As predicted the weekend was pretty nice, so naturally I stayed inside and explored my now expanding game list thanks to the Steam Summer Sale.
We have a guy coming up from Physical Apps, our very first client and the ones who kinda got us up and running from the contract work we did for them. They fell off the planet a few months ago, which caused us to shift priorities, but now they are back. So we will see what tomorrow may bring from them.
In other news we continue to wait on legal to make some changes to the contract we have with Pathogen, but hope remains that this is the week.
We are also speaking at an event held at Champlain this weekend. A bunch of teachers are gathering to talk about alternative teaching methods/new areas of learning and Game Development is one of them. We will be giving a brief overview of different engines they may choose to teach, their pro's/con's and explaining why Game Development is good for the soul.
P.S. I got a new monitor, its kinda crazy large. writing on the left half of the screen because i'm scared of vastness of the right side.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Friday, July 12, 2013
Multiplayer Framework
Perfect day out for bike riding, hopefully it will carry over into the weekend.
As to work, Matt starting looking into how we should go about constructing the framework of our multiplayer system. We have tried to do this twice already, but always shelved it due to potential instability. There are a few options/considerations to make.
1. Scalibility: We need to be flexible on the backend. Should a ton of people be playing at the same time, sharing/storing data, we need to be able to handle that kind of traffic. This was always something we had worried about with our previous attempts because all of the game data was just stored on our website server, not a dedicated box.
2. Security: If your doing match making, which we are, you need to worry about the information your collecting. While ours has always been innocuous (just email addresses) its still important to try to keep that data safe. On our own server the data could be pretty easily hacked by anyone who knows what they are doing, since we don't have any knowledge about website security.
3. Stability: What are the chances the multiplayer will just break due to a million different problems? (save data corruption, uninstalling the game, Logging in/out, etc)
3. Platforms: Different methods of setting up this multiplayer system will alter how much time/energy it takes to go to multiple platforms.
So the question on what to do, really boils down to two choices:
1. Build our own solution for Multiplayer with the knowledge that we have.
2. Buy a Game Center plugin and utilize the built in game center asynchronous multiplayer framework that is already in place.
There's plenty of pros and cons to both sides of the coin.By using the Game Center Plugin we don't have to worry about scalability, Apple will handle our traffic, don't have to worry about Security unless Apple is compromised, Game Center is proven and known, we won't have to worry about stability, however where the plugin fails is that the game would only be for iOS Tablets. End of story, users would not be able to play PC - iPad, or Web to iPad, or iPad to Kindle or any of the really cool cross-platform things that could make Pathogen stand out.
On the other hand, if we build it ourselves we could choose an option that would allow for cross-platforming gaming. The issues then become Scalibility, Security, Stability.
From the work Matt did yesterday we have have found a good way to tackle some of those issues. FLOX is a service provided by the guys who made Starling (the current AS3 framework we are using) and it is seems to be exactly what we are looking for. It provides a Scalable service for network traffic and cloud storage. ok, 1 problem down, two to go.
For security we are actually going to use Game Center to authenticate the user, we then use that data to create a player on the FLOX side of things. That will take care of security on the iOS end, for Android we would do the same thing, but authenticate with Google Play instead. For web, we might have to build our own, or potentially could use Facebook. This authentication is super important because it allows us to recognize unique individual users. In addition the data is stored in FLOX, who is responsible for protecting it, not us.
The last thing which always worries me is Stability. Stability will (hopefully) simply come in time and testing. We just have to be really thorough during development to try to have an answer for every possible/conceivable problem that occur on the clients and our server side.
Matt is continuing to gauge the potential of FLOX and will do so until we officially enter production again when we sign the contract.
As to work, Matt starting looking into how we should go about constructing the framework of our multiplayer system. We have tried to do this twice already, but always shelved it due to potential instability. There are a few options/considerations to make.
1. Scalibility: We need to be flexible on the backend. Should a ton of people be playing at the same time, sharing/storing data, we need to be able to handle that kind of traffic. This was always something we had worried about with our previous attempts because all of the game data was just stored on our website server, not a dedicated box.
