Total Commitment Games

I'm feeling particularly diabolical right now.

2012-01-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling particularly diabolical right now.

The levels for Escape From Robot Doom 2 are turning out to be a lot of fun, the days of walking with cement feet are over, when I'm through with you, you're going to wish you were at the bottom of a lake with your feet in cement.

Honestly, easy mode ends with the seven minute trial mode, after seven minutes you're mine.

Bleh.

2011-12-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

Escape From Robot Doom became available on the first of December. My update has been sitting in approval process limbo for two weeks, it's no closer than implementation than it was two weeks ago.

Robot Doom 2 is well underway now.

First Feedback!

2011-12-03T15:26:00.001-08:00

This one's a buyer!
Pros: Great price - Crazy good graphics - Unique - Very fun gameplay - Good sounds - Good music
Cons: Controls need a little work.

http://indies.onpause.org/2011/12/escape-from-robot-doom.html

He also made a video of game play, which embarrassingly for me, is the first video of the final game play.

Escape From Robot Doom on Xbox Live Indy Games

2011-12-01T07:45:00.001-08:00

Escape From Robot Doom is now available on XBOX Live Indy Games for 80ms points.

Now I'm going to prove that I'm a real game developer by releasing a patch the same day as my game.

There is no substitute for waiting.

2011-11-22T15:37:00.001-08:00

Escape From Robot Doom is crawling through peer review.Meanwhile, I have started work on Escape From Robot Doom 2. No more puzzle action games, this one is going to be an RPG.

Uploaded For Play Testing

2011-11-09T11:51:00.001-08:00

That's right, it's really happening, I uploaded Escape From Robot Doom for play testing. If you're an apphub member, please go give my game a beating and tell me bugs you beat out of it.

Cover Art

2011-10-31T16:29:00.001-07:00

Tick Tick Tick Tick...

Nine Levels, One Way To Die!

2011-10-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished up the ninth and final level.

I have a few final tweaks and changes to make and then I need to check xbox live indy games compliance and I will upload my game for peer review.

T-Minus ?

2011-08-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Plus or minus some sounds and occasional small changes, this is the final look of Escape From Robot Doom, my first xbox live indy games title.

116 Condoms + Time Machine = Escape From Robot Doom

2011-08-03T17:22:00.001-07:00

Screen shot from a new level.

I'm from the future and I say kill em all!

2011-08-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

I made forcefields!

New Videos for New Levels!

2011-07-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

I put recorded a video of run through of the new level's geometry.

97 Knives vs Robot Doom

2011-07-25T17:58:00.001-07:00

I was thinking if naming my next game "97 Knives"...

The way out is through.

2011-07-23T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry for all that text... I really am, honest...

Relativisitic Physics In Games

2011-07-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been active on gamedev.net again, and I was going through my old posts and I came across these, from 2005, that deal with relativistic physics in games. On the subject of the passing of time, I find this window in my 22 year old self rather interesting. Maybe one day I will expand these posts into a complete paper or maybe even a game.

Applied Time Dilation and Hyper Realistic Space Simulation Part 1:

Each body (planets and ships) in motion would have a dilated sense of time relative to the velocity of the body in motion. Time dilation should be calculated relative to a zero velocity clock for simplicities sake.

RT ... time indicated by the spaceship clock
t ... time already elapsed on the 0 Velocity clock
v ... Speed of the body in motion relative to 0 velocity
c ... speed of light = 1 (we are working in units of light years)

RT = t * (1- (v^2 / c^2)) ^ .5

Game Application of Time Dilation

A light year is the distance that light travels over a period of a single earth year. Production and resource gathering would be most effective at locations with little or no velocity because in these locations time would elapse substantially faster relative to locations where velocity is greater such as in a very fast low orbit like the core of the galaxy or around a massive black hole or even traveling at incredible speeds (IE don’t conduct time sensitive activities in locations traveling at high speeds unless of course you want them to occur slowly.)

As a spaceship increases it velocity it also increases the dilation of time. For example a spaceship traveling near the speed of light would take millions of years relative to earth time to travel to another galaxy, yet for the crew aboard the spaceship the trip would be nearly instantaneous.

What kind of unique situations would removing a time constant impose on a game? For the sake of playability a year will be compressed to a minute.

1. Instant communication could be made impossible. Instead, a chat message being sent to a player must travel at the speed of light. For example a player located 20 light years away would not receive the message for 20 minutes. Or your spaceship crews would not receive orders for 20 minutes assuming they are not moving, and if they are moving away from you the messages may take much longer.

2. The characters and equipment in the game ages relative to its time dilation. Say a spaceship and crew has an effective life span of 40 years (40 minutes at 0 velocity). That spaceship moving at 75% the speed of light would be viable for 160 years relative to the 0 velocity environment. So that space ship would in effect have an effective range of 160 light years (various game modifiers and ship upgrades could substantially increase the viability window, such as crew hibernation facilities and ship preservation methods).

For example, say an Enemy fleet is coming to attack earth; the fleet departs Alpha Centari (4 light years distance from earth) the fleet is traveling at 75% the speed of light, the fleet will arrive in 5 years (5 minutes) your long range passive sensors (telescopes) detect the fleet leaving Alpha Centari 4 minutes after they have already left, they will arrive in 1 minute. The attackers will have only aged 1 year.

3. Combat in a realistic space combat environment would be vary alien and vary dry in comparison to an arcade space shooter. Because time has been compressed from 1 year to 1 minute for playabilities sake an hour in a 0 velocity state would be only 0.00684 seconds long. There for combat must be automated, as it would be in a real space war. Because of CPU limitations we must fake the combat with some sort of combat simulator algorithm. The weapons of space combat would most likely be Energy weapons such as lasers and nuclear weapons which can be used at incredible range. Things like bullets and conventional explosives are uneconomical.

4. An argument for faster then light speeds can be made. There are a number of conflicting issues with the speed of light. Say our above mentioned spaceship shoots a laser beam at a spaceship that is on an interception course, both spaceships will measure the speed of the laser beam to be traveling at light speed. Instead of vA + vB + C = velocity. Logically it would appear that space is warping to compensate the speed at which light travels.

5. War would nearly always be fought with obsolete equipment. Military operations must also be conducted under a total commitment policy. Enemy ships traveling at less then the speed of light can be detected long before there arrival especially at if they are moving great distances, entire fleets of ships may be constructed after detection and before arrival to combat the invasion force. Nuclear weapons appear to be the only viable weapon.

Any Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

and the second part,

Applied Time Dilation and Hyper Realistic Space Simulation Part 2:

The application of time dilation could not be applied as time would be applied to games normally. A relativistic game could never be an action game. For the application of the game to work the player must “transcend time”, or in other words not be bound to a clock. Only the players ships and in game characters would be affected by time dilation but the player can only be notified of occurrences through notification by his employed personnel (ship captains, planetary outposts, space stations…) but the player must be at an in game location otherwise there would be no way to calculate out how the player receives information.

An attacking force must travel as close to the speed of light as possible. As described in my above post the attack force on rout from Alpha Centari to earth will be detected an earth year before the force arrives, giving the earthlings an entire year to construct a comparable military force. Assuming the Earthlings and the residents of alpha Centari have mirrored rate of technological development and are on par with one another, an attacking force from either star system will be obsolete by the time of its arrival. At greater distances the situation will only get worse for the attacking force. The player who dispatched the attacking force from Alpha Centari will not even know of the results of the battle for 9 years after dispatching his task force. Assuming that the attack force wins the battle for earth, they must wait for 8 years after the battle before receiving instructions from Alpha Centari. 14 years have now elapsed before that task force receives new orders or 14 minutes as applied in my above post, we must also not forget that the task force is also 14 years obsolete and that in most instances the ships if damaged could not come home for repair nor would we want to repair 14 year old ships that by the time they could get home they would be 21 years old.

