4 ms·

I made games for 30+ years and I had this exact question about year 4. I was sitting at home, writing some 6502 I think, and my cousin called. She had to call

I made games for 30+ years and I had this exact question about year 4. I was sitting at home, writing some 6502 I think, and my cousin called. She had to call to tell me about a Commodore 64 game she bought from FisherPrice. She started to describe it to me, an educational game where you controlled a penguin who dropped letters down a chute to form words. I had to interrupt her to explain, I had written that game. She had no idea I was the author and designer. She spent the next 45 minutes telling me how it was the only game she and her daughter played together. She told me that her daughter was motivated to read, and became an avid reader, after playing my game. I never felt more rewarded, or that I was doing the right thing with my life so mach as during that conversation. Somehow I think it fair to add that the last game I was the producer for, involved pushing over a port-o-potty, putting wheels on it and then pushing it down a hill and off a cliff to see how far it would go. Don't laugh, Potty Racers went to #1 in the App Store...

unwind 13y ago
That sounds like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhUiYMek2c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhUiYMek2c ("Alpha Build"). I've never played it, but I loved your story so I had to dig a little. Very cool. :)
- Macsenour 13y ago
  Yep! That's the game. Side note: my mother wrote the theme music.
fit2rule 13y ago
On the flipside: I once worked for a major games vendor (won't say who) and had this terrible experience - worked 60hour-weeks 5 in a row, to get the online multiplayer backend running and able to support more than a few hundred users. Got it up, deployed, rolled out, in use. Come in the next day, the CEO and all the head devs are crowed around the server console, watching the stats after release, this conversation happens, verbatim (I still remember every detail): CEO: "Time for my favourite question - How long has the longest player online been playing?" HeadDev: "Lets see .. 12 hours since we launched, longest active session is .. 11 hours, 45 minutes. No pause." CEO: "HOORAY!! CELEBRATION! WE GOT OUR FIRST ADDICT!!!!" HeadDev: "Yay!" CEO: "Wait .. how old is he.. ?" HeadDev: "Profile says: 12" CEO: "YAY, he'll be with us for years!" Me: "Isn't that a bit .. unhealthy .. for a 12 year old? Its summer, schools out, the kid should be .. enjoying some weather?" CEO: "We don't like that thinking here .. are you sure you know who you work for?" Oh well, that killed the games industry for me, well and good. Haven't logged on to a multiplayer game in 12 years. TL;DR: The people behind the curtain do not have your best interests in minds, kidz ..
- CmonDev 13y ago
  Which geek did not play for 12 hours one day?
  - girvo 13y ago
    Man... Half-Life 1 and the OG Unreal Tournament. The former was more playing with Visual C++ 6.0 with the SDK, mind you. The latter was just hours and hours of team death match and CTF. So good.
    - angersock 13y ago
      Modding HL was how I got my first real introduction to C/C++; I follow a bunch of tutorials off of Wavelength/Radium (I think?) and managed to change a few things. It seems like the mod scene for a lot of games has kind of died out, at least for shooters.
      - girvo 13y ago
        > It seems like the mod scene for a lot of games has kind of died out, at least for shooters. Yeah, definitely. Although the Doom engine releases are neat to play with. If I was creating a total conversion these days, I'd probably do it with the Doom 3 engine... which is sad, because that thing is old. Still looks great though, and beats using Darkplaces!
  - GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
    Every now and then me and a school friend meet up and try to play through a game in one sitting. So far we've done Super Mario World, Mario 64, Diddy Kong Racing and Gears of War II.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    Those who had and did their homework, or wrote code, or tried to do something with computers other than just waste time. Lots of geeks don't play games.
Sodaware 13y ago
If it makes you feel any better, when I saw my nephews this summer they were all showing me their favourite things. The youngest is quite fond of Potty Racers, so we had some time together playing through it and he would talk about strategies etc. He usually gets drowned out by his brothers, so it was nice to have some quiet time where he could show off.

unwind 13y ago

That sounds like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhUiYMek2c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhUiYMek2c ("Alpha Build"). I've never played it, but I loved your story so I had to dig a little. Very cool. :)

Macsenour 13y ago
Yep! That's the game. Side note: my mother wrote the theme music.

fit2rule 13y ago

On the flipside: I once worked for a major games vendor (won't say who) and had this terrible experience - worked 60hour-weeks 5 in a row, to get the online multiplayer backend running and able to support more than a few hundred users. Got it up, deployed, rolled out, in use. Come in the next day, the CEO and all the head devs are crowed around the server console, watching the stats after release, this conversation happens, verbatim (I still remember every detail): CEO: "Time for my favourite question - How long has the longest player online been playing?" HeadDev: "Lets see .. 12 hours since we launched, longest active session is .. 11 hours, 45 minutes. No pause." CEO: "HOORAY!! CELEBRATION! WE GOT OUR FIRST ADDICT!!!!" HeadDev: "Yay!" CEO: "Wait .. how old is he.. ?" HeadDev: "Profile says: 12" CEO: "YAY, he'll be with us for years!" Me: "Isn't that a bit .. unhealthy .. for a 12 year old? Its summer, schools out, the kid should be .. enjoying some weather?" CEO: "We don't like that thinking here .. are you sure you know who you work for?" Oh well, that killed the games industry for me, well and good. Haven't logged on to a multiplayer game in 12 years. TL;DR: The people behind the curtain do not have your best interests in minds, kidz ..

CmonDev 13y ago
Which geek did not play for 12 hours one day?
- girvo 13y ago
  Man... Half-Life 1 and the OG Unreal Tournament. The former was more playing with Visual C++ 6.0 with the SDK, mind you. The latter was just hours and hours of team death match and CTF. So good.
  - angersock 13y ago
    Modding HL was how I got my first real introduction to C/C++; I follow a bunch of tutorials off of Wavelength/Radium (I think?) and managed to change a few things. It seems like the mod scene for a lot of games has kind of died out, at least for shooters.
    - girvo 13y ago
      > It seems like the mod scene for a lot of games has kind of died out, at least for shooters. Yeah, definitely. Although the Doom engine releases are neat to play with. If I was creating a total conversion these days, I'd probably do it with the Doom 3 engine... which is sad, because that thing is old. Still looks great though, and beats using Darkplaces!
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y ago
  Every now and then me and a school friend meet up and try to play through a game in one sitting. So far we've done Super Mario World, Mario 64, Diddy Kong Racing and Gears of War II.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  Those who had and did their homework, or wrote code, or tried to do something with computers other than just waste time. Lots of geeks don't play games.

Sodaware 13y ago

If it makes you feel any better, when I saw my nephews this summer they were all showing me their favourite things. The youngest is quite fond of Potty Racers, so we had some time together playing through it and he would talk about strategies etc. He usually gets drowned out by his brothers, so it was nice to have some quiet time where he could show off.