2. Security: If your doing match making, which we are, you need to worry about the information your collecting. While ours has always been innocuous (just email addresses) its still important to try to keep that data safe. On our own server the data could be pretty easily hacked by anyone who knows what they are doing, since we don't have any knowledge about website security.
3. Stability: What are the chances the multiplayer will just break due to a million different problems? (save data corruption, uninstalling the game, Logging in/out, etc)
3. Platforms: Different methods of setting up this multiplayer system will alter how much time/energy it takes to go to multiple platforms.
So the question on what to do, really boils down to two choices:
1. Build our own solution for Multiplayer with the knowledge that we have.
2. Buy a Game Center plugin and utilize the built in game center asynchronous multiplayer framework that is already in place.
There's plenty of pros and cons to both sides of the coin.By using the Game Center Plugin we don't have to worry about scalability, Apple will handle our traffic, don't have to worry about Security unless Apple is compromised, Game Center is proven and known, we won't have to worry about stability, however where the plugin fails is that the game would only be for iOS Tablets. End of story, users would not be able to play PC - iPad, or Web to iPad, or iPad to Kindle or any of the really cool cross-platform things that could make Pathogen stand out.
On the other hand, if we build it ourselves we could choose an option that would allow for cross-platforming gaming. The issues then become Scalibility, Security, Stability.
From the work Matt did yesterday we have have found a good way to tackle some of those issues. FLOX is a service provided by the guys who made Starling (the current AS3 framework we are using) and it is seems to be exactly what we are looking for. It provides a Scalable service for network traffic and cloud storage. ok, 1 problem down, two to go.
For security we are actually going to use Game Center to authenticate the user, we then use that data to create a player on the FLOX side of things. That will take care of security on the iOS end, for Android we would do the same thing, but authenticate with Google Play instead. For web, we might have to build our own, or potentially could use Facebook. This authentication is super important because it allows us to recognize unique individual users. In addition the data is stored in FLOX, who is responsible for protecting it, not us.
The last thing which always worries me is Stability. Stability will (hopefully) simply come in time and testing. We just have to be really thorough during development to try to have an answer for every possible/conceivable problem that occur on the clients and our server side.
Matt is continuing to gauge the potential of FLOX and will do so until we officially enter production again when we sign the contract.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Arts and Crafts.
While it looked a little threatening today, it ended up being a pretty good ride in to work today. Vermont is now free to go about its business and storm if it wants, just as long as it promises to stop at the end of the day.
Still waiting on the contract, but some people seem to think that by next week some time we should have it squared away (which is pretty promising, but still hard to believe as we have been living in the oh-it-will-be-next-week mindset for three months now)
Played through the combat Matt created yesterday and finally gave over to that gut feeling that what we were pursuing just wasn't the right path... Those are always hard decisions to make. However, Matt understood totally and is going to take another look at Pathogen, potentially to get it prep'ed for next week. Created a new board game yesterday as another experimentation into finding out what this adventure game should be. We played it at the end of the day and it held some promise. The board was made from the last month torn from the calender, ink and sharpies. Marguerite had an emergency set of dice & a pack of cards in her car and we were all set to play.
I might update the post with pictures & instructions.
Well, onto paper prototyping some more until we actually sign something.
Still waiting on the contract, but some people seem to think that by next week some time we should have it squared away (which is pretty promising, but still hard to believe as we have been living in the oh-it-will-be-next-week mindset for three months now)
Played through the combat Matt created yesterday and finally gave over to that gut feeling that what we were pursuing just wasn't the right path... Those are always hard decisions to make. However, Matt understood totally and is going to take another look at Pathogen, potentially to get it prep'ed for next week. Created a new board game yesterday as another experimentation into finding out what this adventure game should be. We played it at the end of the day and it held some promise. The board was made from the last month torn from the calender, ink and sharpies. Marguerite had an emergency set of dice & a pack of cards in her car and we were all set to play.
I might update the post with pictures & instructions.
