Toilets, Meat, and Drugs: Bug fixed!

Some of you who've been trying to play Toilets, Meat, and Drugs may know about a save bug in the game.  Basically, the game would be unable to save until after you close it for the first time. I am so relieved to say that I have finally fixed the bug.

Here's the technical explanation of what happened. When you save progress a video game, the game itself is unchanged. Instead, a separate data file is created that contains all of the relevant information, such as the player's status or location. While game developers usually create save scripts from scratch that target the information that needs to be saved and ignore the information that doesn't, Game Maker has a single function, game_save(), that automatically stores all information to a file. While this function is overkill and only recommended for beginners, it's really convenient to use for a jam game, when time is not a luxury.

The function has worked wonderfully in past experience, with older versions of Game Maker. But when Yoyo made the switch from Game Maker 8 to Game Maker Studio, the file directory system changed so that Game Maker games could be ported to platforms besides Windows. Which is great and all, except you don't get the benefits of this change unless you pay $100+ dollars for a professional license. The standard license, which I have, lets you port games to Mac, but that requires going through a holyshitton of hoops that I don't ever want to go through again.

Anyway, Game Maker Studio used to have the game_save() function removed altogether. It's since been added back in, but doesn't work as its supposed to with the new file directory system. Basically, the function doesn't actually create a directory in which to store save files until after you close the game for the first time! What the hell?!
 
What this means is that people who played Toilets, Meat, and Drugs for the first time would lose all of their progress upon dying or quitting the game. This is incredibly frustrating for the player, and even more embarrassing for me. I also wasn't able to detect the bug during development at all - the directory was created well before I even implemented the save system. It was a much unwanted surprise when I found out that I published a broken game!

Let me tell you, for a developer, there is no worse feeling than releasing a broken game. I would rather release a bad game than a broken one. I feel no shame about releasing games with crude, hastily draw, graphics, or a game with overly simplistic game play, or a game with missing music, or a game that I made in middle school. However rough these games are, they still have some sort of appeal, and, goddamnit, at least they work. Technical competency is the baseline, the absolute minimum standard a game must meet. Releasing a buggy game is like releasing a song recording that can only play through shitty laptop speakers - technical incompetence ruins the art.

I've been incredibly anxious over the past few days trying to figure out the cause and solution to this bug. Just this evening, after the deleting the game's directory and keeping an eye on Windows explorer as I played the game, I finally was able to identify the problem. Finally, by using a piece of code that creates an empty dummy folder when the game starts, I've tricked the game into actually creating the directory before the player closes the freakin' game. Cripes.

Fuck you, Game Maker. Fuck you. This extra stress was the last thing I needed.

But thanks for allowing me to create games for the past nine years.

Toilets, Meat, and Drugs is now available on itch.io and Gamejolt. And thanks to Warpdoor for featuring it on their site!

IndiE3 as an alternative mode of cultural politics

IndiE3, if you didn't know, was a free cyber indie game dev expo that ran parallel to E3 last week. Throughout the week, a group of volunteers in Seattle live streamed indie game trailers and panel discussions. As I previously wrote, I had lost my initial pep for the event a couple of days in, and I missed the end of the event due to wedding attendance, so I didn't find the event fulfilling in terms of raw content. Of course, there were some high points: I caught the end of a fantastic interview with Christine Love on representations of sex in games, was introduced to some cool games through Warpdoor's panel, and saw some intriguing trailers. Sadly, I missed most of the panels, and wasn't very interested in most of the games shown. That being said, IndiE3 is still damn worth celebrating.

Never before have I heard of an international cultural expo being so inclusive. Do you want to attend IndiE3? All you have to do is sit in front of your computer in time for the live stream and chat as it happens. Do you want your game featured? It doesn't matter who you are or what your game is - send an email, and it will be shown, for goddamn free. Want to talk in front of an audience of hundreds? Again, it doesn't matter who you are - send an email, and you can host your own fuckin' panel. About just about anything. Yes, you.

