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Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: April 16th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 76 (current year) = 338.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 24 (current year) = 630 / 1000

Crunch time at the day job is still taking its toll, but I think I’ve learned a few things about increasing my productivity in general. Or maybe I am just putting into practice what I’ve already learned. Either way, I have some new habits that seem to translate into progress, and I can’t wait to have free time to spend on GBGames again. In fact, I figure that I can still dedicate 15 minutes a day , which should translate into almost two hours a week. No matter what, I should work for 15 minutes on my own project before going to the day job. I think the toughest part will be stopping after the 15 minutes are up. B-)

In the meantime, I have been doing a halfway decent job of coming up with some game ideas during the few breaks I’ve given myself. When I used to be on track for the Thousander Club, I would come up with at least three game ideas per day. I haven’t been doing so since I hit the previous crunches last year. I want to try to catch up with the ideas as quickly as I can, but if I can’t, I should at least try to get back into the habit of coming up with three ideas each day.

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Game Design Game Development Games Geek / Technical Marketing/Business Personal Development

Chicago Indie Game Meetup Tomorrow Night

It’s been a long time coming, but the next Chicago Indie Game Developer Meetup is here. Check that link for contact information to learn the super secret location.

It’s at Rohit’s place at 7:00 PM. That’s all I can say.

Categories
Game Development Marketing/Business

New Gibbage Website Offers Cash to Indies

Announced in the Indiegamer forums, Gibbage is now sharing its money with indies.

For most, going ‘full-time’ indie is a mere pipedream. Without cash upfront, it’s difficult to be able to dedicate the amount of time and resources necessary to make something truly awesome. Frankly, this is a tragic loss for us gamers, because what these people can do with a couple of lines of code and a copy of Photoshop is nothing short of astounding.

From now on, every penny of profit this site gains will be plugged directly into funding future independent game projects. That doesn’t mean me hacking together some rubbish code while slurping on caviar you’ve kindly provided, that means hiring professional artists and coders to make interesting, high-quality, funny, funky and brilliant games for you to enjoy.

Basically, Dan Marshall is making enough money to survive that anything he gets from Gibbage will be given back to the indie community. If he sees a struggling indie doing cool things on a practically non-existent budget, he’ll contribute part of the earnings to that budget, which will presumably make the cool things even cooler.

It’s an interesting idea, and Dan, the mind behind the popular Gibbage game, is certainly taking a brave step with it. It seems to me that he has taken on the guise of an angel investor who is very aggressive about giving away his money. He explained a bit of his plans on IndieGamer.

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: April 9th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 75.5 (current year) = 337.75 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 12 (current year) = 628 / 1000

It’s the tail end of crunch at the day job, and I was in Ohio recently. No real development updates this week, which is frustrating. It is definitely not what a game developer would do.

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: April 2nd

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 75.5 (current year) = 337.75 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 12 (current year) = 628 / 1000

If you’re reading this, it is because I have been in Ohio for the past few days for a wedding and have not had a chance this weekend to update my blog. While I didn’t anticipate working on code during my trip, I might have been able to work on plans for my next project. The hours above might not be accurate, and if they aren’t, I’ll update them when I get a chance.

Before Friday, I was able to create and use multiple sound effects for my Space Invaders with Audacity. I’m pleased with my progress. It’s really starting to feel like a “real” game. B-)

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

WWAGDD?

Sometimes I find myself in an under-motivated mood, and I have to use motivational modifiers to get my motivation over the difficulty class for game development. Usually I just have to remind myself that there is a reason why I started my own business. The reminder that my business exists is sometimes enough of a bonus to my motivation checks to get me started, and then one of Newton’s Laws of Motion takes over. “Just 15 minutes of game development” can sometimes turn into three hours.

If the fact that I have a business isn’t enough, I post plenty of other reminders around me. My cell phone has a note that I see whenever I pick it up. My desktop wallpaper is an image of my current project with text reminding me to finish the game. If I had music for the game, I would probably try to find a way to get it to be my ringtone and laptop’s startup sound. I have inspirational quotes from motivational speakers, game developers, and historical figures printed out and taped to the wall next to my desk.

If your mind is constantly bombarded by certain ideas and images, you can’t help but think about them. Similarly, if you just let anything get into your thoughts by chance or accident, you won’t be focused. If you go to Wikipedia or YouTube and find that what seemed like five minutes of browsing has become five hours, you know what happened. You saw one thing, then saw another, and then another. Three hours of fascinating clicking later, and you realize that you have just wasted a lot of time, time that you could have spent doing something more important.

