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April 30, 2015
All my attempts at pursuing investment partners so far have failed. That's to be expected though. Usually, if you want to get funded, you're going to need at least six months of effort to get it (assuming you're worth funding, of course). I'm closing in on the end of the first month of effort in pu…
April 22, 2015
Alright, I did my first ever pitch to a large group of investors last night. I gave a two minute pitch to a room of 150 people.
I fucked it up.
My rehearsed pitch was three and a half minutes long. I had two minutes. I wasn't going to care about going over time, but then I did when I got up there. Th…
I fucked it up.
My rehearsed pitch was three and a half minutes long. I had two minutes. I wasn't going to care about going over time, but then I did when I got up there. Th…
April 11, 2015
Leap Motion:
This is actually really finicky to get working properly with UE4. I don't know what exactly the issue is, but I'm experiencing some pretty big latency between my hand gestures and the device response.
Issues so far:
USB Speeds: I was using the USB port on my computers front panel display.…
This is actually really finicky to get working properly with UE4. I don't know what exactly the issue is, but I'm experiencing some pretty big latency between my hand gestures and the device response.
Issues so far:
USB Speeds: I was using the USB port on my computers front panel display.…
April 08, 2015
I got an Oculus Rift DK2 and a Leap Motion gesture recognition device yesterday! I really wanted to play with it all day, but I had to present our game and game company in front of a 20 person panel. The hope is to get some advice and investors to become involved with our project.
The format is pret…
The format is pret…
April 01, 2015
I had a hard time falling asleep last night due to my excitement.
Yesterday I decided to take the big plunge and take a massive risk by deciding to build a Virtual Reality game. It's a bit of a direction change for us, but in our day to day operations, it doesn't have a huge change yet. We're still…
Yesterday I decided to take the big plunge and take a massive risk by deciding to build a Virtual Reality game. It's a bit of a direction change for us, but in our day to day operations, it doesn't have a huge change yet. We're still…
March 26, 2015
A lot has been happening in the last few months and I've been procrastinating on writing this journal entry.
Game Summary:
The currently untitled PC game is a 4X turn based fantasy strategy game where you have to grow an empire by capturing nearby territories and competing against rival factions. You…
Game Summary:
The currently untitled PC game is a 4X turn based fantasy strategy game where you have to grow an empire by capturing nearby territories and competing against rival factions. You…
December 17, 2014
The source of my stress stems from money issues. I had this idea that I would invest all of my savings in the stock market and then operate my business off of the interest of the investments. Great idea, in theory, but it assumes that your stocks are going to be worth more rather than less. In my c…
November 26, 2014
Alright, I have some bad news.
In light of last weeks realization about what a "prototype" should look like and what my existing "prototype" was (a pretty tech demo with game elements), I decided to readjust radically on how I prototyped my game. Let's reflect for a moment on the past: I've been wor…
In light of last weeks realization about what a "prototype" should look like and what my existing "prototype" was (a pretty tech demo with game elements), I decided to readjust radically on how I prototyped my game. Let's reflect for a moment on the past: I've been wor…
November 18, 2014
I'm feeling the stress of financial pressure right now. My face is a bit scrunched in deep concern right now. Where is this coming from?
I'm looking at my total savings and have calculated a monthly "burn rate", which is how fast I am consuming my cash per month. I need to assume that my project isn…
I'm looking at my total savings and have calculated a monthly "burn rate", which is how fast I am consuming my cash per month. I need to assume that my project isn…
November 06, 2014
I know it's a complete waste of time since Unreal Engine 4 will do all of this for me, but I really wanted to implement my own particle engine. It only took me two days to implement since my rendering engine already renders point sprites super efficiently. Here is a screen shot of a bunch of meteor…
October 23, 2014
Something I learned today: Over-architecting is a form of premature optimization.
"Uh, what exactly do you mean by that?"
If you've got a fixed use case to build something, you don't need to make a generalized implementation. Just build the dirty implementation with hard coded variables and values fi…
"Uh, what exactly do you mean by that?"
If you've got a fixed use case to build something, you don't need to make a generalized implementation. Just build the dirty implementation with hard coded variables and values fi…
October 01, 2014
I've titled this post "Resisting Temptation" because it seems to be something I really need to remind myself to do more often. When you're building a prototype, as I should be trying to do, you don't want to spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't matter. Right? ...right?! It makes no sense to bu…
September 24, 2014
I'm excited enough to post an early screenshot of my prototype. I just got dynamic directional lighting to work! I have a sun which arcs across the sky and acts as a directional light source with color being dependent on its position in the sky. The sky color is also a function of the sun position …
September 05, 2014
It's been a busy month. I've bolded the topic heads so you can skip around.
