Just checking in

Hey all,

It's been over 5 months since I've last posted here. Things have been really busy. First school ended, then the holidays. Trips to Arizona and Tahoe left me without energy as the new year rolled around. Then school started back up. So much for mercy from the hands of time.

I've partnered with a friend of mine to form netMercs Group, LLC -- an IT consulting company here in LA and Orange counties. Money's been good, and we've got a decent pool of customers to do business with. That, combined with school, has kept free time at a distance. Recently I've been able to hook myself up with a bit more relaxation, though it came largely from the fact that I had to drop one of my classes, bringing be just to the bring of 12 units (enough for full-time status, for insurance purposes). I figured the drop was worth it, as I was exhausting myself more than necessary.

Anyway, all of this busy-ness and business has left no time for working on any spare projects. That, coupled with my waning interest in the field, also with recent developments in the Torque community (like Torque X), leaves me no choice but to announce the retirement of the TorqueDev/Codeweaver IDE. I've had a version here sitting on my drive with most, if not all, the bugs fixed from the currently-deployed build... I've just been waiting to finish what would have become the "pro" features (source code control, etc). I've decided to just deploy it as-is and make it the last version of the software. I'll support it in limited amounts, with occasional bug fixes if necessary, but no new features are planned. I'll be stripping the obligatory registration requirement to install it, as well as the auto-bug-report feature. It should be available in the next couple of weeks.

In other news, a couple of friends and I have gotten together and started working on a game concept that will actually be a plausible project for us in our spare time. Though it does not utilize the Torque engine (or any engine for that matter, as it's written purely in C#), I'm mentioning it here, since I know most of you would be interested in stuff pertaining to the Indie scene.

As the concept (which is working fairly great on paper) evolves into something substantive, I'll be posting more info.

So, if you like military games with a heavy amount of strategy, with a great focus on gameplay (it's strictly a strategy game, with no fancy particle effects or 3D graphics) in the multiplayer environment, keep an eye out for my future posts. As of right now, it's un-named, and I don't want to reveal too much about it, for the fear of implanting the wrong idea into everyone's minds. The genre's been done, but not well. This is my way of improving upon it a hundredfold.

And, of course, the obligatory blog image:

My friend's cat, Chilly.

'til next time!

- Sam