Game Development
Posts about my work for Starlit Sky Games
I got a new iPhone today and I'm posting this while waiting for my truck yearly inspection. I should probably link in some twitter or other short message because a long blog will take a long time. Oh yeah, I've been working my day job a lot lately but I'm still making slow progress on my games. Expect to see one in about a month, around the time of the austin gdc. Now if only I had an easy way to do development while sitting here.
I'm still working on my next company project, but I have also started working with some others on a project. We are still working on the vision documents for the game, and I need to work on filling out the technical spec document. I'm a little concerned because it is a fairly large undertaking (ok, it's a multiplayer online game) for such an unitiated group of people. I have no doubt we can get it completed given enough time, I believe we mostly have the necessary skills. My concern revolves around the whole time thing and keeping motivation up during it for everyone involved. Especially since all of us are part time. I can see this project stretching for a year or more. If we are able to get funding once our demo is complete, then that should help get it complete faster, but it's still going to take a while unless we can get enough funding to go full time.
We'll see in a few months when our demo is done and we start showing it to publishers.
You caught me. I didn't shut the site down. I was going to, but didn't. After taking a few weeks off I started back up. I spent some time learning XNA and I am currently in the process of converting Sky Defender to XNA 2.0. Then I plan on jumping into my next big game. I am currently undecided if I will use TorqueX, which I have a license to, or just use straight XNA. I'm leaning towards XNA since TorqueX hasn't been updated to work with 2.0 yet.
I've recently become involved in some projects outside of my company, Starlit Sky Games, and it's going to take me atleast another year to finish my next project for SSG. At my day job, I'm being kept busier as well. I've also been making great strides in my personal life. I just don't have the time to maintain this website, which is still on outdated 2 year old version of Community Server.
In short, I will be e-moving and shutting down this site over the next few weeks. For those who want to keep up with me, there will be several ways: I am TOgburn on gmail, myspace (http://www.myspace.com/togburn), and my new blog on spaces.live.com (http://togburn.spaces.live.com). All future posts will be on my spaces.live.
So, my divorce has been over for a while. In the end I got pretty darn close to what I wanted, which is much more than I was led to believe I would get in the biased Texas (US?) family law system. We have joint custody, with me having a little over half of Alexandria's time and determining primary residence and I had to give up very little. Of course, my attorney suggested I not talk about it or my daughter online anymore, so if you want details contact me privately. Suffice it to say, if there is something you feel strongly enough about, go for it; the only real loss would be if you never try.
Since then... Starlit Sky Games is back on track. I've begun work on my next game which will be an old-school 2d platformer and I will be looking for artist (anime style) and musician contractors soon. More on that in a future post.
Also, I've met a brilliant, sexy woman, but she needs to relax a little with a good massage. Yes, I know you are googling me now and that is an offer. ;)
Future posts will be a little more professional and business oriented, but I had to indulge my loyal friends who have been wondering if I was still alive and asking for an update.
Things went from bad to worse. Apiwan took Alexandria and refused to let me see her for a week and a half. Anything else I could have put up with, but not kidnapping my baby and refusing to let me see her. So on July 21 I wiped out my savings, borrowed as much as I could from friends, hired an attorney, and filed for divorce. Because at the time she was holding Alexandria hostage, neither of us had filed yet, she apparently was legally able to do that. After I filed for divorce I was able to file for temporary custody orders and got Alexandria back part time. Now we are trying to work out a permanent schedule. The problem is I'm running out of money. I'm cutting my bills, turning up the A/C and trying to minimize my spending to have as much as possible for the looming custody battle.
My plan:
I'm going to give away Sky Defender for free and develop a few other small games. Why? To drive traffic to my site to ask for donations for my legal fund. Yes, I'm becoming an internet beggar. My daughter is the one thing that can cause me to swallow my pride and do whatever it takes to make sure she is in the best of care (with me). So over the weekend, I'm going to write up a timeline of the events that have happened and create a page to ask for donations. I'll also be adding a post to this sites main page with links to that page as well as all my early blog posts about my daughter. Over the next few weeks I'm going to create a flurry of free mini games to add to the page to help drive traffic. I will also probably be digging my old baseball cards collection out of the attic and try to sell them on eBay. If anyone needs any programming done, I'm more than willing to do work.
If any one is able to help me at this early stage it would be very much appreciated. My PayPal id is TOgburn+paypal@gmail.com.
