What's in a Name?

Game Update

Still getting used to my schedule with the boys in the house which has reduced my work output substantially. I was only able to get work done with my mentor on our regular meeting time this week. We are testing to see how long it will take to finish one stage, and we got sidetracked in a good way.

We found that we had tied the stage achievements to a script that holds all of the stage names. Those stage names populate the map and are supposed to also come up on the summary screen when the stage is over. They are the boss town names on each stage. Because the job could be batched we ditched our “finish one stage” and just spent the time coming up with names for each stage.

I will confess that coming up with so many stage names can be a daunting task. Often I find that I take some references that I know and work those in while changing a small piece here or there. I wonder if anyone will get it in a few years. We had a discussion about the worry of infringing on other artistic work, but honestly the game is so underground that I don’t know it would be important enough for the big companies to care about it. We’re still a very underground project even though it is public on Steam. I always tell people it’s hard to be completely invisible on the internet just like it’s hard to get popular on the internet.

Personal Update

My family had some milestones for my sisters daughter this weekend which was nice. It was even better because my girlfriend was able to visit. It’s getting more difficult to deal with the distance, but I also think that we were pretty spoiled over the summer time. I also think at times that all the travel and time spent probably hurt some of my productivity this summer.

It’s likely that the next big step will be starting an Ebay account to get rid of some of my old nerd stuff and then push that money into my investment accounts. I’ve been pretty focused on a lot of the lessons from Rich Dad Poor Dad and so I’m trying to apply them. I’ve also considered doing some professional Dungeon Mastering and creating some sort of rental program for all my Dungeons and Dragons Dwarven Forge terrain. I’ve even looked at opening up some sort of physical hobby shop. I have a lot of dreams but I need to start executing to see what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve started to revisit the board game idea and I think I finally have something that will be fun. It has to do with making an arcade and using the worker placement mechanic made popular in the game Agricola. It’s a pretty rough game right now but I expect that it will get better quickly as I iterate on it.

Think and Make Games

Game Update

This week was an off week with my mentor Chris, but I still managed to get some work done on one of my stages. I feel some pressure, but it’s probably not enough pressure. Releasing the game to early access might have been a big mistake due to the motivation push back that I keep feeling. Something inside me says, “it’s already on Steam move on with your life.” I have to counter it by telling myself that it’s not done yet, and there is so much more I have to give.

Reducing the number of stages was the right choice. I could see myself cutting even more possibly. Maybe it would be best to work on the final boss stages and then start filling in gaps. As I think about some of the best RPGs that I’ve played when I was young they did have some sections which were filler. Padding out the time to finish the game seems OK in theory, until you don’t have the manpower to do it.

Personal Update

Most of this week was spent either working on my old board game idea or cleaning up my painting/modeling area. My office needs to get cleared out too now. It’s almost been 2 years and I had a pile of junk all over the corner of my bedroom. I cleared it to give my girlfriend a nice place to have her coffee and figured out how I could set up my painting area to watch TV and work.

I hit the Arcade Board game idea again and this time I’m going the “worker placement” route. It feels much better this time around so I’m hopeful. I really like the idea of creating mini arcade machines for the game that the player would place in their arcade. It will also use dice as patrons and have some sort of color matching system. Somehow the system of 6 elements from 6 aspects made its way into the game although this might be forcing something unnecessary. Time will tell I suppose.

Returning to normalcy with the school year in full swing means a lot of things that I need to keep in check. I haven’t been on my treadmill as much as I had been before so I need to be more intentional about that. My kids will have to pay for lunch this year, which means I had to weigh my options this week. I’m not able to see my girlfriend as much as I had been over the summer, and she’s been having a hard time lately. I wish I could be there for her more easily. The long distance part of this relationship has made things more difficult in many ways.

I started reading the book “Think and Grow Rich”. In the book they talk a lot about believing in what you are doing or you will limit yourself. Although the book is primarily about making money I extended it to what I’m doing to get this game done. I have to believe that I have something great on my hands. I have to know deep down that the game will be something that people will love and understand. Simply put if I don’t believe in what I’m doing than no one will. Tony Robbins also talked about this with his idea of watching the language patterns that I use. I’ve even noticed it in other people. Often when someone says something like, “why do I always have bad luck” they will inevitably attract bad situations and play the victim. The book talks about when people were about to give up on things many times they were so close to greatness. I have to believe that about this game. Like I said if I don’t then no one will.

Teaching the Next Generation

Game Update

Still working on stages for the game and feeling like I’m gaining some momentum. I need to create a habit around sitting at my computer every day to become more productive. I took time this past week to prepare for a Dungeons and Dragons game that I was the Dungeon Master for, which I am partially doing to learn more about story telling.

I also started the process of teaching my oldest son how to create stages in an effort to get more work done. I’m hoping that it will be an improvement overall, but it might not work in the long run. I’m expecting that it will take four times as long to create a stage with him compared to doing it myself. But if I do it well enough even if he is making stages more slowly they are getting done. On the other hand if they aren’t up to snuff we can always make them bonus content for a random stage generator that I made. It will randomly pick stages for the player to play, it doesn’t randomly generate the entire stage.

We also ran into a new problem which is the dependencies that are require in every stage in order to use our now choice system, and display messages to the player in general. I will probably go through all the stages and add it before getting back to the meat of level development.

Personal Update

School has begun and there were a couple of growing pains but overall it seems to be going well. This year I will have to pay for school lunches which means that I will have to do some additional work that I didn’t have to deal with during the pandemic. My time this last week wasn’t just occupied by preparing for Dungeons and Dragons it was also spent working on some nice shelves for my board game collection. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while and I finally pulled the trigger on some shelves from Sams.

