Tronster

Game Industry: How to break in

2011-07-18T19:07:00.000-04:00

Speaking to Game Developers at a Baltimore IGDA in Firaxis's old office

For about 5 years now I've been giving talks to students from middle school to post-college about game design and programming. These talks have been at schools, industry events, and sometimes small gatherings at coffee shops. I'm reminded of the mysterious nature of how to break into the game industry every time I participate in these conversations. I hope by posting a few thoughts here, it will help budding game developers on their journey.

Where to find game developers:
The International Game Developer's Association (IGDA) is a global organization that helps connect local game developers to each other as well as to the broader community. If you cannot find a local chapter; the national IGDA can direct you to the closest one. Alternatively, if devoid of a local chapter, you can work with national to establish one in your own area.
Industry related conferences are another great place to find developers. The Game Developer's Conference (GDC) is the single best place to meet people in the industry as well as learn the latest techniques and tools for making games. Besides the main GDC in San Francisco, there are now also satellite conferences in China, Texas, and Europe.

Etiquette
When attending a social function, do NOT...

Ask what the developer is working on; instead ask if their title is announced
Ask if the studio is hiring; they'll likely redirect you to their web-site
Hand a developer a resume; it will be thrown away shortly after
Be afraid to talk about your game ideas; chances of them being "stolen" are slim

But do...

Have a business card with your name, e-mail, phone, and aspiring title (e.g., "Character Artist").
Take an interest in the developer as a fellow human being; a fellow geek, artist, etc... and not just your connection to the industry

Any one of these points could be expanded to a few paragraphs, with personal stories. If you are local, and want the detailed skinny; hit me up for coffee and I'll give it. The short is, that unless a developer has explicitly made it clear they are looking for talent to hire, they are at the event to meet friends and/or give back to the community with their knowledge. They are not there to recruit. It's for this reason that at Big Huge Game's annual art reviews they make it clear they are not hiring artists, just giving feedback to help students and indies.

Business cards are key because they offers some form of contact, are less bulky and less formal than a resume, and are frequently handed out amongst game developers.

Content
If you plan to be a programmer in the industry, make sure you have at least one (if not a few) games coded. This could be a maze game, dungeon crawler, or even just pong with lots of twists, but it needs to actually exist (and work) to show you have a passion for games and not just a desire with little follow through.

When I was working full-time outside of the industry, I took on Nehe's OpenGL Open Source Zelda project. While incomplete, it did have enough features to be worthy of showing perspective game employers, and did help me land my first game job working at Breakaway Games on C&C3:Kanes Wrath.

For artists, having art in a game is helpful and should be done in tandem with creating a stellar portfolio. (If you want to be a concept artist, you better kick ass at drawing the human figure to proportion; no flat art!)

The Non-Technical
Designers, and artists who are not technically savvy have many options today in terms of programs to help them make games with minimal programming. Game Maker, Phrogram, and Scratch are just a few of the dozens of game making solutions out there for non-programmers.

The best situation is where you can gather a few people together and make a game that pulls on everyone's specialities. Whether it be for a Game Jam, a contest like the Independent Games Festival (IGF), or just for the sake of making a game, it does create a strong impression to a prospective employeer when you've made a game within a team environment.

Designers
Prototype! If you can code, that's a bonus, but paper-prototyping is available to all. Just grab paper, some dice, some checker pieces, some glass beads from the bowl in your bathroom holding a candle, and let your imagination go wild.

It is also good to jot down game ideas as they come to you. I keep a "black book" of game ideas; and some of my geekier coding thoughts. When I have the inspiration and time, I turn them into prototypes. For the prototypes that turn out well, I'll be able to create a full featured game.

Some selections from my black book...

Final words
If you want to be a game developer; make games!

Continuing to push ahead on a game when that initial drive wears off is what separates a game developer from a want-to-be game developer. Each time you overcome a "boring hurdle" you're overcoming adversity that send many back to just playing games.