So, it's been a month since my last post and I have been busy. For Sky Defender, I have an artist I am working with to replace all the default graphics and I have worked a lot of bugs out of the game. I am mostly working on balancing gameplay now and deciding if I want to spend the additional time adding an online highscore table or not.
"Sky Defender" has now managed to get this site in the top 10 on all major search engines, even though I haven't done any advertising yet and almost all of my (very few) links and posts have been in private developer forums. That's also with my break in blogging. On the other hand, how many people are going to be searching for Sky Defender. What I really need to focus on is getting to the top of the search for Space Invaders since my game is a modernized derivitive of that, and it is a more well known phrase that people will search on. And I'm nowhere to be seen in those searches... Yet. :)
GarageGames is about to release Torque 2D (Torque Game Builder) from the early adopter phase and the pricing is going to jump. I've been considering getting the commercial license, like many others have done, while the pricing is still reasonable for an Indie. Basically it allows me to not have to show the GarageGames splash screen on startup and I believe commercial licenses are owned by the company rather than individual. So if I later decide to focus on the business side and hire a programmer, I can transfer the license to them. Of course, if I'm making enough to consider that then the price of the license would seem very minor.
As I said above, I've contracted out the art for my Space Invaders derivative Sky Defender. I will also be looking soon for a composer to potentially replace the music and sound effects. Along with the launch of TGB to production, Garage Games is expected to announce the Breaking Into Games (BIG) contest. Depending on limitations they put on that, I am considering my Admiral Alexandria platformer game (a Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario derivative). If that is the case I will be looking for a 2D animated sprite artist and a composer/musician for paid contracts. Yes, that is right. I am an Indie game developer that has paid contracts, not vague promises of possible royalties. Just remember I am an Indie game developer and cannot pay amounts competitive to EA or other major studios.
Expect the Beta 1 release of Sky Defender very soon. It will definitely be on the PC, I have a Linux (Fedora Core 5) Virtual Machine that I am going to try to get it working on as well. Sorry Mac guys, I just don't have a Mac system yet and there's no easy way to get one in a VM. I really do want to get it on there, but it may have to wait a while until I can afford a Mac Mini.
I was really hoping GarageGames would have Beta 3 of Torque Game Builder out by now so I could update and release Alpha 3 of Sky Defender with any bug fixes they might have added. Since they don't and I've received some emails from people who want to play (Alpha 2 expired April 20), I'm putting out an Alpha 2.5. this extends the timeout to July 31. It also has a few minor fixes in it. I think I might have fixed the issue of the game slowing down to the point of being unplayable in higher levels. I also added some changes based on feedback from Dave D, Jason Swearingen, and Isaac Squires.
PC (5Mb): Sky Defender Alpha 2.5 download here.
--Tom
Sky Defender - Alpha 2 from Starlit Sky Games is now available for testing.
Defend our planet from the invading Mingian buggers. Upgrade your weapons and grab the shields and extra lives while pushing back the aggressors from Earth. As you successfully fight back you will go deeper into space where they have more ships and it will take longer to get upgrades to you, so get them while you can and prepare for an adrenaline pumping experience.
If you liked Space Invaders, you'll love Sky Defender. With updated graphics and particle effects, retro gaming has been kicked up a notch.
PC (5Mb): Sky Defender Alpha 2 download here.
notes: This alpha version ends 2006 April 20. Online high scores are not yet available and I still need to polish the graphics.
My little girl turns 6 months old this Thursday. She is almost ready to start crawling. She can push herself up on her arms or legs, but not both at the same time yet. She tends to push more with her arms so she getting pretty good at sliding backwards. She can roll around with ease. We have to watch her closely when she's on the floor because she rolls right off her blanket. She is also getting ready to talk. She says "dadadadada lalalalala mamamama nananana" among other incomprehensible stuff. She does say dadadada first, so she knows who spoils her more even if she doesn't realize she's saying it. ;) And last, but not least, we saw the top of her first tooth this morning.
Where does the time go.?