Things are good with my girlfriend. She was able to break away to visit the boys and I this weekend. She’s so good to me. She helped me get ready and even played some Dungeons and Dragons with my friends and I. We had a small family crisis related to some upcoming holidays but we worked it out. It’s important to make sure to take a leading position when problems come up.

Less is More

Game Update

This week I worked out what it would take to build all the levels for the game to get it to market, and the outlook wasn’t great. I promised 30 stages primarily to match up to content that I have seen before. The issue is that forcing myself to create this number of stages is a lot like forcing musicians to create 15 tracks when they really only put their heart into 4 of them. So I reduced the number of stages in an attempt to increase the quality. It doesn’t mean that we can’t add more stages and content later but for now this is the decision that has been made.

The current plan is to complete a new stage every two weeks, however this isn’t the whole story. Right now I have five passes that I go through to make each stage. Each one of these passes has further components. All together there are about 15 items that need to be completed. Some items take a lot longer than others and I’m still worried about the plot line for the game.

It’s likely we will complete a lot of the basic structure for stages first and then move on to completing the plot line next. I expect more work will be done with our new decision system. An interesting decision that I saw in the original Ogre battle is on Stage 2. The first boss says, “It’s not to late to turn back, will you join the empire?” If the player says yes the game actually ends and goes back to the start screen, and the default option is yes.

If anything I have my work cut out for me. It was a sobering moment to lay out all the work in front of myself. I need to re-focus and get moving on this. I was hoping to give myself more motivation to get things done and this might have done that.

Personal Update

Having the boys back in the house has been good for my productivity, but it takes more time and energy out of the day to keep things running here. Still They are doing a good job at helping with the household chores. I’m hoping that I can teach my oldest how to make levels so that he can help out with the work load a bit.

Things are still good with my girlfriend. We are growing together and discovering deeper and deeper parts of each other all the time. Sometimes these things can be painful and difficult to work through but in the end its worth it to feel this vulnerable with someone. There are times that there are issues, and we don’t figure it out until much later. Communication has been key to get to where we need to go, and I have faith that she’s the one for me.

Back to School

Game Update

Still working on the first pass of all the levels for the game. It might be something where I should do them in small batches of 5-10 instead of tackling them all in one go. It takes a fair amount of time to do each pass and there are 8 different passes.

This week I moved from a hilly forest city to a more coastal one. Luckily I had recently visited a city which was key for some of the inspiration on this stage. The history of one site had multiple forts protecting a small waterway to shipyards. This was an interesting idea so I took that and built it into the stage. It’s nice when I can be inspired by something real world.

Personal Update

My boys are all back in town now after a grueling driving weekend. It might have been one of the more difficult drives this last time due to traffic, weather and a pretty unsavory stay at one of the worst hotels I’ve been to in my life. It was so bad I actually felt like I let my boys down by staying there. Luckily we are all back home safe again.

It’s kind of crazy how much my attitude and focus shifted automatically now that they are at home. I actually thing I will be more productive with them around instead of less. That’s kind of a crazy thing because I typically spend a lot of time correcting them which eats into other things I would be doing. I find that when I am alone that I am much more lazy sitting down on the couch to watch tv, and not get much done.

I’m not unhappy about my productivity this summer. I managed to complete 2/3 major items I was aiming for which is great. I expect that this will help me continue to improve our lifestyle here at home, and eventually it will pay off in other ways as well.

I’ve been thinking about how much time I have with my boys lately. I think it might be time to start to focus on pouring into them a bit more. My oldest son has taken real interest in game development and has given me some really interesting ideas for the game. I hope they will make it in one day but for now we are primarily focused on building all the content. I can’t wait to put him on a stage and turn him loose to see what he can do.

I miss my girlfriend terribly even though it’s only been a week since we were able to be together. She’s so supportive and good to me. We will be slowing our visits a bit during the school year but plan to make time each month to meet up. It’s nice that we are now in a place where we can be around each others children. I can’t wait to get involved with her through all of the children’s birthdays and all the holidays that are just around the corner. Our one year anniversary is coming up which is quite a milestone for both of us. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us next!

Switching Gears

Game Update

Moving away from making new features and switching my focus to level design has been difficult. It’s a different mentality to start going through a process to build each stage. I need to be more intentional with getting it done. I need to set aside time to work on it each day.

I’m getting my oldest son more and more involved. He has a lot of great ideas, but a lot of them would require new features. Still it’s good to see him show an interest. It’s something we can share together. I think it will be an important step to help him understand the construct that we have and how to work with it.

Often we think, “if I only had this thing, then this task would be so much easier!” Most of the time having lots of options just leads to analysis paralysis. If I only had more colors, or more sounds, or more tools, etc… I find it’s a lot easier to create with a more limited palette. It pushes me to get more creative with what I’m doing to make something work.

Personal Update

I took a couple of days off work to have a bit of a “staycation” with my girlfriend. I’m so happy for her continued support for me. We did some local traveling when the weather was cooperating. She wanted this weekend to be a weekend of firsts for us.

She took me to a couple of restaurants that I hadn’t tried out before close by on Orange Beach. Very picturesque being on the coastline for lunch. We also spent some time watching a dating elimination show on TV. She said she liked how I would analyze the social dynamics of the situations. Of course I know a lot of times reality TV is highly produced and not real at all but it was a fun indulgence.

I introduced her to Dungeons and Dragons, running a fun game for my friends and her. We worked through the first six scenarios in the Dwarven Forge “Caverns Deep!” modules. I’m happy to say that everyone survived for now, and I think there is enough interest to run the next couple of encounters. It’s been a long time since I have run a game, but I feel like I did a decent job. It’s kind of interesting because it’s a lot of prep work and I’d say they only saw about one quarter of what they could have found. Still I think it was a lot of fun, and my girlfriend did a great job getting into it by adding a lot of flavor to the game.

