August 1, 2003 - Friday

I've been toying with game idea's in my head. One of the things I think about doing is learning directx and programming a game. A bit like what Young is doing. Unfortunately, I have no time and I haven't read the directx book I bought for about 6 or 7 months. Darn my hobbies. Anyway, one of the ideas rolling around in my head was sort of a hybrid freelancer/starcontrol thing. Customize and build a ship and then roam around treasure hunting, trading, etc to make your fortune. Build better ships, explore the galaxy etc. There's more involved obviously, but that's sort of a general gist. I also thought it would be great multiplayer, especially with a consistent universe. Explore/destroy the galaxy with your buddies and all that. Of course, when your coming up with something like this you might think, "Man this would be a cool game! Hmm... I wonder if anyone else has come up with something like this that I could play?" In my regular web reading I came upon Starscape which had some elements of what I was thinking, but didn't appeal to me much when I tried the demo. Lot of good ideas, but a lot of the graphics didn't appeal to me (I thought they sucked ass) and only available at 800x600 to boot (which doesn't do it for me in a 2d game). Good effects though. Today I was reading Penny Arcade when Jumpgate caught my eye. After reading the first paragraph it sounds pretty close to what I was thinking. I'll have to look into it more to see what it's like. One thing I did see when poking around the website is they charge 10 bucks a month (Free game download and free 10 day trial with credit card though). That's the same as what a lot of the big MMORPG's used to charge (I think they're up to 13 now for most). Think I'll save my thoughts on monthly charges for another rant.

[^SEan^] - 12:33 PM PDT

August 2, 2003 - Saturday

Someone emailed and reminded me of another game similar to the ones mentioned above: Escape Velocity Nova. It's only been available for the Mac until recently, but a Windows version was just released. Another one to check out when I get a chance...

[^SEan^] - 1:43 AM PDT

Escape Velocity?! Oh wow, brings back memories... I played it a lot on one of the older macs we had in my college dorm computer room. All the separate side-stories and adventures were quite interesting for me. Back then I wished I could play it--and any future renditions--on my own computer (not a mac). Thanks for the link (whoever provided it)! I'm downloading the demo now. Yeah, I've been wondering what happened to the exploration adventure type games of space sci-fi nature that were out before. Everything now seems to be dark fantasy or horror or deathmatch. XP Although Sean didn't find what he was looking for in that Starscape game, I really appreciated the link. I enjoyed the prospective story and mystery that comes with managing a single ship/crew in an alien universe. I got quite involved a looong time ago in a similar game done by Sierra's Dynamix group called Alien Legacy. Although the gameplay sucked ass (navigation, fighting, resource micromanagement), I really enjoyed (what little of) the character interaction, the unique events, and unfolding story. I'd searched for possible story continuations in books, fanworks, games, but haven't had much luck. Anyways, not much point to what I'm adding... just reminiscing and wishing to see more of what I like. Maybe others have similar interests; however, I seem to doubt it. All the gamers out there (as seemingly projected by the countless hardcore magazines out there written by 2% of the real gaming population) seem to only want mindless multiplayer deathmath in a horrific environment that will push their l33t next-gen machines that they will be pouring lots of money into when the game comes out. Then more money on another computer when the next game comes out. >.< I don't really get it. Oh well.

[^A-sama^] - 5:01 AM PDT

O_o That's the longest post I've ever seen my brother make. Sweet! I'd post something intelligent now too, but the only intelligent thing I would have to talk about right now is the thunderstorm outside my window, and honestly, I'm too busy oogling to go into a detailed explination of why the thunderstorm is raining down on my house, and Louis' house 2 miles down the hill is getting no rain at all. Yeah. Oooo... thunder...

[^e^] - 9:44 AM PDT

For those curious check out this article on MSN about independent game developers and how they work on different types of games compared to what the bigger, mainstream studios produce.

[^SEan^] - 12:12 PM PDT

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