Posted on: November 21 2017
Comments: 5Since I know how to program, I worked on a lot of games and game related projects. But there are even a few games where it was a 100% one-man-show. Where I created everything myself, in most cases even the graphics, sound and music. Maybe you are reading this blog for some time, so maybe you have heard of some of them:
I could tell you tons and tons of stories about each of these games. (Except of course the latest one, which will be released in two weeks, we'll see how that one will do:) Interestingly,...
[Read more]Posted on: November 18 2017
Comments: 15I just got asked by a customer why there hasn't been an update for several months now for one of the software products I create. And if this means that this software is dead now. I'm really baffled by this. Especially because that product has already gotten nearly a dozen free updates, and is pretty stable and bug-free by now.
I just updated Windows 10 on my main development PC with the Fall Creators Update, causing several of the software I use to have failures, or degraded performance. And worst: Some...
[Read more]Posted on: November 10 2017
Comments: 0The Retro shooter/adventure game "Galaxy Ranger Luna", which I mentioned already on this blog was released today, and was created with CopperCube. Looks like this:
You can get it on itch.io: Galaxy Ranger Luna itch.io page. It uses a "pay what you want" model, so the price should be pretty fair, I think.
[Read more]Posted on: November 03 2017
Comments: 5I am not much into Bitcoin, but from what I've heard, it gained traction during the last few years. And there is a big hype around it: One Bitcoin is now worth 5.941 euro at the time of writing. That's 5 times more than since the beginning of this year. Crazy. So, is this a bubble? I don't know. And like with any other currency or value, nobody knows for sure. But what I know is this: I am now offering Bitcoin payments for all my software for more than two years.
And since then, not one single person ev...
[Read more]Posted on: October 27 2017
Comments: 0A beta tester just sent me this with the subject "I suspect my revolutionary budget idea for the USA was a mistake...":
For comparison, Germany currently has a crime rate of around 775. :)
[Read more]Posted on: October 24 2017
Comments: 9Do you also have this problem with people? When they aren't able to read beyond the first sentence you wrote them? For example like here:
User: I have a question with your game engine, it doesn't do XX when I do YY.
Me: Maybe you could try to do AAA, this might help.
If not, try BBB, or alternatively, you can always do CCC.
User: I've now tried, but AAA doesn't help! Help me!!
Me: As I wrote, you could also try BBB. And if that doesn't help, try CCC, that should do the trick.
...
[Read more]Posted on: October 23 2017
Comments: 0I finally was able to create a Steam Page for Government Simulator, it now looks like this:
It also shows when I expect the game to be released.
Feedback is quite ok for now, and some people also requested a lot of interesting features. Let's see what the next weeks will bring.
[Read more]Posted on: October 09 2017
Comments: 9After my blog post yesterday, a few people seemed to be interested in it, and asked for more details. Being used to cut a lot of family videos recently, I was able to create this trailer for my latest political simulation game 'Government Simulator' within just an hour:
I think it still looks ok, though. At least it shows pretty well within one minute what the game is and how it works. I even created the music myself, ha. Hope you like it.
[Read more]Posted on: October 08 2017
Comments: 4On my way to the office or generally when on a train or plane, I usually write a bit of code when I can. Creating 3D stuff isn't possible usually, so I write tools, or once, I even wrote a book (named Die Wiederentdeckung der Erde).
Last year, because I was frustrated with the absurd assertions of our local politicians, I programmed the simulation of a state. So that I could for example change the VAT tax rate of Austria, and see what would happen then. It turned out to be quite fun, so I added a user in...
[Read more]Posted on: October 02 2017
Comments: 2I uploaded a new update of PostCollapse to Steam last weekend, which adds the most requested feature so far: The possibility to create own buildings from scratch. Previously, you could only take an existing building and modifiy them.
The game engine wasn't designed initially to support a feature like this, so there are constraints where you can place new buildings. The game will show red markers when you try to build the platform where this is not possible, like too close to another existing building, or...
[Read more]Posted on: September 29 2017
Comments: 1The game Super Galaxy Ranger Luna 64 has a cool retro look. I played it for a few hours already, and it was fun. Hope it will be released soon:
It's being created with CopperCube by ishmaru. There is now also a trailer available. Yay.