As for defensive operations it would be uneconomical to maintain a defensive fleet or any sort of defensive systems at all. It could be hundreds if not thousands of years between fleet engagements at a particular location, what is a thousand year old battle cruiser good for, even if maintained, maintenance is expensive and the cruiser remains obsolete. A player must instead hope that an enemy fleet is detected prior to its arrival. This makes attack trajectories from deep space or remote locations very appealing, players only have limited observation capabilities.

For the application of time dilation to the game engine, every observable event must be transmitted to every player. That event must then have a predicted elapse time for ship and planet. If any of the spaceships change their frame of reference (direction or velocity) the prediction must be updated and then the already elapsed time subtracted from the end notification result. We must also not forget that the number of observable star system is very limited in a galaxy of over a million stars; a player may change the systems and stars that he is tracking, the player will only be able to track what he can with available resources. This creates a variable definition of observable; the player must be looking at the star system in question at exactly the time the results of the battle will be received. It may still be a processing and storage nightmare but it very manageable, and in fact the only nightmare could be the resources required by the server if the server wish’s to fight cheaters by managing all notifications. Even then, 2048mb’s of ram is an incredible amount of ram and hard drive space is virtually unlimited.

Application of the simulation could not be an inch for inch simulation it would instead have to be an event driven engine. Once a ship is launched it will go into sleep mode until it has achieved its designated time elapse (relative to the 0 velocity clock) required for it to reach its destination. So that ship would not have any processing until its wake up event was triggered from say a master list of time elapse triggers or unless it was intercepted or received a message from a player, and any of those events would also be listed in the time elapse event trigger. The applied process would be entirely automated and a tad resource hungry, but hard drive speed is more then acceptable for its storage. Events approaching the trigger point could even be moved into ram.

This situation leaves us with one kind of game, a unique strategy game where fleets are designed and constructed for a single battle. The fuel required to accelerate the above fleet to 75% the speed of light is mirrored by the amount of fuel required to slow the fleet down and then the total is doubled if fleet wishes to return home. So a fleet is essentially a fire and forget weapon. So why not just use nuclear projectiles they don’t need to slow down or return home

The Twin Paradox is unfounded.
http://www.phys.unsw...win_paradox.htm

and the third part,

Applied Time Dilation and Hyper Realistic Space Simulation Part 3:

I completely agree, especially since a player would have to script all foreseen contingencies because after the ships have departed you will no longer be able to control your task force in real time unless you accompany them.

Crew hibernation technologies would allow your crew and characters to sleep when not in use, thus extending their life spans to hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. A million years in a year to minute scale is nearly 12 days. For example say, you checked out the available crew recruits at every planet you visited you could over a series of weeks or months select a premium crew from the virtually unlimited worlds available for you to travel to. A better crew could supply bonuses to the speed and efficiency of the various actives conducted by the ship in question.

I have also been rethinking the issue of obsolesces. There are a number of ways that could be invented (at least for the games sake) so that a ship could be preserved over incredibly long periods. With a ship capable of reaching 75% of the speed of light it would be capable of throwing projectiles through planets, in itself becoming a world destroyer. Planetary defense could also become viable with preservation technology.

The resources required to build ships capable of these extreme speeds would be immense. The facilities and elements required to build a ship of this type immense. A massive technology trade for manufactured equipment could also evolve. The ship building system could require hundreds of different items that your macro controlled crew members would scrounge the galaxy for.

Players would also have the viable option of running. A galaxy containing a million star systems would allow players to disappear.

What would the game play of an MMO of this type be like?

1. Encountering an individual player once and only once.
2. Players chasing each other from star system to star system in an endless cat and mouse game.
3. Empire building.
4. Empire destroying.
5. Stagnant technology for players who reach the peak.
6. Stagnant military tactics
7. Heavy use of the macro system included with the game, creating automated war and automated empire building.
8. Many server operated AI players bent on single activities.
9. Massive fleet engagements being resolved instantly or no fleets at all.
10. Some location where people conduct crew ship and resource trading.
11. Very deliberate and calculated game play, mistakes could take hours to resolve.

and part four,

Interstellar war is pointless, and I doubt any zealotry would be powerful enough hold sway over the people for 1000’s of years. Zealotry can last a life time, and for a crew that is in hibernation between targets, zealotry can last a million years.

Two kinds of people fight interstellar war, the first kind are timeless people who are only awake during ship refits, resource collection and during battle, and these people could either be fleeing other timeless people in and endless war of cat and mouse. The second kind are the kind of people who are playing for glory and mmo rankings.

Resources are not unlimited in a situation where your ship is massive and in a game where the economics system requires incredibly complex equipment to build your ship. If equipment is relatively timeless then trade is all right.

Nano’s can only do so much, I find it difficult to believe nano’s could make atoms. If they could resource market economics would be void and only technology would be traded.

People on planets will have no need for interstellar war, but in time of desperate need such as the detection of an incoming fleet, they will militarize very quickly, they horrible weapons will be built and crews will be trained to control this equipment. The war ends, and you win. Dismantle the fleet and risk having to build another? Keep the fleet orbiting your planet and risk a military coup that could end in the destruction of your planet? Or send your victorious fleet where the enemy came from and make sure you never have to deal with them again.

Remember a military can take whatever it needs from their defeated enemys.

Any civilian society would not want to be tangled with a military project spanning thousands of years, they would make the mission a fire and forget mission. When the warrior aboard awake they will be fighting for the world they left behind not the world of the present.

Your military personnel will remain stable by virtue of remaining frozen during the time between deployment and combat, they will awake in the state the were deployed in.

The subject of errors taking hours to resolve, I am at a lost to resolve the impulsiveness of people. Instead players should attempt to take advantage of the inaccurate deployment.

And why not, I uploaded this video to youtube July 21st 2010, Nearly a Year Ago. I didn't feel like posting it on the website at the time, but considering the circumstances of this post, now seems like as good a time as any.

Blog Post 94

2011-07-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

After a week of vacation (working on concept development for my next game), I'm back to making levels.

Two Levels, One Man.

2011-07-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

My methods for making levels are improving dramatically. I made two levels in one week. These two levels are the 16th and 17th levels I have made for this game. They used to take two weeks, now they take two days. They have lower vertex counts, better texture layouts, better light maps and they render significantly faster than my first dozen levels.

Relax, God is in control.

2011-06-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Today my game is featured on gamedev's image of the day.

Here's a new screen shot.

Lava, Lava, Lava

2011-06-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

It's okay, I'm from the future.

2011-06-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

Trailer 1

Today can still be the day of days.

2011-06-13T09:45:00.001-07:00

I'm submitting my game to Microsoft's Dream Build Play contest today.

I'm very behind schedule. I am focusing on a few very specific features which I hope will put me over the threshold of placing in the contest.

The Final Grind 5

2011-06-12T11:42:00.001-07:00

The Final Grind 4

2011-06-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

The Final Grind 3

2011-06-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

The Final Grind 2

2011-05-30T08:28:00.001-07:00

The Final Grind

2011-05-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Edward 9001 : The Ride

2011-05-02T15:46:00.001-07:00

ED-9001

2011-04-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

In the future, you will only have one friend, and this is him.

