It's official, I've folded my blog, MrPhil Makes Games, into Mr. Phil Games. I'll be adding all new content there. For now, all my old posts here will remain here, but I'll eventually move them all over. Go check it out, it looks great!
This day 65 years ago a great armada of ships slipped into range of the US’s Pacific
Fleet Headquarters in Pearl Harbor, O’ahu, Hawaii and began what President Roosevelt
called a “Day of Infamy.” It was commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo
of Japan’s Imperial Navy and made up of:
6 aircraft carriers
2 battleships
3 cruisers
9 destroyers
8 fuel and supply tankers
28 submarines (5 where midget submarines)
441 planes
On Dec. 7, 1941 at 7:53 am Hawaii Time the slaughter began:
Battleship Arizona – un-recovered, remains now a Battle Memorial
Battleship Oklahoma– raise, abandoned
Battleship Utah – un-recovered
Battleship California – raised, refitted and returned to action
Battleship West Virginia – raised, refitted and returned to action
Battleship Nevada – beach, refitted and returned to action
Battleship Maryland – repaired and returned to action
Cruiser Helen – repaired, and returned to action
Cruiser Raleigh – repaired, and returned to action
Cruiser Honolulu – repaired and returned to action
Destroyer Cassin– un-recovered
Destroyer Downes – un-recovered
Destroyer Shaw – raised, refitted and returned to action
2 Destroyers in dry dock – un-recovered
Minelayer Oglala – damaged, and returned to action
Repair vessel Vestal – beached
Seaplane tender Curtiss – damaged, and returned to action
188 American aircraft – destroyed
2,389 Americans – dead
1,178 Americans - wounded
The following men received the Medal of Honor:
Mervyn S. Bennion (posthumously)
John William Finn
Francis C. Flaherty (posthumously)
Samuel G. Fuqua
Edwin J. Hill (posthumously)
Herbert C. Jones (posthumously)
Isaac C. Kidd (posthumously)
Jackson C. Pharris
Thomas J. Reeves (posthumously)
Donald K. Ross
Robert R. Scott (posthumously)
Peter Tomich (posthumously)
Franklin van Valkenburgh (posthumously)
James R. Ward (posthumously)
Cassin Young
World War II went on to claim the lives over 60 million people.
War is not always your choice.
Teresa Martin,
Civilian Employee,
U.S. Army Confirmed Dead,
Pentagon
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots
and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose, and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don't agree.
by Lord Cromer
After
my post a couple
weeks ago I didn't expect more related news to come out so soon. But here
it is, Yahoo! has a related article today:
Video game helps young people blast cancer It’s actual about a scientific
study that was done. The study "showed that young people who played "Re-Mission"
were more likely to stick to their medication regimens than those who did not."
It is an example of games helping children and teenagers better understand the world
around them and therefore take better care of themselves. Can't wait to see
what other innovations are discovered! The game can be downloaded for free
from HopeLab.
Truly, I'm addicted to these cool Grow games. The maker should put together a game where each one is a level. I'd definitely buy it.
James C. Smith of Reflexive Entertainment fame, makers of Ricochet has started an interesting website collecting information about the Top Ten Games on Real Arcade called Game Sales Charts. It includes historical data going back to mid 2002. It also contains information about who developed, published and distributed each game and more. Link
Blessed are the fruits of the earth and sea and sky.
Blessed is this planet, miraculously spinning in space, sustaining human life in this vast cosmos.
Blessed are the gifts of family and friends and the joy of being together.
We give thanks this day for this food which nurtures and sustains our bodies and for these people who nurture and sustain our minds, souls and hearts.
We give thanks for those who cannot be with us this day; either through accidents of space or time or history, but who are part of us nonetheless, in influence and memory and esteem.
Blessed are we indeed.
Happy Thanksgiving.
This is a shout out to "Eric" over at Free from 9 to 5 ! Good luck on becoming self-employeed!
[Editor note this first appeared at http://www.garagegames.com/blogs/29221/7380]
Last .Plan’s Results:
So I’m definitely a T2D convert. I’ve halted all work on my custom engine
and am going 100% T2D. I did the tutorial and liked it a lot. Here’s
a small screen capture of my game’s starmap in T2D (can you find the fleet icon?)
