Starfire Lords: Genesis

I admit it, I've been slacking, but recent events have shown to me that I need to make sure that Missing Sentinel Software stays up to date on its website.

Keep in mind, I'm very active in game dev communities. Between interacting with the LÖVE community, the Ludum Dare community, my local Game Dev support group, Rochester Indies Anonymous, and bleating on twitter, I do keep myself very active on the internet.

Currently when I post information about my games, they heavily depend on the context, which is usually for game developers. I plan on fixing this by creating blog posts that can stand on their own for both folks who are interested in game development and those who are only interested in the games.

I intend to correct this communication issue post-haste, by:

1. Bringing everyone up to date via the blog, and
2. Keeping everyone up to date on what I'm doing in the future.

There are two big projects currently in the pipeline here at Missing Sentinel Software, and the one that's currently getting most of my attention is Defense of Your Craft (DOYC).

Let's Talk, Indie Cade East

Last weekend I went to my first game developer festival, IndieCade East.

Myself, Wes Paugh and Kevin Drew, respectively.

This was my first festival/conference, and while I wasn't able to make as many contacts as I had hoped, I realize that there are a few takeaways:

• Business cards: everyone's doing it, and I was smart enough to pull some together at the last second.
• Don't be afraid to hand out your business cards. Everyone's looking to make contacts, not just you. Make it easy for them so you don't have to end up writing your website down on their arm.
• Have something to show, and don't be afraid to show it. Even if it's something pulled together in a few days.
• If you bring friends, know what games they have, and pimp them (the games!). Not only do you get some great cross pollination, but having someone else talk about them will give folks a better outside perspective. Kevin shamelessly was pimping Defense of Your Craft and I felt like an utter moron not being able to return the favor.
• Get some space. Get a table, some presentation space for an hour or so, or a laptop with a big screen and a good battery. Showing off your game is a good way to get some attention for your project.

In the end, I had a great time. Indie Cade East has shown me that I really need to step up my game when it comes to communication, and I've been really failing hard when that comes to development the blog. While I don't want to post blog posts of low quality, I do want to keep folks up to date with what's happening.

The Blog Pipeline

With all this, I need to have a publicly facing portal for the games I have in development.

I realize that the information around DOYC is woefully lacking, and I will be correcting that post haste. In the future, you can expect a long list of subjects that I will be posting about:

• Gnuplot Universe Generation - Generating universes and presenting them with Gnuplot.
• Vapor - LÖVE Distribution Client.
• LD27 - Defense of Your Craft (The Jam Version).
• 0H Game Jam - a game made in 0 Hours for the Dingoo.
• LD28 - Bitmo Pirates, the MMO made in 48 hours.
• DOYC REMIX/HD, the current game in development stemming off the jam version.
• Lokken - A menu system for DOYC.
• Dong2 - A controller abstraction system for multiple controllers over multiple platforms for DOYC.
• PratCam library - re-implementing the classic system in LÖVE with more for DOYC.
• Love 0.9.0, Android & OUYA - Porting DOYC other devices.
• EVE: Valkyrie - Experiencing the Occulus Rift beyond a youtube video.

I recently had some issues with the 64-bit version of my Xbox 360 controller wrapper library, dong (as in dongle, pictured above left.) I was handing out 32-bit dll’s to the 64-bit users, and that doesn’t work very well. I committed the 64-bit versions of the dll’s (Thanks Boolsheet!), and everything seems “hunky dory”.

I would like to take a moment to mention that Starfire Lords: Genesis supports two controller schemas, entirely cross platform;

• Keyboard and Mouse
• Xbox controller (wireless via the dongle, and wired I believe)

For anyone with a registration code, build 303 has been updated with new .dll’s, and build 304 is available with the new dll’s as well.

On top of that, for ~12$ I bought the RetroLink NES Classic USB Controller (pictured above right) and as a pet project, I am thinking of making it a third supported controller schema. Why? Why not? Who doesn’t want to play a cool spaceship game with a big pile of nostalgia?

More to come, I’ll be here all week. Is this thing on?

More races, more ships! MORE RACES, MORE SHIPS.

Big shout out to Rose, check out and subscribe to her blog!

This last commit was a big one, and closed seven tickets.

Here are the fruits of my labor; a unified menu system (along with numerous other fixes!)

Getting a lot closer! This library is going to close soooo many tickets.

Up late working on a menu system to expand on Wes’, so all the menus in the game will work, look and act the same!

This may be a little more interesting to developers rather than gamers.

Everything in Starfire Lords: Genesis is controlled with revision control software (git), and I can use gource to show the developer interaction with the game over time!

This interaction is for the Minimal Viable Product!

The Minimal Viable Product is done!

Big shout out to Rose Khan for all the excellent art, the time put in, and the enthusiasm.

Thanks so much Wes Paugh for sticking through the last bit of crunch!

So much love for Redbottle Design for making this game a reality!

If you are interested in playtesting the game, please contact me!

Expect more game updates, screenshots, videos, features and silly things!

We’ve decided to take another day to fix up some last remaining features, and to polish and play-test the game.

In exchange, I humbly offer you some screenshots!

Lots of work, and yet so much to be done!

We’re all very optimistic about hitting the deadline!

And for your patronage, here’s some screenshots!