Don't get me wrong: keep playing games too. But know you'll have to cut back your time in Team Fortress 2, Minecraft and other fun distractions if you are going to bring your imagination alive for others to enjoy.

It also doesn't hurt to read Gamasutra, Game Developer magazine, as well as blogs & twitter feeds of existing developers. Keeping abreast of what's happening in the gamedev industry will give you more small talk during the lunch portion of an interview as well as allows you to make more intelligent remarks.

Good luck!

Moving on after divorce

2011-06-20T15:00:00.004-04:00

The reality of divorce can be paralyzing. I haven't posted thoughts on tech, God, life, or any other subject as I felt all other activities and thoughts in my life paled in comparison to my wife leaving me, and posting on any other subject would be, in a way, a lack of transparency of what's really going on in my life.

I always believed that if a divorce occurred in my life it would be from my own selfishness or weakness. I never thought I would make the commitment to marry someone who could love me with such intensity during the dawn of the relationship, only to have their heart hardened towards all my imperfections shortly after marriage.

I am not alone; the sad truth is that it happens more often than not. In every single marriage there is a time, when one thinks, "I'm going to have to put up with this for the rest of my life? I've made a horrible mistake."

Those with successful marriages know that it is at this moment that they need to put hope and effort into the marriage. To pour out their love, to sacrifice, and be open about concerns and problems. I've seen successful outcomes from friends' marriages after they have gone through this period. I've had the unfortunate experience of being in the failure of a marriage when one person doesn't open up to their issues, problems, and doubts; letting them fester until the heart is hardened.

And so while the divorce still weighs my heart, and mind each day is easier as I accept what has happened to me. I have kept busy and since March 2010 have even accomplished...

Starting "Dpeeps", a multi-church, Christian Divorce support group (thanks to Jon & Dana for being co-founders)
Moving to work directly on Sid's code for Firaxis's first Facebook game CivWorld. (Yes he does indeed use "goto" statements in his C / C++ ).
Taking a seminary course in Theology and Pastoral Studies at RTS
Been to both Saddleback Church in LA and Willow Creek Church in Chicago.
Began a new Flash-based game, "Taco"
Been on a cruise and learned that indeed Bermuda does have a Ghetto
Been able to climb 5.11's and became lead rope certified with my brother
Again leading up tech at Horizon Church of Towson; happy that leadership is working better at supporting newly married couples

And now in 2011 I'm working on my goals set back in January:

Eliminate half the debt from my marriage
Climb outdoors
Give three 20 minute sermons
Run a half marathon
Send out cards or a newsletter at Christmas
Make a music video (beyond http://vimeo.com/21297204 )
Try attempt #2 of "Super Cake"

The last 2 years have reasserted that nothing in life is a given; no matter how hard we plan, try, and love. The one exception is that God loves us no matter how we act towards each other. And even though God hates divorce He still loves me, and still loves Melissa; and even apart He wants both of us to seek Him, as He does you as well.

Two hundred and three...

2010-10-08T14:14:00.001-04:00

It has been 203 days since Melissa left me. Except for my wife not living with me, and having no desire to see me, my life has been good. God has blessed me with life itself, health, family nearby, an abundance of good friends, a great church community and a job I've dreamt of holding since the 3rd grade.

The reasons for her separation may vary, but through my perspective I see I was once on a pedestal and when her initial "in love" phase wore off, she didn't like who she had married. Six months of counseling did not help.

Today marks the anniversary of that day in 2005 when a youth leader and her girls interrupted a church leader studying Biblical history in a coffee shop; an interruption that led to their marriage the following year.

I have prayed for her all 203 nights. God has a plan, and divorce is never a part of it, but I take comfort that in whatever happens, He can use it for His glory.

Praise vs. Brown nosing

2009-09-22T20:37:00.002-04:00

Like many IT sectors, in the game industry there are frequent periods of "crunch". During these times dinner is ordered and many stay late into the night. Tonight wasn't so bad with over 12 hours at work (minus 1 hour of playing "Heros Of Newerth" at lunch.) During a group dinner there was some chatter about a lead designer at Firaxis and I made comment how I admired his ability to take criticism without attacking the (sometimes rabid) colleague.