And here it is zoomed out.
I also added a splash screen.
I’ve stopped my work on adding Torque script as a language to Visual Studio. It will take a sizable effort to accomplish and I’d rather work on my game or website.
I’ve picked UltraEdit (v11) as my Toque Script editor because it is inexpensive, has the best smart indenting, allows me to add Torque Script as a language pretty easily, and I can customize the highlighting colors. The one feature it has that stands out among them all is the function jumping/listing tool. Navigating using this make life SOOOO much easier.
The only thing I wish it had was the magic formatting feature you get with Visual Studio .Net. Oh well, maybe that’ll be in the next version. Here’s a list of why I eliminated all the other options (note the list is rough because some things I scratch off the second they where unintuitive or missing a feature I wanted):
[url=http://www.editplus.com/]EditPlus[/url] - No smart indenting and for $30 might
as well get UltraEdit and get smart indenting! (To be fair this was my third choice)
[url=http://www.jedit.org/]jEdit[/url] with [url=http://torqueide.sourceforge.net]TIDE[/url]
- Slow, function jumping system stupid, no brace formatting and no projects of course
this will come back to haunt me when I want to debug.
[url=http://www.notepad.org/]NotePad[/url] – Name a feature. It doesn’t have
it.
[url=http://www.eclipse.org/]Eclipse[/url] with [url=http://opensource.kruxgames.com/torquedit/]TorqueEdit[/url]
– My Microsoft centric brain can’t comprehend your advance Java GUI concepts
[url=http://www.twinno.com/brainedpro/]Brain Editor Professional[/url] - Demo
was expired when I installed it, didn’t take time to fight with it
[url=http://www.context.cx/]ConTEXT[/url] - Good file browser, semi-auto-indenting,
Free! I almost picked this one.
[url=www.multiedit.com]MultiEdit[/url] - $495!!! You realize what that kind
of money that is? You can freaking get a new computer for $500! I doubt
Microsoft’s Visual Studio Express will costs more than that!
[url=www.slickedit.com]SlickEdit[/url] – an eclipse plug-in, see My Microsoft centric
brain above.
[url=vim.sf.net]Vim[/url] – nice in that command line, telnet kind of way
[url=www.emacs.org]Emacs[/url] – didn’t bother, see Vim
[url=http://www.textpad.com/]Textpad[/url] - no brace matching formatting, or auto
complete
[url=http://www.crimsoneditor.com/]Crimson Editor[/url] – looked like so many I
had tried already so I didn’t bother
[url=http://home.t-online.de/home/Jens.Altmann/jfe_eng.htm]Jens' File Editor[/url]
- according to website is doesn’t have brace matching, function jumping or auto
complete so I didn’t bother downloading it, but it was a clever idea to give it
a girls name.
I also figured out a cool way to make UltraEdit help me find compile errors in the console log. I added the log as a syntax language and defined the error messages as functions. This way they show up as a list in the function-jumping window. I promise to add it as a resource down the road when I’ve ‘dog fooded’ it for a while.
My new tasks:
- Add simple main menu screen with new game button
- Add short command line switch to by-pass the tedious splash screen and main menu
I just got done adding. :D
- Get object picking so I can place more fleets
- Add Purchase
-- Allow user to click on icons of items he wants to buy
-- Allow user to click on items in ‘shopping cart’ to change mind about buying that
ten billion dollar Battleship with full compliment of fighters
-- Guess they’ll need a commit or next button to finish the phase.
I found this very interseting article today and instead of just tucking it away in my files I decided it'd be fun to share with everyone. Plus I'll know exactly where it is when I want to review it. Enjoy
-Mr.Phil
The following article is included with the permission of Bob Parsons and is Copyright © 2005 by Bob Parsons. All rights reserved.
“Robert, they can’t eat you!” My rules for survival.
Over a year ago, I was asked by BizAz Magazine (a local Phoenix magazine) to speak
at one of its “Business Beneath The Surface” breakfast meetings. As part of the
event, participants have the option of submitting questions to the speakers, which
are then answered during the breakfast.
