Video Game Blog

I have played video games from the beginning. I mean "THE BEGINING" - at least the days ever since the game with the bouncing ball that played like a tennis game (yea, you know the name of it - I'm just avoiding the copyright use of the name). I would love to list all of the games that I've played and how they've influenced my passion - again, those copy right issues. I will digress from that, as I will curtail this blog to the game's specific development. I will be talking pretty freely about some of my game ideas - which is proprietary information as there a lot of original ideas designed, being applied to already established game products. I will recognize copy rights as best as I can so that you will be able to see what is their's, and what is ours. If it sounds like I'm being vauge on some things, it's because I am protecting my own interests.

You can understand that programming an entire project by one's self is a daunting task. It can be hard to imagine that a single person can accomplish something that takes an entire team to develope. Therein lies a problem with using a large team.

Using a team that stretches beyond their ability to immediately interact with one another leaves room for individual programmers to go astray on an idea that would leave room for bugs to get into the code before another section caught on to it. The big teams require teams of QA people just to look for these bugs. And as we all know (or can guess), if you can stop a bug before it's coded then you're saving a lot of effort going into fixing it.

As an individual programmer (a Lone Wolf Programmer as some say)...I'm so familiar with the code that (if there is a bug), I can go to the section of code that the bug is in to hunt it down. Then, there is the library of code that I've developed over the years that works (and that is bug free), that I know what is available to me. It's my tool box (Irish accent, mimicking a popular movie with an Irishman claiming it was his island!).

At this point if I were to invite another programmer to help with my projects, I'd have to spend a lot of effort just to familiarize them with the tool box. That being said, why don't I use a professional game engine already out there that's open source? "Because."

Because I didn't make it. I want to create projects that I literally created myself. Not, implement other people's projects and slap a sticker on it saying that I made it. No...there's no pride of ownership there. The more you love something, the more you are willing to work hard to make it the way you invisioned it.

Yes, if and when I eventually do work for a company who wanted to use one of the premade Engines, I would utilize it and do it their way. I don't fear learning something new. Also, if a potential employer sees my project and wonders how much is original code and not open source, they can rest assured that with the exception of what I learned from books, all of the code within this project is original.

As I mentioned at the top...

I've been playing video games since the '70s. And... over the years as I played games, what I kept thinking to myself was that one game or another that I was playing at the time was 'great', but it would be 'awesome' if it had one aspect or another included. Old computers of course could only handle so much - I understand that. Over the years though as the computers have become more powerful (not only in processor power, but available memory), the ability to include more in a game has greatly expanded.

So, the video game that I am working on is not a game for "others". It is the game that I've always wanted to play. Yes, it's based upon the many other games that I've played, a combination of them, and the inclusion of my own vision for what I want. So this is a game for "me" to play. If other people play it, I suspect they will see the passion that I brought to the project and enjoy it as much as I will.

One of the foundational requirements of my project(s) is that they work on every PC out there (that's still functional). I'd like it to go back as far as Windows 98®, but I REALLY doubt there's anyone out there with a machine still alive that is that old. To facilitate the wide range of machines that will use my game, I'm avoiding the practice of grabbing drivers for video or sound and avoiding anything that requiring DirectX® or other such things. The code is complete within itself, not needing to makes calls to anything else other than Windows. Sorry Mac® owners...

If you follow the links below, I will chronologize the efforts for this project. I'm lisiting the months in order, but within each month's page, the dates are in reverse to keep the most recent at the top.

~~~ 2019 ~~~