2015 Archive

December 19th, 2015:

So... I can sum up the past two months pretty much with one word: PROGRAMMING

Yeah, I've been doing a ton of code. Despite that, I'm still not nearly as far along with my secret project as I wanted to be by this point, but I've been making very good progress. The reason it's taking longer than expected is because quite often I run into situations where I could either spend one day writing something that will work immediately for my current purposes, or I could spend several days writing something that will work now and with every future game going into this thing, thus I choose the latter option in order to ensure that I can actually finish games for this thing very quickly in the future.

Thus, as it stands, game code is somewhere around 65% to 70% done, however, I'd say about 60% of what I worked on over the past couple months was game code and the rest was more framework code to add in features like a universal "bot" system, kinda like a sprite system but more dynamic in terms of what I can do with it as it's designed for doing more than sprites, as well as some special effects code and support for XInput controllers as well as controller rumble and proper wireless handling so it can detect low batteries and temporarily halt gameplay if a wireless connection is lost.

Some of the time was also spent doing ADG Plays, though not a whole lot, plus I also did a bunch of level design work for the second game of the project. Again, the first game, which was the largest, I finished before the two month break, and the second game is itself about 60% done right now. The third game is the smallest so I'm hoping by focussing on smaller games with ADG for the start of 2016 I'll be able to finish things out and finally release the project before we get too far into the year. That way, we can make the push to get it through Steam Greenlight so I can start actually selling games through the system, as the first three games will always be free, but additional games will be DLC at $2 each, though you'll be able to demo each game before buying it. I know $2 seems cheap, but the goal is to be able to put out around 3 to 4 games a year, not that the games will be bad or low-quality, just short, so it's hard to justify charging more than $2 for a simple game which will only provide about 3 to 10 hours of gameplay... doesn't stop SOME people but then that's no excuse to stoop to that level. :P

Anywhoo, ADG continues on January 2nd, so make sure to tune in for that! :D

October 17th, 2015:

Don't really have much to say at the moment beyond what's said in the filler video, so go watch it! :D

October 10th, 2015:

I say pretty much everything I want to about this week's game in the episode proper, so not much to say about it in this news post. :B

Make sure to watch the next filler video so you know what's gonna go down over the next couple months during my time away from ADG! (Hint: Mostly coding and livestreams for Patreon supporters, but something else too...)

October 3rd, 2015:

I got stuck very quickly when I started playing through this week's Ancient DOS Game and I couldn't believe a game that was so incredibly difficult would be fondly remembered. When I started looking up details that's when I discovered that the original Amiga version of the game is actually several times more playable and easier than the DOS version... so that probably explains a few things. :P

Other than that, this week's been sorta nuts and I've been having to address about a million things all at once, added to that being in constant pain due to pulling a neck muscle from a simple stretch a couple days ago. I'm probably gonna take the time to relax this weekend and get back to work on everything on Monday... probably to the disappointment of anyone waiting on me to do things for them but I'm sorry, one person in pain can only do so much work before keeling over. :P

Also, since today's episode is mature-rated, here's the hint for the next... actually, two hints. The first hint is it's a PC Booter game which is reminiscent of the Colecovision game "2010", based on the 80s movie of the same name. The second hint: Octagons.

September 20th, 2015:

I've been meaning to put out a Minecraft video for quite some time now, but part of what was delaying me was continually making new worlds as I got into new mod packs so I figured screw it, I'll just make a video now before I get too deep and again decide to switch packs. :P

A big part of the reason for making this video is actually to figure out if you guys want me to do modded Minecraft videos instead of my video blog series. I'm fully capable of doing either and am perfectly fine making either, I just don't have the time on hand to do both, given work on my secret project and ADG.

Also, learned a bit more about codec settings and such as this is the first video I've done at 1080p and 60 FPS... took a few tries to get it to render right which is part of the reason why the video came out substantially later than normal. Part of the delay too was making sure my railway in the world I've been playing was complete. :B

September 19th, 2015:

Given the massive number of guesses sent in and the ratings I was seeing for this game, I expected it to be some epic platformer I missed out on as a kid since I could never get it working properly for some reason.

...I can safely say that even as a kid this game would've bothered the Hell out of me... :/

So yeah, this may be another case where my opinion is going to differ greatly from the norm, but I think I at least did an OK job of explaining all the little (and not so little) things which culminate into making this a really bad game.