The Enemy Speaks

Game Update

This week we completed work on a system that will intercept combat and display text. The combat will then continue after the text has been advanced and completed. I didn’t expect that we would get this working so quickly. It’s possible that I didn’t want it to be done. This marks the last feature I promised myself we would build before going into level design to get the game out of early access into full access. I think I’m trying to hold on to what I have again instead of moving forward.

Completing this feature means that I need to go full on into level design, but that means so many things, and it’s been so long that it will take some time for me to switch gears. I feel push back as I make excuses and distract myself with other daily chores. It’s frustrating because I know that this is the best time to be working on this as I don’t have the distraction of my children right now.

I think what I will do is work in multiple passes and try to “batch” jobs. The passes might look something like this -

• Build terrain for each stage along with towns/town names

• Build movement zones for stage

• Choose enemies for stage - build squads

• Build plot line/story for stage including boss character

• Test stages

I think that some of these steps might be done better in a different order however. It’s possible that I should build the plot line for each stage, while drawing a map and setting town names before I start moving things around in the actual game.

I have so much time, there’s really no excuse at this point not to get it all done. I’m spending some time looking into story telling. Often I found that when I would pitch the game I would say, “it has a bad story.” I need to fix this belief by building something that I can actually feel good about. Now that I can have the boss troops, or even other troops speak prior to combat I should have all the tools I need to make this happen.

One side note however. We do not have the ability to have the boss speak to the player when the stage is completed. If we were able to do this it might open things up to allow for recruiting/sparing the life of the boss after they are defeated. Maybe there is one last feature I should think about, but for now I will start re-focusing on level design.

Personal Update

My oldest son and I have started to bond over the game. He’s sending me all kinds of ideas for achievements and combat functionality. It’s nice that we are able to work together like this. Who knows maybe we will build something successful and he will be able to take over the company at some point. He really likes the idea of “Dark Ritual” from last week. He wants to make an “evil meter” that will replace the reputation meter. I suppose that would be possible, but I’m not sure it's necessary. The rest of his ideas have to do with stats like how many enemies have been defeated etc…

Next weekend I’m spending some time with my girlfriend, which will be a lot of fun. She always has a way of encouraging me and helping me focus more. I’m really thankful to be dating her, although we have both had our trials this year. It always means a lot to me when we have time together. Some recent tragedy’s close to us have made us appropriate of the life we have.

Happy 4th of July!

Game Update

We now have the ability to launch any script from text and so I created some functions for future use. Some of them will likely get used in other scripts instead of being directly used from chat. Two of the first functions I created had to deal with adjusting alignment for troops slightly. I created one called “charity” that costs 100 gold and raises alignment slightly. The second one I called “dark ritual” which will also cost 100 and reduce alignment a bit more. As an addition it will also increase the attack power for the troops to make it more enticing.

As a general idea I want it to be easier to have evil characters than good ones. It should cost more to be a “good guy” and it shouldn’t necessarily be a good guys come out ahead in the end situation. I’m not sure if this is the correct way to go but it feels reflective of society. I could be wrong.

The next major upgrade will be the ability to launch dialogue as an interrupt right before combat launches. In this way we will be able to do things like boss dialogue to add more character to the game giving the player a little more to hang on to. The player needs to have information to know why they are taking action as well as the lore of the game.

Personal Update

I got to take some time away this weekend with my girlfriend to go to an amusement park. It’s been a long time since I have been on a roller coaster probably 10 years or so. It was a little bit of a wake up call when I think I had a half black out on one of the rides. I suppose roller coasters are more of a young mans game. Still there were quite a few that I really enjoyed.

Advances in roller coasters being so different makes me wonder how I might need to advance the technology for the game too. I like to think that I’m already doing that by making the game faster, changing the way healing works, and the aspect system in general.

Meaningful Choices

Game Update

Things are really moving along as we finished an update to the dialogue system that will allow me to launch functions from our towns. We can create any function and then type the name into a yes/no dialogue box to make it happen on the yes or the no. This means we can now create choices that will raise or lower money, reputation, and even effect the interacting squads stat lines during stages. That’s kind of a big deal as prior to this we had no way to allow the player to directly impact alignment of troops.

The next major thing to add on will be some sort of boss dialogue system which will allow the bosses to chat with the player before combat starts. This should only happen one time per stage. I don’t think it will be to hard to also allow the player to recruit some of the bosses after they defeat them. We can also base this on some factors and that could change the players reputation as well.

If we can do that then we might also allow players to acquire beasts for their army as well, which would further add to the options allowed when building out the army. I was thinking about creating some sort of invisible wandering monster system to handle this, but the dialogue system might also work.

Stages can be re-played over and over again, which means that players could potentially grind specific locations to change their stats around. In order to balance this I think that I will make gaining one stat reduce an opposing stat. Something like gaining more damage might reduce defense for a troop etc… It should make for some interesting choices for sure.

Personal Update

We set up a date for my boys to return which is good as I do miss them. I really hope that I got enough work done while they were away this summer. I had a list of goals I wanted to accomplish while they are away. One of which is finishing all the levels for the game. I could do better at being a bit more intentional in this area. The last time I blocked out time to do level work it all went to fixing the live version of the game to get the achievements working which was also very important.

My girlfriend is here with me this weekend which has been a very nice relaxing time. It’s so important to be with someone that builds you up and adds to your situation. She does that very well. We talked earlier about how much we appreciate how easy the relationship is.

Having the boys away means we can take some time to clean up their rooms too. I’m so blessed to have a good house keeper to help me make headway in that area. Working every day makes it hard for me to come home and have the energy to tackle their messes. I was also able to frame some nice pictures for the boys that I picked up when I worked the Momo Convention about a month ago.

Happy Father's Day!

