Blog for Donald \"Yadot\" Harris at GarageGames.com

Busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest...

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2008-06-17T04:16:04+00:00

I have been really busy working on this new game project. Things are going very well, our team is growing at an appropriate pace and its even growing across the world. I will go into more detail about our international team (www.dami.lt) a little later. We have hit a little detour, a good detour but a detour non the less. While meeting with our advisors and working on the game mechanics we came up with a tool that we felt we could sale stand alone. So from there we stop working on the game and started working on tool. Just so happens at the same time the Rice Alliance had a class in Austin in which I had to give a public presentation of my whole idea. Needless to say I was scared out of my mind. I had a great support team in place. One of my advisors Spencer Zuzolo from GameCamp.org was a great public speaker and drilled me pretty hard on the practice run. We still have not got together to discuss the postmortem but I know it's coming soon. I can't go into any detail as to what my pitch was about but I can point you to some tools to help if you are coming up and need to pitch your idea to investors/publishers.

http://www.dfjmercury.com/
On the above website you can read about some Angel investors out of Houston and also download the template I used for my pitch.

Http://www.starlitskygames.com/
I will soon post the Audio files from the classes that I took that help educate us about bootstrapping and venture funding. Speaking of...

Http://www.bootstrapaustin.org/
This is another great resource to help you manage and build company wealth.

So let's talk team. My main partner in crime is none other than Tom Ogburn he is the brains behind the whole operation and great friend. Also check out a little something he was working on here

My writing partner is the wordy Dan Mccollum is busy not only working on the story line for our first big release but he is also hard at work on his first Manga release at www.studioil.com. You can find the first ten pages here

Mindaugas Jokubaitis is the co-founder of www.dami.lt I do have a lot of experience working with team members around the world from Dell but not much in the games/art space. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. Lithuanian is about 7 hours ahead me. So a lot of the business time is me waking up early in the morning to coordinate with him and Dan my writer making sure he understands how things are suppose to look and feel. He has a team of 12 and if you check the site you will see that they have what it takes and for the quality of work I think they are very affordable. The web page at StarlitSky Games is about to be revamp by Dami so its not updated just yet. I will show and explain some art in just a bit.

Now that I am done explaining the major players in this new venture lets get to the games. So I have been working on some ideas to try and get them out to market quickly yet still represent the full creative power of the team. So I am starting with 2d game that is based in a Steampunk world. This has a couple of cool opportunities for me. Right off the bat there is not a lot of games that are in the Steampunk world, so I can write my rules to govern that world and get away with it. Plus I personally find the Steampunk genre exciting and interesting. The 2d form of the game will hopefully it open it up to more players.

I wont get into to much on what the game is as far as the mechanics as I am not breaking any big molds but I am bringing elements from 3d games and putting them in the 2d world. I have finally "finished" my design doc. And the reason I put quotes on it is because I once told the same thing to Warren Spector and he laughed at me :( As I know now why, the document wont die and it continues to live and change everyday. But I am to a point where I can start creating content for the game. And whit that statement I now introduce the title of the game and some concept art Steam Jetz

Here are a few of the 9 characters that in the games main story line. Which also brings up another point the game has its own history and narrative. So these works of art come from my overseas connection with the DAMI group. After sending over my entire 15 page bible to the game the team came up with these pictures of the some of the main characters. The cool thing is that most of these drawings took less than a couple of days. This was really nice because when working with such an important portion of the group its nice to know good quality work is being done in a speedy manner. So if you guys are looking for an art house that is quick check them out... ok enough commercial for DAMI now back to our game and the characters:

Neeko is the purported captain of the Silver Gale. He is young, greedy, cunning and carefree. His small crew is Shahenda (Navigator) and Kazem (Gunner). He is willing to try almost anything if it will make money. Neeko is officially classified as a criminal for various activities he may or may not have committed. He therefore is considered a legend among pirates and with the lower class who believes him to be a hero.

Andrew "77-Zulu" Sparrow - Harry's rival and captain of the Foxfire. Andy is an admiral in the Royal Navy, who is charged with capturing Harry after he deserts the army. Andrew is a childhood friend of Harry and Alexa, though he left their school early to join the ranks of the army after he showed some initial promise.

Rondo is the true captain of the Silver Gale and father of Neeko. When Neeko steals the plane and takes it to an OWA port city, Rondo follows. Neeko's goal in helping Charles is mostly to get away from his father, who is in hot pursuit.

