Game developer | Gamedev Brain

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.

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.

If You Aren’t Doing the Happy Dance, Do Something Else

Posted on July 21, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Life is not easy, being a creator makes it harder. Make sure that you are happy with what you are doing. Game development is creation, you take nothing but an idea of an experience and start typing code that to a normal human being would be unrelated and, BOOM, experience comes out. If that doesn’t make you do the happy dance, do something else.

I mean it, if you are not jumping out of your chair and dancing, or at least holding your hands in the air wanting to shout…

I’m the greatest programmer alive!!!

If it doesn’t, then maybe you have the wrong hobby. It gets rough, it gets terrible even. You will think you cannot do it. You are wrong, but only if success makes you do this…

See the only reason game development is so rewarding is because there are times where things all fall apart. It crushes you, and makes you feel very small.

The thing is, directly after that, if you make it through, you hit the highest of highs. You defeat that crushing moment and feel like king of the world. You take down what seems like a dream killer, and you elevate yourself to seemingly one of the best in the world at problem solving. You stand up on the mountain and you simply dance, mostly alone, but you dance none the less. For a moment you are in game developer heaven.

So if you are in it for anything other than this, get a different goal. You won’t make money here, unless you love it. You need to understand the highs and lows, the crushing defeats, and the elevation of the successes. Really think about game development, do you love the lows? Can you get through to the highs? When you get there will you dance?

If the answer is no, get out. 🙂

No Pressure, It’s Just Your Dream

Posted on July 20, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Well, we are getting very close to the moment where we actually unleash what our project is to the world. It is not done or anything, but up until now we have just been talking in general terms. We will be posting our full list of features and description of the game.

We think it is a wonderful idea, but it is our baby. What if the world hates it? Or worse, what if nobody ever sees it? The latter is my biggest fear. I have taken it upon myself to get the word out about our work. I’ve invested a lot of time building a foundation to help us get the word out. I would be crushed if we still couldn’t get anyone to notice that we are making a game. The pressure is on, I hope my creativity and time pays off.

It would be far better to be told that our game idea is terrible and the concept looks bad than to have it just sit there with no interest at all. At least if you hear the truth you can move on. In any case, please wish me luck in the coming days and months. I’m excited and nervous all around.

Feeling Like Awesome Is Coming

Posted on July 19, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So I am sitting here today, feeling like awesome is coming. I’ve been working very hard on this project and putting a lot into it and it does feel like it could pay off with a load of awesome soon. I have no idea what that will look like, but that feeling is cool none the less.

We have a lot of things building up to a moment where we put our idea out to the world in a larger cohesive manner. Where people can be brought into the fold of what is truly being built. It will be both amazing and scary to ask the world, hey is this great or what? Not sure what’ll happen, but it does feel like a giant delivery of awesome is about to arrive.

What I learned along the way though, is help others promote their projects so there is a vibrant community for yours to live in. So I do take time every morning to find something that deserves a delivery of awesome and do my part by giving them feedback. It is rewarding for me and them because we are all better for it. It keeps projects moving, it fuels greatness, and makes passion thrive.

So all you game developers out there, or others with great projects, keep it up. People are watching you. If you bring it to the world, eventually the world will bring the awesome to you. In the beginning you push your project, your passion, after a while it pushes you.