On the game dev front I am also almost ready for alpha testing of Sky Defenders. It's sort of a modern Space Invaders clone. Once some alpha testing and fun-factor testing is done I will hire someone to create all new graphics since right now it is using the images that came with the engine (Torque 2D Game Builder). I'm also going to need some music. All of that is around 2-3 weeks out. I plan to file for my DBA this week and go ahead and set up a business account. It should make it a little easier to file my taxes next year. :)
So I'm still working trying to get this whole stolen credit card issue
resolved. I'm am seriously considering just getting a new card
because my credit card company is being ridiculous. They still
haven't reversed the charges off my account a month later, even though
I have sent them the affadavit with the charges listed and the police
report number and everything else they have asked for. I'm a
charter member for pete's sake, I've had the card for well over 10
years. It's not like I'm trying to defraud you. Give me my
money back. They advertise all over their site that you should
set up recurring charges so that you don't have to mess with paying
bills. Well, all those recurring charges are now being denied and
I'm getting collection and disconnect notices. AT&T
Mastercard from CitiBank, get your act together. There are
commercials all over the tv about how if your card is stolen, the money
will be back in your account the next day. What they don't tell
you is that applies if there's only one charge made. If it is
used multiple times before the theft is discovered then you are out of
luck.
IGC 2005 (Indie Games Con) was fun. I got to meet a lot of new
people and see what everyone else has been able to accomplish.
I've started spending more time working on my games. Well, not as
much as I should since I recorded IGC and some of the sessions and I've
spent some time compiling the videos so I can post them for others to
download. I'll get them posted as soon as I'm able to pay my web
host (recurring bill on cc) and am sure it will stay up. I also
stayed for the Indie Torque Boot Camp. If you are a T2D developer
I wouldn't recommend it. For TGE and TSE, if you've got the time
and money, it's worth it. If you are using TGE or TSE and your
game has even the slightest chance to have multiplayer included, I
would highly recommend it. Everything that is covered is in the
documentation, the real difference is in the why. The docs tell
you how everything works, the TBC tells you why Garage Games did things
the way they did and how you can best use that to your advantage.
Alexandria is really growing. She had her 2 month doctor
appointment yesterday and was 10 pounds 13 ounces. That's 3
pounds in 2 months and puts her squarely in the middle of normal.
She also had to get a couple of shots and really didn't like that, but
as soon as I picked her up again she quieted down. I really do
spoil her and she knows it. :) She's been lifting up her head and
trying to roll over. She can get herself up on her side, but then
doesn't know where to go from there. Or maybe she just likes that
position. She's also trying to move around when we lay her on her
stomach. She pushes with her legs, but hasn't quite figured out
that she needs to move her arms too.
In my day job, I might start working from home permanently, except for
going in to the office once a week for team meetings and then on other
days as needed. Still, 4 days a week from home will be
great. It will give me the chance to get more done with fewer
interruptions, save me some gas money, and most importantly - let me
see my daughter grow up.
We had a cold front move in over the weekend, so we went from highs of
95 / lows of 65 to highs of 70 / lows of 40. Over the weekend the
wind was strong so it felt really cold. Yesterday and today it's
just been cold, which is nice. As long as the wind isn't blowing,
I like it.
Wow, I didn't realize it, but it has been 3 weeks since my last
post. I've been so tired at home and so busy at work that the
time is just slipping away. Alexandria and Ann are doing
well. We are all just trying to get into a nice schedule, well,
all except Alexandria. She changes her schedule almost every
day. One day she wants to stay up late, the next she wants to
stay up in the middle of the day or early morning. She is staying
up a lot more now. When she was first born she slept all the time
except to eat. Now she stays up for a few hours sometimes.
Warning to anyone thinking about becoming a parent: babies are cute,
what comes out both ends is not; babies are cute when they are sleeping
or smiling, not so cute when they are screaming for an hour at 2:00
am. Think carefully about whether you are ready to completely
forget the rest of the world for a while, you will have moments of pure
joy and moments of pure misery. The moments of joy always cause
you to instantly forget the moments of misery.
On my diet, well I haven't been to focused on it. I've been
eating salads most days and junk food on others. Overall I am
still at 231 pounds so while I haven't lost any more, at least I
haven't gained any with my indescretions. Now that things
are getting semi normal with a semblance of a schedule, I definitely
plan to get back on track towards my goal of less than 200 pounds.
In game development, I haven't really done much of this either. I
am going to jump right back in with a renewed focus. I am
attending the
Indie Games Conference and Torque Boot Camp. I plan
to get plenty of motivation from seeing what others have done, and some
training to help take my productivity to the next level.
I know it's been a while since I last posted.
