No More Corporate Teat – #4 – Feast or Famine
It has been exactly one week since I stepped outside corporate America to have a go on my own as an independent developer. Those 16 years spend toiling under the thumb of increasingly Office Space and Dilbert-esque corporate environments cannot be completely discounted as a waste of my time though. Obviously I built up a varied skill set and many contacts during that time. Some of which came in handy this first week.
The reason I left my corporate job (initially) was to take a very good, well paying, home-based job working as a developer for a small, but soon to be hugely successful game company. I actually gave my notice 5 minutes after I accepted a 3 month contract position with this company. I did so with the knowledge that as I spent my time learning this new system I would more than likely become a valuable resource and very likely a full-time employee. This was exactly the security that my wife and I needed to make the decision to jump off the corporate teat to a much smaller, but hopefully more fulfilling teat (I will stop the metaphor now in this entry as it is starting to get gross, plus I just made some chocolate milk to drink). As the two weeks passed until my final corporate work day, I took on the task of starting to learn the ins and outs of the new code-base and application I would be working on. This was fine until I realized that I was just trading one full-time job for another. As my first non-corporate work day approached I asked the new game development studio if they would accept me part-time for a couple months as I just was not ready to go back full time into a single project. Unfortunately, we parted ways as they needed someone full-time right away.
Luckily, right as I was reading their "Dear John" email I received a call from buddy of mine who I have known for years. I met him a the corporate job when his company developed some early Shockwave games for one of our brands (before 2000). He happened to be engaged (at the time) to a girl Steve and I have gone to grade school (he married her in 2004). Anyway, he offered me a chance to work on a couple iPhone titles starting in August. Armed with that information I was able to tell my wife that the full time gig had turned sour, but that there was a new gig on the horizon right away. She was actually relieved that I had not taken the game development position right away as she started to get used to the idea of me being home and available to "flex-schedule" rather than "feed the beast" at a full time job right away.
When Monday rolled around I started to investigate the iPhone (once again), but since the gig didn't start until August, I started to panic. I had contacted quite a few people (all of which I met from the Flash world) to inquire about their need for upcoming development. They all said that they could use help right away, then starting last Monday, they only returned silence...
So, here I am, I just quit my job and then turned down a well paying, work at home job, to do what? Spend more money on iPhone books and pay an ungodly sum to keep my health insurance with no actual money coming in? I started to feel like I made a mistake. Plus, we had planned a pretty expensive 2-day trip to Legoland California for Thursday and Friday of this week for my son's 2nd birthday. So now not only did I not have a job and was paying a huge sum to keep my current benefits, I was also laying out a huge chunk of change to celebrate a birthday that I am sure the boy will never remember.
I felt like crap until Tuesday morning when one of my contacts send me over the description of a two-week job. I gave him a bid I felt comfortable with, and he was able to get me 75% of my bid price. Since I was not working on anything else I accepted right away and started to create a proof of concept. Then on Wednesday, right before I was about to leave for the land of colored bricks, another friend called with the offer of work right away, and then a HUGE project to follow.
So, at the beginning of the week I felt like I made a mistake with nothing concrete to work on, and now iIhave too much work to do. It seems that to be successful at this you need to ride the feast waves and try to buffer the famine ripples as much as possible.
One other semi-interesting note. We switched to WordPress about 2 weeks ago. Until then I never had to deal with "track-back" spam. Most of these "track-back for approval messages" that fill up our inbox are utter crap. Some links go to nothing, others to Asian porn. Most are just random based on some words that might match in the blog entry. There was one that caught my eye though. It must have been random, but it was so right-on that I almost approved it, but had second thoughts. For our game, Tunnel Panic, where the player must repeatedly press the space bar only to stay alive, we got a track back to a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome site. Now, I know it was because of the "Tunnel" in the title, but what does this say about repetitive motion injuries and keyboard controlled games? They might have accidentally send us a track-back to an article useful for our readers. I was this close to approving it when I thought...f-you. F-you. I am working from home, scrambling to get good work and provide a valuable service, and some loser is at home firing spam track-backs to our site based on a single common word. No f-ing way.
