Stuff Tagged With "Life"

Oh man I've had two very busy weeks in my "real" life. So busy I've hardly had the time to check the website and little less post anything new.

Things do look brighter now and I hope to get busy developing soon! I've got an update for T.W.T.P.B. in the pipe and also Project L needs some love

Oh... a new year has come and it's time for a view back on the year past from a Spell of Play perspective.

2009 was a social year for me. TWTPB launched late 2008 and much of my energy went into marketing and getting the word out there about twtpb, hUb and Spell of Play in general. This was also the time when I discovered twitter and I quickly took it to my heart... probably a bit too much There is even a way for you to connect your spell of play profile and twitter profile, via our twitter app Game Twtr

Via twitter we got a bunch of followers and visitors to our website, I tried doing twitter contests, blogging contests, appeared on some pod-casts and also a web show featured the spell of play homepage. We then decided to host a small game development gathering called SoPCon in Gothenburg. We also managed to end up on a list of Swedens hottest small game developers resulting in some local radio and tv-interviews. Things where looking good!

However, as it seems reality catches up sooner or later and I've felt quite uninspired, burnt out, call it what you want after summer. The end result was that I did not manage to pull through the latter half of 2009 and the result is that the number of visitors to the site is at an all time low Not much is happening and I've not been able to do much about it.

I also have not been able to get a real start on any new game projects this year. I'm torn between continuing working on TWTPB (I have some ideas for an expansion), Project L and some new ideas I have been experimenting with lately.

So what is my vision for 2010? What I would like to happen is to get the online community working and have some proper integration with our games. I want the homepage to feel more alive and kicking than ever! I would also like to at least start a new game project. I also have a number of improvements to the hUb backend that I would like to get on.

What will definitely happen is that we'll push our games to appear on Gamers Gate and also a port of TWTPB to XNA -> XBox is more or less done. So I hope we'll get accepted by Microsoft.

I will try to play more games 2010

I hope your 2009 was good and that 2010 will be even better for you!

Today, we put our beloved dog Bamse to sleep. He was eleven years old, and he's been struggling with a heart condition the last few weeks. Though this was definitely the hardest thing I've done my whole life it was the right thing to do, and everything was very peaceful and worthy.

You will be dearly missed Bamse and we will remember you. Thanks for everything and I know you are running free, wild and strong again...


One of the last photos of Bamse and William

Well... maybe not so epic As you might know I'm working on a new game; Project L, of which iteration 2 was supposed to be released today. And it's not... Usually I'm quite adamant about releasing like clock work. I think it's of utmost importance to get into the habit of regular releases and to downscale the release if time is running out rather than postpone it. All in the true spirit of iterative development.

However, sometimes the shit hits the fan so hard you can't do much but take cover...

This week has been such a week for me and my family. Tina (my wife) is down and out in a nasty viral throat infection making it near impossible for her to both eat, drink and speak. For the second time this week we went to the doctors today (first time we got the standard antibiotic (i.e. lets test if it's bacterial), and got sent to the hospital. They checked her up quite thoroughly for a few hours and actually wanted to make her stay over night to get properly hydrated again. However, after some special painkillers she managed to get some fluids down and we finally got sent home.

The only thing we can do now actually is wait for it to get better, and hope that no one else in the family catches it too. A big bummer is that we where supposed to go for a one week vacation in Denmark tomorrow, but that is of course simply out of the question...

Anyway, the release will be made as soon as I get my energy back and get some time to make it happen...

Since SoPCON 1 I've been really busy with vacation (also know as try to paint your house) and some small side projects. Things are soon back to normal though as I'm headed back to the university next week.

SoPCON 1 came and went all to fast. It was really awesome to meet both new and old friends and I'm still super inspired by all the great feedback on hUb, our approach to development and the games. Amazing when you think about it that people actually come to spent their precious free weekend time to be creative and develop stuff. Kudos to you guys! There will definitely be a next time in some form or another!

While the first SoPCON was much a test, a free range of exploring, socializing and being creative. Possibly the next one will be somewhat more organized possibly with some workshops, compos or something to steer the event a bit more.