I've been really busy and really tired with the birth of my daughter,
Alexandria. She was born last Tuesday, August 23, 2005. It
was a relatively quick delivery without major complications. She
did have a little bit of jaundice so we had to stay in the hospital an
extra day and keep her on a bili-blanket over the weekend. She's
getting over the jaundice and is old enough now that she's mostly out
of danger. She also has a crack in her right clavicle so she
isn't moving her arm around too much. She looks exactly like her
mom. I was hoping she would atleast get my nose so she could wear
sunglasses:), but she's perfect the way she is. My beautiful
little princess. I'll eventually get around to posting some
pictures.
Needless to say, I haven't worked on my game at all
since my we had to deal with the INS and pick up my mom at the airport
that Monday, then spent Tuesday at doctor appointments and the
hospital. The rest of the week we spent in the hospital and over
the weekend I was just too tired. I'm still trying to catch on my
sleep. Her mom is even worse and really needs some sleep. I
also went of the South Beach Diet while in the hospital. It was
just too easy to go down to the cafeteria and get a cheeseburger or
pizza. I gained 5 pounds as of Saturday, but I am back down to
the 231 I was last Monday so I have already lost it. I've now
proven to myself that it is ok to cheat sometimes when I need to, then
jump right back on track and power on to my goal.
Steve Pavlina posted his new personal development topic today,
The light at the end of the tunnel, and posed this question: Where are you right now - the light or the tunnel?
I am definitely in the tunnel. My dream from the time I was a kid
and played my first game (Beach head) on a Commodore 64 was to be a
game programmer. Well, except for those years I wanted to be an
orthopaedic surgeon when game programming was still there, just in the
background. I spent many nights as a kid programming small games in MS
Dos and q-basic. It takes advantage of my talents in math and logical
thinking, provides me entertainment, and lets me help others by
entertaining them. It is also a constant learning activity due to ever
changing system requirements and advances. I really enjoy helping and
entertaining people and learning. If I didn't have to worry about
money, then whatever I chose to do would involve my own personal growth
and helping others. I like to think ti would be game development, but
maybe not.
I moved to Austin because it was such a big game programming
community, and I didn't really want to live in California. The first
jobs I applied for were with game companies. I still remember going
into the Iguana lobby and handing over my woe-fully inadequate resume
and demo on a floppy disk. It was a wonderful atmosphere to just be
in; with the excitement, relaxed attitudes, and arcade games in the
hall. :) Of course looking back now I never had a chance. I was a kid
from a small town with no idea what it took, and quick-basic just
wouldn't cut it. As I ran out of money, my options quickly opened up
to any job that would allow me to survive and not have to move back
home. I ended up at Dell, where I am now a corporate programmer.
It's a great job that almost pays the bills and allows my
soon-to-be-three family to live comfortably enough. That's the reason
I stick with it, even though it is boring and I hate it most of the
time. There are some times it's nice, but for the most part if I were
starting my life over I wouldn't have picked it. I know that now I am
one of the best programmers out there when I apply myself and could go
almost anywhere. I get an email from different recruiters every few
weeks. But I'm not really interested in moving to another boring
corporate job working on the same program for 7 more years and
literally counting the hours of each and every day until I can go
home. I'm ground down; I've just become apathetic about the situation
- reserved myself to living through it - and not going anywhere anytime
soon. I don't have a zest for living anymore. I get off work at 2:30
pm and don't go to bed until about 11, but I usually don't do much of
anything productive in that time. I'm just so sick of work and my
situation that it's depressing and I've lost the drive to be
exceptional. When I'm not putting in more hours for work I tend to
just veg in front of the tv or only half-heartedly work on my game.
With a baby that could be born at any moment and our debt I just
feel trapped. Maybe it is just my ego saying I need the health
insurance and the steady paycheck, but it's still a very real feeling
of unease at the idea of being unemployed or even just not being able
to take care of all of my families needs.
So what am I going to do. Maybe nothing in the end, but I have to
try. If you've been following my blog you already know I've been
working on my physical being and that is helping clear my mind and give
me more energy. But I think that's not enough. I've been waiting for
the baby to come before I took my vacation this year. That would give
me a couple of weeks away from the grind to refresh and work on myself
in between lack of sleep and diaper changes. But reading the article
brought my recent private thoughts out into the public. I need to find
a manhole in this tunnel and get a breathe of fresh air. I'm going to
request to take off next week for vacation and just spend the time on
game and personal development. At the end of the week either I'll find
I don't currently have the personal drive to do it or I just don't find
it as enjoyable as before and need to find something else, or maybe it
will totally renew my energy and I'll rediscover the joy and spend more
time on it with the goal of doing it full time. Either way it should
help me get oriented in this tunnel and get started in the right
direction for finding the light.
