Ouch!

I tend to work like I’m superhuman… But my body begs to differ.  I slipped a disk in my lower back last week and have been unable to move since last Wednesday.  The pain has been so intense that I’ve avoided eating and have lost 10 lbs in 5 days.  It was the first time in my life that I ever begged for unconsciousness because of how painful it was to move.  And I hope that the worst has come to pass.

My schedule was hell on my body.  I tended to not sleep and work late into the night.  To force my body to keep aware and awake, I doused it with chemicals – soda, caffeine, candy and energy drinks, just to keep the rush going late into the night.  I worked all day on an office chair in a cubicle and late into the night in my home office.  I just feel like it is imperative that I get things done, as if the world rests on my shoulders.

But the one thing I know for certain, is that I won’t sacrifice my family.

My boys!

My family creates a sense of balance for me.  Whenever I get too sleepy, too tired, or too grumpy to spend quality time with my two sons or my wife, I know I’ve pushed too far and I need to slow down and rest.

The thing is, I don’t exercise at all.  My wife has been practically begging me to exercise because she is concerned about the health of my heart.  But it was my back that was first to go.

I sit all day on a keyboard and don’t do much movement.  And at night, I sit for four to six hours at night working again.  Without exercising, my back just didn’t have the strength to hold up under the pressures and demands of two small and active boys.

When it really comes down to it, if I have not the health to enjoy my family and the fruits of my labors, then my work was for nothing.

Thankfully, it was my back that gave out first and not my heart.  A heart attack would have been catastrophic.  And as it is, the prognosis looks good: I may be able to avoid surgery and it looks good for a full recovery.

In the end, I won’t let this stop me from achieving my goals at all.  It just means that when I cross that finish line, I will be also be buff enough to carry my beautiful wife and two sons on my shoulders.

And cosplay as one of the 300...

Elite Team

How does one form an elite development team without any money?  I’m probably taking the most dangerous and ill-advised route of them all…

Asking your friends to work for free. (Don’t try this at home!)

The problem with this is that people will pour an enormous amount of time, energy and resources into a game which never sees the light of day.  Most game projects simply die an ignoble death and spend eternity in “game development hell.”

So, to help curb this and because everyone’s time is important, I am first making a graphically simple game shell.  And only once the game is pretty solid will I ask for help making the art assets.  This is pretty much the same method that Jonathan Blow used for his game “Braid.”

Yeah... My art looks just as ugly.

Once I know I have a rock solid (but ugly) game.  I’ll be hitting up a couple artist friends to help me reskin the sucker and put some lipstick and mascara on the pig.

I learned my lesson from last year when I asked for art before I had a game.  A friend of mine, Jonathan Stuart, was creating art for our game before it was even fully constructed or technically tested.  We came up with a very beautiful but completely unusable prototype called Space ROX.

Beautiful Art! Technically unsound.

The game looked beautiful even at its fifth prototype iteration.  But under the hood, there were huge performance issues already arising from my liberal use of particle effects in Adobe Flash.  And while I was clonking my head in solving these technical issues, our interest and motivation fizzled and life events happened which ultimately nixed the project.

There have been countless other game projects you can find all over the place that have taken much more time, energy and effort that have come to nothing with no compensation for the time and energy wasted.  And those contentious projects can end (and sometimes have ended) friendships and ruined reputations.

Thankfully Jon is up for trying again, and he even brought along a friend: Scott Brown, who is a brilliant pixel artist as well (see top).

But this time, I’m going to finish the game first before asking for their time in making it look pretty.  No need to waste time with creating a beautiful dress, if there is no princess to wear it, or even without knowing if the dress will even fit because you have no measurements.

And to make things simple and because I have no starting capital, for our first game, we’re going to work for royalties, percentage based on number of hours spent.  So basically, we’re all working for free, but for them it’ll be working on something practically finished rather than vaporware.

Will you ever trust me again?

As for resolving Space ROX’s massive technical issue and performance limitations of Flash?  Well, not only did I figure out how to increase Flash’s performance, but I believe that Flash has the technical capability of being the gaming platform for the next decade…

My Starting Capital

It gets tiring listening to the news and feeling angry and powerless at what is going on.  So, I decided to do something about it.  I started my own game development company.

I first registered with the Virginia State Corporate Comission.  The processing to start a limited liability corporation (LLC) cost $100.  I registered myself as the sole owner.  About 2 weeks later, I got a certificate in the mail that said that I am a registered LLC and can do business in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Half-naked amazon standing on a dead man... Best... Flag... Evar!

Once that was done, I electronically filed for a Federal Employer ID Number and then with the Virginia Department of Taxation.  Both of these were free.  And I was done!  Or so I think…

I keep telling myself that it can’t be this easy or that I’m doing something wrong.  If so, time will tell, and I’ll be sure to write about it.

Now, this may sound all fancy, but in reality I own a ”Corporation of One….  Me.”

My first project is to make a Flash Game and get a good sponsor for my game.  Hopefully, I can get a decent amount of money to get a new laptop that can run Adobe CS5.  As it is, I have a decent “beater” laptop that is about 3 years old, and a bunch of free software to make a Flash Game.

I am only using all free tools to make my first game:

• Adobe Flex SDK 3.0 which runs on Java
• Flash Develop which is a free compiler for making Flash on the Flex SDK
• Paint.NET for some very basic graphic manipulation
• GraphicsGale (free trial) for some basic sprite animation
• Textpad for basic text manipulation (especially for HTML)
• FileZilla for uploading my files onto servers
• Inkscape for vector graphic manipulation

I should have everything I need to conquer the world…  Except that I can’t really draw that well.

Time to make some friends…