I was making some progress on the audio portion of the game and while cleaning up a sound file my PowerBook froze. More lower DIMM slot trouble. I had never looked up to see if this was a common problem, but found a petition for people with the same problem. This doesn’t seem to be just a logic board problem or I wouldn’t need a third replacement. Maybe this machine, or this model, is a lemon. I like Apple products and have never had a problem with either iMac we have, but I’ll continue to be leery of their laptop models.

As my ADD would dictate, I have been thinking about what I’m going to work on after I finish my current project. My first thought was to work on a Multi-player Tetris game as described in an article on becoming a network programmer. Then there were two announcements that may change my mind.

First, was the announcement that GarageGames and IAC were creating a site, InstantAction.com, which would allow you to use GarageGames’ tools to create games that are playable through a standard web browser. My guess is that they will enable the Torque engine to run in a plug-in and then execute games that were developed with some/all the existing Torque products or a new member of the Torque family. This is interesting because I wouldn’t have to go the Flash route. Flash is great because you don’t have to download the games, but it isn’t a framework specifically for developing games. There are some big questions though, like will you be able to deploy these games anywhere or only at InstantAction.com? WIll I be able to take my existing TGB game and deploy it in this new environment?

The second announcement that caught my eye was Raph Koster’s latest endeavor, Metaplace. It promises to allow people to create MMORPG’s, puzzle games, etc, eventually. It will be interesting to see how much is working at this point. Here’s a demo:


Should be interesting. Gives me some incentive to finish my game so I can play around with these two technologies.

I completed the gameplay such as it is. This is just displaying an opening message when the player run into an NPC and then displaying one of the Ten Commandments when the player collides with one a Commandment object which is currently a key for a placeholder. I need to replace the art for the player, currently an orc from Sickhead, the NPC, someone from Planet Cute, and the Commandments, a key from Planet Cute. I’m not sure if I want to commission some real art that I can use in similarly themed game or if I should come up with some art that my daughter will find funny. Next are the background music and sound effects.

I finished the map today and all I can say is, I’m glad that’s over. If it hadn’t been for the “Do something” mindset, I know I would have let this game die (just like every other game I have attempted to make). 3 of the 4 nights I worked on the map I had almost considered not working on it at all. I just sucked it up and told myself to make some progress. One night I just did collision polygons for a small section, but it was “something.” Now I can move onto the “game play” which isn’t all that involved. Hey, this isn’t a AAA title, it’s not even donationware worthy. It’s just a proof of concept..proof of the concept that I can finish something.

For the most part, video games are mainstream. Casual games and the Wii have removed most stigmas surrounding video games. The violence and pornography that inhabits some games is something akin to those subjects in films. Games and gamers aren’t the oddities they were when I was growing up. However, the “Christian” video game genre lives in a ghetto unto itself. With games like Bibleman, it is no wonder that the genre is scorned.

Putting aside the fact that the best and brightest game designers and programmers aren’t developing “Christian” video games, the biggest problem is using the term “‘Christian’” video games.” You may have noticed that I keep putting quotes around Christian in the context of video games. The reason I do this is my belief that for something to be Christian it must proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified for the sins of the world. Don’t have that, don’t call it Christian. (Video games aren’t the only area where this is done, take a look at the site A Little Leaven and you’ll find “Christian” hair products, tire gauges, etc.) What is Christian about Bejeweled with crucifixes or a word puzzle with words from the Bible? There is some hope with games like “Timothy and Titus” and “Deliverance: Moses in the Pharaoh’s Courts” but since I haven’t played these games I would still hesitate to call them Christian.

I think Bible-based would be a good term. I think it would even allow for some level of violence as the Bible isn’t rated G.

As a response to my post on the things I learned from my 30 days experiment, I’ve come up with a couple of things I plan to do going forward.

1. Blog every day. No, I’m not going back to the “Made some progress …” post on this blog. I’m going to do this daily blogging on Twitter. I am going to keep a regular schedule on this blog. On Mondays, I will summarize and builds upon the Twitter posts and Thursdays I will blog about something related to the games industry in general.
2. Work on development every day. As in the original 30 (-3) days commitment I will continue to work on some aspect of development every day. I will occasionally take days off, but these will be conscious breaks and I’ll report on them in the Twitter and development summary post.

That’s it. Pretty simple which is what helped me last time.