After 4 weeks of the South Beach Diet, I am down to
236. A loss of 6 for the week, and a loss of 25 overall.
That puts my weekly average at 6 pounds; with 1 week left to accomplish
my goal of 230 before my mom gets here I should just barely make
it. My pants fit better, my watch doesn't cut off my circulation,
and my wedding band actually is a snug fit rather than too tight.
Still, no one has noticed: or at-least no one has said anything if they
have noticed. Looking at myself in the mirror it appears as
though I'm losing the weight everywhere gradually except for my
face. My face still looks fat. I know I'm doing good, but
it would still be nice to get some validation from someone else that
it's noticable.
Baby news. We had an appointment on
Thursday. Ann's hadn't dilated any more, she's still at 1
cm. However, her blood pressure was too high so they scheduled us
for another appointment on Friday. On Friday her blood pressure
was still a little high so they hooked her up to a mchine to monitor
the baby's heart-rate and her contractions. It turns out that all
this time she thought the baby was just kicking, some of them were
actually small contractions. After that we had to get another
ultrasound to check for fetal distress. Every thing was ok and
the baby is still a girl. :) They estimated she weighs 7 pounds
10 ounces, and still think she's not due until September 6. I
still say they are way off and she's due August 16. They were
going off measurements and estimates to come up with their dates, I'm
going off actual events, so I'm sure they are wrong. Plus all the
OBGyn doctors say she could come at any time. Her little head is
pushed down as far as it can go, Ann just needs to let her out.
Ann says it's going to happen this week, the baby told her so.
At what point exactly, do I quit calling her 'the
baby', and start calling her by the name we have picked out: Alexandria
Intira Ogburn. The next update will hopefully be news of her
birth. Stay tuned to find out...
Oh, and on the game development front, I've started
getting back into it. I pulled up my previously written code and
have been reviewing it to remember what I've done and what I need to
do. Expect to start seeing more updates around this.
Ok, I've been on the South Beach Diet Phase 1 for
the recommended 2 weeks. My final result, 246. Up 1 pound
from yesterday, but down 15 overall from my starting weight of
261. My excuse for yesterday; I walked the dogs in the morning
and evening, but only rode the exercise bike in the morning and I had 2
large Chai Tea Javakula's at the coffee shop in the afternoon. I
still did better than the expected 8 to 13 pounds the book said, even
with all my digressions. I always was a little bit of an
over-achiever. :)
If I can keep up this average of 1 pound a day until
my mom gets here on August 22, then I will have lost another 22 pounds
and be down to 224. That is the major goal I am working towards
now in the health arena. I've made it two weeks on the diet,
what's another three.
In the game development arena, I started getting
back into it yesterday, hence the 2 Javakula's. I spent several
hours working on some graphics. I think in the end I'm going to
have to pay someone to do it. I'm just not that good of an artist
and it's taking me a lot of time to get done even a little bit.
Now that I've made it through the first 2 weeks, I
won't be giving daily updates. Probably just weekly, maybe more
depending on when I feel I have something big to share.
Today I received some data about an Order Processing system I developed for my day job at Dell.
The application I developed is the 4th largest order processing system
in revenue, closing in tightly on number three, and the 5th largest in
volume. Out of the leading systems, it has the largest average
order size by over 5 times.
I was feeling a little down about the app, but that has inspired
me. The main reason, the others were developed by teams of people
with all the usual suspects; project managers, developers, dba's, qa,
support. My little old app was managed, developed, tested, and
supported by me for, say, 5 or 6 years. I've now been able to get
support moved over to a real support team, and qa is slowly starting to
take over the testing, but for now I'm still the PM, Dev, and
DBA. All while also being a dev on one of the other leading
systems for the past few months. :)
If an individual can have that much of an impact while working within
the confines of a company, why shouldn't they as an indie game
developer also be able to have that much of an impact on the games
industry. Maybe my trend will continue outside of the office and
in 5 or 6 more years I'll be one of the top game development houses.
I have been working at this for several days now, and I finally have
the site up. I still have a lot of editing to do to make it my
own, but the framework is there.
I started out trying to use the
.Net Community Starter Kit, but that
was a mess. The database wouldn't install properly, the pages
wouldn't pull up. I spent at-least 4 evenings trying to get it to
work. Then I got smart and just tried the Community Server.
I got it installed and I'm typing this first post in a matter of hours.
Ok, back to work for me... :)