Shahenda is a mysterious girl. She has dark skin and Arabic features. Shahenda is the navigator of the Silver Gale, and is the true reason for the ship's phenomenal success. Shahenda is able to navigate the Winds unlike any other person. In truth, she is from the Underworld, the land below where society remains fractured. Her people tracked the navigation of the continents as the ancients tracked the motions of the stars and planets. Therefore her knowledge of navigation is based on her perspective as a child.....

The Overlord- Rondo's aircraft carrier. The Overlord appears to be a conventional zeppelin vehicle powered by a therium core, allowing it to carry a heavy iron deck capable of housing up to 10 planes and a crew of up to 50. However, it is powered by a very dangerous liquid therium core, which allows it to stay afloat even if the dirigible is compromised; this is a unique innovation only made possible by the ship's scientist, Walroy. The Overlord houses the Silver Gale, Walroy's attempt at adapting the liquid therium core for a smaller ship.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2008-02-11T06:19:15+00:00

So it's been a while since I made a .plan entry. I have been pretty busy with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Since I have expanded the family and investing a lot of extra time training in my career to grow, I have not had much time to work on gaming. I did at one point have a team together and working on a neat title. There were a lot of reasons as to why we didn't finish and I have hopefully learned from them. I guess we will see with this next run. First let's chat a bit about the old game.

It was a basic break out game with some added features. The player could change his paddle different colors to match the color of the ball that was being bounced around the screen. If the player matched the color of the ball the ball would stick to the paddle and then the player could launch it at any angle. At the top of the screen was another paddle that was controlled by the computer. Along with that paddle, the computer also got to control two minions which had special powers. Some of them could shoot lightning bolts which would stun you. Shower down columns of water which would restrict you left right play area. And hit you with a spell to blind you (remove all color from the play area. All you see is yourself) There was 12 total. All the enemy paddles represent a different bad guy in an overall story line. The art and story line came from the publisher at the time. Really cool stuff here are some screen shots:

Now onto the next game. This one I have been thinking about for a while now. I have played some clones but none of them ever had what I wanted most and that was true teamwork! My goal is to create a simple fun multiplayer 2d experience. I have found a great professional coder and 3d/2d artist to boot. We just recently had a team meeting this last Sunday and things are progressing pretty steadily. My personal goal with this game is to turn into something bigger.... (Insert reading audience sigh) my own MMO! Soon I will have some content to hopefully post on this subject but as for now you get text.

Had some other interesting things happen to me as well. I went to a Video Game mixer at a local coffee bar here in Austin. The interesting part is this sitting right next to me is none other than Warren Spector. Once I found out who he was I was like dang.... I better get some insight out of this guy. But I got so freaking nervous I asked a stupid question I already knew the answer to. Luckily however someone else asked a more interesting question... "Do you have any best practices for Game Design?" You know what his first response was? That game design documents are dead. I thought to myself dang it I have been busting my hump for the last 2 mos on my game design doc. He then went on to say that video game design is like any other true art form. It changes from day to day and its really hard to tie down to a document. Very interesting thoughts on that subject.

Something else that happen to me is that one of the reps from Mary Margaret has asked me to write and an article about the game industry. I am thinking about writing based around Warren's response. Anyways I hope to write an update soon..

PS: The TGB behavior design contest is on hold. We have some issues and one of the key leaders is not able to help out at the moment. I am sorry that we didn't post something sooner. But we will try and run this again soon. Thanks for all your help and contribution this far.

So you want to be a brand manager?

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2007-09-19T02:05:06+00:00

So I have been working on some networking documentation... social networking that is. In some other blogs around the GG site I made mention that I would like to write up a post on how to use social networking in order to get your ideas around the industry... How ever I got side tracked with this other book I finished up. I had to turn in this report to a mentor, and now that I am done with it I thought the GG community could also benefit:

Here goes

Brand Warfare

Rule 1: Its the Brand Stupid

Brand Arrogance (what and how big business thought)
Remember that the brand is only big because the consumer allows it to be
You still have to cater to your consumer no matter how large you or your brand gets
Pushing a lesser quality product simply because the brand is large and the customer will buy
Double Jeopardy: Customers bought from the top brand and loyal customers bought more and more often from the top brand

The Consumer Revolution

Consumers Attitude Change
Several events from the 70s - 90s have change the way consumers look at corporate America. From things like Water Gate to Exxon Valdez have taught consumers that large corporations cant be trusted

