Runic Entertainment

Well it certainly has been a while since I’ve updated this website. A lot has happened since I was last here. I was accepted into DePaul’s graduate computer game development program involving a heavy regiment of coding in c++. I’m now in my third quarter there and doing a fairly decent job!

I’ve become a board member on DePaul’s student game enthusiast board DeFRAG, (DePaul’s Fundamental Research in Academic Gaming). A fantastic organization that sets up and runs events for students attending the university with an interest or passion in gaming. Everything from tournaments to informative speaks with people from local industry companies such as Wideload, Volition, Netherealm, Robomodo, and High Voltage, to just name a few! We’ll be attending GDC( Game Developer’s Conference. later this year and then have an event focused around what we’ve learned.

Another exciting piece of news is I’ve come out with a full video game! We created the game over 5-6 months for the IGF (Independent Game Festival) The game can be found at www.mackvswindows.com I was responsible for designing levels and mechanics in the game. I’ll explain in detail more what I did in my portfolio page! Please feel free to check it out, free to download and play!

Just wishing everyone a happy new year and here is hoping to a new start. Hopefully the economy turns around and things start picking up for everyone. At the moment I am doing an “internship” for a game company called Paper Child Studios. While I can’t discuss the details due to a NDA (nondisclosure agreement). I can say that hopefully it will result with me getting some credited work on a published game fairly soon. The work is similar to that of what most people in Quality Assurance would do.

The experience is pretty tough especially as QA has one of the highest burnout rates in the industry. When you don’t get paid for it either it an be a bit grueling. I’ve managed so far though and hopefully I’ll be able to help the game be ready to go gold.

I’ve been working on learning C/C++ for the past few months and on September 10th me and several friends of mine adept in programming are planning on making a roguelike to share with the world. I plan on leading a little pow wow where we sit down set our goals and objectives for the game. I’ll be operating off the motto of keep it simple stupid. As a game with few components that have been polished well is a good way to start and we can expand from there.

Looking forward to it as it is definitely something I can put into a resume and my portfolio and be proud of. I’ll keep you guys updated as it goes.

So I have been eating healthier and working out a lot more the past 4 weeks and it is really starting to show. I feel more confident in myself every day, I feel healthier, look healthier, and have already lost almost 20 pounds! I really can’t believe the results of my hard work and I am looking forward to shedding the rest of it and getting back to a healthy weight.

As long as I can continue to average 5 pounds a week it should be a matter of no time! Here is hoping it goes well. I still haven’t had any luck in the job searching but I try to keep optimistic. I know its a tough economy right now and I’m up against a lot of people with loads of experience. I’d be lying if it didn’t hurt not to hear back from anyone about jobs but I can’t focus on the negative if I do that I’ll never get anywhere!

In the meantime I’ll keep hoping The Tester works out for me and that I can at least get on the show and talk to some of the judges who have really inspired me to get into game design. Last season they had David Jaffie (God of War, Twisted Metal) Kyle Shubel ( Stonekeep, Baldur’s Gate, LBP, Killzone 2) and John Hight (CNC 2: Red Alert, Fat Princess)  just to name a few! These guys are amazingly talented and a lot of them started out in QA. I’d be happy just to get in QA and learn everything I could so hopefully that chance will come. If I can get a junior design, a writer position, or anything at all I’d be even happier but QA would definitely show people I can handle the responsibilities I’ve given and take on more!

I’ve been building a game in C++. While it still runs in only a dos box its pretty cool to figure out code and program this stuff. I’ve made sprites that are solid and are unable to pass through which may seem so simplistic but for me is fantastic. Creating all these game elements and having them come together using my own knowledge is so exciting. Heck, back in the 80s people would be envious of the game I’m making! Either way the game is going good it will be simplistic by today’s standards but should provide some entertainment and challenge for you guys.

-Robert

I recently discovered a really fun interactive comic on Something Awful about a robot named BIP. If you’re a member of the SA forums you can participate in solving puzzles hosted by BIP’s artist:  Cheap Shot. What surprises me is no one to my knowledge has approached him to make Graphic Adventure games about his robot. I sent him an email and hopefully he’ll get back to me because I would love to make some free / donate what you want games with him.

I’ve looked at what he currently does for his comic series and essentially all he would have to do is draw a few more frames and it should be easily doable to animate it effectively. I just need to make sure I work overtime on my C++ so I can create an effective engine to build it in. It could be doable in ActiveScript as well but I’d rather go with what I know best.

Here is hoping he contacts me.

You can also find a link to a website about BIP here.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Agile and Scrum as of lately it seems pretty important to the game industry so I’ve been reading up on it and watching videos about it for a few days now. I have to say I think I’m going to try and create my own agile scrum system for the game I’m currently working on. Granted the group consists of me myself, an audio guy, and a quasi-artist who is drawing monsters for me in his spare time on napkins and scrap paper. I think it mostly is going to be for my own benefit and to keep me focused on working on certain sections at once. I’ve been focused right now on putting in unique looking creatures and replacing some placeholders. However, I really should be saving that for later and working on finishing chapter 2’s level maps.

I still also have to redo Chapter 1’s dungeon… Either way everyone seems to be pretty excited about the game and I am too. It is turning out a lot better than I had hoped and I think we’ve really captured the essence of the IP. I point to the picture of his room in my portfolio images as it has almost dead on looking items. I may not be a great artist but I’m damn proud of how accurate it looks. I have to say from looking at Scrum and reading up about it I think it definitely is going to be worthwhile not to mention it’ll probably come in handy to be somewhat familiar with it in the professional industry or for future projects.

Went and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls yesterday. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the exhibit. They didn’t really have much to do with the dead sea scrolls. There were only about 3 actual pages there and the rest were replicas. I guess I can understand this because the pages are almost 2000 years old and it is amazing what they had even survived! Especially after I read about how some of these scrolls were found. One man was throwing stones into a hole and heard a pot smash. To confirm this he threw a few more and after about 10 pot smashes decided to look and see what was there. I can’t believe how stupid some people can be! Priceless artifacts like that being destroyed like that.

Some of the exhibit was nice though, I think I found the extreme religious Jewish sect that felt all others were impure the most amusing. They had to bath in purifying pools for a day straight if they accidentally bumped into a person. Essentially they were all afraid of cooties. I can only imagine how they treated a common cold or illness amongst their group. I think I could have had a lot of fun messing with these people back in the day. I am sure the merchants they traded with occasionally made it the day’s entertainment.