Like game development. I try to make my home into an environment in which I can’t help but think about game development. If game development is always in my mind, it is a lot easier to keep myself productive. If I ever catch myself about to make a choice between game development and something else, I ask myself, “Self, WWAGDD?”

What Would A Game Developer Do?

Would a game developer come home from a day job and watch television? Would a game developer feel much anxiety about sitting at the computer to work on a game? Would a game developer procrastinate on game development in favor of chatting online with friends or reading random articles online?

No. A game developer would BE a game developer.

Now, I’m not talking about developing games to the exclusion of family, friends, and hygiene. I just know that I don’t act like a game developer nearly as often as I should, and acting more like one would go a long way to getting games finished and ultimately selling. Why did I watch television after dinner instead of working in my office? Why did I hit my snooze button multiple times in a row instead of waking up and getting an early start on my day? Why did I check my AdSense earnings and blog comments 50 times in an hour?

Because I wasn’t making game development a big enough priority. Because I was allowing insignificant tasks to consume a lion’s share of my time. Because I wasn’t being a game developer. A game developer would spend most of his/her time developing games, and if I want to be serious about being a developer, I would do well to follow a game developer’s lead.

And since I don’t know too many developers personally, I just have to ask myself periodically, “What would a game developer do?” The question usually reminds me that I am a game developer, and as a game developer I should DO game development when I can. I can work on lower priority things another time. So far, I think it is working. I have worked about 10 hours a week for the past few weeks, which is relatively good compared to a few hours per week that I have historically been able to do. With those extra hours, I have been able to make great progress on my projects. The best part is that I still have much more improvement possible.

Oh, and having played Dungeons and Dragons in the past few months, I’ve found that rolling 20s for motivation is a lot easier. B-)

Categories
Game Development Marketing/Business

Mastering the Craft Registration Is Open

If you missed out on GDC (or not) and are involved in online game development, you might want to register for the Mastering the Craft Series. There is an amazing lineup of speakers, including Daniel James of Three Rings, famous for the online game Puzzle Pirates.

The program outline is heavy on infrastructure with seemingly little discussion about online game design.

Through four separate one-day conferences, the Mastering the Craft Series’ mission is to provide a focused venue to address very specific operational challenges in a spontaneous and engaging format.

Registration is $595, although rumor has it that there are discounts to be found…

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: March 26th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 262.25 (previous year) + 69.75 (current year) = 332 / 1000
Game Ideas: 616 (previous year) + 12 (current year) = 628 / 1000

I now have menus in my Space Invaders clone. I had two choices with the implementation. I could have designed it in a generic way so that I could use the menu system anywhere, or I could hack it together so that I can finish this project quicker. As tempted as I was with the first option, I knew it would probably set me back another week or month. I want this project finished as soon as possible, and so I went with the second option. I wrote two classes, one for the main menu and one for the pause menu, but they each had a lot of the same code, especially when handling input. I also had to do some hacks to get the code to run correctly.

Frankly, if I changed the way the input system works so that pointers to handler functions could be submitted, then the input system could simply call the appropriate handlers whenever a key is pressed or released. It keeps the input handling code in one location and leaves less room for error in the remaining code. I would not need to do strange tricks in code such as setting variables to certain values because of the way my current input system works. If I want to work with the menu system some more, I am going to need to make it easier. There is no point fighting it when I can make it do exactly what I want.

Also, I need to start working with audio. The game has been silent long enough. At the very least I should have sound effects. I am going to mess around with Audacity and probably search for free sound effects online.

While the game will be technically finished with the addition of audio, I would also like to “tighten up” the graphics. The game looks terrible. I could do better.

Categories
Game Design Game Development Games Geek / Technical General Marketing/Business Politics/Government

Zorro, the Public Domain, and Derivative Works

The other day I was thinking about Zorro. Frankly, I love stories about Zorro and The Three Musketeers. I have only recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons, and when I created my character, I decided that he should be a fighter with high dexterity and speed. He also gets a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. B-)

Anyway, I was thinking about the possibility of making a game based on Zorro. If Zorro was created recently, then the copyright might prevent me from making such a game, but if it was an old creation, then it might be in the public domain, which means that I would be perfectly within my rights to create a game based on the stories of the masked legend.

So I searched online and found out that the earliest copyright date for Zorro was 1919 for the pulp fiction serial called The Curse of Capistrano. Shortly afterwards, a movie adaptation followed, and the successful silent film The Mark of Zorro brought the hero to the big screen for the first time. That link will take you to a page that will let you watch the film as it is in the public domain.

So the original story and the first movie are definitely in the public domain. So, anyone has the right to make a movie, video game, or story based on Zorro, right? I would think so, but apparently I might be wrong. I found a post at derivative work which linked to a BBC News report that Sony sent a cease & desist letter to Sobini Films for trying to make a movie about Zorro. Sobini sued and I haven’t been able to find anything about it being resolved, although imdb.com does list Zorro 2110 as being in production.