In the middle I was cut off and told, "Tronster stop brown-nosing he's not even here."

It was said half joking, but all half-jokes have (half-)truths. And now I've been pondering the difference between positive praise for colleagues vs superiors on the reporting chain.

From the various jobs I've had, it seems many people are content to be quiet until they are irritated or disappointed in someone else. The truly stellar manager's I've had, would be sure to raise praises of individuals on their team (to directors) when good deeds or accomplishments occurred.

While I passively witnessed this occurrence at jobs, it wasn't until I joined the Conference Associate (CA) program at GDC that I was made consciously aware of what was going on. It took 2-3 years of "bragging" about fellow CAs (a routine encouraged to get gold stars by each others names) before the concept solidified.

Now I look for opportunities to be sure to let others know the positive aspects of what's going on amongst my team and colleagues; I just need to be more careful to keep my praise curt when talking about those above me.

Social rules... one day I'll get them down.

GDC'09 Recap

2009-03-29T20:30:00.005-04:00

Last week was the annual Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco. I paid for my own way working as a Conference Associate (CA); Firaxis was nice enough to let me attend the conference for the week. Already details from the week are sliding away from me, thank goodness for photos, twitter, and friends with better memories.

Highlights of the conference were:

Attending Epic's tech semi-private tech talk on upcoming Unreal 3 features

Attending my first Sony party

Participating in the first FlashSIG meeting

Hanging out with old CA friends during the night

Seeing many familiar faces from Baltimore make the journey too.

Helping the flight attendents hand out food on the trip home.

Proposed improvements:

Adobe having Flash representatives at the conference.

More techno at parties. (Sony was banging... and it has live techno.)

Bringing back suite night.

I'm now evaluating a plan to get the photos up on the web. Once they go up, so will all my previous photos too.

EDIT: GDC'09 photos are up on Picasa.

Lasertag

2009-02-15T22:32:00.004-05:00

During my senior year in high school I had the opportunity to put together my own "Senior Page" for the yearbook. Four photos were used; one of them was of me wearing my Photon gear. I loved playing laser tag in high school; I still play today.

This evening I played XP Lasersport in Owings Mills with a bunch of friends. We lucked out and got to play a few "tournament rule" games for the 2nd half of our gaming. The tourament rules allow for a quicker game, require more team work, and are incredibly fun. Special modes (called CHIPS) allow a player to re-"ENERGIZE" teammates, "DE-ACTIVATE" an enemy with one shot, and go invisible with "STEALTH". I don't know if I can ever go back to playing "public rule" games.

If you're near northern Baltimore, MD, I highly recommend getting a group of friends together and checking it out.

Rant on user interfaces of consumer devices

2009-01-17T20:47:00.006-05:00

Today I'm starting to clean out my many old drafts that never quite made it to posts. This one is based on a draft started in February 2007...

Until recently I felt as if every manufacturer of consumer devices had an agenda to gratuitously brand their product trumpting all considerations on Human Interface Design (HID). My irritation in their poor product designs were only matched in my sadness of consumers complacency to live with such shoddiness. If only enough consumers complained about about the lack-of usability, it might send a signal to the manufacturers on what they should be caring most about.

Thank goodness Apple, and a few others are stepping up to the plate, spending R&D cash to make a better product.

Below are just a few examples of products I purchased and have had to endure...

Verizon branded Razr

ISSUE: The Razr has both hardware and UI-based buttons positioned poorly. One example is an internet button that cannot be removed from interface; when its (accidently) hit a web-browser starts. A user has to wait 5-10 seconds for browser to start up before it can be exited, and is "charged" for transfering data.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Allow users to remove (or disable) button from menu, speed up start-up time of browser, and do not connect nor charge users who do not purchase data plans.

