We’re getting there. What’s left?
I happened to catch the start of This American Life this evening, and it grabbed me. For the first time I actually found the local NPR station streaming online and listened to the rest of it. Not driving, not as background, but actually listening to a radio program, like people did 60 years ago.
The topic was software patents. The undertone was that our system, originally developed to encourage invention and creativity, has been overtaken and is simply an arms race of epic proportions. More and more companies exist whose business model is to gather patents (through filing or purchasing) and then go around politely asking every technology company in Silicon Valley to give them some money as a licensing fee, Or Else. To defend themselves against these shakedowns, big companies get their own arsenal of patents to flaunt to would-be patent trolls. The hope is that this display of ammunition will persuade the trolls to move on to softer targets, lest they get counter-sued for infingement on one of their patents.
Ira Glass suggested that those suffering the most in this war are the startups, the people actually inventing something new, who get asked for exorbitant licensing fees at their most vulnerable early stage of existence. It’s enough to wipe out lots of startups and discourage many, many more.
By the way, these are not patents on actual breakthrough inventions, these are patents on “downloading and uploading of video data through a wide area network” and that sort of thing. Stuff that shouldn’t have been given a patent in the first place, but somehow was.
I’m wondering how this will affect game development. A search on the USPTO website yields tons of video game related patents, but most are for hardware. There are indeed some software ones including some design ones. (I think I saw a patent for an “adrenaline meter” but I can’t find it right now.)
Currently, there isn’t enough money in indie console/PC game development for the sharks to smell blood in the water. But I’m sure for mobile and social gaming, the arms race is on. I just hope we have some patent reform before my company makes enough money to become a target. Maybe I’m paranoid… we’ll see what happens.
The word “paradise” is derived from the Avestan word for “enclosure.”
This fun fact enters my mind every so often on a project. With modern technology, just about anything is possible, and I don’t usually notice at first the cost of all of this possibility.
Today’s case was writing music for Escape Goat. I used Impulse Tracker to compose the score for Soulcaster I and II, and since then I’ve moved into Renoise. It has higher sound quality, runs in Windows, and can load most VST instruments and effects–something I haven’t had access to until now. And I’m blown away, you MIDI sequencing folks have had it made for years–dozens, hundreds of free virtual instruments and effects. Many of them sound as good or better than hardware I paid dearly for ten years ago. Can you believe this is a free instrument? Listen to that quality.
I went on a spree grabbing as many free 80’s style synths and effects that I could find. I came away with about 20 instruments, at least 10 of which were of excellent quality. I could score the whole game with just one of these. The GTG-FM, linked in the above video, is just as capable as a Yamaha DX7, an instrument that went for $2000 new back in the 80’s. And this is just one instrument. I have in my virtual arsenal a synth collection that would have cost a fortune back then. Cause for celebration!
The only problem is, I can (and did) spend a whole night just auditioning the built-in sounds on these guys. They can do such a variety of sounds. Though I started working on a song, it ended up as a love-fest of synth presets. Not much work got done on the actual composition itself. The problem? Too many great sounds. The solution? Force a limitation of them.
It took some time, but I whittled it down to a collection of about 20 instruments and samples I’m going to use as the signature sounds for Escape Goat. I’m only using 3 of the virtual synths. This way I’ll spend less time finding the ultimate bass sound and more time writing the song.
The open desert is scary. Build an enclosure.
Tonight was the East Bay indie developers’ meetup in Berkeley at Au Coquelet, an intimate gathering of about ten locals, about half of whom didn’t come to last month’s gathering. It was an awesome time. To those of you who couldn’t make it, another one will be held in the last week of August, so follow me on Twitter if you want to be informed!
Meetups like these are essential to me. Working alone is a great way to get stuff done, until I reach that stage where I feel like I’m floating off in orbit. After enough days go by without real professional interaction, I start to raise existential questions about game development, my career, my life, and that’s just never helpful. Talking to other devs is really inspiring and energizing, and gets me back focused on the small, individual tasks that actually get the project done. It’s also great to have playtests planned ahead of time–when I know I have to show the game in 3 hours, it changes the way I work. I’m much less likely to be chasing a weird bug down a rabbit hole, and more likely to put in a quick fix to get through the day (often the better approach in the long run).
So where do we stand with Escape Goat? I’ve got pretty much all the gameplay bugs fixed and features locked, and the file system for user created levels is also pretty solid. (I don’t have a sharing system in place yet, that’ll be explored next week.) Since I’ll be having a playtest party this weekend, tomorrow is going to be a good day to remake the levels from scratch again. I’ll browse through the previous versions of the game and harvest the best room concepts and puzzles, and string them together in a logical way. I also haven’t explored a lot of the puzzles that use the later mechanics and abilities.
Also on the radar for tomorrow is a chat with long-time comrade and audio sorcerer Matt Piersall. I think I need some advice from him on how to design the soundscape for this game. The music is not a problem, but this game presents some unique challenges in that field and he’s going to have the answers. I know this.
Also, tomorrow I get to see Mary for the first time in a week!