Mass Effect and SecuRom
Written on 17 June 2008 by Chris AustinWell, I’ve been wanting to pick up a copy of Mass Effect for the PC since console gaming just does not do it for me. But, a friend just forwarded me some disturbing news about the restrictions of the SecuRom DRM that the game is using. Apparently, things like tinkering with the hardware on your PC could cause game activation issues and lock you out of your game. Personally, I upgrade hardware and Operating Systems pretty often. So, until there is a work-around or EA drops SecureRom Mass Effect is something I wont be willing to purchase or play.
BFG Tech: Great Tech Support
Written on 10 May 2007 by Chris AustinToday, my brand spanking new NVIDIA card by BFG Tech decided to act a little odd. I was seeing blurry/static artifacts only on certain portions of my display regardless of the resolution, display or, operating system that I was running.
When I called up bfg’s tech support number I was pleasantly pleased with the wait and how quickly the tech support agent on the other end of the line realized that it was an issue with the card. He proptly gave me a case number and tranfered me to the RMA department. On the RMA side, they quickly gave me the info I needed and let me go on my way.
Hopefully, the rest of the RMA process will be as issue free.
Choosing an engine
Written on 6 May 2007 by Chris AustinThis is the next post in my little series about planning the RPG that I want to build. Before I got a bit off track with last post about the importance of a game design document (GDD) I was delving into some of the choices about game engines. In short I’ve decided to use and existing game engine.
Just doing some quick research, you will find that there is a near overwhelming choice of game engines available. Just take a look at this list that I found at wikipedia .
When you research just a bit further you find that these engines vary in price from “free” to “a whole lot of money”. Besides price you will also find that the feature sets, capabilities and, the number/quality of published titles vary greatly.
For myself, as I am evaluating these engines I am looking at the following items:
- Price: I can afford a few hundred dollars but, not much more.
- Features: As I further build out my design, I will be able better discuss this. For now, I am looking at generalities such as shaders, lighting, indoor and outdoor environment capabilities.
- Documentation: This is universal for the free and “cheap”engines and SDKs. Since this is my first independent attempt at a game I don’t want to spend a lot of time fighting the platform.
- Scripting Systems: A scripting system is imho vital for prototyping features.
- Support: Obviously, if you are counting on an engine to be the foundation to your “dream” game you’d like the assurance of an active community in the case of a free engine. Likewise, in the case of a commercial engine you’d like a reasonably responsive support.
At this point I’ve narrowed the decision down to one or two engines. However, I’ll save that for hopefully the next post in this series.
Building a good design document.
Written on 4 May 2007 by Chris AustinFor those of you have who’ve seen some of my post, you know that I’ve been writing a little about building my own RPG. Before I go any further, I’d like to address one of the absolute most important things in any software project; the design document.
For the uninitiated, a design document is your project’s bible. It is where all of the high level decisions and features are documented. It should be the basis for all scheduling and planning. I’ll say it again another way, without a design document, any schedule or, talk of a percentage of tasks that are complete, is purely fiction. Having stated that about as strongly and politely as I know how, lets look at what I think a design document should be.
A design document contains every screen, every item, every piece of data, and every feature that will be in your product. It provides these items in detail enough for you to estimate how much time it will take to produce them. However, be cautious that it does not go to deep into detail that it hinders the actual development process.
Once your design document is finished, you can begin to plan your work at a high level and start scheduling tasks. You do this by taking all of the features in the document and breaking them down into task. You can then break these high level items down even further until you can look the time it take to accomplish the task in terms of weeks or months. Additionally, the design document is useful as it eliminates unnecessary discussions about requirements. When there is such a moment, all parties should consult the design document and move forward based on it.
At gamasutra, this article is a great example of a well written design document.
So, I hope you can see why I think that a design document is absolutely vital to the success of a software project. A well thought out and written design document eliminates developer time wasted on feature creep, it servers as a starting point for all scheduling activities and, it provides the big picture of your project.
For those reading that are interested in such things, drop me a note about what you think.
Rolling your game engine vs using an existing engine.
Written on 1 May 2007 by Chris AustinThis post will further discuss the RPG that I am going to develop. In the last post I covered the choice of top down vs 1st person. In this post I will discuss some aspects of the game engine.
When starting out on this one will I have to make a choice from the beginning that will affect almost every aspect of the game. This decision is, should I roll my own game engine from scratch (based on existing rendering engines) or, use an existing engine or sdk?
The obvious benefit of rolling your own engine is control of how every aspect is implemented. Of course the corresponding downside of this is the time and difficulty involved in doing so.
Conversely, the downside of using an existing engine is that you have little to no control of the implementation. The benefits are that you will have an existing base or platform and tools to get quickly up to speed.
