Rogue Express

In the fervent, first hours of passionate creation when I start writing a new game, I inevitably slop ill-conceived variable names and filenames onto my monitor in an effort to get the ball rolling. Rogue Express was the name I chose for my newest project, although it has absolutely no focus on rogues. According to one of my blogs below, this new game project would clock in at my 94th attempt at finishing a game.

The latest game-making bug burrowed deep into my soul about 2 weeks ago when I stumbled across TheBruce's Bard's Tale fansite. The Bard's Tale was my first RPG and I spent many nights sneak-gaming while growing up. I thought I was so clever placing a piece of black duct tape over the power LED on my Commy64 so my parents wouldn't know my computer was on. Incidentally, while other kids snuck out to ingest delicious beer, I would sneak over to my best friend's house to program on his Tandy Color Computer, but that's a story for another blog.

This new project is an RPG that is inpsired by Bard's Tale, written in the XNA framework that Microsoft just released. Although still in Beta 2, I gotta say its a hobbyist game maker's dream. Essentially, you get a shell for creating a game in C#/Visual Studio. The framework takes care of all the bullshit that usually nips a new game in the bud. For example, detecting screen resolution, a sprite drawing engine, all the update routines, backbuffer functions, etc, is all done for you. I've made significant progress and with some help from some other J!NX people, we may actually finish this thing. If so, it will be posted here for all 1 people that read this blog to enjoy.

By the way, this is the first time I've blogged since March 23rd. What inspired it? Answer: I'm not going to lie, its because I noticed that someone actually read it. Yogizilla to be specific. We sell a shirt on J!NX that says "Nobody reads my blog" for people like me. I guess I can stop wearing it because I officially have 1 reader, and 1 is like 5 times as many as zero. So in your face world-that-will-never-read-me-telling-them-"in-your-face".

*j

P.S. The spell checker on this site flags "blog" as a mispelled word. That's good funny.

Warcraft Complaining

I love the slew of "Blizzard Sucks, I'm leaving" comments during server downtime. It never fails. The instant service is unavailable, an 8 page thread springs up on how shitty Blizzard is, and how "Blizzard will never see another dime from me!"

C'mon guys (and girls)... You know you can't quit, it's too good. Will a free month make you feel better? No, because thats not going to get you your fix when you need it, which is at all times.

Yes, it is frustrating, and I would hate to be a sysadmin there, but the reason behind their problems is that their game is TOO good. Too many people are trying to play and they can't keep up. Thats a good problem to have.

Anyway, I'm not happy. I wanted to do a shirt that just has the "Authenticating" button on it. I think they would find it funny at first, but then quickly thereafter feel like "yeah, thats funny, but now its not funny and take that shirt off or I'm going to cram this +5 Pauldron of the Tiger up your ass."

-s

Snoobs

Snowboarding has taught me one thing... It is virtually impossible to make a new word catch on, regardless of how good a word it is. What's my new word? I give you "Snoobs", you heard it hear first. Snoobs is the tongue-friendly shortcut to saying "Snow boots". Who's got time to say "snow boots"? I don't got that kinda time. Little kids wear snooblets. However, even though this kickass new word makes Webster my bitch, I'm having a difficult time making this word stick. I need the help of the worldnet interweb, and you, the 3 people that read this blog.

Snoobs. Snooblets. Tell your friends.

s

Tahoe is Ta-neat

So, here I sit in Tahoe, plugged into the Matrix on someone's unencrypted wireless network, staying at a fat house we rented for the week. My current travelling companions: Jason and Tim, aka Windy and Q. We're here primarily to plan out the next year of the J!NX brand which is never an easy task. Picture 3 highly opinionated geeks (ha, thats redundant) trying to make difficult decisions for 3 days straight. There is a good chance we all won't walk out of this alive. Our supplies to get us through consist of:

1 of each: Xbox, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP
2 Red Octane dancepads
1 loaded iPod
3 laptops on the unsuspecting neighbors wireless
Poker chips and cards
Frozen pizza
3 Snowboards with matching Snoobs (see following post)
1 Dartboard
Guitar Hero for maximize rocking

This should get us by. Cross your fingers...

s

Warcrack isn't a stepping stone

It has been approximately 1.5 years since World of Warcraft came out and I still maintain a healthy addiction. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that Blizzard created it. They could crap on a DVD, call it a game, shrink-wrap it, and chuck it into a pile of corpses, and I'd go digging for it. With the expansion coming out later this year, I'm sure the addiction will only grow.