MY SOLUTION: When my contract was up, bought an iPhone 3G. I paid more for the phone, and more for the monthly fee... but it integrates so well with my life I have no regrets. Also I'm finding that it works so well that I don't need another MP3 player, and no longer need to buy Franklin Covey refills. After 10 years, I'm going to stop using my 1/2 page planner. Thank you Apple for making my planner fit in my pocket.

Alpine CDA-9847 Car Stereo

ISSUE: The interface to set radio and head-unit options is clunky. The interface for interacting with and attached iPod is awful. While my first MP3 player, a "Diamond Rio 500", was convenient for playing MP3s, the iPod mini was the first MP3 player I owned that had an intuitive interface I could tweak without looking at while running. The interface on the Alpine CDA-9847 is so poorly constructed that it is dangerous to change songs on a connected iPod unless fully stopped, or a passenger is DJing.

PROPOSED SOLUTION: Perform usability tests with the unit and provide a firmware update that remaps the controls to one that allow a driver to effortlessly change song, artist, or album. If a firmware update cannot be performed, at least do this for future models.

MY SOLUTION: Since my average drive is 10 minutes, on weekdays, I can live with the shortcomings of this head unit. I'll add usability to my checklist when I am ready for an upgrade. I had originally selected this Alpine head unit because it was one of the few that could switch from one CD-written MP3 to another without a 0.5 second - 2 second pause. (I remember not finding a single Pioneer unit that didn't have this unbearable pause and being told by a phone-based customer-service rep that it was impossible to remove the delay.) Now any delays, on CD tracks written with MP3s, is not that big of a deal; a look-free user interface for a driver is paramount. The only thing more important is making sure the head unit works with properly with my car's stereo amplifier.

This ranting is long so I'll hold off talking about keyboards or operating systems. My parting observation: companies that offer a better user interface tend to have more attractive products. My attractive products can demand a higher price and tend to be in higher demand.

Games and games

2008-09-05T08:00:00.007-04:00

While the project I'm working on at Firaxis hasn't been announced (I cannot talk about it), I can blab about the game a group of us are working on for the Independent Games Festival (IGF) deadline in November.

Right now 2 artists, and 2 other programmers (besides me) are working on an action / arcade, casual, game in Actionscript 3. This is being done under Geek House Games in our nights and weekends. Currently we're porting over some previous work in Actionscript 2 and have found the transition to be highly beneficial. There are many great libraries and code snippest in AS3 out there.

It looks like we'll be using APE for physics, and are evaluating FLiNT for particles. While I already had written a simple collide system for sprites and an allocator for particles; leveraging existing systems should provide us with more robust, mature, and feature rich code. That leaves more time to work on the game itself.

Now all we need is to find a Flash sound system, with a good license, and we'll be 75% of the way there.

Quick video game life updates

2008-05-15T08:40:00.004-04:00

As of May 1st, I am now working at Firaxis Games; leaving Breakaway Games. I was sad to be leaving such an awesome team of people, but the transition has been smooth... and I'm now meeting many new people who are also of the awesome caliber.

We have a Baltimore IGDA meeting coming up in 2 weeks, and as the newly elected chair, I'm doing my best to grow the chapter in terms of membership and activities. I have an awesome team on the local board, with many great ideas, and time to follow through with them. While only regular meetings are in place, we are looking at what it would take to throw a "Childsplay"-like benefit this year, as well as a Game Jam next year. And finally there is the goal of building the network between local studios and schools.

Speaking of local studios, I still am running Geek House Games. We're a lean team of industry vets, working on a Flash-based game for this years IGF competition. Once we take time away from working on the game, to update the web-site, I hope to be blogging more about this endeavor.

Music music music

2008-03-30T18:27:00.002-04:00

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to compose some techno. I realize that a few of my current pieces aren't indexed on the web; perhaps because I link to the through a Flash page. To fix all that, I make some direct links to the MP3s available here. Enjoy:

Ashes Remain Remixed

O Brother Remix

31st Birthday Mashup (C1 mix)

Between making video games, I hope I get a chance to do some more in the future... I miss the dance-outlet!

