Now And Then

The title of this post basically reflects how often I'm going to be updating the blog for a while. It's Fall now and headed straight toward Winter. The days go by one after the other in very much the same manner. Not that I'm complaining at all. As a general rule I live a life of adventure (in my own way) and these quite times are really very nice. The kids have school, Rachel has house work, and I have my job. We've finally settled into a groove and plan to sit in it for another 11 months or so. Once the game is out and I get my first royalty check I should be able to get us into a place of our own, back out in the country like we love to be. For the moment we're just going to enjoy being in a neighborhood and relax in the knowledge that in most cases the days are going to be quiet and predictable (Lord willing).


Work goes very well. The Dev team is making progress daily. I'm really hoping we'll have the playable Alpha put together in the next three or four weeks. That should make lining up a publisher even easier. As I've said time and time again we don't really need one. However, this is my first game and I think it would be better to have someone who knows a little bit more about video game publishing involved. I'm getting more and more of the game mechanics fleshed out. There's a really good chance that I'll be done with a majority of my design work before the end of the year. I may even get a couple of weeks off around Christmas. Well, I say “off”. I have to interact with the fan base everyday. Worlds of Magic isn't their job, it's their hobby. So, I have to be around to make sure they're enjoying it. Either way, I may get a couple of weeks “mainly off” :)


In other news: Dave Baumgarner has finally got himself a Facebook page. He's also setup a page for his music entitled “David B Music”. I've known Dave since childhood and we've been friends since I was in my late teens. He is a tremendously skilled musician and is finally working to put together an album. If you haven't hear him play take a moment to listen to this: Woods People. That's something Dave put up just a few days ago. The man rocks out loud! Anyways, he's planning to run a Kickstarter to fund his CD some time in April. I'm planning to act as his “consultant” and help him run the campaign. He's not trying to raise much and I won't be surprised if he passes his goal by quite a bit. We're certainly going to make a go of it!


Changing the subject once again: I've managed to play a fair amount of Worlds of Tanks this week. I even managed to run with Dilian two days in a row. Wednesday me, Joey, and Dilian all got to play together. It was a lot of fun, although me and Joey were having an off day. I think Dilian got more kills that either of us. Of course he's good, we're just usually not that bad, lol. I didn't play today (I played a little SWTOR), but I plan to play a lot tomorrow. I am going to try to keep my weekends mainly free for the next little while. I've had enough “working weekends” to last me a while! I need to try to get in touch with both Joey and Dilian and have them download World of Warplanes. It came out just over a week ago and I really need to take a look at it for research purposes. I spent a few minutes looking through Free-To-Play MMO games today. As I'm in the industry now I really need to try to keep up with what's going on.

Here are some Dominican pictures:


As you can tell I didn't really talk about the photos today. That one of me with that woman was taken in Roseau. Somehow I've managed to forget her name (it may be Yellow), but I'm sure Dilian can remind me. She grabbed hold of me and was saying I don't know what all. She's kinda famous. Anyway, Dilian thought it was funny and took a picture to show Rachel, lol.

Either way, I've run over a page now and I'm probably going to play a few more minutes of SWTOR before TV time. So, for the moment at least, goodnight from South Carolina!

What A Weekend!

So, the title of this post refers to the fact that I had a great weekend rather than to some other business bomb explosion. It was a very nice change. I love variety, it's the spice of life, but I freely admit that routine also has some serious advantages. Being able to get up, get my work done, and relax a bit is very, very nice. It's also good to be able to take the weekend off. I haven't been able to do that in many, many weeks. True, I still have to handle my e-mail and forums work, but the fact is that it's slow on the weekends anyway. This weekend I got to game for about twenty hours or so. I played SWTOR and WoT and generally had a good old time. It was great! I hope to be able to do it again this weekend.


The above are pictures of our “new” car. If it looks hauntingly familiar it's because it's basically the same model as our “old” car. It turns out it's a Chrysler, not a Plymouth, but that hardly matters. What matters is that it runs great, we got it at a good price, and it's parts are compatible with our other van. We were able to make use of it this Sunday when we went to Church. It was very nice to be able to load everyone into our own vehicles and roll out. It takes a lot of the aggravation out of the process. Plus, I didn't have to be late. I drove away and left Rachel and most of the kids to catch me up, lol. I've been late most of my marriage. It was nice to be on time for a change (well... less late anyways).

For comparison I've included a number of pictures of the old van:


And a couple of screenshots, just for fun :)


I was also able to enjoy my new computer this week. It's pretty much the best gaming machine I've ever had (when compared to current game requirements). My having a new machine also freed up a really good machine for the kids. Abby and Caleb are very happy about that. We've still got to get that other computer we got from the guy with the van setup. We plan to put it in the girl's room (Abby and Felicity's room, Elisabeth has her own) so that Abby can tinker with that drawing table we got her. She's got some real artistic talent. In fact, she's been making some things with clay lately. I need to take some pictures of the things she's made for you guys to see. I'll try to make a point of it.