Game Update

I keep saying that I’m going to get the achievements working and every week there’s a new problem that comes up. Still I think it’s important to post my embarrassment to keep my motivation high to get it done. I’ll take another look at it this week and hopefully we will get it together soon. The latest issue is creating a second version of the game that accessible from Steam. Something that might have some possible issues with it.

Building the new text system is also progressing as we are now able to pass arguments from the text box to trigger what we want, but we need to build the machinery to handle those things we want to do. For non-technical people an “argument” is something we can put into a function to get different outcomes. I like to think of it a lot like putting coins into a soda machine with a “return value” being the soda we receive from a soda machine.

I need to start plunking away at the levels in the game, setting time aside to do that. I have tomorrow off work and so I need to put in at least an hour or so. Maybe I need to start a new habit to sit at my computer each day. The problem is that I have a lot of competing priorities. Like I always say though it’s important to have enough evidence that you are what you say you are. If I really am a game developer then I will find time to make the development happen.

Personal Update

Good week for me overall. It was really nice not to be traveling for once. I really needed to have this time to take care of some things at home. I had been looking at a lot of shelves for my board games and it got really annoying so I moved on to other things.

Interestingly my neighbors were throwing out a perfectly good shelf unit which worked perfectly for all my Dwarven Forge stuff. It was quite a heavenly blessing. Tony Robbins talks a lot about having an “hour of power” which starts off with some exercise, then goes to gratitude, and finally to daily focus. I have to say this was quite a blessing for me, although I know it won’t be the final product where I will land.

Fathers Day today was such a blessing to be able to spend it with my parents. I jokingly said that I should probably spend it with my dad because I missed the last 22 with him. It’s crazy thinking back about how much family stuff I missed over the years by joining the military.

My girlfriend is at a baby shower this weekend and it’s been good for her with the adults but there are some other entities that seem to have a goal of making it miserable for her. It can be difficult dealing with your own family at times, but it’s important for us all to realize that we get to decide when we want to be happy or bothered by something. We have that control, and so it’s important to go easy on ourselves and set attainable goals for our own happiness. If we say to ourselves, “I won’t be happy until…” then it’s likely we are setting ourselves up for a really bad time which will reflect poorly on us and make people not want to be around us.

My parents gave me some old items from my high school days and there was a journal. This journal was read by my teacher, and so it’s not all my thoughts from the time. Still I remember some of the other things I was thinking that I held back at the time when I read it. I came to the conclusion that I really don’t like who I was back then. You would think that I didn’t have any friends or if I did I didn’t care about them. Very self centered, very entitled complaining about other people not paying attention to me. It was very much a taking mentality. We all have that to some extent.

It reminded me that I need to continually guard against those things, and I should also be aware when I see those qualities in others. Being abundant and giving while still maintaining boundaries is so important. I still don’t think that the young me would have been receptive to those concepts though.

Unfinished Airplane

Game Update

We attempted to put a second “unstable” build on Steam to test the achievements. I’ve been so busy that I wasn’t able to test it until tonight. It looks like the second build isn’t active yet and so I have some more work to do. I’m sure I will get it working this week.

We started moving the needle forward on the advanced text system which will add a lot to what we are able to do in the game. Creating player choice in the stage to effect reputation, troop stats, and other future ideas will do a lot for the game. Once I get everything working I can move on to building more levels out.

Personal Update

The last couple weeks have been pretty busy. I’ve been away so much that I kind of missed my house, and I think I fell behind on keeping things in order. Dropping off my kids, doing the convention, and visiting my girlfriend have kept me very busy. It will be good to refocus for a little while. The to do list is pretty long for this summer and it feels like it’s already flying by so fast.

There were a couple of difficult moments with my girlfriend, but I’m so happy to be dating her. It’s the healthiest relationship that I’ve ever experienced. She often tells me how much she appreciates my patience. I had the chance to meet her family recently, and it went well. It was nice to be depended on to support her in that moment. I think it’s really important to be there in the good times and the bad. Relationships aren’t just about all the good times.

My parents moved into the area recently. It will be good to have them close by as I haven’t lived close to them for my entire military career. As I was moving them in I found something that made me realize something. It was a model plane I had when I was much younger.

I remember asking my dad to put it together with me. I wanted to put an engine in it and fly it around. He told me the engine would rip it to pieces. We never put it together. When I found it in his house shipment I simply told him it was mine and I’m taking it. Maybe it’s a little ridiculous to have something like that unfinished bother me as a grown adult. It makes me want to try harder with my own boys. I could say yes more to my boys.

New Habits

Game Update

Most of this week was spent preparing for my trip to take my boys to be with their mom for the summer, but I did manage to select some icons I think will be great for achievements. I spent my mentor hour looking at a bunch of options this week. Things like this would be easy for someone to point to and say something like, “it was wasted time or we didn’t get anything done.” The truth is that this is time that needed to be spent to get it right in a thoughtful way.

I’m hoping to build some new habits as quickly as possible to become more productive at getting things done. I’ve said before that I wanted to get all the levels built, the achievements into the game, and a new dialogue system which will allow for yes/no options that could effect game play. There’s little excuse to get it done now with the boys away. Still I remember that last summer I built up some bad habits around coming home, watching tv, and going to bed. This year needs to be different.

I’m considering the idea to start streaming my game development time, and possibly some video games too in the future. It would also be cool if I could stream some board games as well. I spoke to my girlfriend about it and what it would mean for the time that we spend together. She seemed supportive and so I will see how I can work it out.

I really hope that I can get my three main goals finished quickly so that I can start adding even more little things to the game. It would be great to get some feedback from players that have purchased the game and so if you have any ideas that you would like to see in Six Aspects I want to hear from you!

Personal Update

It is both a relief and an empty nest feeling to have the boys away for the summer. On the one hand I don’t have to deal with all the crying and petty squabbles. On the other hand having other people around while I’m doing something feels good. I think it’s because I grew up with a big family and often I would be doing my own thing in my room. I would be working on a Lego Castle, painting miniatures, or making my own game to play.