Other than that, I've been running into issues getting my next GVB ready, which is part of the reason why it's not up yet. It was SUPPOSED to go up Wednesday, but then other obligations kept me from working on it, then I ran into rendering issues on Thursday and woke up this morning to a failed render and am going to have to render it overnight tonight. :P

Still making progress on my secret project as well, though I'm going to be making some massive internal changes to it over the next week so that making games for it goes MUCH faster for all the games to come. Hopefully does the trick and gets me at least SOMEWHAT back on track, as this project has taken far longer to get going than I anticipated... Really looking forwards to my time off from ADG in November and December to put a solid chunk of time into the project! :3

September 12th, 2015:

Aside from making a new ADG episode, this week has been fairly uneventful for me. Nothing wrong with status quo! :)

September 5th, 2015:

Believe it or not, I'd never played any of the Ultima games up to this point. I knew a bit about them, but I judged them based on other similar games I had played which were directly inspired by this one. Needless to say, this thing surprised me. :o

Also, private testing has started on my secret game project! The first game for it is 100% complete, minus bug fixes. That makes two more to go before I can release it to the world and get it up on Steam Greenlight! :)

Thankfully, the next two games for the project are much smaller... well... "smaller" may be the wrong word. Let's say, "simpler", at least from a programming standpoint.

The irony though is that even once this project is ready to go, I STILL need to make a fourth game before there's any hope of the project making any money, as the first three games I'm making for it will always be free. It's just all subsequent games which you pay a tiny amount to permanently own, thus you only buy the games you want. ;)

Funny thing is that if it weren't for the two moves I've done this year and having to do a web show the whole while, my original estimates for when I'd be getting this thing out probably would've held true. I'm definitely going to need to re-evaluate how I calculate my coding time while doing a web show at the same time. Thankfully, there's only four more regular episodes of ADG for the year before 2016, and then I'll have two months where I can REALLY focus on this thing. I'm hoping to be ready for the initial release right around the start of 2016... which is, quite frankly, cutting things really close as far as life expenses are concerned, so here's hoping it all works out!

September 1st, 2015:

Ever wanted to know more about me than you really wanted to? ...no? Well, then this isn't the video for you! ;D

Actually, what's going on is that PushingUpRoses recently did a video where she answered some questions and then tagged a couple other people. I wasn't one of them, but I have a video blog now so I figured, "Hey, might as well take a crack at these questions myself!"

Plus it gave me the opportunity to tag Clint of LGR fame a second time as he was one of the persons Roses tagged in her video. So now he's DOUBLE TAGGED! MWA HA HA HA HA!

...*shrugs*...

Also, private testing begins this week for my secret project, so a handful of people beyond myself will be finding out what it is I've been working on, though they're all under orders to tell absolutely NO ONE about it. I only get one shot to do a proper reveal and I need to be sure it's ready to launch on Steam Greenlight before that happens. The largest of the first three games for the project is virtually done, so the trick is how quickly I can put the other two games together... Hey, if I could code PixelShips Retro in just two months, I think a couple smaller games shouldn't take me too long, even with videos to make in the interim! ...I hope...

August 19th, 2015:

We all love to hate advertising, but the fact is, ads DO work... provided they're GOOD.

Lately, I've been instinctively reacting to ads, figuring out how good or bad they are in a heartbeat. I decided to use these powers for evi...GOOD... yes... "good", in order to give you all an idea of how advertising works and what makes an ad good or bad.

I decided to focus on NES game ads simply because I didn't want to go nuts with this... well... more nuts than I already did. If you guys want to see another video like this one in the future, let me know! :)

Also, first game for my secret project is 94% complete. SO FREAKING CLOSE NOW... x_x;;;

August 15th, 2015:

Funny story: The reason I even got into Retro City Rampage at all was because of the LGR Plays video covering this game. What's ironic about this is that Clint wasn't a huge fan of the game, but I liked what I saw and the aspects of the game which bothered him didn't bother me, so his negative opinion is actually what drove me to get and enjoy the game. Further proof that there's really no such thing as bad publicity! ;)

This DOS port of the game though probably confused quite a number of people, so I figured given my background in DOS gaming, and my programming/design skills, I was rightly suited to tackle the questions as to why this thing even exists now. Hopefully I got the details right. If not, I'm sure someone will correct me. :B

