it's lifetime and including sales, Maia has averaged $1,515 a day. That number is massively skewed by the release sale and subsequent coverage, but a good base point to work from. A month with no big releases or coverage sits closer to half that amount. These numbers are currently increasing as the game matures and could increase by a lot more. I, perhaps optimistically, hope to see a day where we stay in the charts without being on sale.



In short, things are very healthy.







At our current burn rate, running off cash reserves, with no further sales of the game, development can easily continue for about five years. That said, current development has a few bottlenecks I would like to hammer out of the pipeline, which will push up costs by a few thousand.



So at the rate I would like to be developing at, it is closer to three years...[Read Blog] No Comments.

In Defence of Open Development.

- posted on Thu 23rd January 2014 10.40PM

Today I read a piece by John Walker, where he asserts that having an open development process is a bad thing. I responded on Twitter, but I feel I need a few more characters to explain myself. While Johns argument seems sound, in a superficial manner, he fails to understand the role of a games designer, how games production in general works and the reasons why a developer might turn their ear to their customers.



The foundation of Johns complaint is that a democratic development process cannot work, because the input from ill-informed people will lead the developer astray. Here's the thing: Open development is not democratic, only the developer is holding the wheel.



Open development is about providing the users with the information they need and communication channels required to allow them to critique your work. It is not about compromising the design process in an effort to pander and please.



By talking openly about features I am forced to defend my ideas. I have to provide a reason as to why I feel an idea works and justify my thought processes...[Read Blog] No Comments.

The Steam launch.

- posted on Wed 11th December 2013 5.05PM



Seven days ago we launched on Steam early access. It has been a frantic hundred hour week and finally the dust is starting to settle. Eight hundred emails answered, many more waiting, forty patches distributed, two hundred gigabytes of content uploaded and ten thousand lines of code hammered out. Phew!



We chose to release a public alpha at a very early stage in development. Effectively, we put out a work-in-progress, a detailed proof-of-concept that would give people a unique insight into how we're building the game. Releasing such an early build was a risk, but I still strongly believe in community driven development and the launch has definitely vindicated my thinking. We've completely transformed the game since release and it's entirely thanks to you guys! I really want to thank everyone who took to the forums, and email, and who submitted their problems, their feedback and their ideas.







The launch exceeded all our expectations, in fact it blew them away. We certainly didn't expect to be featured on the front page of Steam for so long. We spent several days outselling games like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty at one point we even became the #2 seller...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Maia 0.38 live on Steam

- posted on Tue 3rd December 2013 5.00PM

Maia 0.38 is ready and is minutes away from launching on Steam Early access!







It's a pretty huge milestone for me and the team.



Steam keys will be going out to people who have already preordered some time in the next few days.



Cheers!



-Simon













...[Read Blog] No Comments.

3578600m

- posted on Fri 4th October 2013 9.49PM

This blog has been a little neglected, but none the less, things have moved on at great speed!



Maia has been Greenlit!



We are aiming to release to early-access in December.







If you can't wait, you can preorder for immediate access to alpha builds!



Preorder now!









...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Greenlight

- posted on Wed 10th July 2013 1.55PM

Maia has launched on Steam Greenlight!



Please give us your vote!







We are currently just about to enter the top 100 games on the service. A few more votes will help push us over!



Cheers



-Simon...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Maia Alpha 0.28 released

- posted on Wed 19th June 2013 6.56PM



The 0.28 alpha is now ready for download in the members area.



This release is a patch for 0.27. It brings performance increases, a lot of bug fixes and even some new content.







AI is currently idle and won't build things, although there is already lots of content to check out. Let us know on the forums if you have any issues!...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Deorbit disposal

- posted on Thu 16th May 2013 12.00AM

Alpha keys have now gone out to all backers. Check your junk mail if you missed it.



The upcoming alpha 0.27 will be released in a week or so, however there is already a tech demo up on members.maiagame.com to check out.



Have fun!



-Simon

...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Elucidation

- posted on Sun 10th March 2013 9.15PM

Apologies for the lack of blog updates. As you can imagine things have been hectic around here!



So what's the status of the game?