I’m looking forward to this summer with my girlfriend. We don’t have a lot of firm plans on specific events other than to see each other often. It’s a relief to have arrived at a place where we are so comfortable with each other now. I hope that we can keep growing to become stronger than we could by ourselves.

Next week is MomoCON. I will be working the Japanime Games booth which is something I have missed doing for the past couple of years. In years past I have worked for Ninja Division, which is what gave me an in with Japanime. They make some great Deck Builders with Heart of Crown being one of my all time favorites. If you will be at the convention come and say hi! I will be giving away free steam keys for Six Aspects for anyone that asks me while I’m there. I will also try to tweet some fun stuff, and post one or two things to my Instagram. I am Errantsquire everywhere on the internet.

Steam Achievements are a Go!

Game Update

We managed to successfully test our Steam Achievement for the game this week and everything is working! Now we just need to author all the achievements for the game so that players will have something to earn. I have a couple of ideas for some things to add. Here is a list:

• Each Level

• Game Completion

• Starting the game

• Filling out every squad with 7 troops

• Filling out one squad with 7 troops

• Making a certain damage number

• Making a certain amount of money

• Finding hidden levels

• Creating one of every class

I Guess we could go on an on with ideas for a while. I also need to create specific icons for the achievements. Right now I’m using a bottle that is empty and then gets filled. That might work for now I suppose. I’m not sure if I can find something that is more in line with the theme of the 6 Aspects however. I could have some Aspect related achievements too. Something like having all the same aspect on a squad etc…

I’m getting read to work Momo con at the end of this month for Japanime games. I have some new business card ready to go for when I am off the clock with them. It should be a great time to meet some people and work on my elevator pitch. I might do some game key give aways at the convention too.

Personal Update

Visited my girlfriend this weekend. I had to travel a bit to get to her, but it was well worth it to take the boys to a different place. They had a lot of fun at her house while we were there. I’m so thankful to have her in my life, and I hope that we keep moving forward with our relationship. I’m glad I was able to do this before the boys are away for the summer. It was very important to me. I’d say the highlight of the trip was including the girlfriend in a long running legacy game that I have been playing with my two oldest sons.

When we returned home we found that the board game “Cash Flow” and the expansions for “Root” had been delivered. I’m super excited to dive in to both of these. My oldest son couldn’t wait and so we set up a game of Cash Flow and played a couple of turns. I hope that it helps me get more financially smart about the way I handle money.

My boys go away for the summer soon and it’s always difficult. I have a bunch of things on my list to do while they are away though. One of the top things will be getting all the levels built out for the video game along with the all new choice system. There are some other household items that need to be taken care of as well too. I’m also looking to work out a bit more and get back into running.

Steam Achievement Summer

Game Update

Getting closer and closer to making our Steam Achievements work in game. This week we were able to get a test achievement working for the test game in steam. We didn’t see the pop up for it, and we’re still trying to figure out the connections to our game. There’s probably something small that we are looking over with the API.

I need to set aside time to start plugging away at the levels for the game. As a single dad I find that I have a lot of demands on my time, and I’m trying to work out every day now too. I feel tired pretty often by the time I get home and make the boys dinner each night. Often if I sit for to long I fall asleep.

I think I might have lost a little motivation to keep pushing forward. I need to set specific days to focus and get things done where I will throw away distractions for small chunks of time to be productive. I want to start streaming again but I don’t think that I’ll be able to until the summer time.

Personal Update

The boys go away to be with their mom for the summer in two weeks. This year I plan to be a lot more productive than last year. Thinking back I was productive last year too, but my relationship at the time kind of hurt my productivity, and for to many nights I would come home watch TV and go to bed. I need to recognize the habits I’ve formed when the boys are at home are different from when they aren’t here.

Last year I played some D&D at my local game store, but my board games nights kind of fell off. This year I have just met some people at work that want to have an active board game night and so that should be helpful. I’d like to run one of the module’s for the Dwarven Forge terrain that I own.

Things are still going strong with my Girlfriend, this month will be seven months which is the longest relationship I’ve been in since my divorce. We’ve made it through some trials already, and I’m sure there are more on the way. It’s good to have someone that really wants to be supportive and build me up. I need that encouragement.

I’ll be working Momo Con this month and was thinking about making some tee shirts with the company logo’s on the front and the Six Aspects logo on the back. It might be something cool to have to promote my game. I have to look into pricing though to figure out if it would be worth it or not. I really need to get some new business cards minimum.

I’m getting pretty annoyed with all the clutter in the house. I need to de-clutter things and figure out how to organize multiple areas. I’ll be targeting my board game collection, my miniatures painting area, and my retro games area. Eventually I want to fit a pinball machine in the house when I entertain for game nights, but these other things need to come first.

Learning to Sell

Game Update

Still working on getting Steam achievements working in the game. We are maybe a breath away from getting it working which is very exciting! After this is completed we will work on implementing a new system to say yes/no at the end of dialogue which will effect various things in the game like the reputation meter, the stats of troops in the squad making the decision etc…

Spent some time this week personally engaging a lot of friends, and family on the video game. I offered most of them a free key and to my surprise many of them said they wanted to pay for it to support me. It’s always nice to be validated that way. It’s also good to get some selling experience in with people I know before moving into a cold audience. Every sale is money in the company that didn’t exist before so that’s very important.

I spent some time engaging with a marking friend of mine to see what we could do on the shoestring budget that I’m working with. It’s good to make connections with people that can be a true ally for you. You want people that believe in what you’re doing.

I have some target numbers for sales and also for wish lists on Steam now that it’s there. I really want to focus hard to get all the levels done, along with the steam achievements early so that I can move on to polish and maybe one or two new mechanics.

