For those of you still with us, let me award you with some knowledge of my recent modding ventures.

My first mod was a very simple one, it was a mod that created EMP Weapons, designed to take down robots.  You can see it in action here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOFK-o9q6h4&fmt=22
The next mod I made I am much more proud of.  It’s a new shotgun weapon that acts just like a skeet and shoot shotgun, I call it the pellet shotgun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXIN7IAibA0&fmt=22

My third and newest mod is by far my favorite.  It is a Solar Charger that gathers energy when the sun is out and allows you to convert that energy into ammo for your Energy Weapons.  I don’t have a video of this one, but it can be seen here:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2021

So, until the big day Stencyl comes out to the public, I’ll be working with the GECK mostly creating more mods for Fallout 3.  Feel free to use them and tell me what you think, I know I enjoy using them.  Until next time, this is ThreeDo… I mean Highsight, signing off. ^_^

 That shmup idea has grown into a whole series by now, but that’s for later.  For now, I’ll recommend anyone interested in text-heavy RPGs play the Persona series, and leave it at that until I have some time away from typing scholarship essays. 

So I got off my ass and started putting in!The last blog I wrote was about me complaining I wish I could sprite.  That is no longer an issue for me now that I’m actually putting in effort to do what I couldn’t do.  I may not be a standout spriter at the moment, but I definitely am WAY better than I ever was before.  Not only that, but I’ve also started working on game music (Alongside my hip hop music).

I pretty much was just lazy before, making excuses for why I couldn’t sprite instead of practicing.  I had let laziness become a plaque in every area of my life actually.  Whether it was music, programming, or game development it all was affected by my negative mentality.

NO MORE!  The only thing that can stop me from doing what I want is me.  Only I can choose to go forward or back down from the initial resistance my mind puts out.

Sandy is quite right about the staffing and the funding. We are a self-funded venture, which means that everything is paid out of our pockets. We’ve put in a low 5 figure amount right now, which squarely puts us in the real business category (as opposed to a project) but is still a very small amount compared to the $2 million that YYG has, or the $10 million that Kongregate has gotten. Because we’re self-funded, we’re unable to hire employees or to work on this full time. This is why it’s taken 10 months to get to a near-beta state. To our credit, we know peripherally related competitors, in beta, that have taken 1 or 2 years working full time to reach that state (with paid employees), so we’re doing awfully well for part-time workers on such an ambitious effort. So while we boast having fixed 130 bugs last month on top of substantial feature work, the reality is that if you aren’t at least that productive, Sandy is right, you’re a non-starter. You literally need to be as productive as several full-time employees to even be competitive

In the world of startups, money and staffing aren’t the only considerations for success. They certainly make it easier, but it comes down to having the right vision, execution, business plan, and a good dose of luck. If you have a lot  of happy users (read: at least 100,000) and can do that while making money, you are a success (business wise at least), no matter what others say.

Sandy is definitely right about one thing - it takes an immense amount of time, dedication and knowhow to make a good game creation platform. That’s why most quit midway through, restart many times over or finish and end up with something that nobody cares to use because it has poor usability. Or sometimes, it has great usability but just wasn’t solving the right problem and is now a whole bunch of work spent for naught. You know, like all those niche creators where everything you create feels the same?

I can feel why Sandy is dismissive of his competition - most competitors I’ve seen are non-starters. Nobody has really come up with a viable alternative to Game Maker (besides Torque, but that costs $100 and is irrelevant to us on cost alone). We’re aware of several other startups too, but of the ones that are out in the wild, we still see nobody who’s offering something that’s any better than Game Maker. There are occasional fragments of really good ideas, but the overall execution isn’t there, and this isn’t my opinion - the traffic numbers show that these startups aren’t gaining traction.

In the end, while competition is an inevitable part of any business, let’s remind ourselves that we’re not out to “beat” Game Maker. We’re here to execute on our vision and make the best product for our target audience. That’s how a successful product is made, and if we’re to be competitive, it’s by doing that. It’s not done by staring at the competition, copying features or engaging in a war of words. I surely hope that this is the last time I have to do that!

Both taken with my 17-55 at f/2.8 and ISO 1600.