Well, onto paper prototyping some more until we actually sign something.
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Deviously Dangerous Dexter
Windy today, feels like something was looming as I biked into work. Probably going to rain this afternoon. Everyone seemed to running a little late this morning, saw more bikers than normal out, maybe its just the weather.
I've been a long time fan of the show, and very happy to have it back on the air. 8 seasons and it all is going to finally wrap up. There have been some up seasons and then some slumps, but hopefully they shake it all up for this final inning. At the same time I am now reading the novels by Jeff Lindsey (thank you Burlington Public Library), which have a lot of nice surprising twists to them, not to mention that the rhetoric is razor sharp with Dexter's inner monologue.
Began our conversations with the lawyers yesterday about the contact and all I have to say is, ick.... legal... Its like an alien language all by itself, purposefully made to be entirely too dense. We got a translation, making some changes, waiting for a reply. How it goes i guess. Till then we just keep plugging along with whatever we can.
Had some other thoughts about how the adventure game could work out. Might break away from the code and experiment. Yesterday we successfully got combat to initiate from an event (A bunch of slavers where appeared) which is pretty awesome. Going to try to put as much control as possible into the event system so that you can indicate how many enemies there are, if they hit the party with a surprise attack first causing X character to lose some health before the fight, etc. Flexibility is the key.
I've been a long time fan of the show, and very happy to have it back on the air. 8 seasons and it all is going to finally wrap up. There have been some up seasons and then some slumps, but hopefully they shake it all up for this final inning. At the same time I am now reading the novels by Jeff Lindsey (thank you Burlington Public Library), which have a lot of nice surprising twists to them, not to mention that the rhetoric is razor sharp with Dexter's inner monologue.
Began our conversations with the lawyers yesterday about the contact and all I have to say is, ick.... legal... Its like an alien language all by itself, purposefully made to be entirely too dense. We got a translation, making some changes, waiting for a reply. How it goes i guess. Till then we just keep plugging along with whatever we can.
Had some other thoughts about how the adventure game could work out. Might break away from the code and experiment. Yesterday we successfully got combat to initiate from an event (A bunch of slavers where appeared) which is pretty awesome. Going to try to put as much control as possible into the event system so that you can indicate how many enemies there are, if they hit the party with a surprise attack first causing X character to lose some health before the fight, etc. Flexibility is the key.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
221B Baker St.
So this past weekend I finally watched Sherlock... I had been one of those hold outs who never believed it could really as good as everyone said it was. But as I soon found out, the answer is Yes, yes the show is actually that good.
Though I have a few minor reservations about what I don't like about the show, since I'm a fan of the original material - The book was given to me by my sister who bought it second hand( the thing is OLD, like original old, yellowed pages, creaky spine, and tobacco smoke infused into the pages, the works)
But overall the show was great, and not being a great watcher of British broadcast had no idea that each episode was an hour and half, which means that I watched way too much Sherlock this weekend.
As for work, Waiting on the lawyers still. They are talking to us today. So hopefully forward momentum will quickly follow. Until that point in time we will continue work on the Adventure game. Matt got ranged combat working, now we are working on integrating it into the event system. That means we need to reshuffle how PARTY and SQUAD are created and make sure those are passed into all child classes or at least have them accessible.
I switched gears to help setup a contact artist who will be redoing our animations in Pathogen so at least we have that iron in the fire. Otherwise I ended up doing a bunch of writing which was a nice change of pace.
Reading: LoveDeath - Dan Simmons
Listening: Rambling Man - Lemon Jelly
Though I have a few minor reservations about what I don't like about the show, since I'm a fan of the original material - The book was given to me by my sister who bought it second hand( the thing is OLD, like original old, yellowed pages, creaky spine, and tobacco smoke infused into the pages, the works)
But overall the show was great, and not being a great watcher of British broadcast had no idea that each episode was an hour and half, which means that I watched way too much Sherlock this weekend.