Past the 90% mark with the first game for my secret project. Progress has slowed down the past few weeks but should be picking up again shortly. Two weeks of stress followed by a week of distractions. Go figure. :P

August 8th, 2015:

Decided to do a simple game this week because last week I barely had enough time to capture any game footage for Dungeon Keeper due to stressful things which have been going on in real life. This week was a little less stressed, though was still pretty tricky to get through, so I spent much of my spare time just playing a couple new games. Specifically Space Engineers and Guild of Dungeoneering for those curious. :B

For all the ridiculousness this week brought though, I had an extremely pleasant and joyful end to today, so I'm in really good spirits once again! ^_^

So yeah, a little behind on my secret project due to just taking the time to relax through all the stress, but I've got three weeks ahead of me where I don't have to attend my usual ADG duties to maximum throughput, so I should be able to make substantial progress! :)

Nothing more to say... so... go watch the new ADG video! 8D

August 1st, 2015:

So... my latest video blog entry didn't go over nearly as well as just about every other video I've ever made up to this point... I guess a part of the issue is that the first four GVB videos are all gaming related in some way, and here came this weird soda pop video that looked like some freakish science experiment.

There's a very important reason why I didn't call it a "gaming" blog and it's because I want to be able to talk about just about anything which comes to mind. Actually, given some things which have happened recently I'm reminded of how difficult it's been for me to converse with others, so my next GVB in a little over a week will likely be to talk about the difficulties I've always faced trying to express myself, as I've been misinterpreted sooooooooo many times throughout my life that I feel like I'm always on the defensive and that somehow I'm the only one who's not permitted to be anything less than 100% accurate... but then the average person doesn't want to hear 100% accurate stuff, so... engh... :/

First game for my secret project is sitting at about 89% done and I'm hoping to get that much closer to 100% before the end of next week, though we'll see how things go. Real life has been rearing its ugly head again, as you can probably tell by how little progress I was able to make through Dungeon Keeper and because of this episode going up a few hours later than usual. :(

Also, since it's a mature rated episode, the hint this time around is: An indie game made in 1990 that exclusively uses CGA graphics.

July 29th, 2015:

I like pop. :3

However, I also have a tendency to inadvertently combine drinks together to keep my glass full... with mixed results. So I figured rather than keep guessing at what combinations will work out I decided to try several all in one go. :B

First game for my secret project is also now about 89% done. Progress! :D

July 18th, 2015:

ADG episode is up, getting tired, going to bed. Goodnight! :B

July 14th, 2015:

This GVB is pretty special... Almost 15 years ago to the day, I put some stuff related to my then new PixelShips game into an envelope, sealed it, and mailed it to myself so that, if I ever needed to prove my ownership of the copyright, the contents could be unsealed and serve that purpose.

However, my presence on the internet is much better established now than it was even just a few years ago and it would be extremely difficult for anyone to claim my creation as their own in the face of all that I've done with it, so I figured it's time to open this thing up and see what secrets I've had locked away inside it! :3

July 11th, 2015:

This episode ended up being a lot longer than I was expecting... guess having an unboxing at the beginning kind of contributed to that. ;)

Otherwise, not too much to report on. I have a rather special video blog planned for Tuesday which is going to be extremely neat, and other than that, I'm about 80% done the first game for the my secret project. I'm actually going to start sending out invites for the private alpha soon, but don't bother asking to be a part of it as there's only an extremely small number of people I plan to invite in order to keep the project a secret as long as possible. One of the lesser (but still important) reasons why I'm keeping quiet about this thing is because I don't code very fast, especially with a web show to worry about at the same time, so if I announce it too soon, I'll not only lose the potential impact the game system would have if it was ready (or almost ready) at the same time, not to mention a small group of people with more time on their hands and faster coding skills could beat me to the punch. I've had to give up ideas in the past as a result of people coming out with those same ideas and I REALLY can't risk that potential with this game system because I know, the moment this thing is out there and known, if it ends up even remotely popular amongst retro gamers, there WILL be clones.