New Screenshots For New Tomorrows!

2011-04-21T10:41:00.001-07:00

Here is a teaser for my upcoming game.

Two Legs Bad - No Legs Good!

2011-02-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

"They Hate you because you're different, they hate all androids." Many robots can never understand or appreciate the difficult life an android lives. The triumph of being superior to your own kind yet inferior to your creator. Being an android is an uneasy middle ground which challenges the strongest of artificial emotions. "I'm a real boy!... I'm not made of wood!" - - "Nope, but you're made of metal!" Just imagine it, put yourself in an android's shoes...

Blood Splattered Mega Hero

2011-02-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a new blood splattered mega hero for the game. It sounds awesome and it is awesome. Speaking of Mega Heros, I'm doing it alone again, no more co-developers, no more artists, teams are for pussies.

HPV-LPP

2011-01-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

I know that I have previously talked about my latest game development final solution known as up-trashing, it's a deadly combination of everything trashy in the world. I know that I have also recently discussed high perceived value packaged with a low price point. Let's talk about HPV-LPP, besides the obvious similarities with the popular sexual transmitted disease, there is more to my strategy of "High Perceived Value - Low Price Point". Believe it or not, the HPV half has been popular with game developers for decades who show their best screen shots which are intended to excite the perceived value... I think that the game industry would produce better games if the sexual transmitted disease variant was more popular than the high perceived value... that's right we would have better games if game developers got laid more often with dirty girls. Did I mention that I have been really sick since November? I'm still not well, but I'm getting back to work. My workflow is improving and hopefully my wordflow will follow.

Uptrashing

2010-11-09T16:44:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of going back to the basics, and in truly trashy style, I'm going to continue down the path of faking the shit out of my graphics. I named this new production system "Uptrashing", it takes everything everyone likes about games and compresses them into a single unified production architecture. But what are the most important aspects about games? The first is a perceived value expected entertainment, the second is a low price point. I'm focusing on these two aspects, high expected entertainment and a rock bottom price point.

What word embodies both sexy and awesome?

2010-10-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

There is no one more shallow than a game developer, they obsess over sexy and awesome, they believe that those two simple qualities make a good game. Game's graphic content is disjointed and choppy, the story arcs silly and dull, often because of the average game developers limited understanding of being sexy and awesome. But I have a solution, a one word solution, a single word that embodies the quest to unite both qualities into a single whole. From today forward, my games will share this one word in common. Most of you don't know what I'm talking about, some of you might represent and don't even know it, but what is this magical word which combines awesome and sexy? I'm talking trashy, really trashy, I'm talk tramp stamps, barbed wire tattoos, vaseline hair styles, androgynous tank tops, late base model muscle cars, cigarettes and cheap beer. I'm ribbing my games for generation numb.

I was thinking about armor made of babies...

2010-10-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

There are three types of heros in the world. The first kind is the imaginary hero, the second is the martyred false hero and the third and final is the real hero. A real hero knows that winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. A real hero will stop at nothing to win, he will even make body armor out of babies if has to. A real hero doesn't hide behind a bush, he hides behind a rifle. A real hero isn't a snitch, he's god like.

Anyway, the above is a textual taste of what I'm working on for my next game.

I'm building a better, more masculine, tomorrow.

Way to Win!

2010-10-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

After a full year of polling, the results are in!

The Poll question, "Which of my games looks the most exciting?"
Moon Base 2 (66%)
Vietnam 0 (0%)
Car Game 0 (0%)
Your games suck 1 (33%)

I'm really disappointed in my readers, you guys sucks, only three of you voted! I'm sure that most of you are search bots or add bots or some other form of software, so I can't really blame you for not voting. I'm a little sad that no one likes "Vietnam" or "Car Game", I'm a little depressed that 66% of you liked "Moon Base", what's wrong with you? That's almost a puzzle game. However, not all is lost, there is light at both ends of the tunnel, 33% of you demonstrated some real angst by voting "your games suck". I'm feel honored that you cared enough to express yourselves, and even more honored that you felt I was worthy of the truth.

*UPDATE*
Clearly that poll script doesn't work very well, one of the votes disappeared.

I'm ribbed for generation numb.

2010-10-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

Some people say that humility is the mark of true greatness... I say lets not be fooled by such nonsense, I say lets abandon all justifications and all rationalizations, lets say what we think and do what we say.

This is my second attempt at this post, I wrote some stuff about god and he got really juvenile and crashed my shit... I can see why it takes faith to believe such things. I was originally planning to post screen shots from the sucky games I made since my last post, but that's a hassle and I don't really care about celebrating failure. So here's the important part from the original message, moon base sucked, it sucked really bad. How bad? Imagine sorting dead obese dogs by hair length and spot density.

So here's the new plan for success. I'm returning to the basics; I'm returning to the violence, the brutality and the anarchy that makes men into boys and girls into wives, I'm talking about a better and more masculine tomorrow.

It's a special kind of magic...

2010-05-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

Imagine a world free of smog, a world free of hate, a world free of plants and animals; there is such a world, it's called the moon and it's our duty to make it more like earth.

I finished up Moonbase's code this week. The below screenshot likely includes the last cosmetic changes.

Press A to experience the miracle of child birth

2010-05-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes game development feels how I imagine child birth to be. Moon Base is five times the maximum XNA file download size, so I'm working on shrinking file sizes and it feels like I'm using a saw to stretch my

I just discovered this open browser window and I'm not going to pickup where I left off.

Since I wrote the first part of the post, I slimed the executable to just under XBOX Live Indy Games maximum file size.

Earlier I lied about being over screenshots, I'm so not. Here's a new one with the new color scheme for the resource exchange and listed mission objectives.

I'm living the dream...

2010-04-27T18:02:00.001-07:00

I'm making games and kicking ass, that's right, I'm living the dream the hard way.

I'm coming up on the end of Moon Base development and it's a whole lot less exciting than I thought it would be. The game has turned out far better than I had ever imagined or planned, more features, better graphics, actual sound effects... yeah.

Anyway, no screen shots today, I'm beyond that now because the graphics aren't changing anymore.

Stop trying to hit me and hit me.

2010-04-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

There comes a day in every mans life when he has to hit someone as hard as he can, my advice to you is that you choose when that day comes.

Here is a video of the new Moon Base main menu.

You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he expects to wake up.

2010-04-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

I came down with a dirty contagious disease which affects the eyes, but I'm back on the wagon and i'm moving faster than ever! I made around fifty procedural moon textures over the last few days and finally I decided upon one. Embrace the new Moon Base terrain!

Retard Steve says, "consensus!"

2010-04-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

The best part about working alone is that I get to make all the decisions, there's never a dissenting opinion, never a debate, never any right or wrong, only right - except for when Retard Steve is involved, because right and wrong doesn't matter anymore, because a consensus is majority rule. It sounds like politics doesn't it?

If you live in a Democracy your government is run by a couple really smart people finding consensus with a large selection of dishonest retards. It was planning to write a comparative study of Games by Committee and Government by Democracy, but I'm hungry, so I'm going to go eat some discount Chinese food and draw some sketches for my new game.

I finished up of Moonbase's buildings and I'm working on improving the terrain for the game. Here is today's sample. I'm also taking this opportunity to announce that Moonbase consists of 13 exciting missions!

Retard Steve says, "Drink to the life giving animals!"

2010-04-06T17:14:00.001-07:00

Last night was an exciting night for me, I had many new dreams.

