Gamedev Brain

Game Development, It’s what’s for Lunch

Posted on August 2, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I tend to work through lunch. Yes, even on the weekends. The one thing that weekdays have going for them is that I actually eat a lunch. The weekend I tend to just grab the computer and start plugging away as my daughter eats her food. There is just so much to get done.

See, Violent Sol Worlds is getting close to launching a Steam Greenlight, and Kickstarter campaign both in relative closeness to each other. The thought is we will launch Greenlight first and refine anything we need to in a couple of weeks. Then launch Kickstarter and hopefully have more than my mom go to both of them. I love my mom and all, but I kinda want to have somebody other than our families support this awesome title we are making.

So I am putting together the final coding of the game-play demo, which is just a little bit more. I am also tasked with the Greenlight page which I would like done by end of day Tuesday so we can hit “GO” whenever we like on it.

Well wish us luck, and if you have not seen the game yet please go check it out, we have a webpage now – Violent Sol Worlds

Let Me Tell You Where to Go – ViolentSol.com

Posted on August 1, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Don’t get me wrong there are many places I would like to tell many people to go, but ViolentSol.com just launched. What is it you ask? It’s the web site for the game I am a part of. We are proudly moving forward with a site dedicated to it. You can see a nice little blurb about our team, and get a great description of our game.

We started off thinking our IndieDB site was good enough. But, we rethought that and created our own cool little place on the internet. I hope you enjoy it and please do comment about the game and the team. We are a very interactive team once you give us a try. Anything you want to know about the game or our team we will freely share.

Enjoy the site and I am going to go get back to working on the game. It is nearly 6am. 🙂

When People Finally Notice How Much You Are Worth

Posted on July 30, 2015 by magicrat_larry

My whole life, I have been basically passed over by the world. Not in a bad way, just in a career way. I’m often the voice in the room that says the thing that nobody wants to hear, but 3-6 months later everyone realizes it was correct. Why is it that once people finally realize the worth of myself it is either too late, or I no longer need them anymore.

The truth is, when people finally notice how much you are worth, you usually do not need them anymore, they need you. The key in business is to notice those people who are of high value quickly and acknowledge them. Don’t appease them. Acknowledge them and let them know, with pay, and gratitude, that their input is worth gold to your business.

I’ve never been able to figure out why I am one of the people who sees things as very simple and easy, but is never listened to. That is a lot of the reason why I think starting a game studio was a good idea. Who controls a game studio? Your worth is 100% apparent because you are the product. It is not the other way around where political games keep people in places, and others are just left behind.

At least I hope our studio in the end is successful and feels like home. Everyone should feel like their voice, in games, is heard. Input is king, and every idea has potential to rule the day. Games never leave anyone behind, and they make everyone feel their worth in equal measure when played.

Take time today to recognize somebody who’s worth to you is immeasurable, if you don’t they will probably out grow you.

Check out our game on indieDB – Violent Sol Worlds

Life Is Hard

Posted on July 29, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’m writing this during the middle of the day. Why you ask? Because life is hard. See I had to change my daily schedule due to the difficult nature of life. It happens. I get it. What I hate the most is when this stuff makes people truly believe that the world is almost too hard to succeed in.

There are two types of people that think life is hard. The first is the “Life is so hard, I can hardly stand it” person and the second is the “Normally life is easy, but I make my life more difficult because I interact with the world” person. I am the second person. If I wanted to I could lay back and have a simple life. I have a good job, a great family and I generally enjoy everything about my days.

I personally hate that, oo life is good, feeling and always push myself, and the world to the next level and feel satisfied doing it. So The other people, sit around waiting for an excuse to explain why they do not do anything other than what they do today. I hate that. Don’t be one of those people, please!

Do something that is hard. Make life hard. I took my normal life and said I need to do more with it. So I started fitting more and more in and now it is bursting at the seems. Not because life is hard, but because I choose the difficulty level. I choose to be a game developer chasing a dream after work. I choose to play with my child whenever I can. I choose to get up early and sleep less. I choose how difficult my life is and my life is hard and I love it.

What’s Your Game Development Dream?

Posted on July 28, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I had a nice conversation of Twitter yesterday with @berit_anderson, yeah I’m calling you out. In that conversation I was asked the following questions, “What is my gamedev dream?”, and “What would be an ideal setup for you?” Let me attack each one of those this morning.

What is my gamedev Dream?

Well to begin with, it is on my bucket list, actually the final item on it, to create a game and sell it to at least one person I do not know. Sounds dumb, but it’s a dream. Starting with that I think it has evolved from there. I am a computer programmer by trade, so I spend my days coding to save companies money. It’s not terrible, it is kind of fun usually. In the end though I am working for companies and providing value to an entity that is not a living breathing person, so I am changing the lives of people through proxy of the company I happen to be coding for.

What I believe games are is a means for me to directly change peoples lives without a proxy. In games people feel emotions, and generally get happier. What a better way to spend the last portion of my career, fulfilling my bucket list and making the world a happier place, one game at a time.

What is my ideal setup?

I have already done business before, so I really don’t want to do it again. What I want is my current job to turn into game development. I work for an amazing company OST and they have showed interest in creating games after Aaron, my partner in crime, and I told them “They have a game development company, they just don’t know it yet.”

So Ideally, we work for OST full-time on games. Right now we are in the attempt to prove to them that we are not nuts, that there is money in it, and we are the right people to attract that money by making great games.