One of the questions directed towards me was, “What advice do you have for someone
who is just starting a business?”
I liked Clint Eastwood's rules.
Also at that time, I happened to pick up a copy of Men’s Journal. Clint Eastwood
was on the cover and an article featured 10 items called “Clint’s rules.” I found
his rules to be interesting. They were things like, “You are what you drive,” “avoid
extreme makeovers,” and things like that. As Clint Eastwood is a pretty easy guy
to respect, I thought the whole rule thing was pretty cool. And the more I thought
about it, I realized that over the years I had accumulated a number of principles
(or rules) that I tried very hard to adhere to -- and these rules (in many ways)
have become the foundation for whatever successes I’ve had.
So, a few weeks before the meeting, I sat down and started typing -- in no particular
order -- the rules I try to live by. At the breakfast meeting, I read my rules at
the end of my presentation. The response was amazing. I was swamped with requests
for copies of the rules. An edited list was published in the Arizona Republic newspaper
a few days later. I was even called and interviewed by a local radio station about
the list.
Since then, some of the rules have been edited, some consolidated, and a few new
ones added. Despite those changes, the list of rules I presented that morning are
pretty much what appears at the end of this post.
My rules come from the significant life events I've experienced.
As I write this, I am now 54 years old, and during my life thus far I suspect that
I’ve encountered more significant life events than most people ever dream about.
Here’s some information about me:
I grew up in a lower middle class family in Baltimore’s inner city. We were always
broke. I’ve earned everything I ever received. Very little was ever given to me.
I’ve been working as long as I can remember. Whether it was delivering or selling
newspapers, pumping gas, working in construction or in a factory, I’ve always been
making my own money.
Not all of the life events were happy ones.
I was stood up to be executed twice during a robbery of a gas station where I was
working when I was 16. To my amazement, my would-be executioner could not muster
the nerve to pull the trigger. This saved both of us. I lived, and while he went
to jail, he did not go there forever. Eventually, in spite of other witnesses of
that and other crimes, I was the only one who testified against the two perpetrators.
They both received major jail sentences.
I was with a United States Marine Corps rifle company in Viet Nam for a short while
in 1969. As a combat rifleman, I learned several key life lessons that resulted
in some of the rules I try to live by. I learned first hand how significant a role
“luck” or karma can play in our lives. The rifle company I was assigned to, Delta
Company of the 1st Batallion, 26th Marines, operated in the rice paddys of Quang
Nam province. We operated on the squad level (7 to 10 of us, depending on casualties),
and most every night we left our command post and went several kilometers out into
the rice paddys and set up in ambush. While there are many who saw significantly
more combat action than me, I did see my share. After 5 or 6 weeks, I was wounded
and medevaced to Japan. I returned to Viet Nam several times after that, but came
back as a courier of classified documents. Although I requested (at least twice)
to return to my old rifle company, the transfer was never approved.
After the Marine Corps, I used the G.I. Bill to attend college, and graduated from
the University of Baltimore with a degree in accounting. I attended college mostly
at night. After college, I took and passed the CPA exam. I worked only a few years
as an accountant. The lion’s share of my career has been spent as an entrepreneur.
I've been very lucky when it comes to business.
I started a successful business division for a company called LeaseAmerica. During
the four years I was involved with this business, it grew to 84 employees and wrote
over $150 million dollars in small office equipment leases. Its success helped redefine
how business in that industry is now conducted.
Not long after I started the division for LeaseAmerica, I started a software company
in the basement of my house. I started it with the little bit of money I had, and
named it Parsons Technology. I owned this business for 10 years, grew it to about
1,000 employees and just shy of $100 million a year in sales. Eventually, we sold
Parsons Technology to a company named Intuit. Because my then-wife and I were the
only investors, and the company had no debt, we received the entire purchase price.
Shortly after selling Parsons Technology, my wife and I decided to go our separate
ways and did the customary “divide everything by two.” I then moved to Arizona and
retired for a year. This was a requirement of my deal with Intuit.
Retirement was not for me.
