Catching Up – What Happened, What’s To Come

Hey everyone, it’s been awhile. A lot has happened in the last few months, and a lot is coming up. I was dealing with a tricky situation for awhile, but things are definitely looking up.

What Happened

First off, I’m extremely sorry, as well as disappointed in myself for slacking on the blog, and I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t ever happen again.I was living at my dad’s place for awhile after running into some financial trouble, and to put this lightly, the work environment was horrible. I grabbed myself a part time job at Domino’s Pizza with my friends to earn some cash and get back on my feet, but that plan was moving a bit too slowly, and then there’s that minor detail of me being let go due to upper management cracking down on labor hours, but that’s not too important. Long story short, my game development work environment was horrible, I was stressed to hell with my living situation, and money wasn’t coming in quick enough for me to change things.

I also attempted to make money through a game reviewing service I started up on FGL, and while I received some donations, and a lot of praise, not putting a price on the service left me with little earnings. I made a lot of people happy, increased the value of a lot of games, but ultimately it didn’t benefit me on the financial front as much as I thought it would, so It seemed (more on that later).

I attempted to make money through game development, but there were a few issues there. First off, Gemfruit is a new branding, it’s not known the to the public yet, and when it is known, that has to be done right. I don’t want my first game under this branding to be a “money game”, I want it to be something I’m proud of, something that will represent the direction this branding/company will go in. The reason I was unable to complete the above task, is because of two reasons. First off, I mentioned work conditions were horrible, and they were. I won’t get into the details, just take my word for it. Secondly, I switched frameworks from something I was comfortable with, to something that is awesome, but foreign to me.

I was originally using “ShadowLib”, the leftover framework from when TheVillageBlacksmith and I were together as EpicShadow. This framework wasn’t complete by any means, but it did what I needed it to do, and I was comfortable with it. I’m not a novice programmer, but I’m not an expert either, and having a framework I was comfortable with really helped me produce games faster. Daughters of Pytheus was built on this library, but I ran into issues as I got further into development. I was getting extremely intrigued by everything I was hearing about FlashPunk, and really wanted to switch to it. I eventually attempted to port what I had of Daughters of Pytheus to FlashPunk, but this ended up taking much longer than I anticipated due to my less than optimal programming experience, work environment, and my naturally ability of thinking things take 1/3 the time they actually do when work related. In the end, I had spent too much time learning my way around FlashPunk, attempting to port the code, and trying to get a job for some income to get back on my feet. Before I knew it, the summer was over, Verena was back in classes, and it was time to pick a new project to work on, because she wasn’t able to work on Daughters of Pytheus while having a full class load.

What’s To Come

As I said, I stopped using ShadowLib, and have switched to FlashPunk. I’m really liking FlashPunk, and am finally getting comfortable with it. For the most part, its coding style fits mine pretty well, it’s strict enough that it doesn’t drive me crazy by being sloppy, and it has a lot of tools and classes that are extremely useful. I’ve been slowly programming in it over the last few months, porting old games, moving started games to it, etc. I’m finally comfortable enough with it now, and I’ve begun fully coding my next major game release, which will be revealed soon.

In addition to FlashPunk finally being something I’m comfortable with, I’ve stepped away from my dad’s pad and am now living in a much, much better place. I moved about 25 minutes away from the city, and am now living on Georgia Mountain, Vermont. My friend Ian and I plan on getting an apartment in the next few months, so we’re both staying up at his parents log house on the mountain with them while we save up to make that happen. The family has always been a second family to me, and I’m extremely grateful that they were understanding of my situation and are letting me live here with them. The house is quite the luxury home, it has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a beautiful kitchen, radiant heating, and a lot of open space, etc. The basement is where we’ve set up our man cave, but I’d hardly call it a basement, it’s more or less the bottom floor to the house. It’s been the grounds for numerous LAN parties since I’ve got here, and I must say, RTS with 4-6 people is a blast. Overall, the living situation is an increase so big I don’t know how to put it into words. I’m playing more games, getting more work done, and I’m far happier and healthier feeling than I was before.

I mentioned doing some in-depth reviews for FGL users on a donation basis, and how I thought it had failed me on the financial front. Turns out, it was not only great for helping other people, but myself too. I’ve now landed myself enough clients to officially call myself a professional game consultant. I’ve worked with some extremely talented developers, and they’ve all been exceptionally happy with the work I’ve provided them. My services range from an idea guy for sequels, to doing in-depth reviews on games that developers feel are near complete, or “complete”. I find that most of these games definitely need some fixing before they hit the wild, sometimes way more than that. I’ll be focusing a bit more on this from now on, so expect a more detailed post on this very soon.

Flash Game Summit 2012 is just a few months away, and I can’t wait to be walking the streets of San Francisco once again. I just received the FGL December 2011 email, and was pleased to see that the Indie Giving Event is now up and running again. This event lets developers purchase a package that includes the FGS ticket, 2 nights in a nice hotel, 2 awesome free shirts, and all meals covered for the day of the indie giving event (includes an amazing dinner, not just bagged lunches or anything of that sort). Basically you get a sweet discount on your entire FGS trip by doing some awesome charity work with other developers, it’s a win-win situation. I’ll have more on this in a post soon, including my experiences from last year, and more details on the event. Needless to say, I’ve already purchased my ticket, which makes Porzdy.com look pretty ridiculous (not that it didn’t make me laugh before, and look ridiculous in the first place).