Intel Buzz Workshop
The Intel sponsored seminar at Digipen was kind of a waste of time. The fact that it's sponsored by Intel should tell you a bit about the tone of the seminar (technical sales pitch and evangelism). The fir…
Intel Buzz Workshop
The Intel sponsored seminar at Digipen was kind of a waste of time. The fact that it's sponsored by Intel should tell you a bit about the tone of the seminar (technical sales pitch and evangelism). The fir…
July 30, 2014
For the first half of July, I was on vacation in northern europe visiting family and friends. As expected, that put a big speed bump into progress. That's okay though, I don't really have a hard due date to hit (yet).
It's always tough to pick up work where I left off after getting back from vacatio…
It's always tough to pick up work where I left off after getting back from vacatio…
July 02, 2014
This week is a bit unusual. I'm taking a planned vacation on Friday and will be gone for two weeks. All I see is costly expenses and that's causing me to grit my teeth a bit, but I'm trying not to be too concerned about it. Life is too short to not take a moment to relax and enjoy it, right?
So, I f…
So, I f…
June 28, 2014
?Tuesday:
It's Tuesday night, I'm sipping a beer and barely feeling it. Let's do this!
My artist (Dan) and I started building the initial prototype for our game this week. The first thing we did is put together a user interface storyboard which explains how the magic casting system works in real time…
It's Tuesday night, I'm sipping a beer and barely feeling it. Let's do this!
My artist (Dan) and I started building the initial prototype for our game this week. The first thing we did is put together a user interface storyboard which explains how the magic casting system works in real time…
June 21, 2014
These are my reflections on the second week of my new indie studio. I wrote them at the end of each day of the week while things were fresh on my mind. It's a bit unedited and long, so bear with me.
Links to previous weeks: [Week 0] [Week 1]
Monday:
I spent the early half of the day trying to figure o…
Links to previous weeks: [Week 0] [Week 1]
Monday:
I spent the early half of the day trying to figure o…
June 15, 2014
The first week is over. The work days certainly feel a lot longer and much more busy. I thought I'd spend this journal entry detailing a few of the first week issues that I experienced and how I worked through them.
On Sunday afternoon, the day before the first day, I spent most of the day building …
On Sunday afternoon, the day before the first day, I spent most of the day building …
June 05, 2014
Well, I'm taking the dive and going full on into starting my own game dev studio as an indie developer. I'm paying entirely out of pocket and have zero business income. It's got me a bit nervous.
I hired my first 3D artist/animator last week. He was asking for $36k/year, I counter offered a much hig…
I hired my first 3D artist/animator last week. He was asking for $36k/year, I counter offered a much hig…
April 25, 2014
I realized that the thick line rendering I came up with in my previous post was deeply flawed. I had been drawing thick lines in 3D space but thinking in 2D. I had assumed that the normals for the thick lines would all be the same. Boy, was I wrong!
So, what I'm aiming to do is allow users (myself) …
So, what I'm aiming to do is allow users (myself) …
April 17, 2014
My girlfriend asked me today if I'm behind schedule on my game. I didn't really want to answer her, but she pointed out that I was planning on hiring an artist to work with me in December. It's long past December and I'm not really ready for an artist to come in and start making art assets. That's …
March 26, 2014
Let me preface this entry by saying that I'm a newbie when it comes to HLSL and GPU rendering. This is mostly a cronological thought process of my research and development of my first GPU based primitive system.
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I've been working on creating a "primitive system", or as some peo…
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I've been working on creating a "primitive system", or as some peo…
February 20, 2014
A few weeks ago, I posted an article on OctTrees. I put two days worth of effort and time into creating it. It needed to satisfy my own criteria for what an adequate article on the topic should cover and how it should cover it. It was kind of fun to get the exposure and I'm happy with it, but I'm a…
December 20, 2013
YEAH!!! I got it! I got my math down for projectile motion in 3D space and it works!
Alright, so, let me explain what I was trying to do and how I figured it out.
Problem description: I am a wizard standing at any given position in 3D space. This position is given by the coordinates X, Y, Z. I am lau…
Alright, so, let me explain what I was trying to do and how I figured it out.
Problem description: I am a wizard standing at any given position in 3D space. This position is given by the coordinates X, Y, Z. I am lau…
December 13, 2013
I'm trying to work out how I want my spell system architecture to work. I always complain about other games having a really weak spell mechanics system. I think I stumbled onto an interesting idea for software engineering and I thought I'd share it.
In an ideal software engineering world, what shoul…
In an ideal software engineering world, what shoul…
November 25, 2013
November 23, 2013
Alright, I've really been struggling.
I really need to focus and work a lot harder on my game. I started measuring my exact expenditures of time on a day to day basis and have found that I average about 3 hours of real work per day. It's no wonder my game is taking so long. What's the problem with m…
I really need to focus and work a lot harder on my game. I started measuring my exact expenditures of time on a day to day basis and have found that I average about 3 hours of real work per day. It's no wonder my game is taking so long. What's the problem with m…
October 01, 2013
Well, this is my first journal entry. Before I get started in the technical aspects of game development, I feel I need to caveat myself to you. I am truly an idiot. I say that with full intellectual honesty & humility. I will make mistakes. Lots of them. And I will travel down a path which is a…
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