[Read more]Posted on: September 26 2017
Comments: 2I just updated the CopperCube game engine website a bit: Added new free actions and behaviors like "Read specfic line" (just_in_case) and "If below sea level" (Bracer ), added new screenshots, updated a few texts here and there, and we also have https support now:
Did you know that there is also now a quite active CopperCube community website named MarshTownMadness? They also have a lot of downloadable plugins, models and extensions of CopperCube. Probably worth a visit.
I'm wondering what the added h...
[Read more]Posted on: September 15 2017
Comments: 4Waking up. Everything cold. Checking heat pump.
System says "everything bad". Checking error code. Checking outdoor unit. Marderschaden! (=Damaged by a weasel!) That's new.
Reparing. Yay! Working again.
Saved roughly 300-500 euro in costs (and a weekend with only cold water!), and the wife is complaining that I cut her 2 Euro USB-cable for that. Argl.
[Read more]Posted on: August 21 2017
Comments: 4I just uploaded an update of PostCollapse to Steam, version 1.13. I think I fixed a crash bug which occasionally appeard for some players. I also added a nice new feature: You can now actually see the water sinking into the ground, when you are watering your plants:
This is also a quite nice usability improvment, I think. Also, I think it again looks a bit better now. I tweaked a few textures and shaders:
Still not that great, but I'm only a programmer, after all. :)
The game is currently on sale o...
[Read more]Posted on: August 10 2017
Comments: 2Since Valve has shut down Greenlight and replaced it with Steam Direct - a method were you basically pay 100$ and can publish your game on Steam - the number of games released nearly exploded: more than 1000 games have been added to Steam since then.
As engine developer, I also noticed a big change since Steam Direct:
Way more people who are using CopperCube (that's the 3D Game Engine I am developing and selling) are especially asking more questions about its Steam integration (Achievements, Steam Ove...
[Read more]Posted on: July 14 2017
Comments: 3So you would like to create a game, and probably also earn a lot of money with it? As developer of a commercial game engine (and probably better known for that once popular open source 3D lib), I have a lot of contact with new game developers. I also created commercial games completely on my own (6 until now, this one here is my latest attempt) and about a dozen as part of a bigger team, so there are some few tips I have which new game developers might find useful:
Make Backups!
About once a month, a ...
[Read more]Posted on: July 10 2017
Comments: 3I just sent a user this story:
A guy walks into an Apple Store and complains that the display of his iPhone sometimes flickers. He wants it repaired for free. The Apple store employees tell him OK, but three days later, they call him, asking him if he bought the phone in this store, because they cannot match up his Apple-ID with the phone. He then admits that he had stolen the phone, from their store, a few weeks before. But he still wants them to repair the phone. For free.
What do you think now hap...
[Read more]Posted on: June 19 2017
Comments: 2I just uploaded CopperCube Game Engine in version 5.7. There are a lot of nice new features included:
Realtime Shadows Support
Big game support and dynamic level loading
Simplified uploading games to Android Play Store
D3D Runtime detection
Floating point render targets
and a lot of other minor changes
For a detailed list of changes, see here.
It is now possible to create a lot more serious and bigger games with the engine. I personally like the fact that the new shadows feature also works...
[Read more]Posted on: June 15 2017
Comments: 4I know, I'm old. I prefer old, fast tools which don't use much memory. I'm probably out of the loop. But really, I think it is really difficult to explain this:
Dear Google, what is wrong with you?
[Read more]Posted on: May 30 2017
Comments: 9I'm currently in the process of finalizing the support for shadow map rendering into the CopperCube Game Engine. For game engine users, this will work as easy as everything else in CopperCube: Just check a checkbox, and voilà: You now have nice dynamic shadows in your scene. It will even be possible to combine this with the existing other lighting modes:
On the image above, you can see two concrete blocks. The left has the new dynamic shadow mapping mode enabled, the right one has static precalculated l...
[Read more]Posted on: May 25 2017
Comments: 2I've been creating and editing Wikipedia articles casually since one and a half decade. I guess I created a few dozen, and edited a few hundreds. But today, I decided to stop doing this on de.Wikipedia, the german version.