And I would totally go see it, too. It would probably be like seeing the remake of Planet of the Apes for my birthday…shut up.

Anyway, the point is, how does Sony think that it has the right to tell someone NOT to make a film based on a public domain work? And where does Sobini Films get off talking as if it has aquired the rights to a book in the public domain? EVERYONE has aquired those rights. That’s what the public domain means!

But is Zorro in the public domain? Is there anything about Zorro that isn’t?

I’m not the only one who has these questions. You can’t just trust that Wikipedia has it right, but Zorro is on the list of public domain characters. But what exactly does it mean that Zorro is in the public domain, especially when Zorro Productions exists solely to license the trademarks and copyrights in the name, visual likeness, and character? How can this group exist when Zorro is in the public domain?

I learned that the character of Zorro may have been inspired by people or stories that ARE in the public domain. The Scarlet Pimpernel is an older story that pretty much set the stage for the super hero genre. The hero was a rich person hiding his true identity with disguises. Zorro, Batman, and a number of other characters, especially in comic books, would follow this archetype.

But history also has some influence on the character of Zorro. Joaquin Murrieta was considered the Robin Hood (another legendary hero in the public domain) of Mexico, and “the fictional character of Zorro was in part inspired by the stories about Murrieta”. Now, Murrieta the person may have existed, but the legend surrounding him may be more fiction than fact. His story resembles Batman’s in that circumstances in his life charge him with fighting back against what he considered evil and protecting others from those same evils.

Can I create a game based on the original story of Zorro which is known to be in the public domain? I obviously can’t make a game that was inspired with recently created films, but couldn’t I make my own interpretation of the original story? Couldn’t Sobini Films create a Zorro of the future without a Sony coming after them? Why does Sony believe it has this ability, or specifically why does Zorro Productions believe it has exclusive rights to Zorro?

I did find this San Francisco Business Times article detailing the family behind Zorro Productions. It seems that if they control nothing else other than the trademarks for merchandising, movies, books, games, slot machines, etc, then they pretty much control new creations based on Zorro, even if the copyright status of older works has expired. I had emailed the company, and President and CEO John Gertz responded to say that even if some works are public domain in the United States, the copyright may still be valid in other nations. Interestingly, I learned that a number of the trademarks for things such as video games, board games, role playing games, candy, and all sorts of merchandising were registered fairly recently. Some trademarks have expired, but others have apparently replaced them. Trademark searches are definitely not for those with weak hearts.

So, what’s the status of Zorro? Is he in the public domain, or does some company actually have the exclusive rights to him? It seems that an indie game developer might be taking on a lot of legal liability by trying to make a game based on Zorro. Besides the existing trademarks, the copyright status in the country of a customer might turn that sale into an infringement that costs you big. Unless you are prepared to discuss the matter with a lawyer (and pay for such a discussion!), it might be easier creating your own characters and building up a following. I imagine it might be possible to create your own version of a character like Zorro, but then you would have to step around trademarks that simply use the text “ZORRO” on a video game. Batman is pretty much a Zorro-like character, but he is different enough that he can become his own trademark. No one really owns Robin Hood as far as I know. And there are plenty of other famous legends that are probably not locked away from the public through exclusive rights such as copyright and trademark.

Categories
Game Development Games Geek / Technical General Marketing/Business Personal Development

Great Games Experiment: Social Networking for Game Players and Developers

Great Games Experiment

What you see there is my badge for the Great Games Experiment, the social networking community centered around video games. It was created by Jeff Tunnell of GarageGames fame as a platform to get game players and game developers together, solving at least part of the problem of finding an audience for your games.

Since joining, I have submitted a number of entries for the games section and have created one group. Jay Barnson of Rampant Coyote has done such a great job of submitting RPGs that he was given the title of admin of the RPG tag.

Maybe I’ll get the “Obscure games that people didn’t play when they were new” tag admin rights. B-)

In an interview with Jeff, he comments on the benefits for indie members of the site:

Having indie games presented side by side with commercial games should get more recognition for the indies.

Er, why are indie games not considered commercial? In fact, when I am entering information for new game entries, I always find the publisher section weird. The choices are “none”, “indie”, or “commercial”, and if you pick commercial, you get to input the name of the publisher. Why do indie publishers have to be anonymous? Why are indies considered different from commercial in the first place?

Anyway, I’ve found the Great Games Experiment to be a great way to interact with game developers and players. It’s still new, but it is much more relevant than MySpace. And much more stable.