Monthly Archives: January 2010

Anticipation III

By Rubes | Published: January 24, 2010

I don’t play as many games as I’d like to anymore, but I do try to sneak in as many as I can. For the most part, I don’t spend much time with the big ticket AAA games, in part because I don’t have a console, and in part because my desktop is getting a bit long in the tooth (is 7 years too old?). So while I figure out if I’m ever going to rectify that one way or the other, I keep my focus largely on the indie scene. And so, every now and then, I catch wind of a new indie game under development that stirs my interest, and I follow along in anticipation of its eventual release.

Such was the case back in October last year with Amanita Design’s Machinarium, and prior to that about a year ago with Tale of Tales’ The [More...]

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In Backups I (Should) Trust

By Rubes | Published: January 22, 2010

I never was much of a backup person until I started on the Vespers project. As things progressed, I realized how much content there was to manage, and how important it was going to be to protect it from loss. So somewhere along the way I became a backup fanatic. By my count, I believe I now have somewhere around six active backups of my data, some full backups, some partial. Let me see if I can remember them all.

My main backup is a clone of my desktop development machine. I use an awesome program called SuperDuper! for this. It basically just makes an exact clone of my computer’s internal drive onto a secondary internal drive. I have that running nightly, so at any point in time I have an exact clone ready to go, losing at most a day’s worth of work.

In addition to that, I [More...]

Posted in Vespers, miscellaneous | 5 Comments

Shamus Does IF

By Rubes | Published: January 18, 2010

If you’re into RPGs (the tabletop or computer variety), or video games in general, you’re probably already familiar with Shamus Young and his blog, Twenty Sided. You’re probably also familiar with his excellent webcomic series, DM of the Rings. You certainly should be.

But, if you’re more of an interactive fiction person than an RPG or FPS person, maybe not.

Shamus does a great job with his blog, and I really enjoy his writing. There are only a handful of blogs I enjoy following because of the writing, and his is one of them. Whether it’s a skillful disemboweling of a popular AAA title, a recounting of his role-playing experiences, or his tireless raging against the evils of DRM, it’s always an enjoyable read with the right mixture of insight and humor.

I’ve always suspected he had a soft spot for text games. He’s spent some time [More...]

Posted in interactive fiction | 3 Comments

Riding The Wave

By Rubes | Published: January 17, 2010

Things have been relatively quiet here on the Brew lately, particularly with respect to Vespers. I don’t generally post very often, averaging about one blog per week, but even that is being stretched lately, and this is the first blog of the new year. Oftentimes silence reflects little to report from lack of progress, but in this case it’s actually a Pretty Good Thing.

Game development often goes in fits and spurts, especially if you’re a small (or solo) team. This has been especially true with Vespers, particularly on the animation front. N.R. has been steadily productive over time with all of the models and 2D art, which has helped us maintain at least some momentum over time. But, as I’ve blogged many times, it’s the animation work that has held us back for so long.

The two main reasons for this are (a) it takes time and effort to [More...]

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