GDC'08 Was fantastic

2008-03-03T20:50:00.004-05:00

Two weeks ago I was at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. This was the 4th year I both attended and worked as a Conference Associate (CA). My goal this year was to do more networking than the previous years. I succeeded, but only after learning that pre-scheduled meetings rarely work out. My advice, to myself, for future GDCs: exchange cell numbers and play phone tag. It works out just as well, if not better.

Biggest surprised going away from GDC'08 was my confidence shift in Adobe. As a part of Geek House Games, I've been spending a good deal of time working on our Flash Game Engine. As such, I was on fire to talk to an Adobe representative about the future of Flash. The only (semi-)technical representative on hand was from the "Adobe Director" division, showing off a 3d engine that had quality on par with the Sony PlayStation of the late 90s. All questions I asked received, "I'm sorry I don't know," or "I am not authorized to give an answer to that question...you'd need to talk to someone on the Flash team".

Interestingly enough, Microsoft was very open on all of my questions about XNA and Silverlight. I've had a theory of the potential of Silverlight running in XNA (as tons of AAA titles run Flash in C++ now via Gfx or home grown tools) so I had to ask the rep about the possibility. He told me nothing has been announced, but said so in such a way that leads me to believe "nothing has been announced" does not equate to "no".

Writing this up, seems I learned the same from both venders, but for some reason I enjoyed chatting it up with the Microsoft guy than the Adobe guy. What's that mean? While I still plan to work on GHG's Flash Game engine, I'm also looking more seriously at what XNA and Silverlight can offer.

Lack of leading

2007-10-15T21:01:00.002-04:00

At Horizon Church, I stepped down from leadership.
I told a group of friends that I no longer can have the label "link group leader" applied to me.

Some may say I just wrote the same thing, 2 different ways. I say there is a significant difference between these two phrases. Words have power, and people choose words that best fit a meaning they want to convey.

The very fact it's fallen into fashion to say that link group leaders are "raised" to leadership or that they "step down" seems in conflict with the idea originally told to me that new link group leaders are people whom are already leading, they are just given the label.

How long do I have to be absent from leading a link group to not be a link group leader?

How long do I have to be absent from leading in my life to no longer be a leader?

End Of Line.

How many starts until it sticks...

2007-10-07T22:19:00.000-04:00

I've made multiple attempts to make a blog post; stopping each time and either scrapping my ramblings or saving it as a draft that will never be published.

My thoughts on this are: it's better to err on the safe side of not posting anything if I think it may be controversial, ranting, or pointless. But I think I've been "too safe" and have allowed myself to be disconnected from anyone who wants to keep tabs on me through my blog exposure. So here I am blogging with reckless abandonment, loads of transparency, and (most likely) some inappropriateness.

Marriage has been hard. I've had 30 years to determine how I want to act, clean, decide what events to attend, etc... and it's all out the window. Same for Melissa (minus a few years). On the plus side, I think we're doing a good job addressing our rough spots and expect it to get easier in year 2. We'll see.

What hasn't helped our marriage is our church: Horizon Church of Towson. I love Horizon, and believe it's the best church in the Northern Baltimore area, but have experienced our greatest weakness: married couples. I can't go into specifics without inappropriately calling out people; but I can say I'm doing my best to see it through thanks to:

Outside of Horizon, my close circle of geek guy friends (my groomsmen) have been consistently interactive with Melissa and I. Perhaps this interactiveness is so prominent because I'm now in their group of married folks, or perhaps it's just my realization of how active they have always been has changed due to others now infrequently reaching out, but whatever the reason, I'm thankful for them.

It's funny too, because right now, in this transition, the one thing I'm not pushing for is new friends. I almost feel like I need to take stock of the communities I'm a part of, the ones Melissa is a part of, and figure out how we each now fit in them before I want to add more individuals to the mix.

So that's what I've been pondering the last few months. How long until I feel ready to welcome new people to my life? Will the people at church who don't understand how to empower, encourage, and help a newly married couple grow in the community instead of chase them away? Will I continue to make infrequent blog posts?