It won't be too much longer now anyways. The first game for this project is much more complicated than the other two I have to make before the project can go live, plus despite starting coding back around the end of last year, I've only really put about two months of work into this first game and only have about two weeks of code left to finish it, provided I don't run into any major issues. The second and third games should only take a month each, hopefully less, as I really wanted to have this thing going so much sooner... Alas, I'm only one person; I can only do so much in the course of one day! :P

July 4th, 2015:

As far as sports are concerned, I'm not really a huge fan of them, but I understand the appeal of them all the same. As far as real life is concerned, the sports I'm best at are Basketball, Volleyball and Soccer. Baseball is an odd one for me because I prefer to watch it as opposed to play it and most computerized baseball games I find either too easy, or too difficult. HardBall is one of the latter. :P

June 30th, 2015:

For some reason, I felt like going through my old archives, looking back at all kinds of things I had given up on. Some of them were things which barely got off the ground, but others had quite a bit of effort put into them, so for my video blog this week, given that the past week has mostly been spent coding, I figured it would be neat to show everyone a few of these things.

Mind you, looking back at all this stuff was kind of depressing too... so many ideas which never became finished projects... You've really gotta choose your battles carefully as a game designer, or else you end up making things which just... never get where you want them to. :/

Also, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri is on GOG now, so I added a link on my video page for it. Given that this was a Looking Glass Studios game, the same as System Shock, I'm hopeful this means we'll be seeing the original System Shock on GOG soon too... maybe... you never know! ;)

June 20th, 2015:

After doing my video on Heretic, a few people chimed in that the Doom Engine wasn't a raycaster, but I got varying opinions on how it worked. I looked into it a bit and continued to find varying opinions. It took a bit of effort, but I tracked down a really good article detailing the inner workings of the Doom source code and was able to confirm how the Doom Engine actually works, thus I decided to just make a video about it rather than print a lengthy correction on any videos where I made mistakes about this.

I'm still behind with game coding and getting old livestreams uploaded, but hopefully not for too much longer. The livestreams are a bit of a challenge because of limits in terms of both YouTube uploading and Blip uploading (back when I was still using Blip), which is why they haven't gone up yet. Also, the amount of time it would take to process them is lengthy, during which I can't use my computer to do much of anything else otherwise I can cause glitches in the videos due to how my video editing software handles GPU acceleration. (I can turn GPU acceleration off, but then it takes even longer to render stuff.)

Also, for anyone using Sony Movie Studio 12, Platinum version or not, DO NOT upgrade to 13. Trust me on this one... I couldn't uninstall it fast enough and now I'm down $40 USD which could've gone towards more games... or FOOD. Food would've been nice... :(

Exact problems with the new version of the Movie Studio software: Can't fade and trim with the same tool cursor (trust me, this is FAR more serious of an issue than it sounds), can't adjust the trim or fade of the end of a clip when it's overlayed by a transitioning clip, GUI has HUGE buttons now in place of the small ones giving you less screen space for actual editing, the tool selection system is buggy as you can somehow have two different tools selected at the same time yet only one of them will work, you can no longer manually zoom the entire track view vertically, and despite touting "60 FPS" support, the previous 12.x version of their software, while not touting it, will do it just fine. (So long as you're not using variable-framerate files like those captured by some streaming programs... but even the new 13 version of the software has this same problem.)

Oh yeah, and the tech support is paid-only now, yet behaves in such a way that you can submit support requests without paying a dime... they just don't get answered. Smooth. :P

Maybe 14 will be better... not paying a dime for it when it eventually comes out though until I see hard evidence that they've learned from their mistakes.

June 16th, 2015:

Have a new video blog entry up. This time just to talk about some of the games I've been playing lately which I can't normally talk about because I do a show about DOS games, not modern games. :B

June 13th, 2015:

Once again, don't have too much to say at the moment. I'm a bit behind on work on my secret game project, but only because I haven't been able to find the time to really make any useful progress, although I'm getting bits and pieces done here and there when I do find the time. Hopefully the next couple weeks will afford me lots of time to work on it! :B

June 6th, 2015:

They say no news is good news and right now, don't have much to really say other than that things are fairly status quo for the moment. Just waiting to get A/C installed in the apartment and I'll be much happier. :B

June 2nd, 2015:

Yup. I've started a video blog, or "vlog" if you really need me to say it in order to verify that I know the term and am simply refusing to use it. Basically, with all the nonsense I've been going through lately I feel like this is the best way for me to keep you guys in the loop as to what's going on, as well as to just talk about whatever the heck I feel like talking about. ;)

This video blog is done with a minimal amount of effort, but to keep me from running out of stuff to talk about I'm only going to be doing it bi-weekly and am not going to keep a list of prior videos here on the website. Instead, you can check out the YouTube Playlist I've set up for them.

