Welcome to 'The Arena'

I am really excited about the people who have joined in to work on this project so far.  I've always knew I wanted to get into game development.  I never felt there was a ton of opportunities to gain experience or get involved though.  I am hoping that this project can be a positive experience for everyone involved.

I am really excited about what lies ahead.  Having talked with a few of the people who signed up I can tell we have a passionate and talented group.  I want nothing more to make games fun games that people will enjoy.  However my number one priority is that I want this to be a great learning experience for anyone and everyone who is interested in a career in the gaming industry.

With that all said I want to take a moment to talk about my vision for "The Arena".  First and foremost I want this project to be reasonable.  I want to be able to finish it.  I want to finish it and show people a completed game.  That is why I want to keep this game simple.  Basic concept, You team up with some buddies and enter into a, Romanesque sci-fi, arena and fight other players to the death.  Obviously I have a lot of ideas i'd like to explore and i'd like to expand the game but we need to start basic.  A few weeks ago Blizzard's Jonny Ebbert came to BYU and spoke to a bunch of students about making games.  (That was the kick in the butt I needed to decided I really was going to do this).  He said something that I thought was quite profound.  He said that in order to make a great game, you need to figure out what the player will spend most of his/her time doing.  Once you know what it is, you need to make that feature awesome.  That is what I am trying to do with "The Arena".  I want to make the most fun combat of any game.  Once we are sure that we have accomplished that goal, we can start thinking about expanding.

Best case scenario for "The Arena" is that is becomes massively popular, it becomes the next League of Legends.  If that happened, I would immediately start to find money, or look for a publishing deal to make this into a real company.  Of course I would continue to support and improve "The Arena", but I would love to more ideas and concepts.  I have always been fascinated and drawn to open world games.  If "The Arena" succeeds, I would love to make it into an open world game.  A game were friends can explore a vibrant and rich world together.  Then, bringing it full circle, having the players return to the arena to test their skills against other players.

Worst case scenario for "The Arena" is that we make a game that doesn't get much attention.  However, we still made a game.  We can slap that onto a resume and show employers.  When Jonny came and spoke, I asked him what would be more valuable from a hiring stand point, straight A's or having made a game.  He laughed a little and responded, "If you make a well polished game, we won't even look to see if you graduated college".  So I think worst case scenario, we get a good job out of it.