My first dream was about the unification of the alcohol section and the frozen food section at super market. Where the alcohol and ice cream sections overlapped I discovered boozecream, the ice cream that gets you drunk. Now everyone including you and me, not just fat girls, can feel better by eating an entire carton of ice cream.

In my second dream I was a ninja, a ninja sent fourth to liberate the vacant homes of America from the squatter plague. I would enter a vacant home and lay in the dark waiting, I would wait for as long as it took for a squatter to enter the home, when the waiting ended, I would destroy the squatter using my Ninja shotgun. I literally destroyed the squatters since immortals can't be killed, I separated their bodies into countless pieces which I distributed across the land so that the squatters could never reassemble themselves and occupy another vacant home.

My third dream I was the CEO of a huge game development company, seriously massive, larger than any game development company on earth. I wore a sweet suit similar to the one worn by Sean Connery in Highlander II: The Quickening. The dream was united with a reoccurring theme of my life, I have always imagined how great it would be to have a work force made of clones of me, but these clones would have a better work ethic and sleep less than me. The night dream wasn't as great as my day dream, I only had one clone and he was retarded, but he looked exactly like me and he had a sweet suit exactly the same as mine. My clones clothes and fantastic good looks didn't really make up for him being retarded, but according to my dream ethics retarded Steve should be treated exactly as I would treat a non-retarded Steve clone. In my dream I introduced my new CO-CEO to my existing work force made up of every stripe of nerd and alcoholic womanizer. Retard Steve and I stood together in our matching suits and I instructed everyone to do exactly as Retard Steve says.

In my fourth dream I was a savage hunter conquering the forested wilderness of precolonial North America. It was a delightful dream, I taught myself to make weapons like spears, bows and arrows and small metal daggers, primitive weapons proved incredibly complex, before this dream I had never appreciated the difficulties involved in making the most basic of weapons. As the dream progressed I initiated an animist cult and accumulated a large following of co-believers. We worshiped the animal spirits of the female Deer, the female Skunk, the female Possum, the female Birds... you get the idea... At my command, the cult built a massive stone temple devoted to the female spirits of the animal kingdom, inside of the cult temple we built a giant statue of me, made of natures glue and the ground up bones of the female animals we feasted upon, the statue represented the united spirits of the animals which lost their lives to give us life. Whenever we weren't eating or sleeping, we drank various animal derived liquors and sang glorious songs to commemorate the life giving animals.

Those are all the dreams I can remember from last night.

Today I spent working on Moon Base 3D, NinjaPants says the first 95% of game development is making the game and the second 95% of game development is finishing the game, and I believe it. I finished mapping out the level framework and I added two new buildable structures.

I was planning to post a family portrait of the games buildings today, but I have one more planned building to go, so the family portrait will have to wait tell tomorrow. As for tonight, I hope to be visited again by more inspirational maniac versions of myself.

Let's have an intelligent conversation here: I'll talk, and you listen.

2010-03-12T17:01:00.001-08:00

The thing about lies is that most people rather accept lies than confront lies and those same people rather accept the liar than the person who confronts the lie. This behavior is all too common and simply pathetic.

Video games are all about escapism, it's interesting that lying isn't a common plot device, players can lie as often as they want without any repercussions or guilt, I can think of all sorts of entertaining lies which can be used to drive games in countless unpredictable and depraved directions.

Behold Moonbase 3D

It's what plants crave...

2010-03-01T17:17:00.000-08:00

I pored myself a glass of Jagermeister and coke until I noticed that I was actually poring myself extra virgin olive oil and coke; then a parallel to game development struck me, most games are mixed with cooking oils instead of booze. Game publishers hold back on the hard liquor because most people don't like hard liquor, most people like lite beer. I was wrong about all commercial games being pillow talking prostitutes, no doubt some commercial games are pillow talking prostitutes, but most games are just lite beer mixed with cooking oil. I'm sure some of you are thinking that you like lite beers, but you're wrong, it's the pillow talking prostitutes in advertising who have convinced you that lite beer is something to drink, but they lied to you, lite beer is pretty much the worst thing to drink, I would rather drink the cooking oil and coke instead. No doubt some of you have now noticed that I already downed my cooking oil and booze, waste not, want not? What does that mean?

Anyway. Soon, everyone, including you, can play my lite beer video game. That's right, you read right, I have been brewing light beer all month, because I know that you, like everyone else, likes lite beer video games instead of hard liquor video games. Why? Because I want your money and the rest of your families money, if I could invent a incredibly addictive drug, I would.

Wouldn't it be great if soda machines mixed soda syrup and booze instead of soda syrup and water? Probably not for you... since you like lite beer... back to drink and back to work.

The sensation you are feeling is the quickening.

2010-02-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

It may appear that lately I have only been making one post a month; it's true as long as you think small. I make posts in many other vile corners of the internet, posts that the strongest of you couldn't stomach, posts that make both holy men and dictators want my blood and the blood of anyone associated with me for. They are self centered fools for thinking that I'm talking about them, even though I am talking about them, but not as an individual but as a group. They tell us what to ware, what to say, what to eat, what to think, who to hate and who to love. I'm not like them, I tell you what it is, but it doesn't depend on what my definition of is is.

Someone other than you mentioned recently that I might be loosing my mind - I might be losing my mind? Subjectivists aside, I'm not losing my mind; I'm trading my mind and body so that you will understand that there is no distinction, they don't coexist, they are one and the same, you just are. Dualism isn't real, it's very serious talk from very silly people. There are no alternate existences, no parallel universes, no place where your not alone, happy and afraid. There is no place where real men can imagine playing real games for real men but here.

Today is a pretty exciting day for you, at least if you have an XBOX 360. My new game is exciting and I don't mean exciting in the sense of geriatric looking gymnastics fighting. My game is rude and I don't mean in the sense of Reality TV. My game is masculine and I don't mean in the sense of human growth hormone and testosterone junkies. I'm talking solo snuff films, but for games, where you're the one who gets hurt and I'm the one who watches. So get ready and keep your butt puckered, it's going to be a long one.

One month from today, my first pseudocommercial game will be unveiled and it can be yours for money.

There can be only one.

2010-01-12T11:52:00.001-08:00

I have a forum now. It's a pretty exciting place, it's jam packed with exciting forum chatter about exciting forum subjects. It's a forum where all men and no women from every stripe of life can come together and fight, a final Battle Royal for the soul of gaming. Articulate your judgments and ideals in textual form for the generations to follow. We don't owe our future selves anything, but we can sure leave them a message, a unique and disparaging message from the past, filled with vision and angst, filled with desire and denouncement. Take this fantastic opportunity to tell your future self who's boss, tell him that without you, he will never exist. Tell your future self to quit drinking Jack and Coffee, tell him to quit mastrabating, tell him to quit watching TV, telling him to quit reading celebrity blogs, tell him to move out of his moms basement, tell him to quit his job.

Registration is easy and pleasurable, Make an account today and help build a better and more masculine tomorrow.

http://stevemata.freeforums.org/index.php

I'm digging a deep grave for shallow games.

2009-12-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Modern games are absolutely awesome; awesome physics, awesome graphics, awesome sound, awesome voice acting, awesome motion capture, awesome effects, awesome scenes, awesome budgets and awesome marketing. Lame plots, lame action, lame chases, lame weapons, lame levels, lame bosses and lame characters. Modern games are like franchise steaks, copious amounts of barbecue sauce with a cheap cut of meat. Modern games are a single level that you play over and over again. One path to follow, a path where winning is the only option. I'm sure you can remember the last time you died in a game, but can you remember the last time death mattered?

