SOML Potential Re-Write

I have spent a considerable amount of time working on the code for Soundtrack of My Life (SOML) and continue to work on it as time permits. However, as I have been changing the game to operate more like a visual novel game, the art and positioning have become more challenging. It seems like the limitations of CSS and boxing are coming back to bite me. I am considering converting the game to Ren’Py, similar to my other active development title, Threshold.

After reviewing the code, I believe the game will function quite well in the Ren’Py engine, eliminating some of the annoying bugs related to image positioning and other issues that have plagued the game in recent weeks. However, there are some more complicated actions, such as the day and time management functions currently active, and some of the more unique musician mechanics.

But there has been another issue that has been plaguing me – audience target. This game is a beautiful story with an engaging narrative and choices that matter. However, upon reading some online discussions, many people who have released visual novel games on Steam and other platforms have complained that players tend to rush through the game content in hopes of reaching the sex scenes. Once they collect all of them, they are done with the game and may request a refund from Steam within the first week, destroying all profits. I did not write sex scenes in my game, and I do not plan to. Yes, there is a PG-13 scene for each love interest once you reach a certain point, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go. I worry that people will rush through my game and get frustrated when they can’t have erotic encounters with the character, and then request a refund. I will need to determine how to accommodate this, which may affect the length and style of my game in the future.

The game is currently under active development, and I intend to decide whether to offer either a Ren’Py port while maintaining the original game or replace the entire game with a Ren’Py-driven system. Stay tuned!

Exciting Games in Development!

Well, hello friends! I apologize for taking so long to update; It has been a hectic period in my life. Not hectic in a bad way, just very busy! Despite all the crazy life activities going on, I have actually managed to make a lot of progress on some exciting things.

Soundtrack of My Life (SOML)

One of the greatest successes during this time of busyness has been the birthing of “The Soundtrack of My Life.” A game that I did not even know I wanted to make, but can now no longer imagine not creating. I have always loved to tell stories. I have written a fair number of short stories and even a few books (though none have been released to the public). I have a somewhat prolific career of playing in and running a wide variety of tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs), but where many of my friends’ games focused on combat or puzzles, mine always focused on telling a story. So I wanted to make a game that tells a story, but which one?

I finally settled on the story of Reuben Sterling. He is a character that I created many years ago during my gaming days on Gaia Online. Though he did have magical powers and a penchant for getting into trouble, he was more of a struggling musician trying to write music that he loved, finding his muse, and trying to run a tavern and inn (often serving as the place’s sole entertainer) in the middle of nowhere. I played him for enough years that he had an entire backstory and various friends that interacted with him (some real and some imagined).

So, I stripped out the magical aspect and the tavern/inn (still an idea I may one day revisit) and decided to drop him into a modern world. He is now a struggling musician with a variety of friends and a few girls who are interested in him. He has to balance making money, practicing his instrument, visiting friends, and considering romantic interests.

If this idea sounds appealing to you, check out the publicly available Alpha: http://darkseas.net/soml.

OrionMUCK

Another love of mine has always been multi-user dungeons (MUDs). They had quite an impact on my formative years before online chat rooms became a common occurrence. Yet, these were dated systems that required the user to use a Telnet client and the host to use a Telnet server, allowing users to interact with each other. Obviously, in the years since, the technology evolved. So why couldn’t a MUCK system?

That is the guiding point of OrionMUCK. I am developing a fully web-based application that will offer all the features of traditional MUD/MUCKs with modern technology. Once I have it ready, I intend to provide it as a free and open-source application that anyone who desires to host one of these games and is willing to do so on their own infrastructure can use. I may eventually offer a paid version with support and/or hosting. For now, it is just a work in progress.

Once Again, Under Attack

Hello viewers. I am unsure who needs to read this, but my website is again under attack. I have seen a significant uptick in brute-force login attempts to my tiny webpage. Who are you, and why do you care? There is nothing of value on this little website. I don’t keep any source code on here. I don’t have any proprietary code or data on here. In fact, I rarely even post on the site. If you are reading this, leave my site alone; there is nothing worth getting there.

My first official Web App!

Hello all! I have been doing some other projects for fun, including running a new Twitch channel and some YouTube stuff. However, one of the biggest successes lately has been completing the “Web Application Crash Course: Build a Web-App in a Weekend” by Jonas from JonasIO! It took me much longer than a weekend because I had to work on it in my downtime (which is quite scarce). However, after about a month and a half and lots of GitHub commits later, I successfully created my first official web app.

