4:57am on a borrowed netbook.
hacking 'til dawn on a friend's couch, tangled in cables.
compile error in <tuple>.
.
.
6:23am and it's error 0xc000007b.
birds singing, traffic starting.
what does this even mean.
.
.
7:02am reading documentation.
oh wait steam just solves this problem for me automatically.
whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.
click "release".
.
.
868-hack now on steam.
also available on ios.
massive thanks to yann seznec for making the trailer with me.
let me know about any bugs; there's bound to be something that can go wrong in some circumstance and hopefully i can fix it. maybe not straight away. i need to rest.
Monday, 26 January 2015
Sunday, 25 January 2015
endings
feeling an era of my life is coming to an end.
releasing 868-hack on steam on tuesday. i thought that once i released it on ios i would move straight on to the pc release but instead i found myself prioritising fixing bugs in what i'd released, and then i was sick of working on it and needed to do other things for a while. now somehow this has ended up hanging over me for well over a year. but it's all ready. i just need to borrow a windows computer tomorrow to compile the release build - mine has broken down irreparably after several years of faithful service - something else that's ended. (yeah i'm cutting things fine, tomorrow night might be pretty busy but hey.)
helix too, i finally got out a few months ago; just did an update fixing minor bugs and i think that's it, i don't need to touch it again. not financially worth it to port anywhere. (of course an ios update will break it pretty soon but NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT NOW.)
smesport has been essentially done for over a year so i should just put it out, i can release it any time really. had been thinking of doing a little more on it but i guess not. hasn't been a high priority because it's a local 4-player game and i hardly ever make an opportunity to play it myself, i know almost no-one else will. it's a good game when other people are good at it though.
the other project i'm working on i haven't talked about much. it's an idea i've been grappling with for a couple of years, making several prototypes and throwing them away, last august i finally figured out how to make it work so i've been building it slowly since then. i don't want to put a time estimate on it but it's getting there.
that's all the things i'm working on. they're all long projects and i'm finishing them off one by one and i haven't been starting new things. i haven't been getting into jams lately, not feeling it. so i don't know where i'm going after this. for a while there i thought i would keep producing games at the same rate forever. but now i've done a lot of what i'd set out to do, maybe i am running out of ambition. i haven't had a reason to make another puzzle game after corrypt, it does what i wanted to do with puzzles. helix, glitch tank, 868-hack, these have kind of fulfilled my design goals for their respective genres. probably i will find myself making something new before i know it, certainly there are plenty more games i can think of making, just right now there doesn't seem to be much reason to. maybe i will make something other than a game. i wrote before about how the weight of supporting released games was hurting me, and that's part of it too, but really not all.
parallel to that, i'm leaving scotland in march. kind of a big deal. don't know where we'll be living next. going to travel a little bit, then maybe back to new zealand for good? that'll be strange. not bad, i miss new zealand, but i'm going to miss europe too. or maybe we won't settle there, maybe we'll end up somewhere else, just don't know. we knew we wouldn't be here forever and it has been very unstable, but it is hard not to feel settled after a while. i'm looking forward to travelling and adventure but then
releasing 868-hack on steam on tuesday. i thought that once i released it on ios i would move straight on to the pc release but instead i found myself prioritising fixing bugs in what i'd released, and then i was sick of working on it and needed to do other things for a while. now somehow this has ended up hanging over me for well over a year. but it's all ready. i just need to borrow a windows computer tomorrow to compile the release build - mine has broken down irreparably after several years of faithful service - something else that's ended. (yeah i'm cutting things fine, tomorrow night might be pretty busy but hey.)
helix too, i finally got out a few months ago; just did an update fixing minor bugs and i think that's it, i don't need to touch it again. not financially worth it to port anywhere. (of course an ios update will break it pretty soon but NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT NOW.)
smesport has been essentially done for over a year so i should just put it out, i can release it any time really. had been thinking of doing a little more on it but i guess not. hasn't been a high priority because it's a local 4-player game and i hardly ever make an opportunity to play it myself, i know almost no-one else will. it's a good game when other people are good at it though.
the other project i'm working on i haven't talked about much. it's an idea i've been grappling with for a couple of years, making several prototypes and throwing them away, last august i finally figured out how to make it work so i've been building it slowly since then. i don't want to put a time estimate on it but it's getting there.
