PixlBit

RE: Gamer Gate

I wasn't trying to establish any particular position. I just think the whole thing (both sides) brought out a whole lot of negative. That in conjunction with the other stuff going on really made me back off talking about games because I just didn't want to deal with the situation at all.

Games are my escape and a vehicle for me to have fun and connect with other people. It just felt like that whole incident made gaming not a fun place to be and really set the entire gaming community back instead of moving us forward. I'm not blaming any particular group, but the whole thing just got way out of hand.

This is partly my fault. I've been so busy since starting my game, I've kind of let my participation in the site slide and haven't been helping generate content to keep people interested. I guess in addition to that, Gamer Gate really took the wind out of my sails. It made the whole gaming community a very toxic place and not one I wanted to be a part of while it was all going down. The total lack of action in this latest generation of gaming doesn't help either.

All that being said, don't worry, PixlBit is not going to close! For one, it runs on my own server in my basement, so I have no overhead at this point in operating the site. Secondly, I love this place! I'd never want it to just disappear.

Once PixlCross gets pushed out the door (which is quite imminent), I plan on getting more engaged to get things back on track. If you guys as the community have any good ideas to spark more participation, please, let me know. I'm not sure where many of the bloggers who used to come here have gone, but if anyone knows how to reach out to them, please let them know we'd love to have them here.

No excuses! Hurry up and play everything!

Thanks! In one of those blogs that I planned to write, I'll go through the whole story behind how we got there. It definitely took a bunch of work to get it looking that way... and a few arguments.

Thank you, sir! I'm excited to share some more, particularly via a proper trailer. Going to be putting that together pretty soon here, just need to find the right angle.

Truth be told, I haven't done my due diligence yet on the PC marketplaces. Figured I'd start with Greenlight and move from there. The Windows store is definitely a good landing place though and I'll have to figure out how to get published there. Same goes for the Mac app store.

Once I wrap the Wii U version, I'll be getting the PC/Mac/Linux version all squared away for release. The bigger challenge there is setting up a server for the UGC. Not sure I can burden this poor PixlBit server with that much more traffic!

Don't worry, Peter - it's going to hit the PC too! Just need to get through stupid Steam Greenlight...

Thanks Matt! It's been a long road, but in the end, I think Chessa and I will both be happy we did it. Never in my life did I think I'd actually fulfill my dream of creating and releasing a video game, so this will be quite the accomplishment.

Hopefully from here we can continue with this process and release other games in the future, particularly ones that are more creative and original. This was a good starting game though and I'm glad we didn't bite off more than we could chew.

Absolutely, Cary! We are trying to release it on the Wii U, so once the game gets through Nintendo's lotcheck process and they provide me with review codes, I will be certain to send one your way.

We're also targeting a PC release via Steam, but we'll need to do the whole Greenlight thing to get there. I should be opening that campaign very soon, so I'll be sure to share details here and ask that everyone please vote for us!

I've written the game in Javascript, with the help of HTML 5 and CSS 3 for the UI. It's an... interesting... language. Having done plenty of web development, I have a bunch of experience with the language, but never really "used" it, so to speak. Now that I've gotten knee deep in it, I've really got a handle on how to do javascript right.

It's kind of a crazy language, because there are just closures absolutely freakin everywhere. Not to mention, it's all event-driven, so order of operations can be a serious challenge. Something as simple as getting a loading screen to pop-up took some mental acrobatics.

After years and years of programming primarily Java, it's hard NOT to think in object-oriented. Once the switch flipped to that mindset, it kind of got stuck there. Even with my game, I'd say that I fell into the hole early on of trying to make it very object-oriented instead of playing to the functional strengths of Javascript. It took a near full-rewrite to right my wrongs, and even then, I still have stuff that's a bit sloppy for my tastes.

I guess the thing to remember when doing OO is SOLID. It's a good set of guiding principles on how to do Object Orientation right. Hopefully your teachers have pointed you towards that before throwing you into the fire!

For what it's worth, I was able to get the OO stuff straight by building a little list management system, which ultimately became the Game Collection system you see here on PixlBit. Modeling and implementing that system really brought clarity to the concepts for me, hopefully your Battleship game does the same for you!

If you do have any pointed questions, shoot me a PM or an email, I'm glad to help!

Me and Chessa dropped more than 100 hours into Xenoblade (something like 120), so don't feel bad!