Steel Penny Games

My hands are aching, legs are shot, and I'm pretty tired right now.  I've just finished completely rebuilding two of my three new IBM Model M clicky keyboards!  I'd have posted some before and after pics, but I didn't want to frighten anyone.  The before pics are horrifying, and the after looks just like a brand new clicky Model M.  But in case anyone in the Austin area (or not) is looking for some more of these ancient but awesome 'boards, Comptuers 4 Kids has quite a few still kicking around (check their eBay store).  They're a little overpriced at $45 a pop, in filthy condition, but you can't beat local pickup and in-person returns, if need be.

So, why refurb Model M's?  Why not buy a new keyboard?  Well, I honestly haven't found one that is A) solidly built, and B) aren't ridiculously expensive.  The Omnikey was good, but went out of business.  Now CVT makes them, but the suckers have Windows keys--which I find absolutely no use for.  I'm told the DasKeyboard is good, and particularly cool because you can get a version that has no markings on any keys, for the sure-fingered h4xx0r in you.  Pretty intimidating to people who just want to sit down and tinker on your machine.  But really, I haven't had a good keyboard come new from a factory since the Fujitsu (non-clicky but awesome, still use it daily) that came with my 386-40mhz in '93, and I always check the keyboard aisle in computer stores.  They're all crap.

Another reason I wanted to get more Model M's is we've just hired another programmer, Will Marsden (welcome!), and all the keyboards I had sitting in the spare hardware box were mushy ones relegated to being connected to servers or other temporary assignments.  I feel like it's my duty to make sure that people that work with/for me  are afforded the highest quality experience we can comfortably afford.  I know I'd want that from any job I'm at, and grumble a bit when I'm handed sub-par equipment.  While some folks may not think much of the gesture of tracking down 20 year old hardware and spending an hour or so cleaning it with soapy water, isopropyl alcohol, and Q-tips... think of it in terms of your own job. If you are a violinist, wouldn't you love to work in an orchestra where the conductor gets everyone in the strings section a Stradivarius?  If you're a waiter, wouldn't you like to have your manager looking for the absolutely most comfortable shoes and insist on getting them for you?   Acquiring the best keyboard ever made for a person who will be typing on it for 8+ hours a day and restoring it to brand-new condition is one of the best gifts I can give for coming to work with us.  At least, I think so.

Last night went fairly well.  There were two other speakers before me.  They went on quite a long time, and unfortunately some folks had to leave early, being a school night and all...  But those who hung around were a great audience. 

It looks like my good friend Brad Clark finally roped me into talking in front of an audience of graphics professionals.  Consequently, I've spent too many hours working on a slide presentation about my thoughts on running an independent game studio, how my goals and expectations have changed over the years, and what lessons I've learned in the process of both succeeding and failing at the job.

 I'm not certain at this point whether I'll present this again in a different forum (GDC? Siggraph?  Indie Games Conference?), or if I just post the slides as a PDF or Flash file.  I guess that depends on the reaction I get from the crowd.  A band of hungry artists can be cruel, I'm told, if the queso and salsa is slow to the table.

At any rate, I'll be at El Mercado on 17th and Lavaca from 6:30pm until whenever they hiss me off the podium.

Click here for more on the 3D Austin Users Group.   It's a link on the left side of the page.

Good news for us!  We're officially licensed Sony developers for PS3 and PSP.  Now, as a studio we're able to work on every major piece of hardware  (except the DS, which doesn't interest me).  Very cool indeed.

So, what are we working on?  Uh... can't say much, but that we're putting a lot of effort into building an editor.  Finally, we're taking the time to accelerate our development.   Funny when you say that out loud, but it's true.  It's really amazing how time consuming it can be editing text files to make games.  It's even more time consuming to write an editor that writes text files, so you can make a game with it faster.  :-) It's very common to be too busy getting things done, to take a step back and plan a way to get it done more quickly. Why do it now? I suppose it's fair to say we can't possibly get our next game done otherwise, so our hand has been forced.

Be that as it may, we already have some really nice features that are quite tricky to do... things like automatic reloading of meshes and textures while playing the game (without needing to restart or even push a button).  Although this kind of stuff is fairly troublesome to implement correctly, once you have it, iteration time for development drops dramatically and quality jumps while costs fall.  Classic technology investment scenario, which we all learned from playing Civilization.  Speaking of... I wonder if I can find my old floppy disk.  And a functioning floppy drive...