The Sojourn Begins

September 23, 2009
Self-ImprovementThe Game Biz
2 Comments

In about three hours I’ll be at the airport. In about five my flight leaves. In about eight I’ll be in Michigan.

It is going to be hard keeping my inner fanboy in check. If I’m not careful I’ll end up giggling excitedly the whole time I’m at Stardock.

Updates will follow, mostly posted from my brand new netbook. I had several people tell me, “Just try it, you’ll get used to it” and when I found out that there were some netbook models that were slightly larger than the typical ten inches I decided to go for it.

So I ended up with a Gateway LT31, which I’d never heard of until I saw it at Best Buy. To my surprise, it had almost everything I was looking for. The screen is 11.6 inches at 1366×768, and while it’s widescreen I’m not having that much trouble reading it. The keys on the keyboard are nice and big, it’s got a 250-gig hard drive, an AMD processor, two gigs of RAM out of the box and a dedicated Radeon graphics chip instead of the awful Intel 950 integrated graphics most models of this type are stuck with. And the price was $379.

Cons? It came with Vista, which I had to scrub and replace with XP. And the AMD processor and graphics processor suck up a lot more power than your average netbook, so the battery life is only about five and a half hours…which, goshwow, is more than enough for me.

Visual Studio Express installed just fine and Planitia compiled cleanly (though it runs a little slow, surprise surprise). Warcraft III runs just fine, but I haven’t had a chance to put it to the WoW test…that game takes a long time to download, dontcha know.

Dream Log 1

September 21, 2009
Dream Logs
1 Comment

Yeah. This website just got a little weird.

The thing is, I’m absolutely amazed at how creative I am…when I’m asleep.

When I’m awake? Not so much. Let’s think about this: all my games have been rehashes of older games that I enjoyed that no one is making any more. That’s not particularly creative.

In my dreams, though? I’ve composed music, written entire stories (which play out like movies), and designed much more creative video games.

For instance, just a couple nights ago, I dreamt I was watching an anime about a young girl who is normally sweet and kind, but has a magical, demonic side that she must struggle to control. I remember the name of the anime: Avertigo. I even remember the anime’s logo. But I woke up before I saw the ending.

A while back after a day working on Inaria, I dreamt I was in a cathedral-like structure, bright with clouds near the ceiling. In the center of the floor was a circular map of a fantasy world. Realizing I was dreaming, I stepped over to the map in order to try to memorize it. As I did so, a gospel choir started singing:

‘Cross this great world I have trod
Stood astride it like a god

And then, maddeningly, I woke up. I remember the lyrics and even the tune, but I have no idea what the next line was going to be.

I also recently dreamed that I was a new hire at a software development firm. The facility was incredibly impressive, with futuristic-looking corridors lit by soft light, a huge break room with tons of arcade games, huge glass windows that looked out onto a beautifully-landscaped quad and…um…a room full of pods that you could step into that would clean and dry both you and your clothes in a matter of minutes.

That one was probably Stardock. When an issue is weighing heavily on my mind, I tend to dream of two extremes – the best I can imagine and the worst I can imagine.

F’rinstance, there was one Christmas when I was twelve or thirteen where my sleep was incredibly fitful – and every time I managed to fall back asleep, I’d dream one extreme and then other. In one version, our presents were ornaments our mother plucked off the tree; in the other the living room was packed with presents and there were hoverbikes and such.

But the biggest problem is that while I’m sitting there, effectively munching popcorn and watching this incredibly interesting scenario unfold, I tend to realize that I’m about to wake up. Your dreams are most clear and coherent when you are at the end of your sleep cycle, and then I wake up and I’m just boring old me again, and I try to grab as many details about what I was dreaming as I can.

I have once (once!) managed to complete a story in my dreams…but I think I’ll save that one for another time.

Update from Maccyland

September 19, 2009
The Game Biz
6 Comments

I miss Left 4 Dead.

I must say, the Mac Mini is a nice little machine. In the end, the thing that infuriates me most about Apple isn’t their hardware; their hardware is well put together.

