It is rapidly approaching 11 years between my entry into the tech industry interning at Pandemic Studios and founding an indie game development studio to build Enhanced Wars. Although it is still early days in my career, I think I have at least gained a modicum of insight worth sharing. When one of my mentors asked me to speak at the college course I credit for setting me on the path from enthusiast to professional, I […]
So you’re a manager now
You’re good at your job. You’re a leader within your discipline and your job title may or may not say it. You’re one of the more senior members on the team. And one day you are told that you are in charge of other people. These people are probably your friends. You play games with them during lunch and go grab drinks after work on Fridays. Now you’re their boss. Back before I went indie […]
The value of bad publicity
Yesterday morning during the Enhanced Wars stand up we realized something fishy was going on. It was 9am on the west coast and already we had 10x the normal amount of email sign-ups for early access to our game. I have been in charge of outreach efforts on Enhanced Wars as we have built up an early audience in preparation for our Kickstarter campaign, and we were already having one of our best days yet. And I […]
I built my career on a QA job – a response to Nathan (RC) Peters
After two years I was forced to hand in my employee badge for Pandemic Studios, a broken man. I was taking 4 vicodin a day to dull the pain of a herniated disc in my lower back. Wrist braces adorned both my arms to help control the repetitive stress injury induced by long days of playing Star Wars: Battlefront and typing. The herniated disc – acquired on a rare crunch time day off as I […]
Flash Development Life 2012
Click the play button to listen to audio of the talk Slides and audio from the Flash Games Summit 2012 panel I moderated with Andrew Sega, Dan Stradwick and Sean McGee. Inside we discuss the many issues that face Flash games developers in 2012, including funding, distribution, platforms and technology.
Game Production Hotline
On Sunday, I moderated a panel at the 2012 Flash Games Summit on the life of flash developers. I was joined by some of my favorite developers: Andrew Sega (Mytheria/Armor Wars), Dan Stradwick (Monsters’ Den) and Sean McGee (Thing Thing Arena/Endless Zombie Rampage). During the panel, and in discussions throughout the day, feature creep, difficulty finishing games and not knowing when a game was complete were frequent topics. For instance, Dan has been working on […]
I Made a Song with Scrum
When I was 15, I received a free copy of Acid Music Studio while skipping out on Third Eye Blind at an alternative music festival in Chicago. I spent weekends in the basement with my friends, arranging pre-made loops with delusions of being the next Chemical Brothers. For my 16th birthday, I convinced my grandmother to buy me a Roland MC-505, leading to hours spent with the Groovebox sequencing bass lines and tweaking filters. I […]
Scrumification of Music – Day 5
Day 5 began with my second trip to Guitar Center of the week. I picked up a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 usb audio interface and rushed home to record vocals. Setup was quick and easy, multiplying my regret at wasting most of the previous day trying to set up my outdated Mbox 2. I closed the door on my bedroom and slightly embarrassedly began to record the vocal takes for “One of Us”. Listening to the […]
Scrumification of Music – Day 4
I attacked day 4 with a renewed energy that quickly evaporated in the angry heat of hardware issues. My momentum point from the previous train wreck of a day was writing the vocals, so began day 4 attempting to burn down the 3 hours estimated against recording a scratch vocal track. My first attempt was to get a microphone working with the mic-in jack on my laptop, since this take was solely for arrangement purposes. […]
Scrumification of Music – Day 3
Day 3 was a disaster; completely unproductive, creatively bankrupt and frustrating. It is an inevitability of creative work. Despite the setbacks, the day underscored why using the scrum process to write music was a powerful idea. On day 3, I watched tutorials and then left for a doctor appointment and visit to Guitar Center to pick up some audio gear. I had been making progress with only Ableton and my laptop so far, but I […]