One thing I've learned about Blizzard, specifically, is that speculating about something they are doing is worthless because they always crush expectations. For example, you're standing around at Comic-Con, talking about Starcraft: Ghost with 3 other geeks that are waiting to get Orson Scott Card's autograph. Geek #1, the heavy-set guy wearing all black with a beret, says, "I've been reading the forums, its basically Halo 3." Geeks #2 and #3 (wearing an obscure comic t-shirt and a bloodbath horror movie t-shirt, respectively) agree and go on to comment pre-launch about the things they don't like about the game (that they haven't actually played yet), and the things that "won't work." Blizzard noobs, IMO. Refute them with this fact: It is simply impossible to pre-judge a Blizzard game before playing it. Why? Because they actually make games that are enjoyable, and a game's enjoyabilityness (it's a word) factor does not necessarily translate to paper.

Buy everything Blizzard has made if you haven't already.

s

Dragon Magazine

I got an email from the associate editor of Dragon Magazine today. He had just heard that we were making some official D&D shirts. In order to explain why this is so cool to me, I'll lay out some history...

I grew up playing D&D, hours and hours, typically from 11pm - 7am. The artwork of the original D&D artists such as Erol Otus, or the royal triumvirate of Dragonlance - Elmore, Parkinson, and Caldwell - shaped my vision of fantasy. I vividly remember riding my bike to the local hobby shop with Jason (aka Windminstral of jinx.com). It was a tiny little boutique that smelled of musty, vintage books. The aroma was intoxicating. Inevitably, nestled among the fantasy roleplaying books, sat several issues of Dragon Magazine. The artwork was just as appealing to me as the content. Although I read them, it was merely the concept of having all those fantasy stories in my hands, all the new creatures, campaigns, and adventures at my disposal, that I loved.

Although I don't read Dragon regularly like I used to, it still inspires in me a sense of wonder. It is, without a doubt, the single best fantasy mag in print. I can't walk past an issue without picking one up. Now here's the cheese, the reason I'm droning on... Dragon printed a blurb about something we're doing at jinx.com...

This event is possibly the single most rewarding experience I've had with J!NX to date. Sure, it's a small blurb, a quarter-page at most, but I was flying about it. Couple that with the fact that we have an official license to make D&D shirts now. How cool is that?! This is the kind of stuff that gets me going, one of the reasons that I love doing J!NX. My happiness is directly proportional to my involvement with the fantasy culture. Gotta feed the inner geek.

s

Finishing

If I could maintain a particular interest for more than 2 months, I would be extremely prolific. However, this is not, and has never been, the case. Here are my current projects, all about 30% finished:

1. A pulp fiction, fantasy novel about a rogue named Alexander. I've been working on this book on and off for about 5 years. Then again, who ISN'T writing a book!? Its like the guitar. Seems like everyone plays a little guitar nowadays. Why do people have no inhibitions about scraping out an awful song on a guitar, but they vehemently refuse to sing?

2. A turn-based arena combat game written in Flash. If we start at age 8, this would be the 93rd game I've dedicated 3 months of time to, only to change my mind about. I tip my hat to all the people that have finished games, especially when you realize halfway through that there is a good chance it may suck.

3. A World of Warcraft add-on and website the likes of which will currently remain secret.

4. Jazz/improv piano - I've always been one that likes to play, reads music, etc, but I've never been a true musician, the kind of guy that just, sorta, plays things and talks through his instrument. I took some lessons from a jazz piano hepcat, until he told me that "music is a language" about 50 times. I got it, dude. Music is a language, and you're awesome, and rap isn't real music, and there are tons of reasons why you're teaching piano out of your crappy apartment and not on the road playing jazz piano for a living. By the way, it's hard to "break up" with your piano teacher, or any teacher. I literally was saying things like "its not your teaching, its me."

Woot, first post.

s