Bugs != Buggy Product

The first lesson about bugs is that for a decent project, there’s not a whole lot of correlation between bug count and how buggy that piece of software is. A high bug count is indicative of how much feedback that software has gotten. Feedback is good because it opens a conversation between you and the bug reporters, whether they are your users or technical peers. Fixing bugs successfully and collaborating with these people will help build mutual respect, and that’s something that’s incredibly difficult to build without a proper process in place.

How I Approach Bugs

I approach bugs as if they were puzzles. Within 10 seconds, I bucket them into one of three categories.

1. Can fix in 5 minutes.
2. Can fix, but it’ll take some time.
3. Don’t know what the heck is going on or need more information.

All of the (1) bugs are immediately dispensed of on the spot, regardless of priority. My simple reasoning is this - I don’t like trivial bugs piling up, and an excessive amount of trivial bugs can mask the more important ones and just make the whole queue look a lot bigger than it is.

The bugs in group (2) are handled on a case to case basis. If I can fix them rather quickly, I might tackle them at the end of the night or in the morning in my spare time. Otherwise, I prioritize, group and schedule them.

Bugs in (3) are the most fun and grueling to fix. Sometimes, I’ll need more information from the reporting user. Sometimes, I just have to set it aside and let the ideas flow in in the shower or car. It really isn’t something you can to brute force - it’ll come to you in time.

Discovering the Root Cause

After accepting a bug and even while I bucket my bugs, I begin formulating a hypotheses about the root cause(s) of the bug. Sometimes, it comes to me right away, and I know exactly what part of the code to look in and what is causing it, a non-trivial task now that the codebase is well above 100,000 lines and 600 files of source code.

If the cause is non-obvious, unlike some others, I don’t reach for my debugger or print statements right away (and to be honest, I rarely use a debugger). Nor do I look at the output or stack traces. I start at the fundamental level and figure out what IS possibly going wrong. This means that I have to formulate a mental model of the process, play out some scenarios in my head and zone in on the code that’s responsible. This way, I don’t rely on tools as a crutch. I let my mind exercise itself and by this method, know my code that much better than if I had jumped right away for the tools. More often than not, I am able to solve a problem this way.

If I still cannot grasp the problem, then I start bringing in the big guns. If it’s a crash, a stack trace is usually good enough. If it’s a logical flaw, I drill down on the problem, using tools to assist. I employ Toyota’s 5 Why’s Method to discover the cause, again to take an analytical approach to the problem.

All in all, bug fixing should be viewed as a critical thinking exercise where you reinforce your knowledge of the code and occasionally learn something new. It should not be viewed as grunt work, and if you diligently approach this in a constructive way, you’ll find yourself fixing bugs quicker, introducing fewer bugs and understanding your code much more. That’s how I was able to pull off a 90 -fixed -bugs boup in 3 weeks on top of several features I was developing.

We have a QA Process

Back in March, I proposed starting a QA (quality assurance) program and appointed Fox, one of our newer testers at the time, to the task, which was to proactively file bugs and verify my fixes for bugs. At the time, it might have sounded like I’d jumped the gun, but in retrospect, it was one of the best decisions I could have made for Stencyl.

For one thing, having a formal QA process in place allowed such a program to organically develop and refine itself over time. It’s better to start things earlier rather than force them in later.

Another benefit is that it developed an engineering-centric subculture in which our more technically oriented testers were bringing their own knowledge into the fray and engaging in meaningful discussions whether it involved asking be questions about the system or proposing their own solutions to problems. Those kinds of discussions reach far beyond the bug fixing realm and contribute to the larger success of the venture

Getting back to the original process, we started with a forum-based approach and had 3 forums: Bugs, Fixed Bugs and Closed Bugs. Like a Bugzilla-ish system, people would file a bug in Bugs.  I would evaluate and fix the bug and move it to Fixed Bugs. The QA contact would then verify the bug using a battery of tests that we joint developed and would finally move it to closed if fixed or back to Bugs if it needed further work. It was a simple model, but it worked for many months until we started expanding.

Today, we have more categories, an additional QA Contact (Greg) and many more issues to track. Since March, 700 issues have been filed and the volume (both fixing and reporting new issues) has picked up substantially. All in all, I am elated with the current status of our QA program, and it’ll only refine further as the software matures and the website part of our venture comes into play.

Conclusion

This QA process stemmed from my industry experience, and it’s really something you can’t come up with on your own if you work on a project with other developers who have yet to work in a real company. While working in a bigger company has its ups and its downs, the power of process, when applied properly, is a real boon, and this is one example of that.