Cost of Starting a business has decreased
Technology has made it much easier to start a business
Advertising mediums have increase and cost have decreased

Unlimited Access to Information
Companies are no longer able to use the Mushroom Theory ( feed them horse manure and keep them in the dark)
The old economy was a product push and now the consumer with all of its knowledge is now in control
Consumers can spend 30 minutes on the net and get any and all information on a brand and product so that anyone can be a walking consumer reports

When Consumer Rules, Arrogance Kills
Consumers are now unmanageable because they have so many choices
Strong Brands are more enjoyable to buy so they will buy the brand they enjoy the most

Rule 2: Codependency can be a beautiful thing: Consumers need good Brands as much as Good brands need them

Good Brands do 3 things for consumers
Save Time
There is no need to look through out the entire catalogue. Because they believe they know the best one already which is to them the best brand.

Project the right message
They project the right message to the person judging you. No one will get upset from you dealing with the best brand.

Provide an Identity
Give the buyer and identity and makes them feel secure. And they also feel apart of a community of like minded consumers.

Brand Tribes to Brand Cults
People in a community will band together into tribes associating with other like minded people and then once comfortable, the consumer will no longer accept anything other than that particular brand. Making them feel the only way to get that satisfaction is by that particular item from that particular brand.

Rule 3: A Great Brand Message is Like a Bucking Bronco - Once your on don't let go!

Establishing a New Brand in the Internet Age
In the new age of the second Internet boom is using old advertising methods as TV and Magazines. We can no longer use the word of mouth as much simply because the novelty has worn off the Internet. New companies require new methods with old media.

Brand builders of the late 90s and early 2000 used obscurity as there tool with TV. By hardly mentioning that item which they were selling. They mostly took a page out of the 1984 Apple Advertisement where the girl free the slaves by throwing the sledge hammer through the big screen. The ad was only run once and the product was never mention.

Engineers are running the companies now and they don't know how to move people in a passionate way.

Advertising agencies are spineless and will do anything for their clients as long as they get paid.

There was a certain legitimacy to the shyness of the product to help change with the current society.

Its not the Idea that rules its the Execution

Bad Execution
There was a company who had spent millions trying to enter a new market in Japan. If the company had of recheck their work they would have know before they started that when they translated there name Control Data it roughly meant "We give Gonorrhea."

Good Execution ( a brand message has to speak to its consumers)
Etrade uses a message that basically said if you use Etrade you can screw the old economy. They never really focused on their product features, instead they made light of the people who have tried to get rich. They ran ads showing people playing the lotto, catering to a elderly sugar momma and so forth and so on. Etrade was smart in that it positioned itself as a way to fight back against the old ways of making money. The overall brand message was to get revenge on every financial advisory that has done you wrong.

A strong brand message requires 2 kinds of knowledge and one kind of discipline

Self Knowledge
Self Awareness

Discipline - Find what you want to say and then stick to it.

Keeping the message relevant

Brands can't stand still. It has to retain what it has done through out its history and yet change with the times to stay in the minds of todays consumers.

Keep the message consistent

Boredom - When someone is bored with the brand and wants to make a finger print of his on, on the brand.

Desire for Growth - When the company wants to expand there brand they sometimes select a market that has nothing to do anything with the brand. Which in turn can damage the brand

Rule 4: If you want great advertising be prepared to fight for it.

Consumers are almost immune to most advertising. Only the most distinctive ad gets through.

Beware of flatterers: Advertising agencies basically will tell you anything you want to hear as long as you keep paying them. Develop an open honest relationship with advertising agency/department.

Clients maybe doing sucking up of there own: Dock suck up to different people in the organization by catering to a VP wish as a advertising scheme.

The Client makes a big idea small: Let the creative people do their job. Don't allow lawyers and Vice Presidents butt in with how they would do it. As they are not the creative person. As a brand manager this is your job to protect these people.

Be memorable: Keep the advertising real so that consumers can relate with it.

Don't change advertising because you are board with it: Remember the previous rule where you don't allow others to put their mark on it. Don't change it until your audience tells you are you are no longer unique. Keeping a consumer engaged in your advertisement is the best to stick with.

Rule 5: When it comes to sponsorship there is a sucker born every 30 seconds.

Sponsoring: Sponsoring can help you get the halo effect. This is achieved by exchanging the emotion from the brand and the event or person you are sponsoring. Thus getting the same emotion from the consumer when they see your logo as they do when they see the event or person you are sponsoring. The other effect is the HORN effect. This comes up when person/event does something negative and then of course your consumers will look at you the same way... negative.

