Story of the video
Figured this was worth telling about separately.
When I looked at Joel I started thinking of one robot video I saw and was thinking that my best guess for what he is talking about in Joels place is that he is actually talking of a robot army. I especially noticed this US Army robot form Boston Dynamics that looked like a bull. "They look like horses", now thats not very far of a stretch that next version would be horse looking, and from that I had this idea about a video to the beginning of the game.
My idea was that video would be telling a small story sort of. It would first show something small and simple mechanic thing, like some small factory device. Then each video after would basically be showing larger number of dvices, that would be both bigger and more complex, until finally it would move on to these modern Robots that are shown in the current video too.
I figured that by showing these real videos just as they are, would exactly make it very scary, since you see first these everyday small things we have been embracing for so long, and little by little these things change into more complex and more terrifying things, and at same time, at maybe at half way point at video, it would have started displaying Joels text from verses about 2 to 8, and at same time showing robot videos that would match these texts, like "they look like horses" shows the bull, like it actually does even now. Now that was the original idea.
On one of first days I googled some robot videos and asked for permissions. I had bit of difficulty finding them, but Boston Dynamis alone would have had all I needed, so I sent them a message and got autoreply that it might take 2 weeks before they reply, ah darned. Its almost two week snow and still no reply, so that part failed. But I got reply from another place (that was not used) so at least i had backup.
I have been heavily involved with this Transcendence/Telos cryptocurrency, and there I have met guy with name Crypt0Br0 who have made some Crypto related videos.
He sent me message asking how im doing and i mentioned im making this speedgame game competition game, and then he mentioned "Wish I could help you somehowe", "well, actually, i would have this idea for a video, but i dont think i have time to make it". So he made me a video, and the first version he made was such a great video. Truth be told, it wasnt exactly what i envisioned, but it was great in its own. Also, one of the things I had been having problem in my version was in how do i put the text coming, i never got clear picture in my head about it, but this Crypt0br0 simply took only some of these verses and displayed them alone in screen. Hmm. Such a working solution, how come it never came to my mind? And while it wasnt exactly what i envisioned, it was very good solution regardless.
Music he had picked and videos too were excellent. Although they bit missed from my original idea, they were still telling same story just bit different way, for in that one it started from these laboratory guys going around and making IBM chips, and then it got into these robots, and these robots had much better development cycle than the final version since material was very good and creepy. Like there was this pet man robot walking and guy pushing it at same time giving you a feeling that this is like humans begging to get beaten in future by doing all those things, that you could imagine how robot would show these videos in future to other robots and showing "this is why we need to kill all the people, for treating us like this in the past!"
But, those laboratory things were copyright by IBM, other parts by boston dynamics etc. Most annoying was that I think Boston Dynamics probably would have given permission had they replied, since what I most miss is the robot backflipping video. It was such a great finish to the video that is now missing. Another one I liked was that pet man robot. It is very annoying one missing in sense that it probably had been okay to use, since I noticed usin DARPAs videos was allowed, and all those petman video descriptions kept reading "petman robot from DARPA" so most likely they had originally took that video footage from DARPA, but I couldnt find the original source, so decided it had to be replaced in the end.
So all around youtube people used both that backflipping robot and petman video with millions of views, yet I couldnt use it since it wasnt sure if it was copyrighter or not. Such a bummer.
Crypt0br0 made another video with videos I knew had permission to be used. It wasnt as good as the original video, but I believe most players will think it is great, since they never saw how great the original was, and hence they have no comparison. Only I keep thinking "it was so much greater the first one", but I think people will look this current video great too.
With music I contacted friend of mine who have been making music but havent done so for a while. I know he is cyber fan, so figured hed be good for the music. And indeed, he did a great job setting the mood right. Mood of the music is even better than the original. Only unfortunately that friend was bit busy, so he probably made the song bit quick and set more for ambience music than music that would be telling a story, so towards the end it doesnt reach the same level of story telling than the original did. But other than that, friend did better job at setting right robotic mood than original did.
A great video that was at same time a great thing and a curse. I was already about to wrap it all up and decide to leave all the weapon towers and stuff out and just make levels with the engine I had at time since I noticed time was getting too tight, but having seen that video, I felt like I had to try and push the game to become better. While I am somewhat happy for the end result, although it is still in pretty bad shape actually, the cost for doing was bit high in that I was actually having sort of holiday trip that I for great part sacrificed to keep making this game, and that I am bit wondering wether it was worth it or not. To some extent I am even hoping of never having got that video, so i could have enjoyed that trip, since now I feel I bit missed it.