With funding through Kickstarter and Indiegogo secured, we are now in full development. The plan is to release a new trailer on April 15th to launch a Greenlight page and public alpha sales.



We are in the position of having a large amount of our static assets done and in the game. With more complex things like character animation also starting to work their way in. Here's a video of the day/night system along with some of our new assets and rendering engine.







This week the website will be going live, which will allow users to start downloading alpha builds and other goodies. Check out the forums for regular updates and sneak peaks of what we are working on.



-Si







...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Kick-starting

- posted on Sat 3rd November 2012 2.27PM

Maia has launched on Kickstarter. Please support us in creating the most ambitious indie game ever made and help us to resurrect the god-game genre.







In just three days we have raised 25% of our budget, but there is still a long way to go. Please share the project where ever you can.



-Thanks



Simon...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Volume

- posted on Sat 20th October 2012 9.21PM

After a few sleepless nights, I have the games particle effects system in and working!







This will be used to create steam, smoke, fire, explosions, dust and other volumetric phenomena.



The steam picks up lighting from the surrounding lights. (currently only one or two at the moment, so if you're eagle eyed you might see it pop ) I hope to extend this at a later date to create really nice atmospheric lighting.







I'll now be moving on to polishing up some character animation code. That will allow me to get some videos of the IMPs at work and perhaps even the colonists having a bumble about.



One last thing: I don't usually blog about press, due to them then covering my blogs and then causing some sort of infinite recursion loops. However, I recently did a really long interview with PCGamesN that has got a load of detail about the game in it. Give it a read and share it!



...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Momentum

- posted on Wed 17th October 2012 12.00AM

Big news! We are planning on releasing our first alpha in mid-january! This will be a basic game-play prototype and tech demo, a few game mechanics will be fully functional, and there will be lots of interesting features to check out and play with.



The alpha release will be carried by several big name digital distributors but also be available for purchase right from the site. Get on the mailing list to be notified the second we go live!







To help us achieve this I am going to open up funding at the end of the month! I wont say what yet as it's not 100%, but it's going to be big! Here's a clue: The game featured prominently in an interesting Edge article last week.



Using that funding I hope to employ another artist or two and a programmer on the project to help move things along towards the alpha. There's lots to do, and few extra pairs of hands would get things chugging along nicely....[Read Blog] (1) comments : OrtwinS,

Maia wins the Indie Dev Grant

- posted on Tue 2nd October 2012 12.00AM

This blog was originally posted on GamaSutra. I do think piracy is a problem, but I will always put my customers first:



Yves Guillemot recently claimed to have statistics showing that PC game piracy rates (95%-93%) are as high as non paying F2p users. Using this data point he that asserted Free to Play is the future. Indeed to me this data proves exactly the opposite. It shows that the current model with paid-for products and a high piracy rate is the way to go.

If you are going to have the same conversion rate to paying customers whatever you do, you should do as much as possible to remove all barriers to entry and reduce costs to ensure a higher profit margin. Spending time and money implementing IAP's, the inevitable complex "always-up" server back-end and other mechanisms, is wasteful and is an unnecessary burden on your business.



It's also damaging your IP: Many users don't want to see their favourite games made free...[Read Blog] (2) comments : Raufgar, Ortwin,

Maia is an IDG Nominee

- posted on Fri 14th September 2012 2.06PM

Maia is a nominee for the indie dev grant funded by the Bundle-in-a-Box. For every 100 bundles they sell, $10 goes into the grant. Purchasers then get to vote on a game they would like to see the grant go to.



If you are getting the bundle, and would like to support Maia, please give us your vote. A small cash injection like this one will be invaluable to our planned development ramp up in October.











In other news we now have an RSS feed for the game:

http://www.MaiaGame.com/feed



So now you can keep up to date with all our wonderful blogs!...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Doing it Wrong

- posted on Thu 6th September 2012 5.19PM

It's been a pretty strange week. I shared a quick video of the first person mode. It wasn't finished. I didn't even think to put this site's URL in the video.



Four days later and its got 18000 hits on Youtube. The site pushed 6GB of traffic in a day. Twenty Seven thousand people hit the site in an afternoon. I've had two major digital distributors email me.