Let's see...

End Of Line.

Tron movie article

2007-04-27T15:06:00.000-04:00

My brother sent me an awesome article that reminisces on the movie "Tron" over at Ain't It Cool News. I too own the Tron shoes, an original still from the movie (thanks to Bill, and a gaggle of friends), as well as have a remake of the post hanging in my living room. Oh there's the name change as well; which had some inspiration from the movie. ;)

I got the job at Breakaway. I start on May 7th.

Making it through the GameDev gauntlet

2007-04-13T12:47:00.000-04:00

At a gathering in early February, a friend of mind heard my latest IT contract was coming to an end in March. She said, "You know we're hiring at BreakAway [Games]."

As that statement slowly sunk in, I realized that if I was going to risk an attempt at jumping into the game industry via an existing studio, now would be my short window of opportunity. And so since February 12, I've been in the BA hiring Gauntlet.

I wasn't at all prepared, as my ex-room mate (and former BA employee) told me that his interview process was coming in one day for a few hours, answering some technical and design questions then being hired. The processes I helped establish at Prometric and on some contract gigs where much more rigorous then when he had described. What I didn't know is that the process at BA has changed...

Two phone interviews and a weekend take-home exam later, I was invited in for some face-to-face interviews. That happened yesterday, from 10am to 4:30pm.

While the reality was I spent all day at an "interview", it had felt more like I was with friends, geeking out on gaming technology talk. Time flew by, as none of the questions were about ASP.NET business apps, but instead about my gaming passions and then grilled with technical questions related to these passions.

I should hear back today or Monday about their decision.

No longer a 30's newbie...

2007-03-23T16:15:00.000-04:00

In a few weeks I will be 31. My 30^th birthday came and went without much fanfare, and it occurred while attending a friend's wedding in Texas; and a wedding is more important than a birthday in my humble opinion. At the same time I now feel some remorse that I didn't encourage a large bash to mark this era in my life.

One of the best moments in my life was from celebrating a birthday. It happened my senior year in college, when my friends threw a surprise 22^nd birthday party for me within the last hour of my birthday. About 30 people just flooded into John and my room and a party started out of no where. The best gift was daquiri mix, ice, and vodka for me to mix drinks for my friends. Being an "acts of service" guy, and having my friends serve me (by making it easy to serve them) was just awesome.

The goal this year is to celebrate with a house party.

This is going to be tricky because lots of friends aren't dancers, and when I mean house party I mean "house music party". It's been so long since I've danced... and even longer since I've performed. Too many times I re-watch the clip Tiffany took of me performing at Alpha Omega 3 years ago. It's time to move forward with my music.

On the note of techno music (and to jump away from self reflecting), I learned about the world's most important 6 second track, the "Amen Break". I picked this up while reading through the forum posts on my favorite music site, Tastyfresh.com

Weh, the post redeems itself with some educational value at the end. ;)

End Of Line.

How many geeks does it take to fix a server?

2007-02-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

I'm stumped. My web-server (Microsoft's IIS 6.0) is corrupting pretty much every binary file it transmits. I first noticed this when AVI's from iiproductions.org would have static introduced or wouldn't play at all. Then I realized all ZIP files from any of my sites weren't working too.

The real kicker is that my network of fellow computer geek friends are stumped as well. This is huge, as 2 of these guys are network techs and they live and breath this stuff... with pimped out networks at home. They don't just punch out of work for the day and try to forget what they do; they love it! And they are baffled.

This entry is happening to vent, and potentially have that one person come along who knows what the problem is and comment / e-mail me. After various searches through Google and Microsoft's KB articles, I don't know what else to do except either

Format the system and re-install Win2003 and IIS
Install Linux (or keep with Win2003) and Apache

The point of all this.

2007-02-08T23:49:00.000-05:00

Back in October 1998, before the term "blog" had become mainstream, I created a "News" section on my web-page. The purpose was to keep friends up-to-date as to what I was doing. It served me well with frequent updates until February 2005. Then I stopped, and took it all down.