Clutter: There is a lot of sponsorship in every market. This can be a challenge to any business that is trying to come out and make a name for itself.

Get in for the right reason: Make sure your sponsor something for the right reasons. If your client wants you to try and help them sponsor something that is not going to help them let them know. Don't sponsor something for the wrong reason.

Understand the Players
Event Organizer: They are usually forced to need you. They just want the money and don't really want you to show up. Understanding this can help when negotiating how things are run upfront. You are the holder of the cash define what you want before you go in.

Television Network: Thanks to advent of so many channel the major networks market share is dwindling. The network need money even more and more. They will find many different categories of advertisements and sponsoring. And they will gladly offer a slot to your competitor.

Athlete/Star: They are very unpredictable. Tying yourself to one person is extremely risky and can go outstandingly well. They also as well can make things go very very bad. Even the athlete's entourage can cause you problems that they themselves may have caused.

You: As person who is trying buy his way in to sponsoring an event. Many people maybe out to take advantage of you. Many times the other three players will work together to get as much of your money as possible. Event Organizers often use the Athletes/stars like bargining chips. The networks will then milk you dry promising more exposure to the lens IF you do this or IF you do that. Make sure you get to know all the others as well as you can before getting in to swim.

Rule 6: Don't confuse sponsorship with a spectator sport

Choose your Sponsoring Opprotunity Carefuly
With major events having strikes and game cancelations you will need to do some heavy research in event.

It takes hardwork to win over a jaded audience
You will need to work hard to get associated with all the good things that the sport or event is known for. That way when they think of you they think of the sport and vice versa.

Make sure your sponsorship speaks to your brand
Wal-Mart sponsors bass fishing makes sense and speaks to each other due to the folksy nature of Wal-Mart customers and the rural locations. On the other hand when Time Warner thought of the Cartoon Network Sponsored Nascar was not a pair nor would they send the same kind of message. What is child going to do when they see there favorite driver of the Cartoon network with scooby doo and the powerpuff girls in a flaming wreck where he dies a violent death?

Be prepared to get the data that supports your efforts
There are some companies out there that have no way of measuring there succes in there advertisement or sponsorship. Make sure you have someway to measure as this will help you spend your money carefuly and correctly.

Rule 7: Don't allow scandal to destroy in 30 days what took 100 years to build

The two most certain things in business is competition and scandal
Be prepared to handle scandal before it happens. And when it does handle it with great effort and care to your customer.

Brand is Destiny
Having customer think well of your company before you ever NEED them to. This will help reduce damage to your brand image when you do need it in the middle of a big scandle.

Do not allow your enemies to define you.
You only have 3 ways you can define yourself. By being better, cheaper, or you can attack. Choosing one and sticking to it will help not allow your competitors to define you. If your competitors make negative claims against you, don't ignore it. When this happens they have the upper hand in define what kind of company you are.

King of the Mountain
When you are one of the biggest brands out there you will draw attention especially negative attention. Why, because its fun to whatch the giant fall. The popularaity that made you a big brand will act as a lighting rod for scandal.
Do not Stall Don't not allow the lawyers to stall
Just because the claim is crazy don't ignore it. It's craziness alone will make people believe. Jump on anything that can damage your brand as if you don't you will instantly be label the big bad corporate company that has done X. Even if it is not true customer wont know until you tell them. Your competitors will jump on your spot as soon as you fall.

Rule 8: Make your distributors slaves to your brand

The Internet and the liberated consumer
With everything on the internet a consumer can get anything they want and they can get it almost instantly. The customer no longer has to go to a store to get your goods. This has changed the face of market today understanding the internet market is paramount to any business.

Death of the salesman
Customers are now smart enough to research an item on the internet before they go to an actual store. Now that the customer can get the price at which the manufacture paid to create the product kills the ability of salesman to haggle the price. They can also find out all negative information on your product with your salesman there to deny or inform them.

Smart Brands do not frustrate their customers
Being available to your customers when they need you. In the beginning you may think a single chanel is the best way to get the product to your customer. Understanding your customers may make you choose to add additional channels so that you can be more available. Customers need to be able to get to you how ever THEY want to reach you.

