The Long Silence

So, the few of you that read my blog may be wondering why I haven't posted in almost a month. Well, it's a valid question, but fortunately I have a fairly good excuse. It all started with my vacation from July 10th to July 20th. It was the first time in years that I had been able to take time off with almost nothing to do. So, I decided to do as little as possible. That meant sticking my blog on the shelf.

Quick segue, here are some pictures:


Once I got back from vacation I walked face first into a wall of work. Les (the producer) decided to set a date for the late-alpha/early-beta testing. The date he selected was July 31st. That dropped a whole lot of work on the dev team. I thought it was going to be a light Monday, so I had already asked Dad E. to help me go pull a transmission from the Pull-A-Part. That turned out to be a mistake.

Just before he got to the house I got the e-mail from Les. They wanted to set the date in stone and move on it. They also wanted me in a meeting at 7AM on Tuesday to discuss a number of details. Well, Dad E. and I decided to carry on and go get the transmission. They didn't have one in Augusta so we headed on to Columbia to pull one. To make a long story short it took us a good deal of time and I didn't get back to the house until around 6PM.

After I finally got out of the shower (I was covered in grease) I checked my e-mail. One of the programmers wanted me to make some changes to the wiki. As we were running out of time I decided to work on that for a few hours before I went to bed. During the rest of the week I put in between 40 and 50 hours working on a new wiki template. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it in the end.

I worked through the weekend and the following week. I got the spell information updated in the wiki for the spells that we actually have in game. By Thursday I was done and we had a new internal build up on Steam. I grabbed it and played it for a few hours, finding bugs and what have you. I turned that over to the team and we got a new build put together late Friday afternoon. I play tested it for about an hour and decided to roll it out to our testers. That was another mistake.

As it turns out I missed a number of bugs that recently crept into the code. I've spent a good part of this weekend clicking “refresh” on my web browser and assuring play testers that we're working hard to refine the game. It's made the weekend feel long and me feel tired, lol. Still, it represents real progress. I expect to have a much more stable (and fun) build up by the end of this week. That will put us one step closer to the full beta. And I thank the Lord for it :)

I'm going to wrap it up here because I'm worn down and ready to go watch TV. Before I do I have to go click “refresh” again, but that's just part of the job. Either way, for the moment at least, I wish you good night from South Carolina.

Wild Gunmen

So, it's been almost three weeks since my last post. Things have been busier than normal and the blog just fell through the cracks. What have we been up to? Well, a number of things, really. First, I think I'll post some photos, along with explanations. To start with here's a couple of Caleb and Isaac and a caterpillar Felicity wanted me to take a picture of:


And here are three pictures of Mom Y's apple trees loaded with apples. She just wanted to show our friends in Dominica that we have plenty of fruit in South Carolina when it's the right season, lol.


The photos below were taken weekend before last. We got together with the Middletons over at Mom & Dad Y's for dinner and a shooting. That is to say I took Craig and the kids out to shoot. He had never fired a gun before, so it was a lot of fun for him and me. Kelsy and Rachel stayed up at the house talking about babies or breastfeeding or whatever it is they talk about while their husbands are out growing chest hair. I want Dilian to get to see these pictures, because if everything goes like I want I'll be able to take him shooting before way too long :)


In case the pictures didn't make it obvious enough, we had a really good time and intend to get together with the Middletons again as soon as it's feasible.

Moving on: The Aiken Church of Christ had VBS last week. “Pirates of the Caring Being” was the theme and the children loved it. I wish I had gotten some pictures. Sadly, I didn't....

Now we've come to the “business news” section of my post. Things are going very well with Worlds of Magic. My design work is almost complete and I'm down to the “tinkering” stage where I'm working on lore, polishing up details, rough number balancing, etc, etc, etc. We've pushed back the Beta until the end of July or beginning of August, just because we decided we want the game to be more “playable” before we let the testers in. A lot of Beta testers want to “play early” more than they want to “play test”. So, we're aiming to give them what they want.