Atari "Asteroids" Movie Director's Quote
In a recent interview with ComingSoon.net , the director of the upcoming Asteroids movie, Lorenzo di Bonaventura had this to say about the concept:
"...we really went after a mythology on the level of "Star Wars." We'll see if we succeeded or not, but it's not a simple like, the asteroid's gonna hit the – we never come to Earth. The entire movie takes place in the asteroid field "
Last year we wrote out own top-10 list of alternative ideas for the Asteroids movie. Maybe #7 from that list is not so far-off after all:
7. U.F.O. : The owner of space rock mine in Alpha Centauri has been going about his business for 100s years until one day some malicious a-hole hyperspaces into his asteroid field, and start blowing-up all his precious products. What’s more, the bastard’s space-ship is really f*cking fast, and can shoot dozens of shots at once, while the owner’s slow moving giant U.F.O. fires one shot at a time and flies in a distinctive patterns that gets it blown out of the sky almost instantly. Can our hero use all of his ingenuity to build a better faster, smaller U.F.O. before all is lost? By studying the TV transmissions from a small blue planet 30 or so light years away, he uses his worm-hole transportation device to capture Earth’s greatest T.V engineers: Mike Brady (architect), Mr. T. (unique weapons crafter), McGyver (mechanical genius), .Murray from Riptide (hacker/robotics expert), and Arthur Fonzarelli (for that magic touch) and employs them all to help make a weapon that can save the family business from total destruction.
No More Corporate Teat – #3 – The First Day
Today was the first real work-day of my non-corporate development life. Since I have an iPad contract that starts up soon (I am a little scared as the client is delaying a little on getting it initiated) I decided to re-acquaint myself with Xcode and the iPod/Pad development work-flow.
First I downloaded PhoneGap in an attempt to port an HTML application I have been developing. PhoneGap allows a developer to take an existing HTML/Javascript/CSS application and target it to the iPhone/Pad platform. It adds the appropriate wrappers and templates to Xcode that allow a relatively seamless compile to a native iPhone/Pad application. I initially tried to take a Dashcode widget HelloWorld app and publish it as native, but it didn't work. It did compile, but the simulator would not go passed the first screen of the multi-screen application. That was odd, but it might have had something to do with my inexperience with Xcode and a Dashcode Safari mobile folder structure then a technical issue with the application. My thought is that Dashcode is perfectly suited for making PhoneGap applications as it outputs Safari Mobile (as well as regular Safari code). Plus, it has some nice interface elements and widgets built in.
That attempt failed though, so I decided to test out my latest HTML5 game for the O'Reilly book Steve and I are working on. That was pretty easy as I was able to get it running in the simulator within an hour of installing Phone-gap and going through the simple setup and HelloWorld tutorial. The problem was that I have no idea with PhoneGap how to target the iPad so the application played in a strange little partial window. I any case, it was a pure Javascript/html5 application running a full speed in the simulator. I was encouraged by my initial success, so I moved on to native Objective-C. I have a decent new book on iPhone game development, (see note) so I started to go through it to refresh my brain on the syntax as it is very much unlike Actionscript or Javascript.
Note: This book is rather slim, but don't let it fool you. It is AWESOME and covers actually creating a real game framework that almost any entertainment application can use. It is very similar to our AS3 Book, but it doesn't have nearly as many full game projects.
This worked pretty well, and in a couple hours I had the little app playing on my real iPod touch. This was enough to make me feel comfortable with iPod/Pad development again until the project gets kicked off next week (hopefully).
So, as of right now, I am officially unemployed with no contracts or other jobs to do (at least for another week or so). That is a scary thought, so tomorrow I am going to have to reach out to my contacts and see if anyone needs a helping hand with a project. I'm pretty sure I need to have at least a couple irons in the fire to make this work at home gig a reality. If not, I will consider this week a vacation from other people's work and start back up one of those 8bitrocket game projects that I have left on the back burner for a while.
I think I can get used to this...
A TRON "Legacy"?
There will be a new TRON movie out this year and no one could be happier than I. I loved the first TRON movie when it was released back in 1982. While it was not a great movie, it came out at the exact right moment for me, smack-dab in the middle of the golden age of classic video games and arcades. Along with movies like War Games and Cloak And Dagger, it helped form a fantasy world of computers and video games that colored my childhood, and help lead to a successful career as an adult. At the same time, the associated arcade and console video games created to tie-in with the movie stand out as great game designs. They came from a more creative age when licensed games were more than just re-skinned platformers.
However, notice I emphasized for me up there in that last paragraph. That is because, TRON was not very popular at the time. I know this for a fact, because I sat in the near empty movie theater with my brother and my mom, watching the movie with none of my closest friends. In fact, I recall a couple of my friends flatly refusing to go, because it was a "Disney" movie they thought it looked "lame". Yes, there was a time, not too long ago, when the Disney name was associated with CRAP movies, and TRON did not escape this. While TRON was awesome for me as a 12-year old, that was not the general consensus at the time. No one talked about it. No one bought the trading cards, or the toys, and certainly no one else (that I knew of) wanted for a sequel. While my brother and I were able to convince one other friend to play "Tron Light Cycles" on our bikes, we would never admit to anyone else that was what we were doing.