While users will be happy to know that we place a strong emphasis on quality, the real win here is in the intangible stuff. It’s the valuable feedback, the discussions we’ve held and the general environment that count for a lot, and in a way, this culture is just as pivotal to our success as the technology itself. I’ve realized that there’s a whole lot more to software than just developing it - it’s the singular, unified vision you have, the decisions the team makes and all that expert, domain-specific knowledge that count.

- Jon

Features that were implemented since July
Game Center, Updater, Publisher, the player (engine), Snippet Builder, Groups Editor, Collisions Editor, Controls Editor, Physics Editor (part of the Actor Creator), moving the player to Box2D, adding Joint Support (both in our API and our GUI) and a bevy of look and feel improvements.

Bugs Fixed since July
~250

Bugs/Issues Still Open
~250 (roughly a 90 / 160 split between bugs and RFE’s)

Bugs Fixed since November 1st
90 (it’s been a doozy of a month - that works out to nearly 5 bugs per day on top of feature work!)

Release Cycles since July
39

Languages Localized to (besides English and these are full actively updated localizations)
10

I’m very thankful that we have such a dedicated QA effort going on here. Fox, Greg and Alexin have been gracefully filing bugs and verifying my fixes to bugs. The volume has considerably risen to the point where we actually have a queue of bugs (2o at this moment) that remain to be verified, despite that queue being worked on every day.

There’s still quite a bit more work to complete, but at the current pace I’m moving, we’re still on track. On track for what? You will hear more about that in the next official update. For now, take heart in knowing that we’re working on this at full capacity and are as eager to see this in the hands of beta testers as you are.

- Jon

The harsh shadow can’t really be helped since this was shot in a restaurant, like all others and filling with a flash is out of the question.

But that’s impossible, I just had money put into it this morning!  I should have a good $60.00 in there.  I asked her to try it again, declined.  They had to hold onto the packages until I could pay for the envelopes I put the games in.  I went home to look at my Debit Card’s transactions online to see how much I had.  $0.00 on the nose.  Looking at my transactions, I realized that Mobil took out all $53.23 in my account!  I immediately printed out the page, grabbed the receipt and went back to the gas station to see what was going on.

The gas station attendant was not happy to see me.  I began talking to him, explaining my situation, showing him both the receipt and the transaction list I printed out.  “Can you come in tomorrow?  My boss isn’t in today.” was my immediate response from the person.  I explained to him how it was important I get my money back before tonight, as it was graduation night and that was all of my money.  “There’s nothing we can do, can you please come back tomorrow when my boss is in?” suddenly this lady pushes him out of the way to talk to me.

“What seems to be the trouble sir?” she asks in that snippy tone that no one on earth can stand.  I reexplain my situation to her only to be told “Sir, we did nothing wrong, it must be a problem with your credit card.”  I ask her if I can please see any kind of manager.  “I am the manager, and there is nothing we can do for you, you have to talk with your credit card company, maybe they can resolve it in a few days.”  This was obviously getting me nowhere, I knew they were just dodging the problem and wanted me gone, so rather than prolong anything, I just left.

I called up my credit card company, buncha nice people, really.  Their automated phone service was fast and easy, I was on hold in less than a minute to talk to someone, and I immediately got my answer.  Apparently, gas stations have decided that because so many people have been paying for gas without having enough money on their card to pay for it, they now take out about $100 at the start of every transaction (or in my case $53.23, as it’s all that I have), that way you can only get as much gas as you can afford.  They are supposed to pay you back all of the money you didn’t pump out of the $100, but it takes about 2 buissness days to do so.

This is ridiculous!  All of my money is gone now, and I won’t have it back in time for my graduation night tonight.  I love how the so called manager of the gas station had no idea what could possibly be wrong, and how they don’t tell you ANYWHERE they charge you $100 at the start of every pump!  This is absolutely ludicrous, and it’s not right at all.  From now on, I’m never pumping at Mobil again.  I warn ALL Mobil customers, DO NOT USE DEBIT CARDS!

This blog post pertains to this video here.

If you read my other blog saying I’ve made the front page of digg… well, that digg for my video made it so popular I am still overwhelmed to how many hits it got and I only expected like 1000 views within a few days. I think it got popular because it was a video that was unique/original and stood out.

