<p><em><strong>This Blog Series has two entries prior to this one</strong></em></p>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/johnschaffer/@dwinblood/gamedev-steemit-exclusive-blog-001-the-influence-of-board-game-mechanics-wormhole-ventures">001 - The influence of board game mechanics</a></p>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/gamedev/@dwinblood/gamedev-steemit-exclusive-blog-002-a-prototype-board-game-born-from-inspiration-wormhole-ventures">002 - A Prototype Board Game born from inspiration</a></p>
<h1>Why use a PC and make a video game variant?</h1>
<p>In the past blog I mentioned iteration.   When it comes to making board game pieces, and changing the artwork, etc that can be costly and slow.    I realized that if I prototyped the same game on a PC as a videogame that followed the rules I could iterate through the rules faster.</p>
<p><em><strong>This does make sense and I recommend it as a possibility for other people making board games</strong></em>.</p>
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<p>As I started doing this I was quickly hit by a different type of inspiration that would dramatically change my plans.    I would also scrap (for now) the idea of making it a board game.</p>
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<h1>Enter the M.U.L.E. - Nostalgia leads to inspiration</h1>
<p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Mule_box.jpg" /></p>
<p>If any of you that were fortunate enough to go through a phase of playing the old (1980s) EA game M.U.L.E. by Dan/Danielle Bunton and grasping its implications it likely holds a very nostalgic place for you.   I know it did with me as I'd considered making variations on what it showed me in terms of ideas several times. </p>
<p>If you are not fortunate you can play FREE recreations of the game at <a href="http://www.planetmule.com/" rel="noopener">planetmule.com</a></p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1W52wQUkKc</p>
<p>It is not exciting to look at, but it sure is fun to play (especially with friends).</p>
<h1>What does this have to do with a hex space game?</h1>
<p>My inspiration came when I thought about the ships that drop the colonists off, the pirate ships that occasionally raids the planet, and the ship that returns after a year.    A simple question idea.</p>
<p><em><strong>What do those ships do when they are not on the planet, where do they come from?</strong></em></p>
<p>I realized this was the perfect setting for the game that I was still calling <em><strong>Starways</strong></em> at the time.</p>
<p>I quickly worked up some initial ideas using resources like those in the game M.U.L.E. and adding a few of my own.</p>
<p>I chose the <a href="https://unity3d.com/" rel="noopener">UNITY</a> game engine to prototype and later on just decided to keep using.</p>
<p><img src="https://unity3d.com/profiles/unity3d/themes/unity/images/company/brand/logos/primary/unity-logo.png" /></p>
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<h2>I have never considered myself a skilled artists in the visual sense of the word.</h2>
<p>I told my family and friends over the years that &quot;If people liked stick figure games, I'd be rich&quot; but that ended up not being true because people DO like stick figure games and I didn't bother to make one.    Games like Dwarf Fortress shattered this <em>self-imposed delusion</em> I had trapped myself behind for decades.</p>
<p>I dove into the game using Unity primitive 3D prefabs and slapping cones, cylinders, and torus (donut) shaped pieces together.    I even made spherical planets and such.    <strong>IT WAS NOT PRETTY</strong>.</p>
<p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/W4RnH9P.jpg" /></p>
<p>That was my art back then.    I got much better, and I had a friend and a family member join my cause.</p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6YSo7z8aXY</p>
<p>That is a very old video I made that I obviously did not capture in a format that looks very good.    That is the oldest example I can find in my records of this game.</p>
<p>It was still called Starways...</p>
<p>That would change when a friend told me that it was VERY close to Starwars.    I said <em>&quot;yeah, I didn't think of that&quot;</em> and started trying to come up with a new name.</p>
<h2>The project name was changed to <em><strong>Wormhole Ventures</strong></em></h2>
<p>Kickstarter was starting to do well, so we decided to do a kickstarter.   We knew we needed to make it look considerably better than my prototype, and we were adamant about having a playable demo.    So many kickstarters at the time were making fancy pre-rendered videos showing off games that didn't actually exist or have a single line of code written.   They were doing fantastic on backers, but <em><strong>we were not going to do that</strong></em>!!</p>
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<p>I will discuss the Kickstarter phase in the next Blog Entry.</p>
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