I'm bringing hope to a ravaged generation, a generation of men raised by women. I'm building a better, more masculine tomorrow. I'm digging a deep grave for shallow games. I refuse to play the movie, and so should you.

Low risk games for a low risk culture, it sounds lame and it is lame.

2009-11-19T09:37:00.001-08:00

Game's and their development are charging. The cost of competitive game art is ballooning as processing and rendering technology improve making game development costs high in comparison to revenue. Game publishers are stuck making low risk titles. It sounds lame, and it is lame; there are a number of game typing strategies available to commercial publishers which virtually guarantee breaking even on a game, games guaranteed to break even don't lose money, but they might make money.

Game publishers make low risk games for a low risk culture. This is great for the publishers, but it's bad for the developers worse for game players. Publisher games are regulated to a narrowly defined list of game types and their play features must follow this low risk rule set. Both good and bad ideas don't get a shot, they are simply too risky.

With the contraction in quantity of games, combined with the increase in development costs, game engine developers have been feeling the crunch and in response they have effectively lowered the startup costs for game development by significantly lowering the licencing cost for their engines in their attempts to maintain profits.

Big things are happening and Total Commitment Games, exciting things and barbaric things.

I'm back in the game, no more casual games; real games for real men are back.

Today can still be a day of days.

2009-10-11T00:35:00.000-07:00

I made a number of very significant improvements to moon base today. I drastically improved the readability of the resource exchange and the building browser. I setup the new rendering engine which includes backwards compatibility to make things easier on me. I added day and night cycles, so don't think you can get by on solar power alone! Mark made three new buildings, two of which made it into this video. I also added a input/output line grapher.

Today produced more tangible progress than any previous moon base development day; but honestly for me, more is never enough. I'm going to try and top it tomorrow.

Juicy Juice Wine

2009-10-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

Mark is the newest contributor to Total Commitment Games, he is a pretty special guy, he wasn't online when it came time to write his profile so I wrote one for him; progress before safety, forever.

Mark is a Aquarius, he loves long walks on the beach and sky diving. Mark likes to keep his options open and doesn't like to be tied down, he is a free spirit at heart and is at work all the time, he works so freely. His body configuration is similar to an professional athlete, but without all the muscle. He lives to work, and works instead of sleeping. Don't confuse exhaustion with unattractiveness, he's tall, with striking dark coloring under his eyes. Mark is seriously rich, because he works all the time and he wins at things you're not supposed to win at, but he doesn't brag about winning all the time, because he doesn't care very much, since he wins all the time. He likes short and tall girls. He isn't a racist and he loves sex and money.

The above profile is what I submitted to match.com, eharmony, jdate and adult friend finder... Total Commitment games markets everywhere, we are so committed to our games that we sell them with our bodies, it sounds a lot like prostitution, but it isn't, it's more like massage parlors or escorts; it's a little bit of both, that would make us a little bit like video game developer escorts with happy endings; but not developers who make video games with happy endings.

Anyway, before Mark logged off he sent me this fantastic bit of work he called concept art, but what he doesn't understand about total commitment games is that we take everything and run with it always.

Judgments for you to regurgitate

2009-10-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

I know that for some of you it may be hard to believe that I could make the blog any more exciting than it already is, but I achieved it, I'm talking about serious achievements and serious results and I'm as serious as a heart attack. My new barber talked me into setting up a twitter account and now I have installed my new twitter feed on the blog. Now you can all stay up to date on my divine regurgitations.

Color blind colors

2009-10-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Image yourself being color blind. Imagine your color blind self cooking red meat, or painting. Now ask yourself, does that meat look cooked to you? do those colors look right to you?

Divine Utterance #2

2009-10-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

"A feeling of wasted potential doesn't mean you had any potential to begin with."

A divine utterance is the word of the gods spoken through a human conduit.

The moon is a clock!

2009-10-06T15:57:00.000-07:00

I know you are all pretty excited, I could hardly keep anything inside me after I programmed the Moon Clock.

I need new shoes, from kicking everyone's ass all day.

2009-10-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

I have two new interface test videos and I bet you're pumped like a crack addict on his way to the crack house.

New Moon Base Video

2009-09-27T13:17:00.001-07:00

I have been in the video making mood for the last view days. I made a high resolution moon base video with the correct aspect ratio. Make sure you watch this one in full screen, youtube does a terrible job scaling the videos down.

Puzzle Game

2009-09-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have been considering porting my puzzle game over to the XBOX 360... I figured I should at least play it again before I make the decision. A funny thing happened, VB6 + D3DVB8 doesn't work on Windows 7, they are both really depreciated.

I couldn't find any guides on how to get this stuff running... so I got medieval... I went batman on Windows 7's ass... first found and installed both the vb6 and dx8vb dlls and then installed them using the command prompt, but the game still didn't work, I spent about two hours troubleshooting until I discovered that d3d8 doesn't like to run windowed on high resolution screens. While I had the game running I made a video.

Divine Utterance #1

2009-09-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

"Game development is a lot like being an artist, but for smarter people."

A divine utterance is the word of the gods spoken through a human conduit.

Quiting doesn't make losing okay.

2009-08-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Quiting doesn't mean that you would have won if you hadn't quit, quiting before you lose doesn't mean you didn't lose, quiting doesn't make losing okay; quiting is losing and that's for real.

Before any of you suggest it, my new game isn't a flash game! I picked up and xbox360 so I could begin console game development. Moon base, meet disintrerested reader; disinterested reader, meet moon base. What makes moon base unique is that it is the only game I know of that was designed from nose to tail to be a strategic management game. Here are two screen shots and a video.

School is out and I'm out to win.

2009-05-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

I'm working on polishing up the user interface and fleshing out the available play units. I'm going to need some alpha testers soon.

One is for killing, one is for fun.

2009-03-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Do to a lack of viable artist options I started a new game on the first of the year. It is the final word in mass multiplayer tactical and strategic war gaming.

More to come.

The traffic light of life.

2008-10-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

You come to a red light at an empty intersection and you stop. You wait for the light to change, but the light never changes, nothing every changes. Eventually you commit to running the red light, to taking control and driving through the intersection. The second you cross the line into the intersection, the red light camera takes your picture with a flash and a click. It's not about enforcement, it's about punishment. Everyone is to afraid to force you to obey the law. Everyone is simply waiting for an opportunity to threaten you into accepting punishment. It's about allowing you through on their own magnanimity, to cross the intersection on the change of a light, the change of an instruction. It's about collectively threatening you into surrendering yourself to collective authority.

Crushing the Box

2008-10-04T11:31:00.001-07:00

You find yourself standing in a narrow tunnel. You see two indistiguishable lights, one in each direction. One light is the end of the tunnel, the other is a speeding train. It doesn't matter which direction you start to run, the only diference will be the remainder of your life measured in terrifying minutes.

Those of you who have crossed the lake and split from the program, will await the train and you will split the train like hot wire through butter. Then you will understand that their is no reason left for you to think outside the box when you can simply crush the box with the presence of your commitment to success.

Burn your bridges

2008-09-06T14:24:00.000-07:00

I'm integrating my fourth new rendering pipeline in the last two months. The game at this very second is unplayable - I forced myself to commit to the new mesh standards and it's requirements. I burn all bridges in both advance and retreat - this commitment to progress limits my options and strengthens my resolve.

The North Vietnamese spent thirty years losing the Vietnam War and their commitment to victory was rewarded with victory. It's not the thought that counts; it’s your resolve to your ideal.