I was about to turn 29, just a year away from 30. I had an overwhelming desire to deconstruct myself, my life, and my outlook. The results were more grim than I had hoped:

I had worked for the same company (ignoring a name change from a corporate take-over) for 6 years and hit a glass ceiling. My team mates (who hit the same ceiling) had found better jobs else-where; why hadn't I even tried?

My dreams of being in the game industry were still just dreams. I had done nothing to pursue a game development job other than a short stint leading the Open Source Zelda project.

I had no idea what I wanted in terms of a significant other; and had just recently damaged a friendship by selfishly acting on my own immediate needs without listening to my inner voice.

...the list goes on but those were some highlights.

So I blew away my web-site's blog and photos. Then I proceeded to destroy all evidence of who I was on the net, short of canceling accounts. (I knew that someday I would most likely repopulate my MySpace and other online profiles.)

All this to say I'm now 30, and working towards new goals. None of my issues in February 2005 still apply to me today; they are done and a whole new handful are on my plate.

As I face these issues, I'll update this blag. Expect to frequently be reading about Christianity, coding, techno, and of course geekdom. And as of this post, you are one of the few people to even know this corner of the internet exists, at least according to my Google Analytics:

So enjoy the time we have together here, before everyone learns that Tronster (and not Tronster) has a blog again.

Cheers.

In which way to spread the Word?

2007-02-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

A question I have been asking myself since late 2005...

"God, with all the gifts and talents you have given me... what's the best manner in which I can tell people about how awesome You are, and your message of love and forgiveness for the world?"

In 2002 it was easy. With a bunch of talented friends, we started throwing Christian Raves, and I even spearheaded the group Ictus Ichthus Productions. But back then I was short sighted and wanted to ramp up to monster 1000, 2000, or 5000 people raves... all about worshiping Christ instead of the DJ. Looking back I realized these events, while small in attendance (I think 130 was the biggest # we pulled in), were huge in terms of impact on peoples' lives. The bonding between the DJs, other Christian Dance promoters, and myself has established many friendships I still cherish today. I still receive e-mail from random people who attended our events thanking us for providing a way they could worship God that was relevant to them.

If we had persisted, we may have grown larger but eventually the drive was no longer there. In prayer I didn't have a sense that this was where I was to continue to place my energies. And so the last event was in 2004.

Around the same time I had become increasingly involved with my church community, Horizon Church of Towson. Eventually co-leading a "Link Group" (small discussion group), and even started preaching on Sunday mornings. I loved doing this, and in early 2006 had quit my computer programming job of 7 years to decide if this was where God wanted me to spend my time and talents. By the middle of that year my depleted savings were a good sign that I needed to do something for an income, as just the possibility of a staff position at my church wouldn't be viable in the budget until 2007. So I went back to the computer world, but at the same time started to pursue a dream of mine since 3rd grade.

It's February 2007, and I have been doing consulting for a little over half a year. I love the projects I am working on, but even more I am enjoying the thought of getting my own game development company up and running. All the legal, and most of the business work, is completed; leaving the small task of creating a prototype for the world changing game development system. I feel I've been dragging my feet though, because of this one question of what does God want me to do?

Doors have been opening (in a surprisingly large number) for my game company endeavors. I also am finding peace in something Rick Faint, a successful CEO, told me over breakfast one morning: it's that we are in the position of being pastors to our company, and have the power to influence the culture around it. I've heard others (non CEOs) speculate this possibility before, but as he's actual done this (multiple times) there is more weight to his words.

So by blagging this, and seeing my history unfold in my own words, I am affirmed that I'm making the right decision in spending time to get Geek House Games, up and running. If you know someone with VC or Angel funding ties, please help connect me with them.

Desire for life efficiency

2007-01-24T21:33:00.000-05:00

I like to be efficient.

Take the shortest route when driving between places. When writing code I hate to make an inefficient routine. Why quickly spew out a slow, sloppy routine when a little time spent on planning can create something beautiful, and efficient? If the routine is going to suck, I'd prefer to not write it in the first place.