It would be great to add something into the game like a system that let’s the player have a little more control in combat. Maybe give the player the option to run away. I also want to create a system to allow the player to recruit monster type troops into their army for use later. It would be easy to do invisible wandering monsters as well for this purpose. I keep going back and forth on how I want to do items, and I’m leaning toward making them all consumable with a benefit and drawback to all items. I really want people to think when they make item decisions.

It would also be great to have some sort of army wide system like the artifacts in the game Slay the Spire. Maybe if we made some sort of “banner” system for squads. I love old Warhammer and I feel like Standard Bearers, and musicians would be super cool although I would need to get some 3D models specifically for those. Even better would be the ability to have graphics that changed on the Standard Bearer depending on the banner in use. This might be the only swappable items allowed.

Of course all these features are not set in stone, just some things that I’ve been thinking about off and on for a while now. There are a bunch of other ideas I have as well. I hope that the community for the game picks up soon so that I can get a direction for what people want to see things go so I can focus in that direction.

I added a new Policies section to the website which is specifically in place to let the press know about how we will handle Steam Keys for press entities. It’s still a work in progress and so it might change in the future. I guess it’s better than nothing.

Personal Update

Dealing with some various household items lately. Lawn care, HOA fees, special programs, and end of year paperwork. I swear it never ends sometimes. The boys have been stepping up their help around the house when I ask without complaint so that’s been good overall. Sometimes I feel like they aren’t getting enough of my time.

I listened to a motivational speech by Steve Harvey on YouTube this week. I had no idea he was a Christian until I heard that. I also had no idea the trials he went through to get to where he is now in television. I found out that he had a stutter and other speech problems when he was younger, and was homeless living in his car at one point. I’ve been trying to surround myself with a lot more stories like this. The typical “overcoming adversity” story. I feel it’s more encouraging than listening to all the things that are wrong lately. I still indulge in some of that from time to time though.

In Steve’s motivational speech he said something interesting to me. He talked about having a vision board of 300 items. Something to look at every day to focus on. A reason to keep getting out of bed. So I took it to heart and started building my one vision board list on my phone. So far I have a little over 200 items. He wasn’t kidding when he said that when you get to about 75 items that it will get tough. At some point I found that I ran out of things that I selfishly want for myself. I started putting things on the list that were more about my family, girlfriend, and her family on there. I’m not sure what effect it will have, but I’m all for putting things into practice to see how well they work for me.

I think that the idea is that if I look back a year from now I will see how many of those things on the list actually came true. Part of it is just believing I can do something. It’s a way to start combating limiting beliefs that I have about myself. On the gaming front I said that I want to eventually create a local multi-player, and online multi-player game. I also said I wanted to employ 1000 people. I still honestly love paying people and taking care of them. If anything that’s why I want to be successful. I hope that never changes about me. A little more selfish gaming stuff I said I wanted a pinball machine and a Dance Dance Revolution.

I guess we will see how well this works in a year from now. It’s really tough coming up with 300 things. I’m hoping to have it completed soon.

Finally Steam Release! But G2A Grifters...

Game Update

This week I finally released my game on Steam. I did it on the 22nd again, which I rather liked. The launch wasn’t without it’s hiccups though. I thought I had everything ready to go but it turns out that some of the items like the price, and a system match for the specifications became a problem at the last minute. Luckily I had a friend that was trying to buy the game who messaged me. I managed to fix it and launch on the 22nd but it was later than I had originally planned.

It was exciting to finally see a button to buy the game below it. I was a little afraid about what might happen next. I did a lot of tweeting on Saturday and had a lot of responses which felt nice, but it didn’t really translate to a lot of action. I feel like I need to figure out how to promote properly.

On Saturday my game was on a list of new “Turn Based Games” with a small blurb about it that I didn’t write. This made me feel good, like someone was taking notice even without me directly engaging them.

Then something weird happened. I had 3 form submissions on my website by random people claiming that they would “review” my game if I gave them 3-5 keys for the game. I had heard of this before. Basically they claim that they will review the game, but what they really want is to take the keys and re-sell them on some websites. G2A is the largest website that sells keys like this. It’s important to know where your keys are going when you give them away. I feel like it’s a little crazy to give more than 2 keys to a reviewer as well.

I suppose I just need to buckle down and finish the levels and keep moving forward. There are some other features that I’d like to get in as well, but I can’t do that until I have the main meat of the game together. I also need to get these achievements working. My oldest son is looking forward to that a lot and so I can’t let him down.

We did manage to fix 2 bugs right before the game released. We fixed a problem in which the escape button wasn’t exiting the stages. We also fixed the pop up title for the game which had a grey box instead of a graphic to show the game. I expect we will move back to figuring out achievements now.

Personal Update

I’m not sure if I was sick this past weekend or just exhausted. It’s possible I had some mild depression symptoms from releasing the game. It was hard for me to enjoy things or want to get out of bed. I kind of expected this to happen so at least I was aware of what might be happening to me. Still I managed to do my normal things like board game night and pizza on Friday, some lawn work on Saturday, and church on Sunday. I would like to have been more productive but had a hard time.

I say it again and again to people, but I needed to take my own advice this time. You will never win the comparison game. There will always be someone bigger and better. I did some comparing of my game to people in a similar boat. I don’t know their full situation but it was a bit frustrating to see that they had more reviews for their game and a successful Kickstarter around the time I started on my project. Their game hasn’t been released yet which made me feel good until I realized that they are already far ahead of me due to the publicity they have compared to me.

It’s hard not to care about people noticing the things you do. It’s hard to keep working when you feel like you should be further along than you are. You start to think that you will never get there no matter how hard you work. It’s difficult to be free from outcomes in that way, which causes problems.

