It’s that time of the year again. You know, the time when people say “it’s that time of the year again,” which could arguably be said at any time of the year. But we usually can’t. In December, we have collectively acknowledged that this is really the time to say the phrase. Don’t believe us? Go on, try saying it during your next social gathering in May and watch the confusion on the faces of others.
At this time of the year, we at Pistol Shrimp have a few special things going on we wanted to share with you as the year with the most number of 2’s in it during our lifetime comes to a close.
Studio Holiday
First off, Pistol Shrimp will be formally “closed” from December 16th until January 16th for various holiday breaks. If you want to reach out, some of the team will likely be lurking around our Discord. Dan, who covers most of our communications, will be taking a long-delayed trip to the jungle where he will instead be communing with various animal species and hopefully avoiding death. If he doesn’t come back, he wants you to remember him by his final words, “Boy it sure would be funny if this blog post was the last time anyone ever heard from me.” Please also abide by his request for his funeral: pay 3 dancers to pop out of the ground dressed as zombies and dance “Thriller,” interrupting what he is sure will be a quite moving eulogy. Anyway.. if you don’t hear back from us for a bit, now you know why. If you don’t hear back for a really long time, boy that would suck (especially for Dan).
2022 in Review
Secondly, we wanted to do a little retrospective on what we accomplished this year together! There’s far too much to list in its entirety, so we’ll try to sum it up with a few big ones.
For The Ur-Quan Masters 2
- We created a feature-complete implementation of the foundational gameplay from UQM! Hyperspace, a starmap, interplanetary space, approach, orbital view, planetside, resource gathering, procedural system generation, and alien conversations.
- We prototyped new gameplay loops we want to try mixing in the Adventure mode for the player, like trading posts, fleet ship upgrades, flying fleet ships through hyperspace, and traversal mechanics to get around the starmap.
- We have functional, co-operative Adventure mode play and have prototyped new paradigms to make UQM2 even more fun to play with friends, like exploring how players might have different capabilities, how we handle defeat scenarios, and looking at what were previously timed events racing against the clock of a single player (the Kohr-Ah would like a word with you).
- We implemented all the UQM ships — except the Slylandro Probe, which you broke in the first game with the self-destruct sequence — for our Super Melee prototype. Some of them, like the Chmmr, Arilou, Spathi, and Kohr-Ah even became prototypes for how we will be doing art and audio.
- We prototyped additional game modes for Super Melee to understand what it would take to have fun with more than 2 ships/players: from a 4 player free-for-all, to separate teams with multiple players, to cooperative experiences players could play against AI enemies.
- We support all of this through online, serverless network play for end users, and even tested a simple proof of concept of our technology live with viewers on Twitch.
For Pistol Shrimp
- We launched our Patreon! This was the very first step we took toward funding our studio and projects, and we are so honored by the generous support and engagement from the community.
- We started a Discord server as a community gathering place. While our subreddit was good for talking in slow-time with structured questions, getting instant communication going and pausing our heavy Q&A posting was a big step forward for us.
- We released our in-development tools and content (including our Super Melee prototype), freely available for anyone to play with or use to create their own things. While we’ve been behind on updates at the time of writing, some community members created their own experiments, from ships for Melee to their own, made-up games. The tools are very nascent and rough around the edges, but they are what we are using to make and power UQM2.
- We started our Pistol Shrimp Podcast series, both as a thank you to our Patreon supporters and as a way for everyone to learn a little about us and game development! Whether it’s the history behind UQM, how we think about creating games, insights into UQM2’s development, or just hearing from the people working on games, we were excited to create something new to share.
- We continued to stream live development of UQM2 on Twitch with Dan and Fred. All of the parts of UQM2 detailed above were implemented or iterated upon live on Twitch for everyone to see. Twitch chat even influenced the creation of things, live, making everyone truly a part of our day-to-day development. If you miss the streams, VODs are always available on Vimeo.
- We celebrated UQM’s 30th Anniversary in November! We collected stories, fan creations, and a testimonial or two from other developers, highlighting them for everyone to enjoy. We shared special interviews with Erol Otus and George Barr, releasing high res scans of George’s original UQM art and some UQM2 concepts. We gathered members of the original UQM team for a live stream with x33n on Twitch on the 30th. Everyone also tried their best to help the Talking Pet.