Do you know how cool that is? THAT'S FUCKING ICE COLD.

Just about every other game expo, such as E3,  is rife with barriers to entry. It costs ahellovalota money to book a flight, crash in a hotel, and attend the event. E3 itself is open only to industry professionals, and being able to host a talk requires an even greater level of pre-existing legitimacy. So, through these sort of conventions, a relatively small group of people (technically skilled college-educated white men who like videogames just fine the way they are) gain reinforced status as the elite creators of games. Dominant discourse about games is limited to this group, and remains relatively stagnant.

At this year's E3, the games we see are the same old violent games with white male macho protagonists*. I mean that literally: it seems as though at least half of the new releases I encountered are sequels, spinoffs, or reboots. Mainstream games simply haven't responded to much of the social, narrative, or even ludological criticism that those of us on the fringe have been slinging at them. Games are capable of exploring as wide a variety of human experience as any other entertainment medium, yet so far have only explored a small fraction of it. Mainstream games have so much growing they can do, yet grow so little.

Compare this to IndiE3. While most people involved with the event were men, I noticed a greater diversity of individuals than typically is associated with gaming. Not only that, but panelists seemed to be greatly concerned with social and economic criticisms of games and their production. Panel topics included: "Games have a Racism Problem," "Creating Games Under Capital," and "What Not to do with Native Americans in Videogames." Other panels were more critical of dominant design philosophy and storytelling in games, but even these panels had a socially conscious edge: one panel I overheard on "Designing RPGs without Combat" was critical of how relationships and sex were portrayed in most RPGs.

Now, of course, with such low barriers to participation in IndiE3, you're bound to get some pretty awful games showcased. Some of the games honestly looked a little like the stuff I made in middle school. That being said, there were tons of really cool games too, such as Unrest, There Shall be Lancing, Charlotte Seeker, and Witchmarsh. What's more, the ability for anyone, regardless of their background, to have their creative work broadcasted to over a thousand people around the world, with no strings attached, it amazing. It's an opportunity that, under capitalism, is incredibly rare.

That's essentially what makes IndiE3 so special. The mainstream games industry, and all of the expos associated with it, are capitalist institutions to their foundation. IndiE3, by removing all economic and social barriers to participation to it, is fundamentally critical and egalitarian. It's what a game convention looks like if designed by anarcho-socialists.

Considering the results, that's fine by me.

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I'd also like to briefly share some more personal notes on my IndiE3 experience. Digital Toilet World, unfortunately, was not shown during the Warpdoor showcase as promised - the live streamer progressed through the list of games rather slowly and only played about half of it. 

Toward the end of the event, a volunteer finally confirmed that they had received promotional materials for Waker, but, because of the aforementioned wedding, I missed the trailer showing. I'm currently having trouble finding and viewing its recorded video segment. 

Overall, I think that, since the event was planned over a weekend by volunteers with no budget, it was stronger as a proof of concept than as an actual event. Poor communication and lack of manpower posed problems throughout. However, most of the issues were resolved over the course of the week, meaning that, if IndiE3 happens next year, it'll be as as strong as a magical flying ox. Bad ass.

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Please feel free to talk to me about IndiE3, the intersection between gaming and social justice, or anything else. I covered a lot of subject matter in this and didn't go into much detail about any of it. Hit me up. 

*Seriously scroll back up and watch the video in the link before the asterisk. This is what gaming mostly is. We all know it, there's no excuse for it, and it's gotten boring.

IndiE3 is Today!

IndiE3 is starting as I write this! It's a cyber game convention created 4 days ago, open for anyone to participate in, free of charge, which is really cool. It's fantastic that developers like me have spaces to promote their work without economic/professional barriers to entry. The fact that the community managed to pull this out of there asses over an extended weekend is incredible.

