Here we go again, lost interest in what I working on.. it seems I'm writing a whole bunch of prototypes at the moment. They get as far as control and maybe server (depending on the game), I lose interest and find something else to code. Well, I suppose its a way of weening out ideas.

Whats more interesting I suppose is the looks of distaste I get when I get bored of writing a game. I mean, does it really matter?

No news on the new house as yet, still trying to sell ours at the moment. If you want a 3 bedroom house is lovely Yate just outside Bristol then send your offers on a postcode to... na, not really.

Well, its increadible. I had an interesting day at work, actually had to think for a bit and got something done. Maybe working life isn't so terrible after all. Whats cooler is that I may be getting to do some Java at work soon, wahay!

Talking of Java, my new little game is coming on quite nicely, here's a couple of screen shots.. hope they don't hurt your bandwidth too much:

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Here it is, monday again. Another week of work that'll be over before you know it. What a busy weekend. Spent most of saturday trapesing around Bristol looking for a new house to buy. With luck I'll be living in Filton before Christmas!

Sunday was mainly code, few visitors aswell. The new game is coming on. It can now be limited to support low end machines (like my one at work :)).

So now to work.. oh exciting day.

Been following this one for a while but its going to go into beta next month. Check out:

Magicosm

Well I sacrificed an evening of coding to get a small walkthough about WebStart done. For those of you who don't know, WebStart (or rather JNLP) is what allow us to distribute Java programs and updates easily to the end users desktop. The walkthrough can be found a new section I'm going to start here.

It started me thinking, why do geeks like myself and others take the time to write tutorials, guides and how-tos. I mean, I've only written a few but it sure takes up a lot of time. I guess the same question applies to open source projects, why do people spend their time writing stuff only to allow other people to go out and use it. I guess I'm wondering why people take part in "communities"?

I'd like to believe that everyone does it because they think its a good/nice thing to do, but I don't. Maybe everyone realises that working as group we can achieve more than working for yourself. As logical as this is, I can't imagine it driving many people.. So, what is it? What makes people go out and do it?

My working theory has to be Kudos. People want to be seen to be clever or experts or something. They need to be accepted as being good and what they do. So they go out to prove it by "helping" out all these other less insecure folks. The strange thing is, how many times have you actually written to a tutorial author to say thanks? This isn't a cry to get thanks rather a question to understand that the pursuit of kudos through this medium is futile. The mass will take what they can get and a generous man is quickly forgotten.

The world seems darker today than yesterday,

Here goes the new project then.. its a top down shooter based on some ideas I had for a 3d game a while ago. Its using J2DA to do the rendering, here be a screenshot:

Not far along yet, expect a website once there is something to download.

Its interesting what happens at work, I mean apart from the work. We have some of the most stupid conversations, e.g. what makes a shed a shed?. Just now and again though a really interesting topic will come up, like today. Its a discussion/argument I've have many times.

Is there anything to your decisions other than the mechanics of your mind?

The question really comes down to determinism. Is everything you do pre-determined and as such simply a reaction to some stimulus? If we had a big enough, powerful enough computer could we model the universe and everything in it, begin to extrapolate results from stimulus and hence predict the future?

Or, on the flip side, is there more to self than simply reactions to counter reactions to counter reactions. Are humans (and other creatures) actually endowed with some form of 'soul' which contributes to their every decision?

To me neither argument is any better than the other. Simply saying that things are logical and deterministic because it would give us an understandable explanation seems a little short sighted. Yet, believing in some form of soul seems like grasping at a last shred of self.

After a long winded conversation covering the many facets of this argument a realisation hit me.

I don't give a shit.

Watched a great new show last night (well, new in the UK anyway). "Dead Like Me" is centered around an angst ridden 18 year old who's killed in a freak toilet seat related accident and enlisted as a grim reaper. The subject matter is great and whats more the angst driven cynical dialog is fantastic. I found it quite interesting also to remember at 18 thinking that by 21 I'd have all my answers to my angst driven questions. Whats more odd is that at 26 I still don't have any answers. I guess the only thing thats changed is that I've learnt not to worry about them too much.

Anyhow, its saturday, so I'm coding (at least a bit). I'm moving along on writing this space hulk game. Its kinda slow going but I'm hoping its going to be something I'm going to enjoy playing.

Phew, yesterday was a long day. Got into work for 7(ish), left at 6 and didn't travel back in time. In a review meeting all day, as I have been the rest of the week, not the most interesting of days but at least its consistently busy.

Well, I've lost interest in AstroPrime. Seems like I doing something wrong with hobby games still. I'm trying to develop a new set of rules governing how I decide on projects to spend time on with the hope of actually having something to show for them. The first rule (with games) seems to be:

1) Only develop games that you'll want to play.

So, I'm looking at writing a game that I've been trying to write since my Atari ST and STOS days. Still sci-fi based but a encounter game. More details as and when I get things up and running. No doubt there'll be another website.

I decided to stop developing AstroPrime today. Funny thing about creating games as a hobby, its hard to finish anything. Although I've finished the odd one here and there its a really rare thing. Once something stops being interesting it fades from meaning.

I'm looking around for something else to write. I think I need to aim at something I'll enjoy playing. There's an ego thing too, I want to write a game other people want to play. Somthing simple, something multiplayer, something quick to play.. its pretty tricky. Soldat has little army men sewn up. SubSpace and related clones have the space ship battle game down. What's new out there?

Well.. time to rethink again.