Michael is a great writer and is very helpful for many of us newbie Flash developers who need help in getting started. His blog is full of great insight.

by Michael James Williams

I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on his new book, “Facebook Graph API Development with Flash“, that helps people crack into the mysterious Facebook API using Flash! Check back soon!

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“.

The first is the infamous indie game “Castle Crashers”:

The second is the company that breathed new life into the 2D genre with their breathtaking game “Odin Sphere”.  Here is their latest title “Muramasa” coming out for the Wii:

And lastly, is a company that is has owned the fighting game genre with “Guilty Gear”.  But since their publisher owns the rights to their groundbreaking fighting game and forced the game to become a 3D RTS, they have broken out and gone indie for their new IP, “BlazBlue” and have rocked the socks out of Street Fighter 4 and King of Fighters 12:

Long Live 2D!

This could have been an incredibly different story

After watching a lot of the special features and extras in the Pixar DVDs, I have a strange feeling that Pixar uses something akin to “Agile Development” methodology in their storytelling.

In the “Incredibles” deleted scenes, the villain, “Syndrome”, actually makes an appearance at the start of the movie while Violet is just a little baby.  He invades the home of Mr. and Mrs. Incredible while they are still a young couple. This scene was supposed to be the prelude to the story introducing the characters and their super powers.  It included a fully animated storyboard with sounds and voices. The dialog of Syndrome breaking into the home and capturing the family even included a mention that there was a prohibition on “supers” marrying and having children.

The final movie did not include any of this. In fact, if this was the original scene for the movie, it would have radically altered the entire story, plot trajectory, theme and mood to the narrative. This wasn’t a “deleted scene” so much as it was a complete rewrite of the entire story.  In fact, in some of the “Behind the Scenes” dialog, Syndrome was not even considered the main antagonist of the plot.  He was supposed to just be a random villain that allows the characters to display their super powers.

What Pixar appears to do is that they storyboard, voice and create the entire movie more than once and get audience feedback. This allows the storytellers the ability to refine the story ideas over and over again – scrapping bad ones, changing scene orders, and completely rewriting the story if need be. It is the “Agile Development” method of software taken to film – quick iterations, and lots of opportunities for feedback loops.

Linguini was voiced by Lou Ramano, Art and Production Design

In fact, that is how the voices for Linguini and Emile were discovered for “Ratatouille” – they were Pixar staff who did the voice work for these storyboard sessions and fit the characters so well, they kept them for the final production.

Keep in mind, this is merely conjecture from viewing a lot of “Behind the Scenes” features on the DVDs and on the Internet for the latest Pixar movies. But at the same time, I cannot help but think that a massive amount of research was done to perfect the movies that Pixar produces.

Both “Ratatouille” and “Up” stunned me in their storytelling craft. But if you attempt to describe to someone what these two stories are about, they would be incredulous to believe that someone could actually tell a good story from such a ridiculous plot premise.

It is almost as if someone at Pixar is taking bets that using their storytelling method, they can tell a good story from anything that you can throw at them: from a mouse who wants to learn how to cook in France, to an old man who strings his house up on helium balloons and wants to fly to South America.

With so much story refinement done up-front with tons of research done on audience reaction, I think that it would be nigh impossible for Pixar to make a bad movie. At worse, you won’t get a Pixar movie next year because they are still iterating the kinks out of the current story they are developing, but you will never get a bad one.

"Up" was probably created by a random plot generator

As soon as I get home and have a bit for dinner and some conversation with my wife, I spend some time with my sons, usually wrestling, sword-fighting or playing some video games together while my wife catches a break and does some cleaning up.  I bathe my sons and put them to bed.  My eldest usually goes to bed around 9:30-10:30.  My youngest usually sleeps at about 10:30-11 because he’s had multiple naps during the day.  If I’m lucky, I get a chance to spend some time with my wife before she heads to bed around 11:30, unless she is tired and sleeps early.  My wife has the toughest job – taking care of us, the house and they yard all by herself, so I’m more than happy to take care of the kids at night.  Especially because I’m a night owl and I have learned how to sleep in less than a blink of an eye.

My Saturdays are spent with my boys.  I take them to the park, to museums, or exploring in the backyard while my wife has some time alone to catch up on chores that are difficult to do with small children underfoot.  My Sundays start with going to Church and my sons and I play some more, but on a more relaxed pace than a typical Saturday outing.

As it is, my days and weeks are typically very busy.  Making time to be social with friends is already an ordeal because my wife works pretty hard to take care of me, the boys and the house and I understand that leaving to see friends is imposing more time on her on top of unfinished chores.  Even more difficult is making time to go on a date because we have to find and pay a babysitter to take care of our two small rambunctious boys and we fall even further behind on chores.

Any reasonable person would say that what I have is enough.  It already is a full-load and there isn’t any reason I should want more.  I have a beautiful wife, two healthy growing sons, a good job and we live in a great neighborhood.  Why should I pursue more?

Because I cannot not pursue my dreams.

Ever since I realized that I could punch lines of BASIC on an Apple II+ when I was 7 years old, I’ve wanted to make games.  And I’ve grown tired of making excuses why I can’t make them:

• That I’m not smart enough.
• That I don’t have the right education.
• That I don’t have the right game programming book.
• That there is some secret technique that I don’t know.
• That I lack talent.
• That I lack skill.
• And most of all, that I lack time.

Now, with a typical week like I described above, when did I make time to work on my own projects?

From about 11PM to 3AM every night, I work on my own projects.

Sometimes it is take-home stuff from my day job.  Sometimes its my own game projects or freelancing job I picked up for extra cash to pay off some debts.  Sometimes it is my own art work.  But more often than not, I am working on something in the middle of the night.  Around 2-3 in the morning, my youngest son stirs from his sleep and calls for me to comfort him.  So I hold him for a bit to let him settle down.  And more often than not, I don’t make it to bed.  I fall asleep on the couch with him and wake five hours later to my beautiful wife gently shaking me, and to the aroma of coffee close behind.

I am told that to truly be successful, you have to put in at least 10,000 hours of blood, sweat, and tears into it.  That is the difference between the merely pedestrian and those that the world would call a “genius.”  If that’s the case, then I will have to manage to put in that time now.  Otherwise, I will never realize my dreams.

I am often asked if I should be catching up on sleep.  What I love to say in response is, “I could either be asleep and be dreaming or I can be awake and be building them.”

Above all, it is most important to remember that no dream is worth building without being able to share it with someone.  I must accomplish this without compromising that which is truly important – my wife and children.  This is why I wait till everyone is asleep before I do my damnedest.

If you think 10,000 hours is just too much then you don’t want it badly enough.  And don’t begin to tell me that you can’t find the time.