Ten years ago, I was just getting out of college and barely dragging myself over the finish line.  At the time, my academic record, personal life and spiritual life was in pieces.  Had it not been for the understanding, encouragement and kindness of my instructors, I would not have passed.

It was from this standpoint that I entered my professional career: with no confidence in my own abilities because I had thought that my merits were not deserved.  It has only been over the last few months that I realize how I have spent the last decade trying to prove to them and to myself that I deserved their trust.

I have been blessed with many good jobs, many good managers and coworkers, and with many opportunities for growth – professionally, personally and above all, spiritually.  Even the times when I had difficult management situations and difficult times, I now see them as opportunities to exercise patience and long-suffering.  But ultimately, I see those times as challenges meant to test my personal integrity – to say the things that no one else would say and to do the hard things that needed to be done.

Above all, I see that my marriage has been the greatest blessing for my own growth.  My marriage and my family has not only blessed me with many earthly joys and a place of spiritual healing, but also given me the most focus and inspiration in becoming the person I have always wanted to be.

Coming into 2009 was incredibly hectic.  I was working late nights and long weekends.  I had gained 25 pounds in about 4 months from all the high-stress development we were doing that was fed on soda and takeout food.  I was glad for my parents being there to celebrate Christmas and New Years, because otherwise, it would have been lonely for my wife and kids since I was rarely at home and working the holidays.  And even then, the end was still not in sight in 2009.

My team vented frustrations in many ways to keep our morale up and to prevent inertia.  One of the ways I vented my frustration was in driving my energy into developing my first published Flash Game, “Strike Eagle.”  The inspiration of my sons and my wife, the confidence I had gained over the decade, as well as the combined frustration at work gave me the impetus to finally make my first game.

I’m glad that I got the game done and had much to show for it at every step of the way.  And there are so many great people in the Flash and Indie Game Development community that I’ve met through this effort.  It certainly outweighs the lack of monetary recognition this game had, but that is my own fault for submitting it to a contest rather than trying to sell it as a license.

After publishing the game April 1^st, I only just got paid at Christmas.  I received $110.14 for the 100 hours I spent developing it (a little over $1.10/hour) but it was timely and made a great set of Christmas presents for my sons.

After April, my work shifted gears.  Development was done and so I was moved over to Operations to get our product installed, ready for use and with 24-hour call support.  This was the time I was the most prolific with my blog posts (mostly because I wasn’t sleeping.)  I was analyzing the strengths and failures of “Strike Eagle” but I was also writing posts of encouragement for the Indie Game Development scene.  It was partly because I was seeing a lot of despair for Indie Developers, but also to encourage myself that I just had to keep trying.  Sadly, I was kept so busy that I could not hunker down to program – but it was not without reason.

At that time, my wife had volunteered to make some dresses for a Steampunk Fashion show.  She had long been contemplating her career path since having our eldest son right out of college and she wanted to get into Fashion design.  So between my new work responsibilities and the odd hours I was keeping, I shifted from doing my own projects to taking care of the boys at every spare moment I had.  This freed my wife’s time to put together her fashion pieces spanning over 6 months.  She also took a couple commissioned dresses during this time which not only gave her more confidence, but seriously boosted her skills for the final push before the Fashion show.

In a span of a few short months, I saw my wife grow tremendously both in her ability and in her confidence to sew.  And I am very proud of the final products that she was able to produce for the Anime USA 2009 Steampunk Fashion show.  I even created a site for her to showcase the work she has done and her site will eventually sponsor some items that people can buy.   I am extremely proud of her and am just happy that I get to not just share in her joy, but that I get to announce it to the whole world through the Internet.

After the Fashion show in late November, I started to take some real vacation time – turning pagers off, and seriously decompressing.  It was rough for the first few weeks because I was irritated, agitated and suffered from a second bout of insomnia.  I was forced to take more time to rest and to really sleep once the whole family got sick in early December.  It was around then that I realized how much stress, anger and frustration I had been bottling in for the last year.

Even though it was a good thing that I channeled so much of my energy into projects and doing productive things, much of what I created was out of frustration and anger rather than out of joy.

I realize that it was for this reason I was held back from doing more in 2009 – so that I would not create out of anger or frustration, but to really enjoy game development for itself.

And so, I’ve started taking it a bit easier into this new Decade.  I’m going to take myself a little less seriously and poke fun at myself for it.  And that I should work hard at things that give me joy, rather than just for the sake of working hard.

Nothing fills me with more joy than knowing that what I am building makes a big difference in the lives of so many people.  And so, my first project for this decade is building a site to help build wells and fight HIV in Central Africa.  I will post a link once I have it up and running.

As for all you who have encouraged me on this blog over the last year…  Thank you for your support and kind words throughout this time in my life.  I hope to have much more to share with you in 2010.

Have a blessed and wonderful new Decade!

The shortest route to making a game meaningful for a player is really simple.  Just make it a multiplayer game.  This Copernican observation was made by prominent game designer, Daniel Cook.

Danc points out that a lot of games make a false constraint by trying to make meaningful experiences for the player through cinematics, music and a moving story.  In reality, the shortest route to create meaning is simply to get other human beings invovled in the same experience.

Kumbayah sound better in a group than alone in the shower alone

As an example, Danc points out the widely popular Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars and how it has become meaningful to people’s lives because of its social aspect.  But I think that games like Farmville and Mafia Wars fall short on creating something truly impactful.  What truly makes a game impactful is not just that a game is social, but that it gives you choices and consequences.