Beat your distributors into submission by creating demand for your product
A strong brand is the only way to tip the scale back in your favor when dealing with distributors. Since the distributors will be move willing to carry your brand. Thus giving you the abillity to give less of a cut. Also having the stronger brand will make unwilling distributors now willing to take your products.

Branding campaings will work on your distributors in 2 ways
1.Customers will walk into a store and ask why don't you carry X this will send distributors into a panic to get your product.
2.A strong brand has the same exact effect on distributors as it does consumers

Rule 9: Use your brand to lead your people to the promised land

People want to work for a good brand
People will want to work for your brand if its a leader in a industry. When your company is on top people will look at your company want to be apart of your brand. Also they would like to have your brand on there resume.

A strong brand can make a decision easier
When you are dealing with new products or new challenges in your business you can ask yourself a simple questions. Will this benefit my brand? Will this new product fall in line with the current brand messaging? Does it build my brand in weaker areas? When you have a great brand you will do what you need in order to keep the brand alive. Even if you have an employee who has been with the company for many years starts acting inappropriatly which could effect the brand, you will quickly choose to get rid of him.

A strong brand will inspire the inside people
With a great brand you can convience your people that they can do things that they believe they can't. They will also believe in the impossible and do what you ask even if it is not possible. When you have people believing in the brand strongly they will live and breath that brand so much so that when a customer contacts any employee they will get the best server.. why because they are brand X. These types of exployees will be greatful that they even worked at that company.

Rule 10: The brand is the CEO responsibility as well as everyone else to!

CEO and the Brand
The CEO's main responsibility is the brand. When ever there is an issue with it the BUCK STOPS THERE! A lot of CEOs today don't focus on brand as much as they should. Even though the CEO is responsible for everything from financial to quality assurance they often neglect the brand.

Convence your employees to worry about the brand
If your employees are concern with the wellfare of the brand they will make the best choices for the company. Man scandals could have been stopped internally if a employee had of either raised a red flag or sent the information to the correct person to get the issue corrected.

Keep the brand front and center on everything you do
When you are face with wall street, the public, and private investors make sure you keep the brand up front when making choices. Also when you are expanding your business make sure that when you acquire other brands they to must agree with your current brand. Have the brand at the front of your choices will help you steer clear of bad choices that could damage. Be honest with yourself, if you merge with a better brand then take on the better brand's name.

Do not forget what the brand means
Never loose site of what the brand means to you and to the custumer. Don't move outside your brand. Do what your brand does best. If its building and selling computers then do that and everything in that industry. Don't try and move into Christmas tree sales as your company will be distracted by things are not helping the brand.

A healthy respect of the brand is contageous
When the CEO does keep the brand in mind and then involves the rest of the company is doing the same you will notice that everything that is discuss to this point will fall in place. The key here is to do this. Sale your brand to the internal customer as hard as your do to the external. Once the internal customer buys into what the brand is then what you will have on your hand is a company full of brand managers all looking to do the same thing. Build the brand stronger. This is a very formidable force that any competitor will fear.

Good beef vs Bad
Just remember when you put your brand stamp on something ask is if it is good or bad? Just ask yourself is this good for the brand or bad for it? Keep that one question in mind and you will be looking to protect your brand as much as possible.

Good times at the Austin Game Dev Con

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2007-09-09T21:28:10+00:00

Well I am pooped after last week. Since I work full time during the day it was impossible for me to get time off to attend the AGDC during the day. But I did however get to hang out a bunch of after parties during the night....late at night. So what did I get from coming home at 3 in the morning 2 nights in a row? A crap ton of contacts with many different Austin companies as well some big names in the industry like Nick Jr. I also may have found my way on to TV ... finally. I bump into this guy:

After taking this picture a camera man popped out of no where along with a lady asking me to sign a release for Spike Tv. Pretty good stuff. So after loading up my linkedin profile and hamming it up in front of the Spartan I felt pretty good.

This also got me to wondering how do others on the forums go about networking? I wont call myself a pro at networking but I would imagine I have some good advice to share. Would anyone be interested? Let me know maybe I can put something together and post it on my next blog.

I have the top of the mountain and it is good

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2007-08-20T03:49:01+00:00

Due to really interesting experience this weekend I wanted to write this blog post. Its games related but more or less industry vs actual development. Also its targeted towards younger Indies.So here goes...