As for work, Waiting on the lawyers still. They are talking to us today. So hopefully forward momentum will quickly follow. Until that point in time we will continue work on the Adventure game. Matt got ranged combat working, now we are working on integrating it into the event system. That means we need to reshuffle how PARTY and SQUAD are created and make sure those are passed into all child classes or at least have them accessible.
I switched gears to help setup a contact artist who will be redoing our animations in Pathogen so at least we have that iron in the fire. Otherwise I ended up doing a bunch of writing which was a nice change of pace.
Reading: LoveDeath - Dan Simmons
Listening: Rambling Man - Lemon Jelly
Monday, July 8, 2013
The Misadventures of Riding a Bike to Work
And the morning began so perfect.
Work up to after rain and a sky without a single sun in it. Cool for the first time in a week and everything went swimmingly until about halfway to Burlington from Winooski. Yes, I'm too cheap to by a car so I bike to work every morning. And at the halfway mark, right where Riverside does its strange five way intersection at the new gym it begins to rain... At first it was, not that bad, but it soon escalated to more than just a little down pour. lucky me for not remembering rain pants. 15 minutes later and very much so wet I arrive at work.
But came in to good news, Marguerite received a contract last week and now we are just waiting on the lawyers! Cross your fingers we could actually be employed to finish Pathogen.
In the mean time work will continue on the adventure game. Beginning to realize how messy branching storytelling gets. Need to figure out how deep a hole I want to dig for myself. Matt is working on Ranged combat, which is great. Maybe we will link combat to events today.
Work up to after rain and a sky without a single sun in it. Cool for the first time in a week and everything went swimmingly until about halfway to Burlington from Winooski. Yes, I'm too cheap to by a car so I bike to work every morning. And at the halfway mark, right where Riverside does its strange five way intersection at the new gym it begins to rain... At first it was, not that bad, but it soon escalated to more than just a little down pour. lucky me for not remembering rain pants. 15 minutes later and very much so wet I arrive at work.
But came in to good news, Marguerite received a contract last week and now we are just waiting on the lawyers! Cross your fingers we could actually be employed to finish Pathogen.
In the mean time work will continue on the adventure game. Beginning to realize how messy branching storytelling gets. Need to figure out how deep a hole I want to dig for myself. Matt is working on Ranged combat, which is great. Maybe we will link combat to events today.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Dog Days
Its been muggy hot, not your typical humid sort of hot, but the hot like Vermont took its summer vacation in Florida. Which means that along with all of the 90ish degree weather we have also been under siege by these flash rain storms that are here one moment, gone the next, with the sidewalks completely dry two minutes later.
In other news, we are currently still in development limbo. Pathogen is still sitting there patiently waiting for the situation to sort itself out. We prototyped a new concept, liked it and threw it on ice for later review and now have turned to another project. A pet project of mine which would result in a much larger game than we have worked on before.
But we went in knowing that we were only building the skeleton of the creature, no need to get fancy. Which all in all provides some great practice in how we setup larger systems. At the same time Matt is slowly, insidiously passing down the dark art of programming. I'm learning the correct way to create those Getter's and Setter's along with creating a more standardized method of variable naming.
This week has a lot of potential in it, we could very well see the elusive glimpse of a contract. After almost 3 months of hunting I'm not entirely convinced that everything will turn out shiny in the end, but its looking brighter than it has in a long while.
In other news, we are currently still in development limbo. Pathogen is still sitting there patiently waiting for the situation to sort itself out. We prototyped a new concept, liked it and threw it on ice for later review and now have turned to another project. A pet project of mine which would result in a much larger game than we have worked on before.
But we went in knowing that we were only building the skeleton of the creature, no need to get fancy. Which all in all provides some great practice in how we setup larger systems. At the same time Matt is slowly, insidiously passing down the dark art of programming. I'm learning the correct way to create those Getter's and Setter's along with creating a more standardized method of variable naming.
This week has a lot of potential in it, we could very well see the elusive glimpse of a contract. After almost 3 months of hunting I'm not entirely convinced that everything will turn out shiny in the end, but its looking brighter than it has in a long while.
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