It’s that they charge double the normal profit margins on their devices and then get people to buy into their “cult of personality” to justify paying that much.

And their “Mac vs. PC” commercials absolutely infuriate me because they use a debating tactic called “scripting your opposition”. What PC says in those commercials isn’t written by Microsoft or Dell or HP. It’s written by Apple.

The potential computer buyer says, “I want a computer that just works, without thousands of bugs and viruses and crashes.”

(Let’s not even mention that the biggest problems facing computer users today aren’t viruses or bugs, but browser-based phishing, malicious tracking cookies or snooping of private data, all of which a Mac is just as susceptible to as a PC.)

PC should then say “Microsoft operating systems have been inherently stable since Windows NT 4, and the most rudimentary virus/malware protection like AVG Free will ensure that you never have those problems.”

But no, he acts like an idiot and says “Every PC is going to have those problems.” Which is a bald-faced lie. Why? Because he’s scripted by Apple, the opposition.

(This was why I eventually gave up on the TV show The West Wing. Despite the likable characters, snappy dialog and interesting plots, in the end the show was written by Democrats. And the writers would always, always, always misrepresent non-Democrat views in order to easily dismiss them.)

So I hereby present the “Mac vs. PC” commercial I’d most like to see. I must admit I didn’t come up with this, I saw it in someone’s sig.

Mac: “Hi, I’m a Mac!”
PC: “And I’m a PC.”
Mac: “Hey, whatcha doin’ over there, PC?”
PC: “Playing a game.”
Mac: “Oh yeah? Which one?”
PC: “All of them.”

And then PC slugs Mac in the stomach.

I may have added that last part myself.

Moving to Maccyland

September 14, 2009
Game Programming
4 Comments

Ryan (he of the inestimable fame) Clark suggested that since my professional and my hobby projects were on the iPhone, that I make the Mac Mini my “home” computer for a while.

So I did it. This is how they get you, you know.

The Mac Mini felt sluggish to me in development, and I knew it probably wasn’t because of the processor – it was probably due to the fact that the poor thing only had one gig of RAM.

I also must must MUST have two monitors when developing. (I’m now spoiled and cannot go back.) The video ports on the back of the mini are tiny and they are both different, requiring not only one adapter to run a monitor but a second, completely different adapter to run a second monitor. I only had one of the magic adapters and so could only run one monitor.

So the job this morning was to run out and get another gig of RAM and another video adapter for the Mac Mini.

This little sojourn began with me taking the thing apart. The Mac Mini is basically the guts of a laptop crammed into a cute little box. But unlike a lot of laptops, the thing is not designed to be user-expandable. You’re supposed to take it to an Apple Store (c) and let a Certified Apple Genius (c) work on your Mac Mini (c).

So the day started with me taking the thing apart. I’d already done it once when David shoved two DVDs into the drive at the same time, causing it to do nothing but attempt to read the discs over and over and over forever. To the device’s credit, after I removed the top of the DVD drive and took the discs out, it worked fine again.

But this was different. I was venturing into the dark heart of the machine, where no end-user is meant to go. The RAM sits on the very bottom level of the machine, underneath the drives and other guts, on the motherboard itself.

The thing about doing this type of disassembly is that there are lots of clips and pins holding the top half of the machine onto the bottom. So when you unhook the Airport antenna and take out the screws holding the top half of the computer to the bottom, it’s easy to unhook something and not realize it. Fortunately, I was looking very closely at what was happening as I opened the computer up and saw that I’d unhooked two pins from their clips.

But the bottom of the computer was finally exposed and I could fish out the single RAM chip. I took it with me to Best Buy to make sure I got absolutely the right memory (I think I’ve already established how with Apple, you play by their rules or you get kicked in the nuts).

So I go up to Best Buy. They don’t have Mac Mini RAM but it’s obvious that the MacBook uses exactly the same RAM, so I buy a two gig stick (all they have). I also get the second display adapter.