Things seem to be going very well for Wastelands Interactive in general. They're publishing another game on Steam on July 4th (today). That will be their fifth and this is the first one WI didn't actually make. They're simply acting as a publisher for another developer. That's a step in a very good direction in my opinion. And what's good for WI is good for WoM and therefor good for me :)

In any event, that's enough for now. I may have more news and photos next week. For the moment, however, goodnight from South Carolina!

Counting Down The Days

OK, so I forgot to post this Monday morning and a bit has happened between the time I wrote it and now. As a result I'm going to start with the latest news and then pick up with what I had written last week.

To begin with, my Aunt Dianne passed away this week. In point of fact, she passed away very suddenly last Sunday. She was feeling bad in the morning, so she called a neighbor who works with EMS. Shortly after that they called an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital. She died about an hour later with heart issues. It certainly underlines the fact that we're not promised tomorrow. Either way, the funeral was this past Wednesday and it was a lovely service. Dad did the eulogy and he did a really great job. He honestly is a very remarkable man in a lot of ways :)

In more lighthearted news, we went over to the Middleton's for dinner this past Tuesday. We really enjoyed it and the children had a great time. Craig is the preacher at the Aiken Church of Christ (Something about me attracts preachers. Had you noticed Josian?) and Kelsey loves children. So Craig and I can talk Bible and Rachel and Kelsey can talk babies. We're planning to hang out a bit more soon. Neither of them has every fired a gun. I hope to help them correct that some time next week, lol.

Anyways, this is what I had before other things came up: There are many times in life when we can see what we want just over the horizon. I've been very blessed because I've not only been able to see a brighter future just over the next hill, but I've marched along in a pretty bright present in the mean time. I happen to be in one of those times right now. Things are good for me at the moment. My wife, my children, and I are all in good health. We're all together and happy. And it looks like there are even better times ahead. :)

It's been almost nine months since we came back to the US and that means it's only seven months before we plan to head back to Dominica. This time I'm hoping to have a good bit more money. I love that little island, but I also love sleeping in the cool. I want to ship some A/C window units down there before we go back, lol. I also want to make sure we get a washing machine and dryer lined up before we get there this time. We go through a lot of clothes when it's just us and our kids, add in Mom and Dad E. and whatever other guests visit while we're down there and it's basically a mountain of dirty laundry each week. Rachel generally washes a few loads a day. Not having a washing machine is just no fun.

I also think I want to look into getting a car or bus or whatever we would call it. Brother Freddy is happy to give us a ride wherever we want to go whenever he can, but his work schedule can be crazy. I want to be able to hop in the car and go without having to worry about whether or not we're getting brother Freddy up after only three hours of sleep, lol. Plus I can leave the bus with Dilian when we're not down there and he can use it as a Church bus, which would probably help the Scotts Head congregation. Either way, all things considered it's worth our getting a car for down there even if we're only going to be there three months out of the year.

And here are some pictures:


In other “count down” news, Lord willing Worlds of Magic will be in “Early Access” by October. I may have explained before, but in case I didn't, early access is where you start selling a not-quite-finished game on Steam. It allows you to generate a little money and helps bring in testers for the final polish. So, I'm hoping to be able to get a check by early November. That would be a real blessing because we really need it. This will also line us up for a before-Christmas release. Needless to say, that would likely be very good for the game.

Anyways, I suppose that's enough looking forward in anticipation. The here and now is going very well. Every work day we seem to get a little closer to beta. A new alpha build of WoM should be out later this week (I'm writing this on Sunday, by the time I post this the new build may be up) and that's certainly good news. We're refining the battle board and there's now a save game feature. It's not quite finished, but Adam (the programmer who's implementing it) says it should be “fully featured” by the end of the month. All things considered we're making good progress each week.

We're supposed to be playing D&D today. So far everyone's been having a really good time. I've even gotten into the spirit of working on the campaign and that's something I haven't felt up to in years. (Believe it or not, it takes a good bit of work.) One of my “other projects” is all about role playing, so it's good for us to be getting “back in the saddle”. It helps me keep my imagination fired up.

In any event, that's enough for today. We're in a calm spell and there's not a great deal of news. I may have a little more to share next week. It all depends on how this new build goes and what we learn from play testers that can actually save their games, lol. Either way, for the moment at least, goodnight from South Carolina!