I have always wanted to be a part of a winning development team. Working with them in some way to help create the worlds next greatest game. After years of trying to find my niche in the industry I started to get a bit let down... Thinking that only developers and crazy talented artist get video game jobs. Or at least I used to think that way. Until I got my first video game job back in 2003 for Wolf Pack Ent. The job was temporary and only made me even hungrier for the Video Games industry. Then I thought well how do I get back into the games industry? I don't develop and I am no musical or graphical artist. So I focused on trying to get QA jobs. This left me no where as every Tom Dick and Harry was going after these jobs, and they didn't have a family to support.

So I had to bone up and get real job. I started working at Dell. 5 years later I am still looking for that opening to get back into the industry. And I was looking high and low but could not find a way back in. As you can probably guess I have been looking at the wrong areas to get in. Qa may not be the best place for you to get in depending on where you are in life. And if you don't have natual talent as an artist or musician its doubtful you will get in that way. So now what do I do? How in the heck do I get back in? Well here is how.

Take a look at your resume and where you are currently employed. Ask yourself, "How could this benefit another company that makes video games?" Once you figure out how you could apply this to a organization that makes games, this is now the new way into the industry. Take what you have learned at your current job and focus on the skills that make you good at job even if you dislike the job. Do everything you can to under every aspect of that job. Having that knowledge of the way the job works can be very valuable to others in the game industry.

None of this is real easy as certain jobs may not lend themselves well to the game industry. Then you will need to develop those skills that are desirable. Again there are other things out there than just Graphics Music and Programing. You have marketing, sales, technical support, and so forth and so on. Now what do you do when you get that job back in the industry? Your next step is to find a mentor that currently holds the position that you would like some day. If you want to become a producer make friends with the producer in the company and have him or her train you.

One thing you will notice right off the bat is that your motivation will be a lot higher. Now that you are close to what you love the most you will want to do more. Be careful how you focus that energy. I would suggest taking on some extra stuff from your mentor and also taking up some extra classes at the college that would further aid you. As lame as it sounds never stop learning.

Now none of this is going to happen tomorrow. But you can start today on building yourself up to get into the game industry. Just wanted to send this positive pep talk to everyone and let them know to keep pushing for their dreams it will happen!

Also I have been practicing my Wii Tennis and I am coming for you.... you know who you are.

Where have I been?

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2007-08-06T14:38:33+00:00

So I haven't been to active on my blog, but I have a great wonderful and might I say myself handsome excuse:

But before I get to that let me build the story a little bit. Trust me its game related. He we are preparing for my wonderful diversion:

Almost done!

Yes, I have my wife barefoot and pregnant painting :) She is putting on the finishing touches.

If you couldn't have guess so far its a nursery! Not my new game room I have been wanting....

And look who is here welcome to the world Zaiden Elijah Harris

So he is what has been helping me not get my game done... among others things but since he is only 3 days old its really easy to blame on it him... :) no seriously though.

I have been meet with many challenges with creating this first game of mine. Not exactly done but I am learning a lot from the many mistakes I have made in planning. I have game ideas I am working on. I will most likely post some pics of the game here soon once I get permission from the publisher. I will try and also improve on more blog post.

Getting Older and Wiser??

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2007-01-29T08:07:50+00:00

Well It's official today this day the 29th day of January in the year 2007 I am 29 years old.... what have I learn? Making a game is pretty dang hard.

My team is working very well and we are growing as well. We have brought a few new developers to help out our main developer and a few other support members as well. One of the things I am very please about besides the progress our team is making. Is the development effort of Corey. He is working his butt off even while sick from work on cranking updates and fixes to the code. We also have a extremely talented musician who is putting together some amazing tracks for us. As soon as I figure out the best way to demo these tracks to the public I will link you in to it. I ran our latest build by our publisher and he was very impressed. It's funny sometimes I think to myself "Man, just a few months ago I doubted I would ever be apart of something this deep." Not only are we getting close to releasing our first title we have 3 new projects in the think tank.

One of the things that caught me off guard on this whole game making thing is FONTS... I never even thought about Times New Roman not looking that cool. Turns out most of these fonts you have to buy, or atleast the one I liked a whole bunch:

http://www.dafont.com/pythia.font

Which I don't mind just wish I could save more money as I am getting ready to buy the 50 dollar sound effects package on GG.. The one that comes with 484 effects. After those two purchases we should be complete on things we need to buy( I hope). Needless to say I am still loving this whole thing and can't wait to be able to tell you more about the game itself and show off some screenshots. But the publisher is not to keen on us showing off the game just yet. Also our game is tied into a much larger product launch. So us spilling the beans before him would be a bad thing.