that's all the things i'm working on. they're all long projects and i'm finishing them off one by one and i haven't been starting new things. i haven't been getting into jams lately, not feeling it. so i don't know where i'm going after this. for a while there i thought i would keep producing games at the same rate forever. but now i've done a lot of what i'd set out to do, maybe i am running out of ambition. i haven't had a reason to make another puzzle game after corrypt, it does what i wanted to do with puzzles. helix, glitch tank, 868-hack, these have kind of fulfilled my design goals for their respective genres. probably i will find myself making something new before i know it, certainly there are plenty more games i can think of making, just right now there doesn't seem to be much reason to. maybe i will make something other than a game. i wrote before about how the weight of supporting released games was hurting me, and that's part of it too, but really not all.
parallel to that, i'm leaving scotland in march. kind of a big deal. don't know where we'll be living next. going to travel a little bit, then maybe back to new zealand for good? that'll be strange. not bad, i miss new zealand, but i'm going to miss europe too. or maybe we won't settle there, maybe we'll end up somewhere else, just don't know. we knew we wouldn't be here forever and it has been very unstable, but it is hard not to feel settled after a while. i'm looking forward to travelling and adventure but then
Friday, 9 January 2015
helix stuff
Helix has sold 3841 copies. Depending on where you stand you might think this number is good or bad, I don't know. For me it is certainly not terrible (hello Glitch Tank) but it is less than I had been hoping for given how long I spent on it and how encouraging everyone had been while I was working on it.
I am not that worried about the money right now; I have plenty saved from 868-HACK to keep going, even with my wife being about to become unemployed. Seriously I'm okay did you see that number last paragraph (and I'm releasing it on PC soon NO REALLY THIS TIME and hopefully people will still buy it there even though I took so long about it). I can keep making stuff. But it does feel very unstable; I can put all the work into something that seems like it will do well and that everyone is telling me will be the biggest thing ever and then it's just not. For me, while I am primarily making games out of artistic inspiration part of the motivation to finish things well and fix all the bugs comes from the hope of getting paid for my time, otherwise I would rather keep chasing new ideas. And Helix ended up taking a lot of time to get done. I don't know, maybe I can get fast again but maybe I am just getting old and slow and I will take longer to make things.
I had kind of intended to stop entering the IGF, at least for a while. I had had three games in it, maybe that's enough and I should leave some space for new people right? But then I was looking at numbers and thinking no I am responsible to do things to promote my work so I entered it again. Helix has received an honourable mention for the design category. I had entered it two years earlier, back when I was making games nice and quickly and I thought I'd be releasing it any week, and it got an honourable mention for design then too. I had hoped that maybe it would get in this time because it actually got a lot better during those two years, but it is okay.
(Aside: "excellence in design" is a bit of a confused category because the judges are divided on whether it means "game mechanics" or "the holistic effect of all elements together", the latter being essentially equivalent to the "grand prize" category. This is something I would like to see them clarify.)
Andi also entered our Ludum Dare collaboration BECOME A GREAT ARTIST IN JUST 10 SECONDS and that is a finalist which is pretty neat. I am positive about life.
Helix is going to be game of the year, whichever year @smestorp decides to make sound effects for it and put it out.
— Bennett (@bfod) February 21, 2013I am not that worried about the money right now; I have plenty saved from 868-HACK to keep going, even with my wife being about to become unemployed. Seriously I'm okay did you see that number last paragraph (and I'm releasing it on PC soon NO REALLY THIS TIME and hopefully people will still buy it there even though I took so long about it). I can keep making stuff. But it does feel very unstable; I can put all the work into something that seems like it will do well and that everyone is telling me will be the biggest thing ever and then it's just not. For me, while I am primarily making games out of artistic inspiration part of the motivation to finish things well and fix all the bugs comes from the hope of getting paid for my time, otherwise I would rather keep chasing new ideas. And Helix ended up taking a lot of time to get done. I don't know, maybe I can get fast again but maybe I am just getting old and slow and I will take longer to make things.
I had kind of intended to stop entering the IGF, at least for a while. I had had three games in it, maybe that's enough and I should leave some space for new people right? But then I was looking at numbers and thinking no I am responsible to do things to promote my work so I entered it again. Helix has received an honourable mention for the design category. I had entered it two years earlier, back when I was making games nice and quickly and I thought I'd be releasing it any week, and it got an honourable mention for design then too. I had hoped that maybe it would get in this time because it actually got a lot better during those two years, but it is okay.
(Aside: "excellence in design" is a bit of a confused category because the judges are divided on whether it means "game mechanics" or "the holistic effect of all elements together", the latter being essentially equivalent to the "grand prize" category. This is something I would like to see them clarify.)
Andi also entered our Ludum Dare collaboration BECOME A GREAT ARTIST IN JUST 10 SECONDS and that is a finalist which is pretty neat. I am positive about life.
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