The reason for this is that unlike en.Wikipedia, de.Wikipiedia is becoming crazier and crazier. Admins are going mad there and restricting edits and deleting submissions where they can. This has been the case for years (I remember ridiculous discussions on Wikipedia around the Irrlich...
[Read more]Posted on: May 22 2017
Comments: 3I just uploaded RocketCake 1.5, the free responsive website designer. It now includes a built-in password protection system, so that you can enable password/login on your websites with just a few clicks easily.
There is also now a quick way to reload all images, tons of new templates, improved slide shows, better web editing, and more. See the changelog for details. It really has become quite a mature product now, and I'm surprised at how many people are using it.
But no need to rest, it's probably t...
[Read more]Posted on: May 01 2017
Comments: 2I've now uploaded the 1.09 update of PostCollapse to Steam, the one with realtime shadows support. I've also created an updated trailer:
Also, it is very motivating that the game is apparently not so crappy anymore:
[Read more]Posted on: April 24 2017
Comments: 5Boy, adding support for shadows into an existing multi-platform 3D engine with tons of features isn't exactly easy. But I think I've now nailed it down. To make it work with a real-world example, I implemented this into the PostCollapse game. And - altough they are very simple shadows without any fancy features to make it run on as many systems as possible - it looks pretty nice! See this comparison for example:
Also, since that game has a lot of moving vegetation, you see shadows on walls of buildings q...
[Read more]Posted on: April 17 2017
Comments: 0A user just sent me this cool free 3D prefab for CopperCube:
Pretty cool, right? But obviously, that's an asset stolen from the Resident Evil game. Not sure what the motivation for sending this in could be. Malice? Ignorance? Simply not knowing it any better? Not sure.
[Read more]Posted on: April 15 2017
Comments: 3I once blogged about the steadily degrading quality of support requests I get. Years ago, they would be like
I now tried to get this work myself for days, maybe you could help me with this?
And now they are usually
This is shit, WTF, give me a refund now!
But sometimes I also get requests with long, long confusing texts, where I am struggling to understand what the problem is and what the user actually wants from me. They usually also don't mention which software this is about (I'm developing qu...
[Read more]Posted on: April 07 2017
Comments: 2I just uploaded PostCollapse 1.08 to Steam. This update includes the changes with the new 3D tree models. The game is far from being good loocking, but I think it is much better now. I also stumbled upon an older screenshot from the game, which of these do you think is the new version? :D
I also added a way for the game to detect crashes and to ask the user if he wants to reset the settings to defaults once this was detected. I'll be working on shadows now, since this also will be the D3D prototype for t...
[Read more]Posted on: March 28 2017
Comments: 3Last weekend, I tried to improve the trees in PostCollapse. The current ones are procedurally generated and ugly, which made sense when the game still was written in Javascript and WebGL, in order to keep down the amount of data needed to be downloaded from the server. But since it is now a C++ written Windows game, it makes sense to replace them with proper trees. My result looks like this so far:
There is still room for improvements, but I like it so far. Unfortunately, the game will now run a bit slo...
[Read more]Posted on: March 20 2017
Comments: 5Creating fast realtime 3D scenes with shadows in WebGL isn't that easy: Implementing shadow maps is surprisingly simple, but making them work for big, dynamic and complex scenes is a bit harder.
I made the first step into that direction by adding a simple cascade shadow map renderer to CopperLicht, the open source WebGL JavaScript library. The implementation is focused on speed: The shadows won't look that nice, but they are robust for the full scene and a (relatively) high framerate is kept.
Try it ou...
[Read more]Posted on: March 14 2017
Comments: 0I just uploaded RocketCake version 1.4, the free responsive website builder I am working on.
There are some quite nice new features in this update, including faster website upload, built-in automatic image resizing, a new 'static' gallery mode, improved image quality, a smart quote filter for the MacOs users, and a lot more. You can see a detailed list here.
The editor is getting better and better each update. And I am learning a lot while building it. Still, I am happy about any kind of constructive...
[Read more]