Retirement wasn’t for me, so after the mandatory year passed, and using the money
I had from the sale of Parsons Technology, I started a new business. This business
eventually became The Go Daddy Group. I started this business from scratch, did
it without acquisitions, and developed our own products. In the process, I came
spooky close to losing everything I had, and actually made the decision to “lose
it all” rather than close Go Daddy. Today, Go Daddy is the world leader in new domain
name registrations, and has been cash flow positive since October 2001 (not bad
for a dot com). As of this writing, I continue to be the only investor in Go Daddy.
Throughout all of these life events, I came to accumulate a number of rules that
I look to in various situations. Some of them I learned the hard way. Others I learned
from the study of history. I know they work because I have applied them in both
my business and personal life.
And one more thing.
I’ve read many times that original ideas are rare indeed. This is particularly true
when it comes to the rules herein. I can’t imagine that any of my rules represent
new ideas.
My contribution is that I’ve assembled these ideas, put them to work in my life,
and can attest -- that more often than not -- they hold true.
While I put my 16 rules together in response to a business question, I've been told
by others that they can be applied to almost any pursuit.
Here are the 16 rules I try to live by:
1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any
significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned
about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”
2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because
what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just
means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would
be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.
3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. There’s an old Chinese
saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation
to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could
happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom
will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.”
My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying
to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat
you.”
5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, “As you think,
so shall you be.”
6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can
get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present
moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.
7. Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop
doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts
to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember
the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge
advantages.
8. Be quick to decide. Remember what the Union Civil War general, Tecumseh Sherman
said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect
plan tomorrow.”
9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured
and watched, improves.
10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems
you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t
examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.
11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance.
Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.
12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing
field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided
that what you’re doing is legal.
13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll
be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when
you get on a bus (i.e., fare).
14. Solve your own problems. You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions,
you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it
best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.”
There's also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like
this: "A wise man keeps his own counsel."
15. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what
we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think
we are.
16. There’s always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just
to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always
reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time; we’re here for a good time.”
A special word of thanks.
I owe a special thanks to Brian Dunn. When I first wrote these rules down and was
thinking about compiling them into a book -- that book, like most books I suppose,
has been half-done for a while :); -- Brian read them and suggested a title. His
suggestion was, “They Can’t Eat You.” I like Brian’s suggestion for two reasons:
1. It reminds me of my Dad. I sure miss him; and 2. It’s true. No matter how difficult
things get, you're going to be OK. It's very important to realize that. Thanks,
Brian.
So originally I was going to post another entry about reflection and cloning. While I’m sure it would be interesting to other programmers and game developers I realized that they aren’t really the audience I’m trying to reach. In reality I’d like to reach potential customers and give them insight into my company and the game I’m working on. So here it goes!
If you are a regular reader then you know I’ve always been vague about the projects I’m working on. In my last post I gave you some insight into the churn of projects and technology I have gone through. The fear of causing disappointment has prevented me from being more specific about the work I’m doing or when it is going to be done. Now that I’ve concluded that focusing on my dreams is the smart way to go I’m going to start talking about my game more openly.
Bluntly put I’m making a 4X game. I’ve always loved strategy games. My list of all time favorite games are Star Craft, Medieval: Total War, Total Annihilation, Masters of Orion, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization, Homeworld, Alpha Centauri, Axis & Allies and Chess. Besides the theme of strategy in these games you’ll also notice a tendency towards Science Fiction. Some of my favorite movies are scifi: Star Wars, The 5th Element, Mad Max, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Enemy Mine, Close Encounters of a Third Kind, Blade Runner, Black Hole and Alien. Not to mention I’m a fan of the Star Trek shows. I can read too! I love William Gibson’s Neuromancer, John Varley’s Steel Beach, Douglas Adam’s Hitcher’s Guide to the Galaxy (can’t wait for the movie) and C. J. Cherryh’s The Chanur Saga.
So in some ways it would seem that I was kind of meant to make this game. I have lots of ideas that I want to incorporate into the game, but most of all I want it to be fun to play for hours and hours and hours. I have a title picked out that I like but I’m going to keep it a secret for now. In fact, I think it’ll be one of the last things I announce. I also am not going to commit to a release date right now. I still have a lot of work ahead of me and the last thing I need is a bunch of pressure to hurry it up. Wish me luck.