Got back and installed both RAM chips back into the computer – so yes, this computer now has three gigs of RAM in it. Got the clips put very carefully back into place, and boy are they finicky little suckers. Got everything reassembled and the machine works fine.

Time to get the second monitor hooked up. What the – the adapter goes right on the end of the VGA cable, which plugs right into the port on the Mac mini and starts working with no problems?! That’s not how things are supposed to work with Macs! I guess I got lucky.

So now I’ve got an upgraded Mac Mini with two monitors, a machine that is probably at least as good as my PC. World of Warcraft runs fine, and WoW is pretty much my benchmark for whether a machine is usable or not.

And hopefully I’ll be posting a progress report on Inaria soon.

9-9-09

September 9, 2009
Game History
2 Comments

Today is the tenth anniversary of the release of the Sega Dreamcast in the United States.

In the end, I think there was one thing and one thing only that killed the Dreamcast: it didn’t play DVDs. Sony’s hype machine for the PS2 was absolutely incredible. If the Dreamcast had played DVDs it would have probably lasted until Sony’s hype wore off and people realized that the PS2’s “Emotion Engine” didn’t produce graphics significantly better than the Dreamcast’s. (Plus Shenmue II wouldn’t have had to come on four CDs.)

A lot of people don’t recall that the Dreamcast offered the first real console online multiplayer experience…unfortunately using 56k modems. Now, it’s not impossible to write online mulitplayer games that can run over a 56k modem…but it is hard, and “lag” wasn’t something console players back then were used to. Xbox Live’s success came from their willingness to explicitly state, “If you don’t have broadband, go away.”

So the poor thing was simultaneously ahead and behind its time. If it had played DVDs and been easily upgradeable to use broadband, we might still be playing it (or a backwards-compatible successor) today.

And now I’m off to play Jet Set Radio all day.

Well…Utter Failure

August 31, 2009
Ludum Dare
5 Comments

I didn’t get my game finished in time; I simply bit off more than I could chew.

I tried to do Star Kittens. And while I did get most of the basics in there (you can dig out terrain using your sculler droids and then tag it as certain rooms) in the end I didn’t have time to write the AI for the kittens – even as simple as it would have been.

And the real problem was that I didn’t get a chance to post here or on the Ludum Dare site with a lot of updates or progress reports – I was too busy trying to make the impossible.

But I did make a timelapse!

And The Theme Is…

August 28, 2009
Ludum Dare
1 Comment

Caverns! I love it! Let’s rock!

Three Hours and Counting!

August 28, 2009
Ludum Dare
1 Comment

If you’re thinking about participating, you might want to read these survival guides (of varying degrees of seriousness).

Sol_HSA’s Ludum Dare Survival Guide
MrFun’s Survival Guide
GBGames’ Survival Tips

Also, make sure you make an account on the WordPress blog so you can post in-progress reports and screenshots. As well as what you’re eating (hey, there’s a “food” category; if you can’t win with your game you can win with your delectable recipes).

And finally, you must join us on IRC!

Um…I don’t mean “must” as in “you can’t enter unless you do”; I just mean “must” as in “you’ll miss out on half the fun”.

See you guys in three hours!

Second Round of Voting is O-vah!

August 27, 2009
Ludum Dare
0 Comment

Yep, “Kittens” scored a miserable -82. The winners of Round 2 were Connections, Clouds, Evolution and (with a score of 0) Glow in the Dark. I’m still leaning towards Burrowing, since I know just what kind of game I’d make with that one.

First Round of Voting is O-vah!

August 27, 2009
Ludum Dare
0 Comment

Thankfully, “Educational” ended up at the bottom of the list, with a score of -82.

Unfortunately, “Ages 5 and Up” ended up not much higher, with a -71.

The winners from Round 1 were: Burrowing, Caverns, Castle, Cold and Frozen, Winds and (just barely) Recycling. Not bad.

I’m disappointed to discover that “Kittens”, which is in the current round of voting, is one of the classic “joke” themes that never win.