Waker should be on shown through IndiE3 sometime later this week. There's new screenshots and updated info about the game on its page. I'm working on a new demo and a trailer, you'll see them in a few days. In the meantime, Warpdoor is showcasing a whole bunch of games over the next four hours, and I'm thrilled to say that Digital Toilet World is among them. 

The channel for IndiE3 is over here.

EDIT:
Here's the other channel. I think Warpdoor's doing their thing over here.

Breakthrough, Response, and Transition

That up there? That's a video of a guy that I don't know playing "Digital Toilet World".

That kills me.

Here's the thing about me. I've been making games with Game Maker ever since I was 12. The first few years, I only shared the (terrible) games I made with my friends. By the time I was 13 or 14, I had discovered  this amateur entry-level first person shooter software called Silent Walk, and so I had made some (pretty bad) shooter games and shared them with the Silent Walk community, most of the members of which were boys my age. During my high school years, Silent Walk ceased to satisfy my creative needs, and I resumed work with Game Maker. I had published (mediocre) games on Game Maker's website and received maybe a dozen or so plays for each of my games (one of which was How to Fly). Having those dozen plays from strangers made my day. The possibility that people who didn't know me could choose to play my games, and that some of them could even like them, was inconceivable to me. I didn't care how few people played my games - the fact that there were people mattered.

It was during my high school years and early college years that I had really discovered the indie game scene. I had discovered the games of developers like Terry Cavanagh, Stephen Lavelle, Bento Smile, Christine Love, Amon26, Jonas Kyratzes, Anna Anthropy, Daniel Remar, Jason Rohrer, Cactus, thecatamites, and countless others. Most of the people above were my heroes. I played and idolized their games. I wanted to be one of them.

Before I reached adulthood, started this blog, and shared Waker on the Tigsource forums, I was just a kid who, in his spare time, made little games that his friends and family would occasionally play. Now, that's all changing. Over the past year, people I've never met have been blogging about Waker's development, following it, and are offering to write music for it. "Digital Toilet World" has been downloaded over a hundred times, ranked well enough in Ludum Dare, has a "Let's Play" video, and was posted to freeindiegam.es by Terry Cavanagh, one of my goddamn teenage heroes.

It's not much press, but holy shit, it's press. This is a transitional period for me as a game developer. It might be a little obnoxious, but I am probably going to freak out with every piece of publicity I receive for a while. It's just a phase I'm going through, please bear with me.

And thanks for playing and reading! For those of you keeping score at home, this is my 100th blog post here. I've undergone a lot of change as a developer and as a person since I started writing; I can't wait to see what the next 100 will bring.

TERRY CAVANAGH PLAYED MY GAME OMIGOD

You know that guy who made VVVVV and Super Hexagon? Well, he played "Digital Toilet World" and posted it to freeindiegam.es. What the hell.

It's not like I'm a big fan of his work or visit the blog every day or anything. *cough cough*

Ludum Dare 28 Compilation Video

Here's a neat little compilation video of a few games from Ludum Dare 28. "Digital Toilet World" makes an appearance about 1 minute in. I really wish I captured higher quality footage of the game. It was my first time recording my own game; I'll definitely have to figure out how to get better footage when it becomes necessary for me to actually make trailers and the like.

Some great work is featured here. Over 2,000 entries were submitted for the competition, this barely represents the variety of work created for it. After judging officially ends, I'll share my favorites.

Mention on Indie Game Hunt

     Thanks again to Paul Hack of IndependentGaming.net for featuring Waker on Indie Game Hunt! It's really, really weird for me to see strangers on the internet get excited about my creative work - really not at all used to it - but it's greatly appreciated nonetheless  Stuff like this motivates me more than anything to work on the project and make it the best that it can be - I'll try my best to meet expectations!

Oh, hey, modest popularity.

My upcoming game, Waker was just featured in Venus Patrol's Tigsource Devlog magazine (small box at the very bottom). I'm really not used to this sort of attention, so it's sort of weird. But I'll take it. :)