While everyone certainly wants to see and play the final game, all of these are massive accomplishments for our still-small team. We couldn’t have done this without the help of our community. Whether you support us on Patreon or Twitch, participate in our development discussions, or just follow along with our updates: thank you for being on the journey with us.
A Huge Thank You
In that vein, we have some notes the team wrote to share with you:
From Dan
I realize you hear from me all the time in text or in my live form on stream, but I wanted to speak a little more personally for just a moment — ok, viewers of our stream know I don’t exactly hold back there, either, but not in our blog posts! I love games, but I intended to leave game development for good. Then the opportunity for Pistol Shrimp arose, with the chance to do things differently: making a game and a studio alongside a community! You and I both have access to tools, interactions, and creations that might normally never see the light of day. I am so proud of what we’ve been able to do transparently with all of your support. Thank you for believing in us and what we’re doing.
From Ken
It’s been a blast working on this game and these tools with my fellow Pistol Shrimpers: Dan, Paul, and Fred. Beyond that, it always amazes me (and fills up my heart!) to see the passion of you UQM fans — both for the original and the sequel. I’m glad we (well, mostly Dan!) are including you in what’s going on and eliciting input, reactions, questions, and answers as we all go on our journey together. Some things can (and should?) be “secret” (to avoid spoilers), but everyday trials, tribulations, successes, and laughter should be celebrated as widely as possible. I hope you’ve felt included, because without you, there would be no game! Thanks for supporting us and continuing to believe in us. It is most appreciated.
From Fred
I’ve been making games at other people’s behest for too long! The Ur-Quan Masters (well maybe the Horde) was the last game that we made the way we wanted to make it. Finding a time, a place, and support from like-minded colleagues and supporters where this is once again possible is an unexpected gift after all this time. I’ve made this comparison before: I feel a bit like Odysseus must have felt. After the Trojan War (Ur-Quan Masters), he thought he’d quickly return home. It didn’t exactly work out that way and after many intervening years and adventures he eventually made it back to Ithaca. So thanks to all of you for keeping the home fires burning and welcoming us back. I think we’d like to stay awhile.
From Paul
*ASK THEM ABOUT THE FLOWERS* *SO BEAUTIFUL* *WHERE’S MY SPACESHIP?!* Hey, what happened?! In all seriousness: Paul is currently unavailable at time of writing and definitely not working on mind control.
What’s next for Pistol Shrimp?
Lastly, seeing the entire next year with certainty is too challenging, but we do want to share a bit of our outlook on what we want to accomplish in the near term when we return:
- Updated Tool & Content Releases: Our initial takes at releasing our tools (Simple) and content (test content and Super Melee prototype) were good, but we have learned a bit about sustaining them. We have ideas and look forward to developing better processes.
- Community QA & Playtesting: We want the most crucial parts of our game, especially the parts over the network, to not just function but be fun too! Our unique community, livestream, and publicly available tools offer us a chance to validate that long before the game is even done. Look forward to more information on how we’ll be doing this and how to participate.
- Pistol Shrimp Podcast: This is an obvious one, but we enjoy producing these and we hope you enjoy them too. We recently were able to syndicate it via distribution platforms, and we look forward to creating more for you.
- Asset Creation: Probably obvious for those of you watching the development streams and VODs, but we have not been focusing much on the creation of what we call assets (art, audio, visual effects, etc.). This is largely due to our very small team size and its respective disciplines, but also part of how we have been working. We are prioritizing being able to make fun, engaging gameplay and — especially for UQM2 — a story we’re excited for players to experience. We are trying to be prudent about creating expensive assets for parts of the game that may not make it to the finished game. Many parts are now becoming ready for this important coat of paint, so we hope to share some more with you as we create it.
- Funding: We want to be able to pay the people working on the game, especially those whom we will be bringing in to work with us on the asset side. Our Patreon page was an amazing beginning for the team, but a crucial next step for UQM2 is also being able to fund its entire development. We have been focusing on this internally and want to solidify our next steps to help us see UQM2 through to completion.
Those are just some of what we want, but we’re also interested in what you want! If you follow our Discord, subreddit, Patreon, podcast, or Twitch channel, what things would you like to see happen in those spaces? How would you like to engage with us or your fellow community? We want to know. Tell us on Discord, Reddit, or Patreon.
We wish you happy holidays and look forward to being back and more alive than ever in the new year. We’re excited to continue the journey with all of you.