Conclusion

I want to make games, to make peoples lives better. I do not want to be the accountant of a games company. I want to concentrate on making high quality games that people will enjoy for years. So I work my butt off trying to make that happen, daily.

If you have not seem our project on IndieDB yet, here is my shameless plug – Violent Sol – Worlds

One of Those Days

Posted on July 27, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I got up late today, and everything is taking a lot longer than it normally feels it does. So this will be a shorter one today I am sorry.

The past week has been fun though. We finally got the game announcement out the front door. Our hope is we can have some validation of the idea through a few means. Once we get validation then we will pour ever ounce of energy into it and knock it out. If you are interested in the game pleas do go check out one of these places and leave us feedback.

Violent Sol – Worlds Forums –

Game Features

Dev Forums

Violent Sol – Worlds Home –

OST Games Studio

Violent Sol – Worlds

I’m sorry this post is not more witty and interesting but it is kind of an off day.

How to be Better Than a Wild Monkey

Posted on July 26, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So, I am the king of saying things that make people cringe so here it goes, making a game is easy and takes just a small amount of talent. BOOM! Yup, just about anyone can throw down a game, game jams are a huge example of that. Don’t get me wrong, people who code games are some of the best programmers out there and anyone in business should hire them as coders. When it comes to problem solving a game programmer is tops, but it’s not that hard to make games.

So why isn’t there 5 billion different people throwing games out like wild monkeys? There are, the key is that you have never seen most of them. Yup, WILD MONKEYS! Truthfully, people throw down games like nobodies business, but hardly any of them take on the roles they need to from day one to get it out the door better than a wild monkey could.

Step 1: On your first day, define something and market it.

Step 2: On every other day, define more things and market them.

Step 3: When you hit problems market those too.

Step 4: When you take a break market that.

Step 5: When you mow your lawn market that.

Step 6: When you take a nap, market that.

Get the picture? Nobody buys games from an indie development studio. They buy the people behind it. Be alive, be engaged, be you, and tell everyone about it. Others are out there that believe in your dream so give them the information, from ground zero, on how it is you are perusing that dream. Market everything you do. Even if you don’t have a game idea yet, market the process to get one. Really, sooner or later you will be finished with something and find yourself in a sea of wild monkeys and wish you did.

Our Game Project – Top down, survival, Action, Shooter with vehicles, crafting, and an AI overlord.

Posted on July 24, 2015 by magicrat_larry

We are so close to explaining our title and unleashing it on the world. We have been painstakingly putting together the feature list and starting to commit to what we will develop for the title. It is fun, but it is a process I cannot wait to be done with.

I wanna tell you that our game vehicles are amazing physics modeled action joys to drive, and our character runs around and shoots laser guns at enemies. I want to tell you that We will have an AI overlord that will continually keep your game interesting. I want to tell you that you will be able to do all of this with your friends. There is so much I want to tell you, but can’t.

Well, the truth is all of this is speculation and rumor, but it would be cool if I could tell you. What if I could tell you tht you could craft weapons, cars, and possibly even planes? What if I could tell you about the game and start to get you fired up? That would be awesome wouldn’t it?

I wish I could tell you something about it, but I hope you will stay tuned to hear more from me about it in the future. I wish I could say building too.

Take care.

Seriously, You Are a Terrible Inefficient Mess

Posted on July 23, 2015 by magicrat_larry

You are a terrible inefficient mess, now that, that is out in the open let me reassure you it can be fixed. I know, you are saying, no way, I’m just really busy, I have no time. Yup, that is because you are a terrible inefficient mess. Just admit it like I did years ago and attack the problem, because it is a problem.

See, I bet you spend more time doing basically nothing you care about than you do on the things you love. I bet you sleep, or relax more than you need to. I bet you watch TV. I’d bet that over 50% of your waking hours, not at work, are wasted on things that you personally would say are not important. It’s true, I didn’t believe it at first either, until I spent an entire year looking at it to remove the stuff I did not care about and just leave the golden bits of awesome that is a satisfying life.

Take the time today to look at your daily actions and ask yourself, if I didn’t do this would I be less happy? If the answer is no, then stop doing it and ask yourself what you could be doing that makes you more happy. It will change everything, you will find yourself productive, satisfied, and excuse-less. You will no longer pick up 500 new things to do because they sound cool, your day will actually knowingly be full. Changes to your day will actually sadden you, because some of your golden nugget time will be taken away by changing a tire or going to the doctor.

It is something I wish I would have done from the beginning of my life. Do it now, you can find time to do the things you love. Me, I’m making games at a rate that blows most peoples minds. Filling your life with things you love, is nothing less than pure joy.

Getting Tired

Posted on July 22, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve been attacking game development like a raging bull for over a year now. What I mean by raging bull is, I get up at 5am and work for a while on it. Then I go to work. Then I come home and whenever I can I fit it in during the rest of the day until my daughter goes to sleep I work on the game. Then I work for at least another hour, collapse and go to sleep.

I enjoy the schedule, I feel very rewarded every day, but, I am feeling tired, warn down, and a bit sleepy. I think I need a weekend off. I think it will suck, but I think at this point it is mandatory. So my plan is to do nothing this weekend, maybe just keep up on the marketing stuff and sleep in, play games, and just relax. I think I deserve it.