So, basically the video that got popular was a copy from the 20 second shorties I did. But with the 20 second shorties is that I rushed it a bit too much and reused the same clip but added a different death scene. Also, with 20 second shorties, I have to stick with my 20 second rule or else it wouldn’t be a 20 second shortie. In the edited/extended version, I used that one clip twice since I couldn’t think of what to use the first two deaths scenes with but the other ones I used a different scene.

Mega Man: Changed from blue to red
Q-bert: Nothing was changed
Dragon’s Lair: Ran into the flagpole (Inspired from the Angry Video Game Nerd)
Super Smash Bros.: This was just added in, in this version. Used flash to make it.
Friday the 13th: Have mario run into a koopa instead of a goomba and added more to it instead of “You Are Dead” (again, inspired from the Angry Video Game Nerd)
Paperboy: Final Castle (8-4) Mario was so close of saving peach but he died and called it quits. (probably should of shown that Peach was that close by) Also, fixed the typo of consoles.

Now, back to where I was… After I’ve uploaded, I did like I do normally, sorta. I only had the time to post it on GameTrailers’ forums but didn’t receive much. I forgot to post it on digg and it didn’t get many hits right away within the first to second day it was up. It only had like 500 views at the time being. Then, I woke up yesterday morning and I noticed it had 1000 views but didn’t think anything of it. I looked at my statistics and data under the video and I noticed it showed I had like a few linked coming from digg. I check out digg and noticed my video had got 52 diggs and it was submitted by someone other than me since I never dugg it. I still didn’t think anything of it. I posted on a site, that it got a good amount of diggs but then later, someone replied to that post and congratulated me on making front page on digg… I was basically out of my chair cheering “YEAH!!!!!!!!! WOOO HOO!!!!” It got to like 35,000 views a bit later and I’ve seen tons of people subscribing to me. Then, it went from 35,000 to 81,000 views becoming my second biggest video on youtube (well, on that account). More subscribers came in and I just reached like 100 new subscribers within 24 hours. I was very amazed how to see one video could do that for me. Later I saw it’s been posted on Kotaku’s front page (another popular site but for gaming). The video even got on like the second or first page of youtube’s most viewed today and plus a lot of other pages.

Today I wake up, and it went from 81,000 to 144,000 views and was posted on another popular gaming site called joystick. I then looked at my subscribers and it went a lot more higher to 844. Two days ago, it was at 689 so that’s a total of 155 new subscribers. o.o

All I can just say about all of this is just “Wow!” Who knew something so small, could end up big. I did receive a lot of negative comments but like with all videos, you always get those people leaving bad comments but I don’t mind. I even got a video response from a youtuber saying it was stupid. You can watch that video here. I just find it a bit funny for some reason.

Ok, better wrap this up because I typed too much and I don’t think people will read all of this anyhow, probably most will skim through this.

All, I can say is for those making videos is to keep trying!

And now, I’ll leave you with some images showing the insight of my video (click to make bigger).

Top 3 sites (linked to my video):
digg
kotaku
joystick

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mED07-sgC3w

I have been on digg’s front page like once or twice before but never expected this video to make it to the front page.  I was surprised to see earlier that it had 52 diggs.

We all know Mario’s classic death where after he gets hit, he turns towards the screen, goes up, then falls down. Well, what would happen if he had a different kind of death? Well, these are deaths that just wouldn’t work for him.

Click image to view

Tags: Super Mario Bros, Classic, Video Game, Deaths

Anyways… Link finally gets to the Master Sword, he pulls it and well… watch to see what happens…

Click image to view

Tags: Legend of Zelda, Link to the Past, Master Sword

I spent a good night tackling some of these “little things” and Googling around, and while each one is tiny, they add up to a much better experience, and I guarantee that you Mac users out there will find StencylWorks to be one the most Mac-friendly Java programs out there and easily the best feeling Mac game creator out there, barring Unity3D, which is a native Mac app.

For those of you who haven’t figured it out by now, I do have a MacBook Pro, which has let me do this and a lot more, so to all Mac users out there, you’re covered well and won’t feed any my users dog food like I’ve seen some others do just to rush the product out the door.

In my first video, Mario finally beats Bowser then finds out a little secret from Princess Peach that he just is not expecting.

Click image to view

Tags:  Super Mario Bros, Princess, Peach, Pregnant

http://www.bigfishgames.com/online-games/2801/shift/index.html

This was my first time playing so maybe you can easily beat my score/time.