However, E3 brought to mind a few things that needed to be changed in Sparkle and Remember Me.

The change in Remember Me is the battle system. While talking to the Dojo guys (awesome guys, let me tell you... they even took some Sparkle shirts!), we began to discuss our old battle system with Jon and Aizaz from Nintendojo. They both were very excited about this and well ... we never had that reaction before, so, we're changing back. Their reaction solidified the need for an interesting/unique attack system to accompany our unique magic system. Anyway, the next change in RM would be that we decided we needed a batter demo. Something that perfectly demonstrates the game. This will take longer and unfortunately may (and I promise you will) delay the game until 2002. However, this must be done in order for the game to actually be released. Let's hope Aaron can stand my babbling for this stretch of time.

Now for Sparkle. What things needed to be changed? A few things, actually. While at E3 I noticed how professional people were in their development of games. Something Sparkle lacks. Thus, I have committed myself to being a more responsible team leader (the delay is my fault, folks) and we're now going to implement a better communication of tasks in Sparkle. More organization. This will save everyone some time and will allow people to get their jobs done better.

How will we do the communication thing? Glad I acted like you asked! From what I could gather, there are four people who are in leadership roles on a project. These are

Project Leader - Basically a manager. Someone to make sure that things get done. Works with Design Docs in order to come up with detailed jobs for the teams.

Lead Designer - The writer of design documents and designer of most things in the game. Works with Leader so that tasks can be given. Works with Art & Sound teams to make sure that their work goes with the Designer's vision. Breaks down design tasks into modules so that Designer/team can complete them.

Lead Artist - Leads the art team. Work is much more straightforward than Designer's role. He'll work with the Designer to create a concept art that fits with what they're looking for and will also with Designer to possibly come up with how many units (tiles, animations) will be needed. Then the Artist divides the task into modules for he and his team to complete.

Lead Sound - Same as Art, really.

Lead Programmer - The Lead Programmer has a much more open ended job, however he also has the most responsibility. He is given a task by the Leader, divides it into modules and he and his team set out to complete them. He is not moderated by the designer so he has more freedom but most try hard to remain on time/schedule, and make sure there are no bugs etc.

Thus, it works out like this: Leader/Designer work on a basic game overview. After this, the Leader will make tasks for each of the teams (actually, at the beginning, probably just the design team, such as character stories/descriptions, etc). The Designer oversees the Art/Sound team's work directly, in order to maintain the image desire, however he still retains his duties as designer. Each leader of the teams is responsible for their work.

So, that's the basic outline of how Sparkle will be working. It seems like a good setup. I am taking the roles of both Project Leader and Lead Designer, so I have quite a bit of work, but the two jobs work together pretty well.

That's about it for this update, but before I leave, I'll tell you guys a bit about my time at E3. Most of it was spent at Nintendo's booth. I played Pikmin (among others) for GC. Awesome game. I am very excited for this game to come out. Nintendo had better release it here, and soon after launch (if not AT launch). I played Mario Kart (again, among others) on GBA. Mario Kart was very cool. Played exactly like the SNES version. Nintendo did indeed have the best/most populated booth of all the companies (but that wasn't hard, nobody had any surprise titles). So my awards go to Nintendo (booth of show), Pikmin (game of show) and Sofnet (best free junk at show).

Anything else? Well, of course! I attended the Miyamoto conference session. I was able to get a seat in the front row. Not only was Miyamoto there, but ... Will Wright (!!!) introduced him. My two heroes in one room. Awesome. After Miyamoto was finished, I was walking out the door and he was coming that way also, so I turned to him, thanked him (in Japanese, woo hoo!) and shook his hand. He said something (I forget, I was floating at that time), smiled, shook my hand and walked onward to his destination.

See you next week!