If you’re not willing to pay the price of your youth, your future, your love life, your money and your very sanity; then you’re not in game development for the win. I'm six years deep, my resolve is stronger than it has ever been - I'm paying the price and loving it.

Living the game development dream requires real cost saving strategies. For example, homelessness results in a savings of over eight hundred dollars a month! That’s eight hundred dollars you don’t have to earn and time you don’t have to take away from game development. Stop buying fruits and vegetables, fast food joints serve meat, animals eat all the fruits and veggies you need. These cost saving strategies are much more then stop gaps, they are a way of life – just because your homeless doesn’t mean you’re poor!

Quit your job and translate your time into a future of fulfillment!

New heroes for a new tomorrow...

2008-08-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

Working harder and faster.

Your tax dollars at work

2008-07-31T18:34:00.000-07:00

Before I split from the program, I worked for the county's department of public works. I had a diagnostics room and it was mine. My diagnostics room was packed floor to ceiling with shelves packed with three ring binders. Each binder was packed with in house created check lists for diagnosing every conceivable problem on all of the county's computer systems. At first I was impressed with what I thought was an incredible resource of problem solving empowerment. I was wrong, the binders were organized by the problem, which would make the binders unnecessary if I knew what was wrong. Which didn't make a lot of sense to me until I discovered that I had to check off and initial each step on the check list. The binders weren't for diagnosing problems, they were for proving that I correctly identified the problem. The binders were my proof that I followed procedure. Fixing simple problems took me hours and I never once had the wrong binder. After work, on my drive home, I would think of new problems I could write binders for, that way I could maintain full time hours and benefits.

Your tax dollars at work.

Syrup Beer

2008-07-30T00:57:00.000-07:00

I watched a star fall from the sky and strike a lightly wooded area nearby. It didn't occur to me to look for the meteorite until the following day. I couldn't find it.

Looking for fallen meteorites is a lot like lamenting wasted potential. Imagining you weren't a loser doesn't make you less of a loser. Unrealized potential is probably just a trick your memory plays on you, you probably didn't have any potential to start with.

I saw a green floating orb once. It dominated a valley, casting green light on the surrounding wooded hillsides. It never occurred to make to take a picture. I shrugged it off as lucid dream. A few years later a man told me his story of seeing an green orb at a different location a few miles away, I said nothing. Weird shit.

Real heroes for real men.

2008-07-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

A battered woman is not a victim until she embraces victimhood. Leaving her husband isn't victory, it's escape. Injustices committed against you do not make you a hero. Bringing down an insurance company by reporting misconduct is whistle blowing. A whistle blower is still a betrayer no matter the crime reported. Victims and whistle blowers are cowards heroes.

Combating creative autism in video games:
I'm working very hard on making something very different. Therefor to avoid contamination and maintain the creative continuity of the project, I am reimposing the moratorium on screen shots until game play development nears completion.

C21H27NO

2008-07-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

This is a preview, a preview of your future, you can make it your own if your strong enough to split the train named life. I'm providing you a unique oppertunity to live vicariously through me. An oppertunity to live my toil, embrace my disillusionment and experience the futility of independent game development.

Like any true independent game developer, we have no office so we develop at universities student union. It's the summer, and the school is doing freshmen orientation, the kids look so fresh, so healthy, they all think they have a bright future. When the orientation tours come through the union, I have to fight my desire to warn them, to warn that half of them will never graduate from anywhere. They are simply boarding the train named life, they are doomed to a relentless, hopeless and repetitive future. The only difference between education levels is how far forward they ride on the train. You can never reach the front, the train has unlimited fuel, unlimited track, no conductor and it will never ever stop.

Payday enslaves you. Your salary is a bi monthly injection of slavery. Regular reliable paydays keep you on that train named life. The only way to move forward to the nicer train cars is by waiting, waiting for those ahead of you to die and get thrown off the train. Your career isn't success, it's waiting for the people ahead of you to die. Payday is your master.

Once you split from the program, once you step off that train, once you kick that payday addiction; you will be ready to split that train named life. Once split, you will be free, free to create, free to invent, free to build your own train, free to build your own cage. You must build your own tracks, build your own train, be your own conductor and use your soul for fuel. And when you die, your train will careen off your tracks, everyone will watch and no one will care and no one will take your seat.

News from the imaginary front:
Gary is writing a software renderer for the sake of his own education. I redesigned the rendering pipeline again. I'm working harder not smarter.

I just ride the wave...

2008-07-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I was lucky enough to witness a man using jack hammer barefoot.

I spent the day working with floating point render targets.

Graphic Stories for a Graphic Game

2008-07-10T12:18:00.001-07:00

The student union appears to employ a lot of reformed crystal methamphetamine addicts. They all have the same easy going upbeat attitude which can only be induced with anti psychotics, but the real give away is the particular style of tooth decay they share. I'm guessing that they are part of a court ordered combination rehab work program.

Their pay is exactly it's value more then what I make.

Graphic Stories for a Graphic Game:
I have been working harder and not smarter to flesh out the story line, to make it more exciting and to make it easier to identify with.

I should be done wrapping up the new rendering pipeline this weekend. This screen shot demonstrates per pixel lighting combined with an diffuse map, ambient map and specular map. Normal mapping and shadow casting await me.

Splitting the Train

2008-07-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

Fairy tails have things like elves, goblins and magic jewelry, fairy tails are told by women to children. Are you a man who roll plays fairy tails? I have been thinking a lot about hero's lately. Real hero's are always the masculine embodiment of a man, who is alone capable of conquering his world, essentially the hero is an easy to identify masculine ideal. A hero is a romanticized alpha male. Hero's are made when normal men like you are forced into incredible situations (which cause your balls to drop). Incredible situations force you to become the man you always wished you were, and man your father could be proud of.

Whenever I felt like I was loosing focus walking the long hard road of solo game development, I would walk down to the large lake near my house. I would swim as far out as I could, I would swim until I felt like I could go no farther, I would swim until my body forced me to surrender, to give up, to quit. I would swim in the foolish attempt to conquer the instinctive will to survive, in the end I always surrendered to nature and would turn back. When I would finally make it back to the beach, I would pull myself onto the mud and lay and embrace my existence unconcerned or offended by the mud, bugs, stench or my own exhausted lack of breath.

One day my life changed, when I got to the point that I felt that I could swim no farther, I swam farther, I swam until I knew I would be unable to return, I kept swimming, harder and faster, forcing myself forward, weakening my body and strengthening my soul. I had decided that I would conquer survival, this lake was going to be my end, I overcame self preservation, I had chosen certain death by drowning via exhaustion. I swam completely across the lake and instead of pulling myself onto the shore, I walked out of the water. I started to puke, but I refused. My mind triumphed over my body. I defeated self preservation.

Last week I mentioned that the light at the end of the tunnel was actually a train named life careening towards you. I neglected to mention that once you conquer yourself you will become an unmovable blade of incredible density, capable of and destined to split that train named life. Once accomplished, you will be rewarded with the inability to hold a job or every have a normal life. Once you quit the program, once you have crossed that point of no return, that point at the center of the lake, you will find that nothing really matters and that what you believe doesn't really matter to anyone but yourself.