Church Pictures:


Now, as I mentioned in my last post, I have a number of “lost pictures” to share with you. Most of these were taken on our trip to pick up our washing machine down there. I wish we had gotten some photos of brother Freddy, as he was the one driving us. Ah well, we should be able to get plenty of pictures of him next time we're down there. I also really need to take a better camera when we go. You can see how much better the photos Dilian took are, and he just used a phone, lol. (Admittedly, it is a very nice Windows Phone...)


Beautiful aren't they? And I was there.... Well, I plan to be there again in about fourteen months, so I guess it's not that big a deal. Of course, we miss everyone. We can't wait to get into our “world travelers” routine. If WoM is the hit we believe it's going to be we should be able to really do it like we want to. Touching that: Worlds of Magic is going to have a one page article in the largest gaming magazine in Europe. Now, when you couple that with our two page article coming out in Australia we've got some pretty good world coverage. Especially for a game that hasn't come out yet :)

Either way, that's enough for now. I'll try and do another post in the next few days. Goodnight from South Carolina!!

Raiders Of The Lost Pictures

So, it's been several days since my last post. Life has just been busy. I just checked and I haven't blogged since Saturday... I took a bit more of a break than I meant to. The fact is that I went “back to work” more full time this week. Rather than just jumping on whatever needs to be done from one moment to the other for the Kickstarter I've been able to get more organized and start getting things done that we need for the playable alpha. (← How's that for a sentence? Lol.) The entire crew seems very motivated as is our little community. We're getting a lot of work done and I expect to have the Alpha in the hands of some prospective publishers soon. We're looking very good from a “publishable” point of view. We raised a great deal of money between our two kickstarters, we have an excited and growing fan base, and we have a couple of articles being published about us over the next couple of months in some major gaming magazines. The fact is that we really don't need a publisher, but I'd like to find one all the same. I feel it takes a bit of the workload (and pressure) off the team. This is my first game and I would really like to see it hit big. A full blown marketing department could certainly help with that.


So, what's been happening the last few days? Well, the pictures may not seem to tell much of a tale, but they do really. This week has really been about settling back into our routine. We started the week off as one should, by going to Church. Monday I jumped into work and got on my normal working schedule. Tuesday I ran to the bank to transfer quite a chunk of change to Poland (which I'm happy to say is already there). As the Kickstarter was run from the US I had to receive the funds and then send them on to Leszek. Wednesday I had to do more bank-hopping and went to the Pull-A-Part with Josh and Dad E. to look for an engine for Josh's car. It was nice to spend a couple of hours with my brother. I haven't been able to do that in years. Today I got my regular work “done” and then started putting together my new work computer (more on that in a minute).

So, what is the title of this post about? Well, I found a bunch of pictures Dilian had e-mailed me while we were in Dominica. He kept sending them and I kept never getting them. However, I finally found out why. He had been sending them to my personal e-mail address and I always use my work one. These pictures represent “batch one”. You can expect more in the coming days :)

If you don't know what something is, just ask.


So, once the Kickstarter wrapped up I told Leszek I was going to have to get some money to make ends meet until we find a publisher or release the game. Running behind has cost us a lot and I wanted to put a stop to it. I really wanted to get back to cutting myself one check a month and paying all the bills with that. I was able to get enough from the kickstarter to do that and a bit more.


One of the things Les wanted me to get was a new work computer. My current one is old enough that I can't run Worlds of Magic very well, lol. So I agreed to buy the parts and build a new one. This really killed two birds with one stone because I wanted to get another computer for the kids anyway. I got parts to build a pretty super machine and have spent a bit of time putting it together today. I actually hope to start using it tomorrow.


Of course we didn't just get work things with our “extra” money. We got a few things we've been wanting for a while. We got a stand for the TV so it's not just leaning against the wall. We also got a Roku media player. Those things are certainly worth the money! They can play Netflix, Amazon Instant Videos, Hulu, files from your PC, and there are many, many free channels full of all kinds of things to watch. We're not really TVholics, but it's nice to have something like that for the living room. We also got a few extra computer parts, a Dr. Who DVD set, and a new car seat for Isaac.


That's not all we've gotten recently either. Mom Y. found a van for sale just like ours (but in better shape with far fewer miles on it). She loaned us the money to get it (along with a computer the guy was selling for $45). Now, normally I don't borrow money, but this was a case where the deal was really great and we didn't want to miss it. For one thing when I say “just like ours” I basically mean it. It's the same year range as our van and the same model (although it's a Plymouth, not a Dodge) so all the parts are interchangeable. Needless to say, that's a great help when you're troubleshooting a problem. I think it's going to be a real blessing for us. Now we won't need anyone to come pickup kids when we go to Curch :)

I need to run for the moment. There are still things I want to get done before bed time. So, for the moment at least, good night from South Carolina!