Have also made a couple of updates to certain ADG pages on the website, mostly to mention that the Star Trek adventure titles are available on GOG now and that there's a bit of confusion regarding the Windows and DOS releases of Earthworm Jim.

So yeah, more videos to watch, games to make, games to play... things are getting busy again now that I've settled into our new apartment and with any luck, when all is said and done, I'll be far better off than I currently am! :)

May 16th, 2015:

With this episode finally up, I now have two weeks to settle into my new place to live with no major responsibilities, save for working on my secret game project. :)

Not sure if I'm going to start my new video series next week or the week after... probably the week after. As said previously, it won't be anything major but it should be interesting to see what kind of attention it gets. :B

May 13th, 2015:

Now that my father and I have moved to a new place, things are very slowly returning to normal. Still don't have internet access, though we're scheduled to have that set up on Friday, thus I'm making this update from my sister's place.

As it stands, I have access to all of my most important stuff again and if there's anything specific I need that I forgot to take out of the storage unit, I should be able to fetch it now, seeing as the storage unit's not utterly packed anymore. There's still a number of little things to do though, such as install an air conditioner for the Summer, install some blinds in my room, not just for privacy but so I can see my computer screen when it's sunny out, and I still need to change a whole bunch of address details over to the new place.

But, it's nice to have my own room again, able to sleep on my own bed (aka: futon), but most importantly of all... I REALLY missed being able to walk on carpet! 8D (Not a fan of wearing socks and anything other than carpet feels sticky and dirty to my feet.)

I've also been in moderate pain the past couple weeks... I thought it was related to something I ate, but then after about three or four days a sort of rash appeared on my lower-right back. Oddly enough, the more the rash fades, the worse it burns and itches, though the fact that it's going away at all, even if really slowly, is a good sign.

So... yeah. Things have been ridiculous, but it seems as though it shouldn't be much longer before things return to normal. This entire ordeal has set back my secret game project too, so we're now looking at around the end of June or early July for the initial release, and as I get closer to that I'll finally be announcing it. :)

The last thing to mention is that I have an idea for a weekly video series I can run alongside everything else I'm doing, as it really wouldn't take more than an hour or two of my time each week. See, the whole ordeal I just went through these past couple weeks made me realize that there's a lot of things I could talk about on a regular basis if I wasn't restricted to specific topics... What I have planned is basically a video blog. A few minutes of footage each week to give everyone an idea of what I've been up to and to talk about... well... just about anything at all.

It'll be interesting to see how well it goes over and whether or not it gets more people involved with my stuff in general. If it only gets a handful of view per video though I probably won't keep it up, or will only do it monthly instead of weekly. We'll see how it all goes soon enough. ;)

May 6th, 2015:

Man, the past couple weeks have been NUTS... x_x;

However, I seem to be surviving for the moment, so, let's briefly discuss a few things. Firstly, new episode of ADG up! Late because of nonsense last week combined with being out of town for some time, but up all the same. Secondly, ALL video embeds on the site (save for one which I'll fix next week once I can access my backup DVDs) are now linking to YouTube since Blip likely isn't going to survive the year. Thirdly, I was able to figure out YouTube's 60 FPS system and was able to coax 60 FPS out of my editing software, so, future ADG videos will be using YouTube's 60 FPS features! (Remember though that 60p ONLY works when HD is enabled!)

Other than that, I'm moving on Thursday, so I had to choose a simple game for the next ADG episode and an even simpler game for the one following that. Episode 162 will go live on Wednesday, May 13th, while Episode 163 will go up on Saturday, May 16th, with the hope that I'll be back on schedule following! :B

April 29th, 2015, Post #2:

OK... so without getting too personal, things had degenerated last night between myself and those who've been helping me out in ways I didn't even begin to consider because it was difficult to know who was right and who was wrong, even from my own standpoint. The situation was never about money, but time, trust, and consideration, and it seems the "facts" as everyone was interpreting them were different amongst us all.