Many single players give you the illusion of choices and consequences by showing how your actions impact the story.  But this is artificial and fake.  You can play through every scenario again and again, and even laugh at the differences when you choose the “jerk” option rather than the “nice” option.  But you can’t take those things back when you are making a choice with a real person that has real consequences.

For instance, in Mafia Wars, you can put bounties on people’s heads and “oops you’re dead, minus some experience.”  There really is no real bite to it.

Politics through Facebook

But in this not-so-well-known Facebook game, Starfleet Commander by Blue Frog Gaming, your interactions with other players have lasting consequences.

There is an invisible choice that is made when you play Starfleet Commander that most people don’t notice.  At some point in the game, you begin to realize that the fastest way to grow is to attack other players.  It takes time, and a lot of resources to build an economic infrastructure.  And while other people are doing the same, impatience grows to take from the weaker players so that you can quickly grow.

Mine!

Unlike Mafia Wars, if you attack another player’s planet, take their resources and destroy their ships, those things are really gone.  To add insult to injury, vultures can even harvest the debris of destroyed ships as well, destroying not only your fleet infrastructure, but also the resources you put into building them.  The consequences are harsh, lasting and have cause people to switch to a safer “diplomacy” mode where everything they produce is taxed or to quit the game all together.

The ironic thing is that like the real universe, Starfleet Commander’s playing field is infinitely vast and ever expanding.  Resources are unlimited and plentiful.  What is limited is time and patience.  So the choice is made whether or not to take from others.  This is a real and lasting choice and people can and will hate you for taking what is theirs.

Isn't there enough room for all of us?

For my section of the universe, one particular aggressor kept hammering away at weaker players until he grew to an enormous size and threatened all the players in the area.  Where I was once quietly gathering my resources by myself, I was suddenly called upon by others to gather together and defend against this bully.  I found myself digging in my heels and rushing up the technological ladder to create a fleet equal to or greater than the aggressor.

For people who know me in person, I am naturally a protector.  But I never expected to experience that personality habit in a game.  I found myself growing my fleets and colonies simply to push myself to protect others.

Our alliance, “Fading Suns” came together and we made another choice.  After vanquishing this threat, we decided that we were not going to become an aggressor alliance and simply to continue to be a defensive alliance while actively seeking out to go after other aggressor “bully” players in the game – of which there are plentiful.

Nobility in war

One of my friends was completely wiped out last night.  And as I write this, he is in correspondence with his attacker asking him questions like, “Why do you do this?  Do you feel better about yourself by doing this – attacking people who are so much weaker than you?”  And the usual replies come back:

“It’s your own fault for playing so stupidly.”
“It’s just a game.”
“Life’s unfair anyway.”

My friend in his wisdom said back, “If life is unfair, shouldn’t you work at making it better rather than worse?”

I don’t think that this conversation on morality would happen over something like Farmville or Mafia Wars.

How Farmville Wars got started

Some people may laugh this off and say, “Man you are taking this really seriously.”  I really don’t think so.  I think that not enough people really like to ask the only meaningful questions in life.

Who do I make myself to be by my actions – in work, in play, at home, with others, when I am alone?
Who do I like to pretend to be – in books I buy, movies I watch, games I play?
Who am I?

Those are the only questions that really matter.  And like it or not, how you conduct yourself in play does matter.  It’s something I have to constantly tell my boys, after all.

If someone had told me that they could make an addicting game out of progress bars, I wouldn’t have believed them. That is… Until I ran into “Starfleet Commander” on Facebook.

Blow Away the Opposition in Starfleet Commander

In Starfleet Commander, you enter the universe on a small outpost in a large galaxy.  You have a small amount of Ore, Crystal and Hydrogen to build up a massive space empire and armada.  Unlike games like Mafia Wars or Castle Age, everything in Starfleet Commander happens in real-time.  Building your first levels of Ore Mines and Power Stations takes only minutes.  In later levels, it takes hours, and sometimes days to build things.  So for a lot of the time, you will be seeing a bunch of progress bars across your screen.

Is it done yet?

Yet, this is what makes the game incredibly compelling.  After a few levels of being immune in “newbie” status, you are thrown into a pretty cutthroat world.  Once you are out of newbie status, anyone can attack you and steal your resources, and harvest the remains of your fleet from orbit.

I started the game with a friend of mine who was unlucky enough to live close to an incredibly aggressive player named “Caesar.”  That player plundered most of his resources from neighbors who happened to be weaker than him.  This sparked a massive arms race which also led to an alliance formed by many players disgruntled with becoming a feeding ground.

So, these progress bars become everything – how fast your fleets can move, do raids against other players, or how fast it takes to research technologies or construct buildings that are necessary for you to climb the tech tree.  And for some strange reason, organizing fleets, transporting goods among colonies, and arranging the flow of traffic becomes incredibly compelling.

Maybe I should work for Air Traffic Control

Now, the monetization of this game is fairly light compared to the Zynga games of Mafia Wars and Farmville because you can really only buy technologies or buildings with in-game credits. So there is a limited number of places a person could “buy” their way to the top. And I have to admit, I have been tempted more than once to swipe my credit card or to take these surveys or offer deals on in their store to get ahead in the game.

However, recent news has been showing that these games are full of scam-ridden surveys and offers.

To be fair to Blue Frog Gaming who created Starfleet Commander, they aren’t part of this massive class action lawsuit against Zynga. But if anyone is considering putting money into these games, be really careful. I personally would give money directly to the companies for credits because their games are just that much fun.

And to be honest, Starfleet Commander did contribute to my insomnia.

If anyone tries Starfleet Commander out and wants an alliance to join, look up my alliance – “Fading Suns“.