Publisher's Synopsis
Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager or "SPM" is a strategy game that focuses on the subject of the Space Race. The game was finally released in late October 2014 and its development started as a hobby project of Ignacio Liverotti, its Lead Developer, in early 2007. The project went through dozens of stages, including changes of target platforms, game engines, team members, programming languages and even scope as the result of the initial feedback from an Early Access Program. Being such a lengthy project, SPM provided a great learning experience across many disciplines. This book provides a first person narrative of the development process behind the game and will appeal to: - Game Designers who want to get practical advice on how to plan the pre-production phase of their projects and how to avoid common pitfalls during the production. - Game Programmers interested in learning techniques to reduce development time while ensuring that their games are as bug-free as possible. - Project Managers who have to coordinate a distributed team and want to minimize the amount of rework. - Community Managers who want to create and nurture a healthy community around their products. - Hobbyist Game Developers who are planning to embark on a long-term side-project and will need to wear multiple hats from all the development areas mentioned above. - Computer game aficionados who are curious in learning the details of how computer games are made. Whether you're interested in computer games as a producer or as a consumer, "We Choose To Go To The Moon" provides an exciting narrative on what it takes to develop a multi-year game project from inception to release.