I personally did two bad things, first I did not make a game release. This bummed me out for a bit but since I'm really inspired now I've worked some on it and hope to make a release next week. Also my brain was quite fried Sunday afternoon so in retrospect it was not that strange that the coding did not come together as I wanted it to. The second bad decision I did was to drive home right after SoPCON, it's a 400 km drive and considering my lack of focus and being really mentally tired I'm happy that all went well.

Next time I'm definitely taking a good nights sleep before thinking about driving.

Anyway, I've got tons of inspiration, feedback and I'm itching to get a new game out there so less of the blogging and more of the coding!

16/12, 17:29 we got a beautiful baby girl! All is well and mom and baby will be home soon.

As you probably understand I'll put my Spell of Play stuff on the back burner until we get settled.

A few weeks ago a fellow game developer asked me how on earth I can be so productive, having a kid, wife, house, cars, daytime job, etc. I actually did not reflect much on it and I don't feel like I'm some productivity guru. On the other hand I do have picked up some good(?) habits along the way, and I guess making 25 releases of a game in a 50 weeks is somewhat productive. So these are my tips on productivity, they are of course biased towards on making indie computer games in general and programming in particular.

Stay Motivated

Making a PC game is not a 100m dash. At least not if your goal is to release it as shareware and have some people buy it. Making a PC game is more like a marathon, or maybe an ultra marathon. Be prepared for about a year in development time, and the hard part is actually to stay motivated and not jump to another seemingly more exiting project.

For me, key to staying motivated is iterative game development. For years I also kept on developing games, but not making any public releases. Needless to say none of the projects where remotely finished.

You need to find a way to cultivate your burning desire so that you don't spend it all the first month.

Get a Good Laptop

Good tools are a must to stay motivated and there are great productivity enhancing tools out there. I experienced a productivity boost when I got myself a good laptop. It's a high end one, with a full keyboard (including the numpad), good gpu and such. Using it I can stay productive during tv-commercials, 10-minute breaks, when traveling etc.

Leverage Your Compiler

My main tool is my compiler, and I tend to use it as much as possible. Over the years I have developed a style of coding that is intended to produce compiler or linker errors, instead of hard to find runtime errors. I tend to compile and compile for every line I write and having a bunch of compiler errors to fix is an automatic to do list. When I make a code change I want the compiler or linker to tell me where the code is broken, and not have some strange bug show up in some super-generic object oriented piece of over engineered game code.

I also tend to reject script languages for the fact that I don't want another source of bugs. If I need some code, I can simply make it in C++, use the compiler to my advantage and that's it.

Micro Task

To keep productive you need to have a backlog of tasks, and they need to be small. You simply cannot have huge tasks when you get 10 or 20 minutes of coding every now and then. Having a pool of small, micro tasks, that you can just pick up and finish one off is a great productivity enhancer. Also all big tasks can definitely be broken down into many smaller ones.

You should of course use a tool to track and manage your task.

Don't Finish Tasks

You should of course finish tasks, but I have found that the timing when finishing them can increase your productivity.

I have noticed myself is that I have a hard time to start fresh on a new task. It seems as taking those first steps is the hardest part. You can probably get passed this by just using discipline. But I have found that if I don't finish a task completely, (leaving the code broken with some compiler/linker errors) I tend to have a much easier time of picking up the pace. Then I make sure that I start a new task, which now is much easier since I'm already into development mode, before stopping and leaving the code broken for the next time I find a few minutes for development.

Use Source Control

You need to have all files, and I mean all, under some version control. Even if you are the only developer. This also goes for artists creating content and don't forget the original versions of the game assets. Having an optimized, resized texture in source control is actually less important than having the original, huge, layered psd original file under control.

Have a Normal Life

Finally you really need to have an ordinary life, with family, friends, exercise, healthy good food and non development related stuff. You really really need this to not burn out on your first project. I have seen great developers burning out on game projects, leaving their passion for games behind, starting a whole new career.

Making games is at times painful, dreary work, at the same time it can be wonderful, creative, passionate and exiting.

Would be cool to know if you have any similar experiences, or do you have some other productivity tip to share?