I can’t give up though, I have a handful of people that believe in me, ones that want to see what’s next. That has to be enough. It is enough for me.

Happy Easter!

Game Update

We managed to get Steam to run in a script this week which is a step forward. It threw an error when the Steam client wasn’t running but cleared itself when it was good to go. I should probably put the game on my Steam non-development account with a developer key to make testing a bit easier. I think the next step will be creating out first achievement and testing it. Other Steam integrations will need to be tested as well.

Last week was busy with work etc… I’ve barely had time to breath lately. I need to start working on the next stages, but it feels like I might be getting in my own way of doing it. I should remember what I read in the book “Atomic Habits” and find time to do it for just one minute, then go from there.

After we get the Steam achievements working it will be down to building levels and maybe seeing what we can do about creating in client resolution settings, instead of using the Unity launcher to do that. Beyond that I still need to build out the dialogue systems to manipulate numbers, and trigger a yes/no decision.

Personal Update

Easter was this week and I was so happy to have my girlfriend and her kids visiting me this weekend. I hosted an Easter Egg Hunt for my local family members and so they got to meet them as well. We spent a lot of time on the beach this weekend, and the weather could have cooperated a little more.

My parents are moving to the area which will be nice as I only spent time with them sporadically over my time in the military and for a couple of months when they helped me transition. It’s kind of crazy the difference between the housing prices where the live compared to here. I suppose the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” says it best when it talks about how money really is an idea and it’s all about what you think something is worth.

My son has a field trip this week for his school. I’m lucky that my work schedule will allow me to attend it with him. The school needs every child to have an adult with them, which is kind of crazy if you think about it. I can’t imagine that a lot of parents would be able to take off work for that, and even in two parent homes if they have a younger sibling they are saying that they can’t bring them with. It seems pretty narrow to me.

The game release on Steam is around the corner, and I’m glad that some of my friends say that they will support me with a purchase. It’s nice to feel validated in that way. I think I’m still bracing for impact as the date approaches. Hopefully I can get some momentum started and build out the rest of what’s needed for the full release.

Even so, the landscape for games is such that I want to add even more after release, but time will tell what will get done and what won’t. Every time I look at what I’ve accomplished, I’m very pleased with it. I have an industry buddy that hates the aesthetic that I have in the game. As I look at it, it just feels like it’s different than the other games that are out there, which I like. I kind of wish I had better trees in the game though.

I’m hoping to relax and re-center this week to focus on the next steps. The boys will be away for the summer soon which will hopefully allow me time to catch my breath a bit.

Achievement Difficulty

Game Update

Doing my best to integrate Steam into the game to add achievements before the Apr 22nd launch and I’m having a hard time getting it working. It would seem that the script for integration with Steam is written in C++ and so we have to use what’s called a “wrapper” to access it using the C# library that is native to Unity 3D. The issue right now is that it’s not finding the library in our scripts properly which is making things rather difficult.

Once we do get the achievements working we will most likely have low hanging fruit ones like finish the game, finish the level, damage, healing, discovery, etc… It will be nice to have stuff like that working, and I think players will really like trying to “catch them all”.

In more positive news the game is fully ready for release. We have cleared the final Steam quality control check which was held up as we had claimed partial controller support. This can only be claimed if the game was compatible with an X-box PC controller or something comparable. I took this claim away and we are good to go now.

Personal Update

I spent most of the week agonizing about my taxes, but I found a solution which was a major load off. If that weren’t enough apparently my lawn made some of the neighbors frustrated so I’ve had to re-double my efforts out there. It’s taken a lot of extra energy to take care of it and I’m not sure when I’ll have it all done exactly. With Easter coming up next week it’s likely I won’t be getting much done next weekend. The terrain outside my house is irregular to the point that my lawn mower blade needs to be replaced which stopped my work in that area for the time being. The boys helped with the seasonal stick gathering as many branches fall off the trees each year due to rain. We collected 6 large bags of leaves, and there’s plenty more to gather up. I’m hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon so that I can get back to focusing on the game to get the remaining levels built.

Easter weekend is next weekend, and I’m so happy I get to host it this year. I’m going to have a lot of family around, and my girlfriend will get to meet my parents. The only drama I expect will be from my five year old.

We already have plans in place for taking the boys to their moms for the summer, and things have worked out for me to work a convention in Georgia called MomoCon! This will be my first convention from before the pandemic, and before my time in Austin in 2019 when I chose to work on my video game. I still remember back then I set my hopes and dreams on living in Austin and maybe working for Blizzard Entertainment eventually. My how the times have changes and I have to say I couldn’t be happier with the way things have worked out here in Florida. I still love Austin, but it wasn’t the right place for me to be. I’m sure I will visit there again soon though.

1984

Game Update

Steam sent me an e-mail to make sure I was ready for release on April 22, and that reminded me that I needed to test the build in the Steam Client. There is a section in Steamworks that designates where the files are located to execute the program as well as the data. I thought that the folders that I designated might be wrong. It turns out I had reasons to be suspicious as it did not work the first time. It was an easy fix however. I felt a lot of joy to see my game start up when I pressed the play button.

I also managed to implement a quick update to fix a bug. It was pretty impressive to see the speed at which it updated the files for the game. It occurred to me that after I get all the stages built, and the steam achievements implemented for final release I might want to have a classic version, and a plus version of the game that I can keep adding more features onto.

Last but not least I managed to get my very first two steam keys out to my number one beta tester (my oldest son), and my musician. He tried it on his Steam account and managed to download the game and run it with no issues. It was such a great feeling to see everything working properly. I can’t believe how far I’ve come.

Personal Update

This past week I had taxes on my mind most of the week. I had to pay for my Florida business licence which seems to be similar to how a drivers licence is handled. That’s interesting to me as in Texas there isn’t an annual fee to re-up the licence there.