But I'm not sure what I've learnt from all this. I don't have a demo out, I'm still refusing to take preorders and my media releases are patchy. I'm yet to write a single press release. The website is painful to read and makes irritating noises. In fact, by conventional standards, I'd say I'm probably doing everything wrong.











So why is this working? I think, firstly, being honest about the game works. Talking to the community, engaging and discussing with them, is so important. Not for marketing, but genuinely addressing peoples expectations, taking on board their ideas and criticisms. I'm pretty surprised that on several forums and message boards I have had people thanking me for honestly talking to them about the game...[Read Blog] (5) comments : @Haze2k1, Cheater, Jason, ZACAJ, UsF,

First Person Mode

- posted on Mon 3rd September 2012 12.46AM

I've spent a few hours tonight getting the first person mode in. In the game you will be able to posses IMP bots and use them to dig, build and fight in first person.



Be sure to check it out in HD, or you'll melt your eyes.







Although non essential at this stage and unlikely to be in the first alpha, I really wanted it prototyped, as it looks awesome. Definitely good trailer fodder.



Bonus points if you can spot the ZX Spectrum!



Come discuss it on the forums.



Development may be slowed for the next month, as I am currently deciding how to continue my doctorate. One of the potential outcomes of this is me taking Maia full time. I'll need to seek funding at that stage, either through pre-orders or kickstarter etc. Now that's a scary thought!



-Si



...[Read Blog] (3) comments : Chris, Adam, Vladimir Lenin,

Lava simulation

- posted on Wed 15th August 2012 2.06PM

Here's a quick look at the first test of the fluid simulation the game will be using.



It isn't properly surfaced or shaded yet, but still gives an interesting insight into the terrifying awesomeness of the Lava.







The next step is building a surface so it can be properly lit and doesn't look as blobby. I then plan to multithread it to allow for 4x the detail and volume. Its likely I will add an extra system for large bodies of fluid, that will reduce the CPU load even more.



Using my custom lighting system I can attach lights to some of the particles to make the lava bleed it colours onto the surroundings. When the lighting system is complete, every lava particle will emit light.



I may have to balance the lens reflections too. They are a bit overpowering when something as bright as the lava pops up.



Don't forget to join the



-Simon



... The next step is building a surface so it can be properly lit and doesn't look as blobby. I then plan to multithread it to allow for 4x the detail and volume. Its likely I will add an extra system for large bodies of fluid, that will reduce the CPU load even more.Using my custom lighting system I can attach lights to some of the particles to make the lava bleed it colours onto the surroundings. When the lighting system is complete, every lava particle will emit light.I may have to balance the lens reflections too. They are a bit overpowering when something as bright as the lava pops up.Don't forget to join the forum for chat and updates about the game!-Simon... [Read Blog] (3) comments : Nele, Wizarth, Simon Roth,

How to render a hundred thousand lights in Maia, or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the GPU.

- posted on Tue 17th July 2012 11.27PM

Maia has its own renderer. Custom written and unlike any other indie game has ever seen.



The gameplay relies on your careful use of lighting to guide your IMP bots, adjust your colonists moods and also to avoid attracting the attention of curious alien fauna.







To do this the game needed a renderer that could allow the user to place lights anywhere they wanted, and to have no limit to the number that could be displayed on screen. This system needed to work on even the most lightweight GPU without crippling the framerate and leaving the game unplayable.







I'm going to explain how the hell I did this.



"Hold on to your butts!"



Standard renderers draw fully lit 3d objects onto the screen in one go. As the pixels of the object are drawn, a program is run for each pixel to decide its colour. We call this a fragment program or a pixel shader. This shader will do things such as sample a colour from a texture and then multiply it with the lighting value of that pixel.