I also like people.

I love hanging out sharing in life; sharing in struggles; sharing in ideas... I particularly love this when it happens over coffee. When investing in people's lives, I still have a desire for efficiency. This means getting the most out of the time I am spending with the other person. I try not to let my borderline ADD interfere with listening, and am always cross referencing my internal Rolodex to see if I can help build some additional connections. (I also love connecting people.)

But while I enjoy meeting people to talk about life, I despise repeatedly meeting to talk about a project that fails to materialize.

This week...

I sent a frustrated e-mail to some friends about such a project; a web-site that I've helped maintain which has been long overdue for an overhaul. My frustration stems from how the group has become inefficient with meetings and little action; and that this situation happened to me 7 years ago.

Back in the day, I was on the technology committee at my old church. Once a month about 10 of us would meet for 2 hours to discuss technology related issues. At one meeting, a web-site was proposed. By the next meeting I had a mock up. Everyone in the committee had an opinion, from page layout to color-scheme to navigation tree. Additionally there were opinions on the the ISP, domain name, and other aspects of the web-site. For 6 months I continued to solely revise the mock up, based on the group's suggestions, and for 6 months the cycle repeated. Eventually I got fed up with the inefficiency.

The logic in my head was clear, "Talk is cheap, and brings no support. Action takes time, and brings results."

I had decided to stop making mock ups and just built the web-site. Then I paid, for a domain name and ISP. I made the site live, and presented it to the committee. Then I quit attending the monthly meetings. Every month I valued that 2.5 hours of time that was no longer being used inefficiently

So here I am in the same place I was 7 years ago. I don't want to just fix the web-site, I want my friends to understand the inefficiency. I realize most people are not annoyed at this like I am; except for perhaps Scott Adams, who's notorious for slamming meetings.

Perhaps this is a first step in getting my voice back out there. I suppose blogging again can't hurt unless I start telling everyone what I had for breakfast (biscuits), the mood I'm in (tired), and the song I'm listening to (nothing). ;)

End Of Line.

Kevin McCormick / Frostbyte dead

2005-11-16T00:42:00.000-05:00

I wasn't going to touch this blog. I was eventually going to setup my own offline, sync based blog on my web-site, www.tronster.com. A few days ago the server "sub-zero" that was hosting my web-site went down. It went down hard; no DNS, no pings, etc... I figured it would fix itself in a day.

After a few days I thought about contacting Kevin (aka: frostbyte), my best friend in high school. He admin's the server, and I know he has a ton of other people who depend on it for web, e-mail, etc... I never got around to it and figured I'd call him tonight.

Before I left work I talked with a reporter at the "Boston Globe". She contacted me through MySpace asking me to call her regarding frostbyte. I did and asked her how he was doing...

"frostbyte is dead," was her reply.

I don't know what to make of this. I haven't cried (yet) but have come close. I'm in disbelief, anger, disbelief, and acceptance. It all keeps washing over me. I was told by the reporter he had died of a drug overdose (E) which doesn't surprise me but still hurts. I had hoped Kevin would realize how stupid he was doing drugs; Just like in middle and high school I want to work through the logic and show him how I was right in this situation ... I don't want to be right; I want Kevin to be alive.

His grandmother called me this evening and told me a service is happening at MIT on Saturday (11/19). I've got to make arrangements to be up there.

First post, errr blog

2005-07-22T22:36:00.000-04:00

I've neither started a new blog via my home machine, nor have I restored the 2+ gigs of information I had on my old blog. And so here we go... a blogger blog.

Looks like someone already took "Tronster" on here (hence the tronsterhartley.blogspot.com URL.) Funny, as I created the name "Tronster" back in 1987 (well before I made it my legal name in 2002) in order to distinguish myself from other online BBS users. As far as I know, there are 3 other Tronsters in the online world, but I'm the only one who has it as a legal name. *rah*

I do hope to have my home page at tronster.com back up, but until then there is always content about me at MySpace.

Cheers.