-Mr.Phil
So you might have noticed that after a long quiet period I’ve started posting again. That’s because back in September I decided that the blog was a procrastination outlet. Meaning I was using the blog to procrastinate instead of working on games. So I stopped. Here is a little on what has happened since September and two important things I’ve figured out which has reduced my procrastination and allowed me to start posting again!
In September I started work on a Fantasy Football website. The beginning of the
football season made me realize that I could build a website and at least create
some revenue that might make quitting my job possible, or at least go part time.
The work slowly ground to a halt and I lost interested.
In October I found a post on the Indie
Gamer Forums from someone selling their online game. I spent several days
checking out the game, and brainstorming ways I could improve the game. I traded
several emails with the creator, and made many spreadsheets trying to value the
game. I also explored the language it was written in to make sure it wasn’t something
I hated. But eventually I just could not see trading my hard earned money in for
all the risks the game represented.
In November I purchased the
Torque engine thinking that moving away from programming and more towards
the game making would help speed things up and rid me of the procrastination bug.
This did not happen and after spending a lot of time doing tutorials etc. I started
feeling like it was more work than it was worth. I had a feeling of wanting to just
pound out the code to do something instead of fighting with Torque to make it do
what I wanted. Torque seemed to be overkill for the game I want to make.
So then in December I got pretty depressed because I felt like my rate of progress
was too slow to ever complete anything. So I started seriously toying with the idea
of quitting my job. I liked the idea of having way more time to work, but I feared
turning into a lazy, unproductive blob, and losing my house. So after playing with
a spreadsheet and some soul searching I was convinced that for now the day job had
to stay. It offers a lot of advantages like I can afford to hire a maid, which saves
me some time each week. Pays the bills, and will probably help pay for some artwork,
etc down the road. The other factor is that without hitting the lottery the amount
of cash I can tap is limited and the logistics of it all doesn’t really buy me that
much time. And there is a lot of risk in expecting a modest income from a game very
quickly. It seemed the real problem is motivation, procrastination, planning and
management of time and energy.
Over Christmas and New Years I spent a lot of energy thinking about all this and
what my next move should be. I did a lot of reading, books and online. Eventually
enough different ideas mixed in with my problem that I discovered two important
things.
Going back to my experience with Torque I realized I didn’t like it because it didn’t
appeal to my innate skills and motivation. I got frustrated with Torque because
it did not fit with my programmer skills or mentality. My motivation to work quickly
diminished because instead of whipping out code to make something happen I was fighting
to make Torque do what I wanted. What was missing with Torque was the fun factor.
Torque was not fun for me (at least not yet.)
Quickly I realized this theme showed up in a lot of my decisions. Until now I’ve
constantly discounted the fun factor in my choices. Fun is more important to me
than I ever realized. Procrastination was becoming a huge problem for me because
my projects lacked any element of fun, they where all part of a fast, smart plan
to success. I finally realized success was highly unlikely if I procrastinate my
years away trying to force myself to work on the ‘smart’ project in the ‘great’
language I didn’t like. Put another way, I was treating myself like an employee,
but I already used up my employee energy (i.e. the energy for unpleasant tasks,
I’m not interested in, assigned by a boss) at work!
So I went back to C#. C# is a crazy choice, but it is the one that keeps me motivated
and I don’t have to fight with myself to put the hours in. I’ve also chosen to work
on my dream project because it will be the most fun.
The second important thing I discovered was this quote from Voltaire, “The Best
is the enemy of The Good.” I like it because it speaks to so many of my challenges
as an indie. Several times I have thrown way code because I discovered some new
‘better’ technology or thought of a faster or more profitable project. I even dumped
code because I thought I had discovered a better design. Churn, churn, churn, was
destroying any semblance of progress. The lesson is, usually The Good is perfectly
acceptable and will cost less resources and time than The Best.
So my new approach is to stick with what I like or think will be fun and don’t try
to make all the best choices, just good ones.
-Mr. Phil
(Editing note, some of this material started as posts on the
Indie Gamer Forums)