The movie ended up making money that year (it cost $17 million and grossed $33 million), but that was peanuts in 1982, the year E.T. made $425 million. It was #22 on the box office list , and came in behind such "classics" as The Toy ($47 million), the Sword And The Sorcerer ($39 million), Best Friends ($36 million) and Friday The 13th Part III ($34 million). Even for a Disney movie, this was not a great total. The mostly forgotten Disney movie The Black Hole (seen in poster on the wall of the second trailer below, BTW) from 1979 managed to make $35 million.
The fact is, for many years after TRON was released, people talked about it being a failure. That is why it has taken 28 years to see a sequel.
"The original “Tron,” released in 1982 and loaded with computer-generated effects, was a hit with the young male crowd, who quickly turned a related arcade game into a success. But the movie failed to attract a wide audience. The story — a man is pulled inside a video game and is forced to play space-age gladiator games — turned off mainstream moviegoers." - New York Times
However, I've noticed that there has been a lot of fan-fare for the new TRON or (TR2N) movie coming out in December. This weekend there was a very well received new trailer shown at Comicon in San Diego. However, before you see that one, watch this original trailer for the 1982 version of TRON:
And Now The New One for Tron Legacy
It looks really cool, but juxtaposed with the trailer for the first one, and the knowledge that it was pretty much failure, what kind of "Legacy" does the movie really have? The fact is, TRON was a victim of the same video game crash that destroyed the golden age of video games. While this new version has all the trappings of a blockbuster (CGI, 3D, hot young stars) will it really work? The upgraded graphics are cool, but do they make sense? There has obviously been a massive hardware upgrade since 1982 in TRON's world, but does that change the way things look inside a computer? Why is "Flynn's" arcade still in the same location with all the games still inside? Hasn't there been a bit of urban renewal in that location in the past 30 years? If not, why not? That story might be more interesting than a guy sucked inside a microprocessor.
I just don't believe there is any real "Legacy" for the movie TRON in the general public. It's simply "The next big thing" that will soon replaced with another. Up until a few tears ago when the PC game Tron 2.0 was released, no one even talked about it. In fact, I'm sure you could find it as the butt of video game movie nerd jokes more than the object of any kind of praise or reverie. You see, TRON was paved over. It was trashed an forgotten like so many other great little gems from the 80'. Pushed aside in a disposable decade that now appears to have influenced far more than many people are willing to admit.
Of course, I'm going to go see the new movie. I'll be there with the everyone else, donning 3D glasses after paying $14 a head (x5) for the privilege. It will probably be a fun time too. However, just like most modern movie experiences, the sensory red-bar will probably hit max on every level, but the effect will be short-lived. A cotton candy sugar-high that disappears shortly after lunch. One thing is for certain though, several times that day I will think about the original movie, and how much it meant to me when I saw it so many years ago. The "Legacy" for me was that day with my mom and brother, sitting alone at the Mann Theaters at the Olde Towne mall, eating red licorice and enjoying TRON as if it was the greatest movie ever made, no matter how many people told me otherwise.
-8bitsteve
RSS Feedburner Feed Fixed
One thing we forgot when we moved the site was to update the Feedburner to point to the new site. I just remembered to do it this morning. Here is the new Feedburner RSS link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/8bitrocketcomBlog ...which also happens to be the OLD Feedburner RSS link...go figure 
No More Corporate Teat – #2 – The Last Day
Today was my last day as an employee of a major corporation. I am very sad to leave so many of my friends, but excited at what the future holds. I am in the midst of setting up the consulting arm of 8bitrocket Studios called Twin Engine Web Systems. There isn't much there yet, but I will be adding to it very very soon.
On Monday I start on an iPhone game development contract, which will be a very nice change of pace. I will be noting my progress here (as if you needed another gave dev diary to waste your time reading).
I finally finished my final task for the week:
Steve and I started a tradition years ago of taking people to a local (and fantastic) Mongolian BBQ for a "last lunch". The bottom message refers to that tradition.
I have also kept a tongue- in-cheek "Grave Yard" of employee name plates, pictures, and other what not to commemorate those who have left the company. Today I was able to add myself to this pile.
That is a picture of Steve and I from when we were about 4 or 5 years old. That swimming pool is from a hotel next store to the building. This "grave yard" is up against a window that looks out over a parking lot.
I have to admit, it is pretty scary to be moving on from corporate life, but I could not be more excited. To all of my friends at Mattel, I say thanks for the great times, and please look me up when you need some new games developed =)
On to Twin Engine Web Systems, the door has closed behind me.