All in all, everything is starting to look up for me, and I’m definitely going to be a lot more active now that everything has fallen into place. I have a lot of games I want to get done, new-found motivation to back it up, and every other aspect of my life is comfortably in place to allow me to get these things done. I’ve had these sudden bursts of motivation before, but each time I’ve always struggled to get everything else in check. This time, everything is in order, and I’m ready to become the game develop I know I can be.

Who?

Welcome to my humble abode, make yourself a drink or two, and prepare to be informed on just who I am. If you’re here, chances are that you already know me and just don’t know it yet. Perhaps you’re being redirected from my old blog, or perhaps I sent you here from the EpicShadow website. Regardless of how you got here, you’re here now, and that makes me feel all warm inside.

My name is Porter, and I’m the founder of Gemfruit, this wonderful site we’re currently co-existing on. Before I founded Gemfruit, I was co-owner of Epic Shadow Entertainment (best known for Tower of Greed and Pixel Purge), and semi-active flash game industry blogger over at my old blog, Porter’s World. I go pretty far back in the industry, as far back as mid 2007 when I released my first decently popular game with David Millz, Stabika Episode 1: Escape. If you still don’t know who I am at this point, don’t worry about it, I’ve only just prepared to make the dent in the games industry I have planned, so all that old stuff hardly counts.

Why The New Branding?

Ah yes, the reasoning behind the change of branding, and this particular name, a good question to ask indeed. Well, as you may have noticed, Epic Shadow hasn’t released anything in awhile, since Pixel Purge roughly six months ago. This is mostly due to the fact that Epic Shadow doesn’t really exist anymore. That’s right, for those of you who don’t hang around Flash Game License often, Andrew and I are no longer team members. There’s a lot of reasons we’ve split up, regardless, I think it’s better that we each have our own thing going on. I’ve formed the new branding of Gemfruit, and he’s currently going with the name The Village Blacksmith. We’re both talented game developers, and I’m positive you’ll see plenty more from both of us under our new names.

What’s With The New Name?

There’s a few reasons for this, all of which make great sense to me, and hopefully with you once you know the explanation. First off, I absolutely needed a new brand name. I didn’t create Epic Shadow, nor did I take any part in naming it. When Andrew and I stopped working together, I needed a fresh slate, and a new brand name was the best way to go about doing just that. I wanted to create my own name, something I was proud of, and something that I would be excited to release my work under. While I was happy to release my old games when that time came, I never really felt any special connection to the name Epic Shadow.

When it came time to pick a new name, I knew right off that I wanted “Gem” in the name. There are two reasons for this, one more meaningful than the other. The first, I wanted a name that I was proud of. The first game I ever created, that was truly special to me, was Tower of Greed. I poured my heart into every minute of development, and it’s still one of my favorite games of all time. How does this relate to “Gem” you might ask? Well, it isn’t because you collect gems in Tower of Greed, but rather that you are a GEM (named Gem) in Tower of Greed. GEM, stands for Green Eyed Monster, and that’s the species you play as the main character in Tower of Greed. Although that little buddy didn’t have too much personality in the first game (if any), he’s sure to in future installments of the series. The second reason I like having “Gem” in the name, is because I’m a perfectionist. The biggest reason I don’t get too many games done, is because I just need them to be perfect, and they end up being much bigger than I have time for. It’s both a strength, and a weakness. When I do get a game out, it’s usually pretty damn good, well received by the public, and has fantastic ratings and reviews. Gems are often used to describe the best of a selection, and that’s exactly the kind of game I strive to make, a gem among all other games. When it comes to adding fruit to the name, that’s pretty simple. I was searching for a word to tack onto “Gem”, and wasn’t having too much luck. I asked my girlfriend Verena to help me out, and after many, many attempts, she finally suggested “fruit”. I checked to see if the domain was available (it was), and instantly fell in love with it. I purchased the domain in a rushed panic, as if someone was magically going to steal it from me that very minute if I was to delay at all. In addition, everyone who is anyone loves some form or another of fruit. Fruit is also a very short and easy word to remember, as is gem, making Gemfruit a simple and memorable URL. If I wanted to dig really deep, I could say that my personality is rather eccentric, and some would/have called me a fruit from time to time, but that could be pushing it. Overall, I’m very satisfied with the name, and am proud to call it my new branding/home on the internet.

What Is A Gemfruit?

So I had finally picked two words that were short, awesome, and flowed together. Now came the challenge of deciding what exactly a “Gemfruit” is. Keep in mind the branding is Gemfruit, a single word, not Gem Fruit. While the final branding doesn’t exist just yet, the concept of a Gemfruit has been floating around in my head for some time now. The current imagery of a Gemfruit, is a large fruit that grows on a very special tree, think Secrets of Mana. The outer “shell” is a strong wrapping of thick green leaves, while the core is a vibrant blue fruit, much like a glowing gem. I’ve played a ton of games in my day, ranging from the classic NES games, to the latest and greatest of the PC. I think the design of the Gemfruit is heavily influenced from the various RPG’s I’ve played, and the classic concept of collecting coins/gems/fruits being awesome. Regardless of it’s influence, I really like the mental image I have, and can’t wait to see it come to life.

On that note, I’m currently looking into having the logo professionally done, if you’re interested, or know someone that can do a great logo, drop a comment and I’ll check it out.

What Now?

If you made it this far, my love goes out to you. I’m extremely happy to have finally picked a branding I care about, and there’s a lot of great projects on the way. My current project is coming along nicely, and you’ll get to find out what that is very soon. I’ve got an enormous amount of energy to harness into many already planned future projects, and that’s exactly how I plan on using it. There’s a lot of thoughts pertaining to the game industry floating around in my head, and you can rest assured that all of them, and then some more, will make their way to this blog sooner than later.