The Monk's Brew

Random Screen Shot Thursday

Rubes — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 04:00:17 +0000

“The snow flies against the glass, but refuses to stick. Medard stands tall, with an eagle’s outstretched
wings above him.”

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A Milestone Of Sorts

Rubes — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:58:04 +0000

Time for another pseudo-quick update.

I know it’s been a long road so far with this game, a lot longer than I planned. It’s amazing how much the computer gaming world has changed since I started this thing — back then, there were no iPhones or iPads, and most gaming was either on desktops or consoles. Now, the game industry has shifted dramatically toward mobile devices, just like a lot of other industries. I sometimes wonder how many people still use their desktops for gaming. Nevertheless, this game needs to be done and put out there, and it’s about time I did something about that.

So as I mentioned in my last post, I managed to get over a pretty large hump at the end [More...] Read the rest

Hello? Is this thing on?

Rubes — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:03:50 +0000

Oh right, the game thing. Almost forgot about that.

Well now that you mention it, yes, as a matter of fact it is definitely on. For a while there it didn’t seem like it, but if you ask me why that was, I’m not sure I could give you a great answer.

2012 started strong, but March never seems to be a good month, and apparently I have problems getting past it. Last year, it was a combination of things, but I think the biggest reason is that I just had too many things to do in life and not enough hours in the day to do them. On top of that, I had run into a real road block in development, the kind that [More...] Read the rest

Screenshot Saturday, 18 Feb 2012

Rubes — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:53:37 +0000

The Vespers submission for Screenshot Saturday for February 11, 2012. Check out all of the indie screenshot submissions over at screenshotsaturday.com.

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Screenshot Saturday, 11 Feb 2012

Rubes — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 06:25:27 +0000

The Vespers submission for Screenshot Saturday for February 11, 2012. Check out all of the indie screenshot submissions over at screenshotsaturday.com. [More...] Read the rest

The Completely Random 2012 Update

Rubes — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:19:43 +0000

I’ve been working on Vespers such a long time now that I think people consider it part of who I am. And not so much in an inspirational or spiritual kind of way, more like a lingering-chronic-disease kind of way. So every now and then when I see friends, I get a few “Say, how’s your game?” questions, and while it’s nice to know that people still think about the game it really just sounds more like commiseration than anything else, kind of like ”Say, how’s your irritable bowel?”

Despite the lack of updates on this blog for some time, the game actually is progressing. Seriously, I’m not kidding. In fact, I’d say it’s progressing very well – better than at any point over the last [More...] Read the rest

Now We’re Getting Somewhere

Rubes — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:41:12 +0000

Well, it certainly has been a while, hasn’t it?

It is fair to say that the general lack of activity on this blog has been directly related to the lack of significant progress on Vespers. While much of that has been due to the inconsiderate intrusion of Real Life on the development process over the past, oh, 18 months or so, a fair share of the stagnation was also due to an unfortunate combination of bad luck, shortsightedness, and an incredibly exasperating game engine.

I’ll conveniently ignore the former stuff, and expand just a bit on the latter.

As I’ve discussed in earlier posts, most of what I’ve been focusing on since last fall (or so) has been the first cutscene, since the demo [More...] Read the rest

All’s Well That Ends Well?

Rubes — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:56:25 +0000

Some encouraging news, for a change.

My last post, back in November (really?), discussed how the parent company behind the Torque Game Engine, the engine I’m using for Vespers, was shutting down the portion of the company responsible for engine development. I think a lot of people saw that coming. The original company, GarageGames, was a small, friendly, down-to-earth group of people that had a passion for helping other people make games, and it helped them build a strong game engine and a large, fairly devoted community. The employees spent a good deal of time on the forums interacting with the customers and developers, and this created a nice connection that a lot of people appreciated. Then things started changing. They expanded [More...] Read the rest

Whither (Wither?) Torque

Rubes — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:00:24 +0000

Thanks to Rampant Coyote for bringing this to my attention, but for those of you who haven’t heard, InstantAction has decided to shut down its operations. While this is certainly sad news for a number of people who will be out of work, a lot of you are probably saying, “Who?” The truth is that I’m not sure I could accurately explain exactly how this relates to me, even though it does.

About three years ago, GarageGames – the company responsible for developing and selling the Torque Game Engine (TGE), the 3D engine I’m using to make Vespers – announced a ‘partnership’ with InterActive Corporation (IAC), which is just another way of saying that GarageGames was bought out by IAC. The idea, at least as [More...] Read the rest

Who Wouldn’t Be Inspired By This?

Rubes — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:56:49 +0000

As some of you may have gathered by now, I like documentaries. And I’m a nerd. So nerd documentaries are like magical gifts from above.

Jason Scott has made two of them, BBS: The Documentary and, of course, GET LAMP, and both are excellent and clearly targeted to my demographic. I think our successful showing in Salt Lake proved that you don’t have to be a total nerd to enjoy them, but truth be told, they’re not for everybody. But courtesy Jason, another film about a subject close to my heart has appeared on the horizon, although this may be old news to some.

Indie Game: The Movie is a feature documentary being made by James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot of BlinkWorks, which covers [More...] Read the rest