If that seems vague it's because the last thing I want to do is hurt the ones I love, which I WILL end up inadvertently doing if I delve into the details just from the nature of those details. Suffice to say, for awhile last night, things looked extremely grim and I rapidly made the post about potentially being homeless for a week because at the time, no other immediate future seemed possible and it would only be a matter of hours before I would be without internet access... I had to say something ASAP while I still could...

For the moment though, tempers have calmed and everyone's had time to think about everything and while the situation is substantially better, it's not perfect. I'm not going to be homeless, but to help make things easier for all involved I am going to be out of the city for a few days visiting relatives, which means I'll be unable to attend my usual ADG duties... I'm also STILL going to be without internet access for a couple days or so starting later next week as my father and I move into a new place.

So, to that end, here's what you guys need to expect. Episode 161 of Ancient DOS Games will be going live either Tuesday, May 5th, or Wednesday May 6th, I'm uncertain which but it will definitely be one of those two days. Episode 162 will be exactly one week later, so expect it Tuesday, May 12th, or Wednesday May 13th. Following that, I will try to have Episode 163 up on time, meaning it would be up on Saturday, May 16th. This scheduling will put my time without internet access between Episodes 161 and 162 so as to eliminate any more unexpected delays.

I guess what it ultimately comes down to is that, just like everyone else, I'm only Human, and we Humans run into all sorts of ridiculousness. The good news though is that, short of a catastrophe, there's little which could go wrong following the move coming up at the end of next week, so as long as I make it that far, the only direction I can go is up! :)

April 29th, 2015:

I... really have no words to describe the situation I'm in. The ultimate result of it all is that until sometime after May 7th, I am going to be without internet access, without a place to live, without ANY of my stuff... it's only going to be for a week, but I will be homeless, and I would ask that everyone who enjoys my work not to abandon me when my next two ADG episodes fail to go live on the 2nd and 9th.

I WILL return...

...*sigh*...

...99% positive... actually, probably more like 97.375%...

April 18th, 2015:

Super-tired so I'm going to bed ASAP. Only piece of news which I'll elaborate on later is that I found out Blip is shutting down sometime this year (dunno when) and thus I will be transitioning ALL of the Blip embeds to YouTube by the end of next week.

April 11th, 2015:

Ended up catching some kind of bug that was going around this week which got in the way of my being able to do a voiceover. So, in under 36 hours, I managed to whip together this fun little filler video to help pass the time. The regularly scheduled episode will be next Saturday. ;)

Since I haven't looked at a lot of Atari 2600 stuff and it's a subject I know quite a bit about, I decided to take a quick look at a solid number of good games for the system which often go forgotten, or aren't given as much of a chance as they should be because of quirky mechanics or unusual gameplay.

I'm already on the mend actually and am 99% better as I type this, so getting this filler made so fast has actually opened up next week for lots of coding, and since I'm behind where I wanted to be with my secret project by now, I could use all the spare time I can get! :B

April 4th, 2015:

I fully expected to at least tolerate this game going into it, given my experience with Word Rescue. Instead, I ended up with a fairly good theory as to why the computer lab at one of the elementary schools I attended in the past had Word Rescue but NOT Math Rescue... :P

Also, this episode may seem a little more ragey than usual, perhaps to the surprise of others, but as many of you have probably noticed by now, I don't sugar-coat my opinions or let nostalgia get in the way of my game design sensibilities. If something's not right, I dig into it and try to figure out why it's not right...

...unfortunately with Math Rescue, the only conclusion I could come to for a lot of the problems I encountered was laziness, inexperience, lack of money to pay people to fix things... or a combination of those. x_x;

March 21st, 2015:

Not much to say at the moment which isn't said in the video proper, but have a couple neat games lined up for Edutainment Month next month and will probably finally get back to YouTube uploads next week. Gonna try to catch up as much as possible. :B

March 14th, 2015:

So here's a couple games that suck. ;D

Actually, to be perfectly honest, while this week's games aren't good, they're very intriguing because they're roughly equivalent to the level of quality you could expect out of a brand new game programmer in the early 90s, learning their craft with minimal assistance since back then, there really wasn't any. It's not like nowadays where you just have to browse the internet for a moment and have access to about a zilliontyseven tutorials and guides.