The training started teaching HTML5 (something that I needed a refresher on). Then, it went into CSS (something I desperately needed to learn more about). After that, I learned some basic JavaScript, which I have only used in small amounts over the years. After that, we rebuilt the application using ReactJS, which I had only heard about and had never done. Suffice it to say I learned a lot of things in a very short time, and I am eternally grateful to have the chance to learn in this course.

If you are curious about the app’s appearance, you can check it out here: ICanPlayThere-Netlify. Now, I will work on learning more HTML and CSS from my now favorite teacher, Jonas!

Doing Some Sidebar Stuff

I have been very busy finishing teaching my classes and the holidays, so I took a break from doing any work on my Ren’Py games. I will get back to them as soon as I have time. I also noticed that Thundy’s website is no longer active so I have to depend on the YouTube channel for learning anything more fun.

I also learned that Atom.io is being retired as the Devs are tired of supporting it. So, a beautiful editor bites the dust and I must resort to VS.Code. I mean, it’s not bad, it’s just not as poetic. Making Ren’Py work in VS.Code is not too terribly hard but it is a bit wonky at the beginning. On a sidebar, I have done a few cool things in an otherwise busy and frenetic work schedule.

First, my kids have been begging me to let them play Minecraft Java Edition (all we had before was the Xbox One version). I didn’t want them to play on a public server ‘cuz pervs. So, I created a private server to let them play on it. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I bought a REAL server (HP Proliant DL380p Gen8, to be precise). It was pretty cheap given that the server is ten years old, but with Dual Xeon CPUs and 96GB of RAM, it is still quite capable for most things a fly-by-night dev like me needs. I intend to use this to make some web-based apps long before I consider making them public on my site (the server is 100% local to my network – you can’t access it from the DUB DUB DUBs.) I have already setup my own Apache server and my own MySQL server. I will be experimenting with some other things as well including a MUSH maybe.

Second, through a series of events loosely connected to my Christmas, I got an Xbox GamePass. Initially, this was only so that I could have a “free” version of Minecraft Java Edition to test the capability of my new server. However, this GamePass offers me a lot of video game choices for “free” it’s basically the Netflix of the Xbox world. I experimented with a few games and became quite obsessed with an indy game called “Dreamscaper.” Your character has two worlds: The Waking World and The Dream World. In the Waking World, she has to work on herself by making friends, meditating, creating crafts for people, and visiting various locations to grow. In the Dream World, she becomes a badass rogue-lite hero that must battle her way through 6 levels as she faces her deepest fears, but here’s the catch – if you die in the Dream World, you wake up in the Waking World and MUST battle all the way down through each level again.

Lastly, I have been reading some more things. This helps me get inspiration for what I might want to do in games and also helps me increase my own gray matter in the process. I tend to read Fiction, then Non-Fiction, then Biography/History and repeat. In my last cycle, I read: “Ready Player Two” (sequel to Ready Player One), and Spam Nation (Brian Krebs). I am now reading “One Up Book 1: Level Up!” (didn’t have any eye-catching historical works in my queue, so I went with what I felt like). Let’s hope that all these things together help me get inspired to do more development stuff soon.

Attacks on the Rise

For some strange reason that I am not aware of, my tiny site has come under attack recently by someone trying to use brute force login attacks. I have no idea why anyone would be inclined to do this but it is happening.

Summary of Brute Force Attacks
Two attack numbers. Yesterday was much worse.

If you are one of the attackers reading this, I would ask you to kindly stop coming after my site as there is literally nothing of value on my site. All my code is available on my GitHub so attacking this site will not grant you access to any intellectual property. Also, my hosting provider will lock out my site if it receives notice that my site is producing a lot of noise so all you will ultimately do is put my tiny site offline which should provide no real gain.

If you are one of my visitors and you are reading this, I would like you to know that my site may be performing slower than normal for the moment as my hosting company monitors and throttles my site due to the amount of traffic spikes it is presenting. I am also working with my provider to install a few other mitigation tools in the backend so you might notice my site getting updates and going into maintenance mode here and there. Everything is fine, I am just trying to mitigate as much as possible in hopes that my attacker(s) will get bored and pick another site to attack.

Welcome to I Can Play Dev!

Hello all! I am just getting this website setup so keep your eyes peeled. I have lots of plans for video games and will be posting them on this site as the time allows. You may want to use the tag filters to search for the game or genre you are interested in. You may also want to check the list of Projects above and see which one is interesting to you. Thought there is not a lot of material here yet, it will eventually get busier and you will start to see the plans I have.