Tutorial Mess : Please Help
In our recent move, there was simply no good way way to move over all of our tutorials. We altered the format so many times in 3.5 years, that moving them to something structured like Word Press was a huge problem.
We have fixed as many issues "automagically" as possible, but it appears that there are still a lot of problems with some of them.
If you find an issue with a tutorial, please contact us or add a comment, so we can can fix it as soon as possible.
Thanks,
The Fultons
Does The Windows 7 Phone Open-Up Silverlight Games Development?
Microsoft recently released the beta of the Windows 7 development tools, and Silverlight is big part of that release. Silverlight can used in conjunction with the XNA framework which gives Windows 7 Mobile apps access to Xbox Live, among other features. As well, (and as it should be), Windows 7 Phone apps made with Silverlight can be sold in the Microsoft Mobile apps store. Here is a quote from silverlight.net:
"Developers build Silverlight applications and package them for submission to the Windows Phone Marketplace where users can download them to run on the phone on a trial or purchase basis. Silverlight for Windows Phone supports a built-in try/buy API to simplify the process of converting a trial to full version for both developer and end consumer."
This appears to open-up Silverlight game development to the Windows 7 phone in a major way. Yes, the audience is small, and yes, it is C#/Visual Studio Microsoft land, but it is also a market that will not be over-saturated with apps too quickly, and could be very lucrative if you get in on the ground-floor.
Check out the Wiondows 7 Phone development site here:
New 8bitrocket.com Site Opens
If the DNS has propagated, you should be looking at the brand-spanking new 8bitrocket.com web site. It should look much like the old one, but a bit more generic as well. We are working on theming to get back a bit more of retro-on, but for now, this will work.
We are experimenting with a couple of new features to better serve the Flash/Indie/Web game community.
The first is the Contest Tracker. This page is like an events calendar that tracks the current game development contests that we are aware of. The dates run-down towards the deadline , and it includes calendar view that highlights specific due dates for game contests. If you want to have your contest added, you can Contact Us. This features uses the EventCalendar World Press plug-in.
The other new community based features is the Industry Feeds page. This page lists RSS feeds of industry news all in one place. This is patterned after one of our favorites sites. gametab.com . If you want to have a feed you want us to consider adding, you can Contact Us. This particular features uses the Widgets On Pages Word Press plug-in and the NewsPage RSS plug-in.
Along with the new features , we have a added a whole slew of features to help organize the original content better.
- The video page uses the WordPress TubePress plug-in to show all of our videos (culled from youtube.com) in-line.
- Site Map uses the Table Of Contents Creator WordPress plug-in that automatically creates an index of your web site.
- Many of the other pages use the Category Posts plug-in to display a list of blogs from a single category. We are not happy with this one yet, but until we find a good alternative that will list categories and sub cats, it will have to do for now.
- The About pages uses the SI Contact Form Word Press plug-in to help stop spam.
Here are some of the other Plug-ins we have deployed:
- We are using the 2010 Weaver Theme
- We have installed Disqus for Word Press
- We use All In One Favicon
- We use the Google Sitemap plug-in
- We use the Redirection plug-in for 301/303 redirects from the old site.
- We used the RSS importer widget to import all the old posts from the old site into the new one
- We use Socialize for social book marking ,and FBLikeButton for Facebook connectivity
- We also use the Quantcast, Tynt, and Ultimate GA for analytic reports.
We plan to add as many new features as we can. We have started to better categorize the games and tutorials, and more of this is to come, all in an effort to make things easier to find. We have over 1000 individual content items, so we want to make sure people can find what they need.
What didn't make the move? The audio page is going to re-imagined into a downloadable store. The retro arcade will turn into an entire arcade dedicated to retro style browser based games in all formats. We will also be adding more connections to Jeff's new consulting venture, plus more HTML Canvas content as the new book starts to take shape.
Thanks for hanging with us through the move, and we hope to stop letting you down, and starting getting you moving again as soon as possible!
By the way, Word Press and the Word Press community kick ass!
No More Corporate Teat – #1 – I Quit!
This is the white (wipe) -board I have used weekly for 13 years to note to-do lists and other things necessary for my day job. I only have one more "to do" this upcoming week and that is to pack my belongings and not let the door hit me on my way out.
I am going to start my own game and development company as well as do custom, contract, and license work full time. I have a couple prospective jobs things lined up right now, but this is a scary time to be leaving a stable if boring day job. I would stay and endure it except for the fact that I dread going to the office every day and need to spread my wings before they get clipped by the cold sheers of age and reality. So, I am off. We will be releasing a new version of 8bitrocket.com just in time for me to blather on endlessly in another blog about full-time contract/indie game development. God knows we need one more of those.
Plus, I have that HTML5 Canvas book to work on...