I had to walk away from my computer all week as my office became a room for my girlfriends daughter, and her friends. They had their spring break this past week and wanted to visit the beach. They went to the beach every day which got a little tiresome for me. There was some additional drama which came out later, but overall I’m happy with how things went. This was a big test for my girlfriend and I and it was the first time that she met my boys.

After getting my office back I was able to push out some more work on Six Aspects, and I returned to my personal tax return. More problems occurred, and I’m working through them. I hope to have them resolved on Wednesday. If that weren’t enough my neighbors are annoyed that I haven’t cleaned up my leaves and so I have some yard work to do to get things back into shape. I suppose when it rains it pours sometimes.

I finished the book “Cash Flow Quadrant” and transitioned to the book “1984”. It’s kind of an odd choice for me as I typically only read self development books. It felt a bit indulgent to listen to something that’s for entertainment. Then again, the book is so dark that maybe it could be classified as more of a future warning.

So far I would say there are some parallels between 1984 and what’s been happening across the world after the pandemic. It feels like a lot of freedoms are being taken away from regular people. The book talks about the “Thought Police” and televisions that might monitor citizens while also pushing propaganda. I can’t help but to draw a parallel to what I see in social media, and some “fact checking” outlets. The idea of a crafted narrative seems to be very predominant in both cases to me. I pray that we maintain our freedoms.

If anything I would say that the book gives me an idea about how I might craft the Empire for my video game. Giving them some sort of tyrannical rule, and what that might look like. I’ve been toying around with the idea of a magical device like a TV or cellphone that could be used for propaganda. It could be powered with magical lightning.

Some of the ways that information is controlled in the book are interesting. The idea that facts and figures are made up, or even heroes. Having an entire propaganda army to push out a message. Controlling information by banning the ability to write records down. Erasing people just on the hunch of suspicion against the empire. That part reminds me of “V for Vendetta”, which I suppose might have had its start with “1984”.

I suppose the question is how far would I want to take this if I went with this oppressive of an Empire. Originally I was thinking of making the Empire a little sympathetic, but maybe it’s more interesting to go darker like this. I’ve been listening to story telling techniques and one of the things that I heard over and over was the idea of a plot twist or surprise that comes at key moments in the first, second, and third acts. The surprise needs to change everything, and so given the religious bend to Six Aspects I thought maybe I should do what Final Fantasy Tactics did. Maybe have the church controlled by a Demon or something.

I’m trying to remember some of the plot twists that stand out for me in video games, and Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind. (Spoilers ahead) I would say that the 2 that are highest on my list are finding out that Cloud (protagonist) is actually an experimental soldier and Sephiroth (antagonist) was also created in the same way, and when Aerith (love interest) is killed by Sephiroth. Both situations change the goal that the player is trying to accomplish.

Thinking some more about one of my all time favorites which was trending on social media this week. Chrono Trigger has some major plot twists that work well too. The first one would probably be the discovery of time travel. The second would be finding out the end of the world when the dormant alien Lavos destroys it. The third would probably be when Chrono (main character) dies and his friends have to use time travel and a dummy stand in to bring him back.

I guess I had a lot more going on than I originally thought, and so hopefully things will settle down soon so that I can focus on release and creating new stages for Six Aspects.

The Most Expensive Game I own

Game Update

Productive week in which now that I’m focused on the goals to get us to full release I have a way forward. Fixed an issue in which troops were targeting the front row even when the opposing squad is flanked or in a back attack situation. The good news is that fix will be in for the steam release in April.

Looking forward to working on the stages in the game. It’s been quite a while since I’ve sat in the level design chair. I remember spending a day or two on each stage to organically tell some sort of story. I’ve also been spending some time on my commutes listening to narrative story tellers on YouTube. I think I’m picking up a couple of things, but I’m not sure if any of it will work with the way I’ve designed my text system. We still have no way to include specific characters.

The only other thing that’s occupied me all week has been learning how to do taxes for my business. It should be pretty simple as this will be the first year that I might actually make some money. I don’t expect to make enough to overcome the cost of the game however.

Personal Update

Things got a little rough for my relationship over the spring break, but luckily we managed to work things out. My mom always said that six months was when she knew that a relationship was going to go the distance or not. I’m really happy that we worked things out.

I’m Christian which means that I believe in a spiritual realm that impacts our physical one. It sounds crazy but there were so many negative things happening to people I knew over spring break that I think there was some spiritual warfare going on. It feels like something dark has been going on across the country for some time now, but I digress.

It makes me wonder if any of what I was feeling could be translated to something in Six Aspects. I feel like there is a lot that can be added after the full release. Who knows what a spiritual war under a country at war would even look like though.

Maybe two or three weeks ago I realized something. You see I started moving into financials during the pandemic. I really started to enjoy stock trading. The thing is I spent my life buying things that don’t really pay me (liabilities).

The book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” made me realize that I needed to buy assets (things that make me money). The more money I can have compounding the better which means things like my old card collection, old video games, etc… would be better off in stocks or other places that make money. Often I say to people, “I can’t exactly go to my old card collection and ask it-hey can I get some money for dinner?” The thing is stocks do that so I think I’ll just start collecting those like I collect anything else.

I’ve always been the type of person that collects things. I collected Lego, cards, video games, board games, miniatures, anime, etc… Honestly at this point in my life I have more than I could have asked for as a kid. It’s one of the things that has made me the game developer I am today. All that experience when I was younger.

So I started looking. Looking at what I might be able to sell to transfer into assets. Some pieces more expensive than others. Then it dawned on me. The most expensive game I own isn’t one of my out of print board games, or one of my treasured SNES RPGs, it isn’t even one of my tournament decks. The most expensive game I own, is the game I’ve been working on for the past eight years-”Six Aspects.” No matter how it does in the market I think I’m OK with that.