It's been a long time since Ectotechnica, and it's been even longer since the old construct blog, but it's time to start again.
This time I'm keeping it simple. Hopefully it'll be more satisfying for both of us.
Here goes.
Ben sent me a link to MS Paint Adventures, and I immediately thought, "I can do that worse."
Jordan was also interested in such a foolish undertaking, and we accidentally created Sapceman.
He sends me a couple sentences every weekday (except holidays), and I draw the worst illustrations possible to go along with 'em.
You'll be able to read them online soon (hint: sapceman.com).
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Just a little respect for Dr. Cosmos and his flawless Rock Band vocal performance. It's the first time we've ever been in first place on the Leaderboards.
And by 'we' I mean 'Jordan'.
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So for the last few months, Adam Byram (Cogitu) and I have been working on a game for the iPhone. He told me if I thought up an idea, we'd build it and make a mint.
Thus, in the pursuit of fricking untold riches, I came up with an idea.
We've done most of the concept work and have a pretty solid working prototype. The basic sprites are designed, and it's starting to look really nice. I'll post some screenshots soon.
The game's going to need playtesters in the near future, so if you've got an iPhone/iPod touch, let me know.
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I have faithfully read and enjoyed Wes Molebash's comic, You'll Have That, over the last year or so. I found it by accident, and ended up poring over his entire archive of comics in one long setting. But much to my dismay, Wes decided in November of last year that he was going to end the strip.
It concluded on January 2 with this panel.
YHT was a really good strip - a rare one with heart and values, not to mention good stories and great art. That's hard to find these days.
And Wes is a fine character himself. I've emailed him on a couple occasions with comicking questions, and he always takes the time to answer thoughtfully and thoroughly. I really appreciate his art, his writing, and his ethos.
From the blog, it looks like he'll be debuting a new comic in February, but until then, I highly suggest you start from the beginning, and enjoy YHT.
Best of luck, Wes.
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So when I went looking for code to run this blog, I was only interested in one thing: simplicity.
I have installed, customized, templated and operated more than a dozen WordPress sites, and as much as I believe in WP, it's too much for my needs here.
What I wanted was a minimalist approach to blogging - post, image, comments, RSS. Done.
To be honest, though, I wasn't optimistic that I'd find that. Everybody wants their blog to have every accoutrement imaginable. They want to have tag clouds and monetization. They want categories, tags, flickr widgets ... the lot. So most blog engines are full-fledged cms packages anymore.
But lo and behold, I stumbled upon supersimple.org. Todd Resudek is a man after my own heart - a minimalist with good design sensibilities. His site is so spartan it makes mine look like a Las Vegas casino. I love it.
He offers his Super Simple Blog code as a free open-source download, and it comes ready to use almost right off the shelf. It took me a grand total of 9 minutes from download to first post (not counting the time it took for my host to initialize a mySQL database), and that is pretty damn impressive.
Now, don't get me wrong; SSB is bare-bones gritty. There's no fancy dashboard interface, and you'll be entering and editing all your content through ultra-basic form controls. But that's part of the charm - having nothing but what you need. No more, no less.
Another excellent thing about SSB is that you can get the extra accoutrements - forms, flickr integration, even chatrooms - with additional (simple) scripts. Not that I'll ever use them, but it's cool to know they're available.
There is one caveat, though - validation. Post divs get numeric ids, and that's a standards-compliance boo boo. It's a pretty minor issue, but I think I'm going to have to sort it out myself to keep the page valid.
Other than that, SSB is the best pound-for-pound value I've seen. Kudos, Todd.
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As of today, I'll be on vacation for the next week at least. Whether it's a paid vacation or an unpaid vacation remains to be seen. I'm not officially unemployed, but we won't be receiving paychecks for a month.
With any luck, I'll get some quality development time with ROLLAB and you'll get some screenshots and progress updates.
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I was just sent this video, and I watched it twice in a row. Then I watched it again.
The midair acrobatics these guys pull off are unbelievable. Nevermind the proximity to cliff walls, roads, the ground ... there is nothing about freefall in a wingsuit that doesn't look awesome.
Now I've got something else to add to my list of things to do before I'm dead. :)
Working on ROLLAB has really proven itself a dream project for me. I have played and loved video games most of my life, and I don't think there's a gamer on the planet who hasn't wished at some point that he'd get a job making games.
But where do you get an opportunity like that? For the most part, you'd have to be in California or Montreal or somewhere to work with a good development studio if you wanted a career in game design. But things are changing, man. The little guys in Knoxville have some muscle in their corner now.
Dev platforms for the iPhone, Android, and Xbox Live Arcade are giving independent developers the chance to build games on a small scale and get them seen by a built-in userbase of millions. The financial investment required to develop and launch a game has been cut dramatically, and that means a couple dudes like us actually stand a chance of seeing profits from our work.
Adam and I would likely never have had the resources to design, build, market, deploy, retail and support a game - even a small one - on our own. It's not something we could effectively handle while still having day jobs. But managed platforms, like Apple's, make it possible for us to design and build, then let Apple handle the deployment, distribution, retail, and even marketing (if we get lucky enough to be a featured app in iTunes).
I mean, we have to follow-up with support and add new features if we want people to keep playing and buying for the long term; but so much of the hard work is handled for us.
I can't tell you how grateful I am to have an opportunity like this. Really, it just happened to be a perfect storm of technology, time, and people. Even with good ideas, I'd never have been able to pull off a game by myself - I don't have any development knowledge or programming skill. Without Adam's interest and abilities, none of this would have come together. It's a good combination of our individual talents, and I'm glad he's as excited to work on this thing as I am.
Speaking of being excited - man alive! That's the best part! I freaking LOVE working on this game. Coming up with concepts, working through the mechanics and features, designing sprites, illustrating, animating ... it's incredibly satisfying work. I haven't had this much fun on a project in a long, long time. Hell, I don't know if I've ever enjoyed a project this much.
Ha. So let me take a quick inventory of my current pursuits here:
1) Making a video game.
2) Drawing ridiculous comics.
Dude, what a great life.
Anyhow, I've got some more technical posts coming soon with actual process notes. Maybe some of it will be interesting to you. Mostly, I want to chronicle the process for posterity, but I think it's pretty interesting stuff.
Stay tuned.
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I wouldn't lie to you. Check it!