To calculate the lighting we need what is known as a normal vector. The normal of a surface is a vector (a direction) that specifies which way a surface of a polygon is pointing... Standard renderers draw fully lit 3d objects onto the screen in one go. As the pixels of the object are drawn, a program is run for each pixel to decide its colour. We call this a fragment program or a. This shader will do things such as sample a colour from a texture and then multiply it with the lighting value of that pixel.To calculate the lighting we need what is known as a. The normal of a surface is a vector (a direction) that specifies which way a surface of a polygon is pointing... [Read Blog] (2) comments : cYnborg, Nork,

The Storm

- posted on Tue 3rd July 2012 12.00PM

This is the post you've all be waiting for. Things have been seriously heating up behind the scenes.

















It's finally time to start showing off this Alpha and its powerful engine with some glorious screen shots.



IMP bots diligently mine out a new area for the player:









Master the complexities of interior design:









We are yet to get detailed human characters into the game, but they are coming soon, and they are going to look very awesome:















































Pretty exciting stuff isn't it?



If you are at Rezzed game show this week, Simon will be using Maia's engine to create an entirely new game in just an hour... Pretty exciting stuff isn't it?If you are at Rezzed game show this week, Simon will be using Maia's engine to create an entirely new game in just an hour... [Read Blog] (2) comments : Dominick Coppinger, Dominick Coppinger,

The calm

- posted on Thu 21st June 2012 9.46PM

Things have been a bit quiet for the last month. Lots of little developments are going on behind the scenes to get ready for the big ramp up.



I've been working on the site to make it a bit more user friendly, whilst also adding some detail to the theme. It should look nice whatever size screen you have and if you run an obsolete browser the effects will now fail gracefully.



The game has taken many steps forward and a few steps back. A shakey motherboard cost me a lot of time and lost a small amount of work. It's not a problem though, as everything gets iterated constantly during development, so chances are it would have been redone anyway. I've upgraded my rig now and its obscenely fast, which will speed production along significantly.



The renderer is almost completely done, with most of the core shaders ready. Gameplay is now at the front of my mind now. Rooms can be created and lights and furniture placed. Animation code is mostly in and I hope to start adding AI agents this weekend. Once we have that I can start seing how things interact and where I need to take them.



I now have six people working on the project on and off. Its really great to check my emails every morning and find them full of new art and ideas! In fact, its all looking so good I want to show it to you...



I'm going to be putting out an awesome media release as soon as our twitter account reaches 1999 followers...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Announcing Maia

- posted on Fri 25th May 2012 10.24AM

I'm proud to announce Maia, my new game.



I have been playing with the idea of making my own god game for a half a decade now. The genre has always been an obsession of mine since the Amiga period (well in my case Acorn). Bullfrog games defined my childhood. Its surprising its taken me this long to crack and commit myself to making one!



I hope to make this an interesting, ongoing, long term project that can evolve and expand. The ground work of design is already fixed, but will likely adapt based on community feedback.











The game is currently in alpha. I have written a sophisticated graphics engine that can deliver hundreds of thousands of lights and a layered compositing pipeline to create the visuals that I think the game deserves.



I have hired the best concept artists I could find and have had them visualise my thought processes and create some amazing artwork. Its really stunning to see what they have come up with, I can't wait to show you.



I hope the PC gaming community will help me finance the title through alpha funding. I will start offering preorders soon to help subsidise some of my costs...[Read Blog] (5) comments : Haze2k1, Sir /\strix, Kenjara, Zahni, Balthazar,

Minecon 2015!

- posted on Thu 1st January 1970 1.00AM

Hey everyone!



This weekend we were invited to showcase Maia at Minecon in London! Simon, Nick Dymond (Maia's sound designer) and I headed over to London to demonstrate the game to the energetic Minecrafters and their not always so energetic parents.



;



We had a fantastic time and got great feedback from some very enthusiastic players. A lot of young players stuck around our booth for hours, playing and replaying the game and helping other new players to learn.



;



Getting to meet a lot of other indie developers was also a highlight of the event. Since it's only my second event with Maia there was still a lot of people for me to meet. The sense of community among the group was very apparent and I found everyone very welcoming.



;

Photo by Ian Bui



Thanks to Mojang for inviting us, John Polson for organising and Multiplay for supplying the equipment.



We've got an interesting update coming up soon...[Read Blog] No Comments.

Minecon 2015!

- posted on Thu 1st January 1970 1.00AM