Senicide

2008-07-08T09:39:00.000-07:00

I remember one of my English teachers describing suffix "-cide" and how uncommon it is. She asked if any of us could think of words it's used in, someone said "pesticide" and teacher looked a little amazed, so I added "homicide, xenocide, fratricide, genocide, infanticide and suicide." My lesbian English teacher now looked a little uncomfortable. I have since learned some more words which take advnatage of the "-cide" suffix, autocide, deicide, democide, ethnocide, femicide, mariticide, parenticide, pseudocide, regicide, senicide, tomecide and uxoricide the killing of your wife. Shit your pants fun huh? Enjoy.

All quiet on the western front:
Thats what the German newspapers said when the allies broke through along the entire front while half a million German's died in the last two months of the war. Anyway I'm working on more story arcs and Gary is still pounding through tutorials.

Wooden Idols & Skid Marks!

2008-07-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

My 4th of July was awesome, I bet yours sucked. My Lesson for next year is don't drink wine bottles like you would beer bottles!

One time I thought I was losing my hair, it was seriously freaking me the fuck out. It went on for around three months, I started checking out various hair care products that claimed to stop hair loss and regrow hair. I replaced my furnace and the old one turned out to be leaking carbon monoxide into the air circulation system. My hair loss stopped after the furnace replacement, lesson learned - heaters are for girls and men who embrace the cold will keep their hair when they are subversively attacked by furnaces.

News from the game development DMZ:
I spent the morning working on the new rendering engine, I added per pixel light, ambient and specular maps are on the agenda for tomorrow. I spent the afternoon working on story arcs, It's pretty exciting shit, I bet you will leave skid marks on your whitey-tighties.

Keep your butt puckered because Gary spent the day learning about graphics, one day he hopes to takeover the graphics development. If he eventually takes it over - I promise to carve him some wooden idols.

Shit your pants fun!

2008-07-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

When I started this project, I decided that if I was going to make the self imposed deadline, I simply wouldn't have time to both sleep and drink. I consigned myself to the fact that I would have to sacrifice one of my beloved upon the altar of progress.

Not sleeping is not as bad as you might have guessed, once you get past the first few days you accept that your productivity per hour has substantially decreased but the total number of hours available to be productive have nearly doubled, leaving you with positive progress. I can't ignore the fact that the overall quality of my life and noticeably decreased and I remind myself that I don't try, I just do. I'm selflessly putting progress before safety for your selfish unappreciative entertainment needs.

For those of you who appreciate my generous sacrifices upon the altar of progress, I would like to remind you that the light you see at the end of the tunnel, that you are dutifully running towards is actually a train named life and it's traveling fast, hard, and in your direction.

News of the battle of shader graphics:
Today I decided to rewrite the rendering engine again, it's failing to deliver on my demands. The new render interface is more streamlined, more exciting, more powerful and if everything goes as intended and expected it should be one of my final engagements on the graphics programming front.

Dueling or Dancing? (with a train)

2008-07-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

I have found an IDE build bug, and that makes me awesome, I have no idea how to fix it. I suggested to Gary that jumping in front of a bus would be more exciting and we got to discussing the details of jumping in front of buses. We concluded for the only way to be killed by a bus would entail you having to trick the bus driver into thinking that your a normal pedestrian and then at the last second you would have to dive in front of the bus so that the driver wouldn't have an oppertunity to stop in time. Ultimately I concluded that its much better to jump in front of a freight train, because it is very unlikely that they will be able to stop before hitting you. The train also gives you the oppertunity to test your commitment by facing certain death. Only dancers get out of the way of an oncoming train, are you a dancer?

Total commitment is burning bridges in both advance and retreat; never surrender and never relent.

That's how I live my life.

"go away, I got a grip on it."

2008-07-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was eating chowmein and peking pork while playing one of those soulless scripted monstrosities of commercialism. I'm not going to bother naming names here... because all the pillow talking prostitutes are the same. I was around two hours deep and It felt like I was cheating on myself, which is a surprisingly confusing sensation. Two hours deep the game was still telling me which button to press when I got near objects like doors or walls. Honestly it felt like I was trying to jerk off for the first time with with someone holding my free hand and telling me what to do, which was nice for the first few minute. But then it was distracting and I knew it was going to be hard to finish, like when someone interrupts you when your going solo in your parents guest bathroom.

News from the disillusioned front:
Gary as polygonal collision detection sorted out. However he started walking really hard when he tried to get proper collision response. I forced him to take a break and work on something else, so right now he is working on improving power train response. Harder and Faster.

Scott (Sk1zot) liked Brandon's car so much that trashed it up hard with a new shitbird styled texture.

Six inches deep in soap bars.

2008-06-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Marketing indy video games is a lot like procreating, you have to keep on it.

Some of you are aware that I'm looking for a new place to live. I responded to a craigs list advertisement for a fully furnished house at a good price near the school. The poster responds with a two page e-mail trying to prove the authenticity of his situation, he claims that he was transfered by his employer to the port if Nigeria and that his transfer got extended so he wants to rent his house. Immediately I think it's a scam, so I play it out, I keep making all these objections and getting him to agree to them, I keep nit picking and negotiating and he agrees to everything. He spent the entire day trying to prove to me that he trusts me and that I should return his trust. I start asking him for move in specials. His initial play for $1600 turns into a play for $400... and he keeps trying... Eventually he gets frantic and tells me that he will mail me the keys if I wire him the $400. Anyway, to sum everything up... I reported him to craigslist under the law enforcement flag... I wonder how many people he took with this little scam, I'm thinking that game development is kinda like being an artist, but for smart people.

News from the front:
Brandon is back and more intense. He made a new more awesome car. Embrace the 1973 Lincoln Continental Mk. IV

Pillow Talking Prostitutes

2008-06-29T17:46:00.000-07:00

Honestly, aren't you tired of games with bizarre ambient light schemes? Blue's and greens, yellows and lames? I promise to you, no light without a source!

Do you remember the last time you were happy playing a game? You can be delivered from senseless linear game scripting only if you take my hand and surrender and embrace your own conclusionless fate. Once you have a taste of my style you will never be the same, and the next time you play a soulless scripted monstrositie of commercialism you will feel like your cheating on me with a pillow talking prostitute. Because that's what commercial games are - pillow talking prostitutes. Commercial games have fancy graphics, fancy voice acting, an an army of coders, just like how expensive escorts have fancy makeup, fancy voice acting and an army of makeup artists.

I'm not saying that my game will make you happy, I hope it wont. My game is going to be like a whore working the streets solo. And like a whore working the streets solo, you need to embrace your own hopeless future. Before you can break free and take control of your life you need to abandon that one hundred and four pulse a year payday ball and chain scam.

Anyway, on the coding front:
I added shock waves and sprite effects today. Most game dev blogs talk about... whatever, I can't bare to read them so I'm going to do you a favor and not talk about how exciting game development is.

Friendly Zombies (Artists Wanted!)

2008-06-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Do you embrace hopelessness and disillusionment? I'm Looking for 3d artists with vices. Do you have a vice that you could translate into dilapidated buildings or vicious characters?

We are located in Sacramento, CA. It would be fantastic if you lived within comfortable driving distance.

For more information shoot me an e-mail at surrender@stevemata.com (SERVER ISSUES)

Real Super Powers For Real Super Heros!

2008-06-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

One of the real payoffs with being able to drink everyone else under the table is that you always end up drinking alone, because your always the last one drinking. Some people might consider that a rewarding payoff... others won't remember it. I like to think that this power of mine will make me better at drinking and driving games.

Anyway, real games for real men. Transitioning from the directx8 fixed pipeline to the XNA programmable pipeline has been a challenge for me, but I think it's paying off. This evening I painlessly added bloom, anti aliasing and colored lighting. Exciting huh?