Indie coders nowadays have it so much easier than the rest of us did. It doesn't take as much effort to reach even a small measure of success, whereas back in the early 90s, getting your work seen by people was damned near impossible. :(

Speaking of, work on my secret project is continuing slowly but surely as I haven't run into any major issues with it, and given how far I am into coding it now, I don't really expect to. ;)

March 7th, 2015:

Electro Man turned out to be a much less elaborate game than I was expecting, given my own memory of the thing and how it works on the surface, thus we ended up with a shorter ADG episode than usual. :P

Other than that, nothing much else going on. I'm going to get back to YouTube uploads soon... My plan is to get around the whole Content-ID nonsense by eliminating/reducing sections of any future YouTube uploads which I feel may trigger those violations. I still feel Content-ID is a necessary evil, but I strongly feel that relying on it alone is a terrible approach. YouTube really should have people examining each video violation and making their own decision as to if the violation is a strong enough breach that it warrants completely derailing people's accounts, especially given how some people use YouTube as their sole means of income nowadays.

Ancient DOS Games isn't anywhere near popular enough to warrant THAT level of money from YouTube though. The amount I get from Pateron support is still MANY times larger and thus many times more appreciated.

Things will definitely improve for me once my game project is ready to go. Fell a little behind the past couple weeks, but not because of the project itself but rather other obligations beyond my work. Hope to catch back up to where I want to be before this month is over. ;)

February 21st, 2015:

So I've REALLY lost touch with mainstream gaming... I'm not really completely certain why. It's not like I don't find mainstream games fun; I've logged a ton of hours in Skyrim and even quite a solid chunk of hours in Saints Row IV, but I think a big part of it is that I don't want to spend $60 a pop just for a game which I may or may not enjoy, or which may have extremely annoying DRM issues, online connectivity issues, or other such nonsense. :P

As a result, most of the games I own on Steam are indie titles. I will admit, only a small number of indie titles I've bought I actually enjoy beyond their normal gameplay, and only about half of them in general have I really enjoyed at all, but indie titles are so much less expensive I don't mind giving them a chance, especially when $30 can get me up to four games at a time. :B

Mind you, Ziggurat is a $15 single-player game, which may seem high for what is essentially a first-person shooter, but this thing is extremely well polished save for the occasional minor bug which pops up and then subsequently gets squashed in a future update, and the gameplay is definitely there, so it's one I wanted to bring to everyone's attention so that more people may give it a chance. :)

As for my own game project, it's coming along for sure. Progress has been solid and while it's still gonna be a couple months at the least before I can reveal it, I'm very confident it'll stand out amongst the many thousands of titles out there currently... at least as far as its aesthetics are concerned. But then, if there's one thing I've always been good at with game design, it's making games addictive; Noticing those little detais which make players come back for more and amplifying them. I'm hoping that despite the extrmely unique and minimalistic aesthetics I've got going with this project, the gameplay will be what hooks players in! :B

February 14th, 2015:

Nothing much to say at the moment. Just chugging along, coding my game project and making ADG videos. :)

Mind you, my game project is going pretty well. Making solid coding progress and getting assets made. Still at least a couple months away from revealing it though, possibly three or four months still, but when I finally do announce it I think a lot of people will understand why I stayed tight-lipped about it. ;)

February 7th, 2015:

Really tired at the moment and don't really have much to report on, except that progress on my secret game project is solid. I have a universal editor made and a working title screen and game selection system. Very soon I'll be starting on the first game for the system!

January 17th, 2015:

Slowly adapting to life in my sister's place with almost none of my stuff... But, as they say, "The show must go on!" :D

No really, I get along very well with my sister and her husband's a cool guy too, so for the moment things are OK. My father and I will get a place soon enough and then I can pull things like my PC game collection back out of storage... or my pinball machine, which I'll probably need to spend a couple hundred trying to fix due to whatever nonsense occurs from the thing freezing away in a storage facility... Oh well. :/

Thankfully, this is one of those months where I get two free weeks away from ADG to work on other projects, so with the moving nonsense out of the way and nothing else for me to do, I'll be spending 95% of my time over the next couple weeks getting some serious coding work done to try and get my secret project back on schedule. Progress before all the moving nonsense was very strong, as I have a framework in place and am in the midst of working on a universal editor that can literally produce levels and content for any games I make for the duration of this project. It's almost like making a game creation system, except the system itself doesn't actually provide the gameplay and that still has to be coded from scratch, but having a strong framework and simple editing tools can really cut down on production time, which is the main goal here if I want to churn out simple games on a routine basis... kinda like what Soleau was doing a couple decades ago, though not exactly. You'll all see what I mean soon enough. ;)

January 12th, 2015:

Well... these next few weeks are going to be a trying time for me...