I am still holding fast to my release date of Feb 20th. Someone write that down so they can bring it up when we miss it. We have about 2 features remaining to get into the game. Although one of those can be considered 12 individual features as each is a different form of attack. Once those are in my plan is to head to a local lan center here in Round Rock, Tx (near Austin for all your non-Texans) and let some kidos beat it up for a while and take notes and feedback. Once this is done bring the data back to the team and make changes and then release. Wish me luck guys!

Also, I am working on fleshing out our company website as well additional stages for the game.... I am one busy 29 year old. Its time for me to goto bed.. Just got done playing FarCry for the Wii and yes the graphics suck and the delivery of the story line is non existent, but I kept playing for 2 hours because of the game play. Anyways my arms are tired night guys.

Wow Wii

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2006-12-10T05:31:56+00:00

So I went out shopping with my family. I had some spare time to sneak away to play with the Nintendo Wii for the first time. I know I maybe late to the party for a official review or what not, but man I have to say the Wii is where its at. They had a demo of Zelda Fishing and a Training Dungeon. I thought the graphics were really well done and sound was pretty good as well. What surprised me was the sound from the Wiimote. The sound of the fishing rod reel was pretty neat and unsuspected. I could not believe how responsive the controls where. I really didnt think it was going to play that well. So I had to go and get my mom wife and child from another store and show them this Demo. They know how much of a spaz I am over games. So I put the controls in my mom's hand and gave here 1 minute chat about how they work and about 30 seconds later she caught 2 fish but one got away... it was huge! Then my wife stepped up same thing only my wife played for about 15 minutes. I am so happy for Nintendo they were really loosing market share and I hope to see this system put a huge dent in the big boys. Oh yeah there was a PS3 there with some Rally game with really really bad collision detection. I feel through a dirt bridge and "died". The graphics looked good but that was it. I want a Wii and I want it now. Anyways that's all I have to say. I can't wait for GG to bring tools out for the Nintendo systems.

The holidays aren't slowing this team down!

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2006-12-07T01:21:48+00:00

A update on the project from Seismic Games

So I have made mention that we have got a publisher for our
team and that is moving along greatly. We have been hard at
work getting our game ready for content addition and then finally play testing. The real announcement on the publisher will hopefully be out very
soon. At this point we are just shy of two weeks of adding
content as the core game features are almost done. Everything
is on schedule except for two items. The sound FXs and the
back ground music. Being located in Austin does make it easy
for me to find musical talent. I just don't want to pay
much.. or anything at all for it :) This Saturday I have a
meeting with a local musician to start that ball rolling. If
that goes well then I will hopefully be able to just focus on
the FX... if you guys have any tips or tricks or freebie
locations let me know. That's pretty much where we are right
now. Sorry about the lack of screen shots can't post anything
just yet due to the contract.

Tis the season..

I definetly want to take the time to wish everyone happy
holidays on this post as well. Also I wanted to encourage you
all to take some time out and give back. I had something
really cool happen to me this past weekend. My mom is
visiting me and we decided to cook breakfast for a children's
home here in Austin. Texas Baptist Children's Home
It was really cool to be able to
give back and watch everyone enjoy the food. My mom did the
cooking I just help... man that woman can cook! Anyways
something cool happen. One of the kids asked what was I
interested in. When I told him about my hobby in game
building there eyes grew wide. It was right at that time that
the leader of the home asked me to come back on Monday and be
a mentor to the kids. Then it hit me wouldn't it e cool if I
could help these come together and build a game. In what
little spare time I have I think in the new year I will try
and mentor these guys using TGB technology. I have yet to
check with GG on donating a license or two for the kids to
use.

Let's see that's pretty much it for now. I know there was
some more things I wanted to talk about, but I will save that
for after the press release on the publisher.

Peace

-Rev D

Busting at the seems...

Donald \"Yadot\" Harris — 2006-11-29T05:23:52+00:00

Okay, I have to admit I am pretty excited. My team is hard at work building our first game using the TGB engine. The game was set to be a simple casual game design to really take our team through the software development cycle. When I first thought of the game I wanted to be free. Due to the relationship with my mentors Seismic Games has been able to strike a deal with a publisher. All of this is happening pretty fast for us and we are all very excited. There will be an official press release soon and more details to come on our first project. I can tell you that is based off of Pong and Arkenoid. And we followed the KISS rule for our first game. I will keep you posted.