I sacrifice myself upon the alter of transgression - for you.

2008-06-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was looking for an apartment to live in, I stopped my car and got out to grab a flyer for a building in midtown. This old homeless black guy was pushing his shopping cart down the street at quarter pace, his cart was full of neatly folded dirty corduroys, he was wearing a helmet and carrying a forty of miller. He offered me some, it was really flat, I gave him a five and told him to get himself a fresh one and not to save it for later this time.

Anyway, here is an exciting screenshot, the whitish images on the top left show distance projections from the lights perspective and the little images just to the right show the end results before blending.

I sacrifice myself upon the altar of progress - for you.

2008-06-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

I spent the day walking hard. I drank a lot of beer and took a nap. When I awoke, I in five minutes of dogged forceful coding added support for multiple dynamic light sources, each capable of casting shadows. I like to tell the girls that I'm a coding hero and sometimes they buy it.

This isn't a screen shot of multiple lights in action. However, this screen shot demonstrates textured light projections.

Dead Channels

2008-06-21T09:37:00.000-07:00

I found myself wondering this morning if our hero is a bad guy? Project 2K8 isn't black and white, it isn't shades of grey - it's the static of a television tuned to a dead channel. Or maybe it's just the jammer on the porno channel you're to cheap too subscribe to...

You need to ask yourself, are there pictures hidden in the static? And if there are, ask yourself if you're watching the static or the porn hidden in the static?

Project 2K8 isn't going to leave you empty. Like a raw blood transfusion, when it's over, you will be glad it's over and you will never want to do it again. But it will always be there, penetrating your every action, your every reflection, skewing your perception. It will be in your mind, tuning down the contrast, adjusting your tracking and destroying your life. You will be like a bad snuff film, where you're the only actor and the only one who gets hurt.

Bringing hope to a war ravaged world...

2008-06-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

I spent the last two day working harder for a better and more masculine tomorrow. I'm learning about graphics shaders.... so I impress upon you the power of headlights vs nighttimeness and the exhilarating shadows that they imbue.

Gary has been walking hard all week - however, he has been making real progress towards the implementation of better collision detection and realistic responses to collisions. The lesser god of automotive physics and video game implementations is guiding him on his long and arduous path of outer enlightenment in the hopes of bringing hope to a war ravaged world.

Save your bullets for the living!

2008-06-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

I have transgressed, I have been shooting the zombies. Everyone knows that blades don't need to be reloaded therefor your bullets should be saved for things that shoot back (like the living). The lesser siamese twin god of zombie brutality who rides within the giant flying stone head of universal brutality and exceptional violence has smiled upon my game development endeavors. I finished up the first projectile prototype this morning. It's very efficient and it's development was accompanied by some new character sorting methods that carried over into the render system. The undead do not die, they simply become less functional. Profound huh?

I don't try - I just do

2008-06-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

That glorious time has come! The gods of game development have smiled upon me - and in turn the gods of game appreciation smile upon you. Honestly, I find any pantheon of gods far more appealing then a single god. I simply find it hard to identify with a single omnipotent god, even if that god is not only the embodiment of grace, but more importantly wrath. So for now on, Total Commitment Games is going to be a polytheistic workplace, therefor the lesser god of screen captures and pre-alpha video game marketing grants you a sneak peek behind the digital curtain of exclusivity and depravity.

I bet your pumped like an addict on his way to the crack house!

Lone or Alone?

2008-05-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Alone is an unfortunate predicament, lone is an aesthetic choice.

Ask yourself, are you alone or lone?

Surrender

2008-05-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

Escapism is the bait - transgression is the meat.

All paths end with disillusionment.

Combat Demo!

2008-04-26T07:07:00.000-07:00

I bet I tricked you for a second!

I have begun the assembly of a list of required capabilities for the combat demo. The demo includes cars, a small selection of weapons and at least four types of enemies. Expect this list to grow over the next couple of days.

Graphics Systems:
Skeletal Animation (Adapt XNA Sample)
Shadow Casting
Day & Night Cycles
Basic Weather (Clear, Overcast, Raining, Storming)
Particle Systems

Game Play:
Improve Car Physics (some more...)
Projectiles & Hit Detection

Systems:
Expanded Map File Type
Car Component Database
Improved Enemy Decision Making
New Map Data Format & New Features

Actor Content: (Idle, Walk, Run, Rifle, Pistol, Punch, Kick, Die)
Player
Zombie Type A (Day)
Zombie Type B (Night)
Human Type A (Neutral)
Human Type B (Enemy)
Dog

Weapon Content
Guns (38 Special, GI 1911, Sawed Off Pump Action, 22 Rifle, 308 Rifle)
Weapons that don't need reloading (machete, shiv, kitchen knife, iron pipe, hammer)

Map Content:
Ruined City Tileset
Additional Cars
Generic Burned Out Objects

Sound:
Vehicle
Zombies
Combat

No More Magic Numbers!

2008-04-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

Game Developers know what I'm talking about. The rest of you cretins... it's probably not worth explaining it to. But I will, because I'm caring and awesome at the same time. Magic numbers are numbers discovered through trail and error that make flawed algorithms function more appropriately.

For example, if the car is traveling way to fast, the magic number generator in my head would suggest multiplying the velocity by 0.001, and if the car is still to fast, I would add a zero and then another... or if the torque conversion is to low, I might multiply the torque output by 10 or 150.

Anyway, the upshot is that the vehicle power train no longer has any magic numbers. The engine power band is properly modeled, the transmission converts torque accurately and wheel feedback works correctly.

Real Progress for a Better Tomorrow

2008-04-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Thats right, were making tangible progress; which feels good, because so much progress in game development isn't aesthetically or intuitively tangible. A better tomorrow, probably not; project2K8 isn't going to be a friendly game. Every time you make a decision in game you will lose a little piece of your real life soul. I bet you don't believe me, but you will. When your burned out and more alone and more depressed, you will blame me. And I bet you will be thankful that I gave you the opportunity to experience my nightmarish vision.

"Like a snuff film, but your the only actor and the only one who gets hurt."

Moratorium on Screenshots

2008-04-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Thats right, I have imposed a moratorium on screenshots until content development starts.

Play Test

2008-04-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

Starting play testing this weekend - maybe.

Picture In Picture

2008-03-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

I restructured the projects rendering system to allow a very flexible picture in picture setup. Hopefully this new system will allow a more dynamic and exciting game interface.

Multiple Actors Test

2008-03-06T22:56:00.000-08:00

Occurred to me that I should probably test the system I wrote two weeks ago for handling zombies and cars, and I'm very happy that the test went off without a hitch. I suppose I could start prototyping game play, but I think I'm going to keep working on the world data format.

New Game

2008-03-04T17:00:00.001-08:00

That's right, after a half year of success induced booze related unproductive inactivity I'm making a new game! I formed the same team and were playing our B game. Are you ready for Zombies and Blood? Horsepower and Depravity? They all go together in my world. I feel good about how this game will make you feel, it's like a snuff film where your the only actor and your the only one who gets hurt.

Until a name is chosen we will refer to this game as "Project 2K8"

Sammy by Stevemata, Transport Puzzle and Maze!

2007-08-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

My Puzzle Game which is seriously the most awesome game you will ever play, as long as your a woman otherwise you will never forgive me for it. So guys, buy this game as a gift, you will make her happy and more importantly you will make me happy. Buying this game is an investment in both of our futures, one where I make B- games and one where your mom plays my B- games.