To put it simply, the move didn't go exactly as planned. As a result, 99% of my stuff is burried deep in a storage bin and I'm temporarily staying at my sister's place until things get resolved. :/

I still have access to my computer though, as well as my recording equipment, so for the interim I can still produce ADG. I tried to plan for every potential outcome I could, but one thing I forgot to do was load up a bunch of games onto my computer ahead of time... I didn't think I would have to and it was too late to do so by the time we realized something was up and we weren't going to have a place to live. :(

So while I can still make ADG episodes just fine, for the time being, they'll almost all be downloadable titles from places like GOG or other sites which still offer older titles. I might be able to cheat a little and get some help from some people I know online to get ISOs and disk images of games I own but don't currently have access to, but I'd rather only resort to that if this situation runs longer than expected. As it stands, we're expecting to have this sorted out as quickly as two weeks, or by the end of March at the latest, though it's not impossible for things to take even longer, just unlikely.

I'm also behind with eMails as a bunch of you are probably already suspecting. I'll get to them as soon as I have some time to go through them. :B

My sister also has a MUCH better internet connection than Dad did, so livestreams for Patreon supporters should be MUCH high in quality than before. ;)

All of this said, my resolve is stronger than ever and there's very little more than could go wrong by this point. I have my secret game project to work on, more ADG to make, and once my secret project is ready to go I even have some new Patreon rewards planned to tie in with it!

These past few days have been some of the hardest in my 32 years of life I've ever faced, but, I am hopeful, resolute, and determined to pull myself back up, stronger than ever before!

January 10th, 2015:

Not too much to say about this week's Ancient DOS Game beyond what's in the video proper. Will probably have a bunch of stuff to say next week though. :B

January 3rd, 2015:

And so, Season 4 of Ancient DOS Games begins! :D

The series is now rendered in 720p HD to increase the visual quality of everything slightly (doesn't make a HUGE difference, but also let me make a more interesting Game Stats screen), and I've put together new assets and a high-res font to make everything just that much more crisp! It probably won't have much of an effect on games which run 640x480, but if I come across any more 640x350 games which look good wide I may render them as such in the videos. ;)

Now, a couple things of note with the start of Season 4. Firstly, I'm back down from my second milestone on Patreon. I've already planned out most of the episodes for Season 4 ahead of time and will make alterations to the schedule if new games come in or if I can't obtain a game I intend to buy myself, so to that end, every game I have planned to cover has already been requested at least once, so the fact that I'm not at that milestone anymore really doesn't affect much. :P

The other thing too is that there's a fair bit more echoing at the moment as my father and I are getting set to move. I'm all packed and have sold off some of my furniture, which is why there's echoing now because there's far less clutter in my work area at the moment. After the move I'll probably have carpeting again and I'll thus be able to deliver episodes with virtually no echo. Hooray! :D

Also, unlike last time when I had two weeks notice to pack up an entire house worth of stuff, this time around 70% of my stuff was still packed from my last move, and it only took a week without rushing to get everything else ready, so as it stands, I can focus on just making my show and not have to worry about the upcoming move screwing with my schedule, especially since we still don't have a date for when it's going to go down. (Gonna be soon though.)

But yeah, that's a big part of the reason why I'm behind with work on my secret project, but the progress I am making on it is epic and I can't wait to reveal it to everyone. Still a good ways away though as now that I'm working on ADG again my spare time to work on this project has been cut down substantially. I'll have more news on it as I get closer to release.

Anywhoo, go watch the newest episode of ADG and let me know what you all think of the new approach and the overall design! ...and I tried doing the whole thing with having the game stats on one side and the gameplay pushed to the other, but believe it or not, I couldn't make it fit without shrinking the size of the text substantially, so I decided "screw it" and went with overlaying everything as I had already been doing up to now. :P