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A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

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Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#41

Post by abraxasz »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

That pretty much defines 'art' I think. The artist is compelled to see the vision through, it isn't about the money or the time or the cost. I am quite impressed he stuck it through. A long time ago (1983 to be precise) I started rewriting Empire, a curses based turn based strategy game (Hi Walter!) because I was convinced I could make it so much better and I had spent a lot of hours playing it. When I was at Intel w…

I had a similar thought when I watched the video. Actually, I thought about the concept of 'Quality' as introduced in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Two moments in particular:

- the consistent lighting part: the guy is making this giant epic thing, so you'd think he would cut himself some slack on what really looks like a detail (I wouldn't have noticed it, especially not in this type of game). And yet, the guy absolutely obsesses over it because, you know, that's how it feels right.

- the 'aging' part, when he explains how he kept upgrading old sprites or levels as his skills improved so they "would match up to his standard".

And the best part is that the guy doesn't come off as being arrogant or anything. Just a dude, making the game he would like to play, and making sure it's as good as he dreams it to be. Inspiring.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#44

Post by mcphilip »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

That pretty much defines 'art' I think. The artist is compelled to see the vision through, it isn't about the money or the time or the cost. I am quite impressed he stuck it through. A long time ago (1983 to be precise) I started rewriting Empire, a curses based turn based strategy game (Hi Walter!) because I was convinced I could make it so much better and I had spent a lot of hours playing it. When I was at Intel w…

>That pretty much defines 'art' I think. The artist is compelled to see the vision through, it isn't about the money or the time or the cost. I am quite impressed he stuck it through.

[...]

>I love that Adam stuck with it and got it done. Very inspiring.

I agree, and I also like how Adam was realistic in describing the burden of seeing the project through completion as an albatross.

There are several side projects I work on that I've never been able to finish, but I don't feel the psychological burden of them. It's hard to know if that means I'm just not committing hard enough to completing side projects, or I'm appropriately moving on at the right time. Either way, maybe one reason I don't feel like there's much 'artistry' to my output is that I'm not willing to take on that heavy of a burden.

Just food for though. Inspiring stuff. I found the PuzzleSolver program included in the download just as interesting as the game, btw.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#47

Post by Hortinstein »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #37
munificent wrote: post #2

I've been working on a roguelike for, I think, about 14 years now. It's gone through several rewrites, different languages, different UIs, and it's never come close to being done. These days, I tend to think of it more as a garden: something for me to putter around in but not as much a product (though I would love to get it to a point where other people can play it).

I have a similar game. I have a text based online football game, and can relate a great deal to many things he said, like the albatross. I will start trying to reframe it in my mind as a garden. That sounds much nicer :) I think 500 people right now play my game, and if anything that makes the weight of it all larger.

so...i am not a huge football fan, but this sounds interesting. Can you link it?

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#48

Post by ido »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

That pretty much defines 'art' I think. The artist is compelled to see the vision through, it isn't about the money or the time or the cost. I am quite impressed he stuck it through. A long time ago (1983 to be precise) I started rewriting Empire, a curses based turn based strategy game (Hi Walter!) because I was convinced I could make it so much better and I had spent a lot of hours playing it. When I was at Intel w…

    When I was at Intel working on a high end graphics chip 
    I joked with one of the design engineers that it would 
    be cool if you could see little armies fighting but we
    both agreed there probably wouldn't be enough CPU /
    graphics capability to do that in real time, at least 
    not in our lifetime :-)
You really didn't think that would be possible in your lifetime in 1983? I'd think that would have seen pretty feasible by then, seeing as there were games on mainstream computers doing that not even a decade later.

Heck, I bet you could get something resembling that working on a 1985-vintage amiga.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#49

Post by pdenya »

AndyNemmity wrote: post #37
munificent wrote: post #2

I've been working on a roguelike for, I think, about 14 years now. It's gone through several rewrites, different languages, different UIs, and it's never come close to being done. These days, I tend to think of it more as a garden: something for me to putter around in but not as much a product (though I would love to get it to a point where other people can play it).

I have a similar game. I have a text based online football game, and can relate a great deal to many things he said, like the albatross. I will start trying to reframe it in my mind as a garden. That sounds much nicer :) I think 500 people right now play my game, and if anything that makes the weight of it all larger.

> a text based online football game

What? Can you describe it differently? I have no concept of how this could be played.

Re: A developer who spent 13 years making his childhood game

#50

Post by AndyNemmity »

pdenya wrote: post #49
AndyNemmity wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar game. I have a text based online football game, and can relate a great deal to many things he said, like the albatross. I will start trying to reframe it in my mind as a garden. That sounds much nicer :) I think 500 people right now play my game, and if anything that makes the weight of it all larger.

> a text based online football game What? Can you describe it differently? I have no concept of how this could be played.

You are the GM of a team. You play against 31 other players in a professional league. You sign free agents, draft players, deal with injuries, choose plays for your team to run, when you want. Every real day, is a game "week" so you play a game a day, unless it's the offseason.

You have a salary cap you have to deal with. Trade with other human players. Try to win the Championship.

A season lasts a real time month from start to finish. The players are all fake, they grow up. They make pro bowls, and try to make the hall of fame.

We have leagues that have run over 70 seasons at this point.

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