Since I am the only person working on this project currently, I think the choice to cede control of the internal implementation details to an existing engine is the best. Also, many of the existing game engine SDKs have available source code; this in my opinion mitigates some of the concerns about losing control of you game’s base.
Choosing game style.
Written on 30 April 2007 by Chris AustinAs I mentioned in my last post I am going to produce a RPG on my own. So, I need to make some choices about the basic make up of the game. In this post I am going to look at the “play style” of the game. By that I mean do I want to build the game to be a “top down” game similar to the Final Fantasy franchise? Or do I want build a 1st/3rd person style game akin to the Knights of The Old Republic franchise?
I’ve played numerous top down games like FF and Baldur’s Gate and found that they are very fun as they seem to introduce very enjoyable combat systems.
On the other hand I’ve also had a blast with the First Person games like Deus Ex and some of the online RPGs. These seem to be a bit more immersive and popular these days.
Based on my playing experiance and the fact that I want to build something that I would like to play I deciding to go with the 1st/3rd person style rpg.
My next big decision will be about the engine behind the game. There are a lot of choices so that may take a while.
My new pet project.
Written on 29 April 2007 by Chris AustinI have always wanted to develop a role playing game. So, I’ve decided that someday is now and I will use this site as journal and a feedback mechanism as I develop my ideas and the game itself. All in all, I want to have fun doing this and not turn it into “work” as I don’t expect to make a dime off my initial efforts.
The theme will follow the standard “Heros Journey” type of theme in a SCI-FI setting.
Some of the items that I am going to journal and comment on will be
- settings
- tools
- game engines
- technology (shaders, OpenGL, DirectX, lighting)
- design choices
I’ve been scribbling down ideas for this project for over a year now. Sadly however, I haven’t come up with a name yet 
Getting through the development slump
Written on 28 April 2007 by Chris AustinAlmost every developer I have ever known has their ups and downs, myself especially. One thing I have noticed with many really good software developers that I have met is that they have a method to get through their slumps.
From what I’ve gathered by asking and attempting to practice myself is that it isn’t something magical or some kind of secret obtained through years of work. It is, on the surface, pretty simple. You just work through it and find ways to enjoy your work.
For example, I have a project that I am working on that I don’t find very interesting. And, it is difficult sometimes to keep myself focused and on task. But, if I don’t I’ll lose the contract and ruin my reputation. So, I just work through the mundane parts and take as much joy as I can in writing solid code.
How do you get yourself working may be different from person to person. For me, it is often just opening up the IDE or editor and reading my “TODOs”.
For the few readers I do have, I’d be curious how you get through your slumps, assuming you experience them.
Getting back into Python.
Written on 18 April 2007 by Chris AustinThe first position I had as a programmer involved programming using python almost exclusively. This was back in 2001. Unfortunately, along with the rest of the dot-com bubble my employer ran out of money and I along with almost the entire company found ourselves laid off and looking for work.
In those days it seemed that not to many people had heard of Python or gave it any credence. So, I had to follow the dollars and find work using other programing languages and technologies. But python was always in the back of my head.
Finally, I find myself in the position to build an application suite for a client using Python as the primary language. My, how things have changed since then. Python has really matured and improved it’s features. Also, it’s no longer suffering from obscurity.
But, one thing has remained the same, cutting code using Python is pretty darn fun. I am not quite the same Python hacker I was back then but, it’s like any other skill one develops and just needs a little practice to get back up to speed.
How much does sleep affect your productivity?
Written on 16 December 2006 by Chris AustinI don’t know the answer to this question myself. But, I wonder if there is any type of immediate correlation between sleep and productivity throughout the course of a full day.
What’s piqued my interest in this topic is some information I’ve read on the web about biphasic and polyphasic sleep. Both of these are drastic departures from the typical sleeping and waking cycles and I am not honestly game for either. It seems everyone has their own opinion on what proper sleeping is.
I have a good friend who swears by his six hours of sleep a night. His wife on the other hand, asserts that nine hours of sleep a night is an absolute necessity. Personally, I’ve found that when I begin letting my sleep slip in favor of work or play for more than a day or two, I find it difficult to concentrate or just to motivate myself.
So, to answer this question I’ve decided to start logging my sleep time on a semi-daily basis along with the percentage of my daily task that get done. I want to do this often so I can see if it is a trend of sleep deprivation that hits the productivity or if one night of lost sleep will have an immediate impact.
In order to keep this as fair as possible I will work and play as normal and just attempt to observe the data for the first month or two. I know that this is far from a well designed experiment as I am not taking into account such things as exercise, stimulants (like coffee or tea) or, other things one may use to keep their motor running through the day. But, I will try my best to keep it honest and keep up my moderate exercise and supplements.
If after that time I see a trend or pattern evolve I will consider adjusting my schedule. Once I have enough data points I’ll start posting some charts here.