Connor’s Blog

Web Developer, Student, Blogger.

Archive for category Game Maker

The Logo Is More Than Just An Icon

Nov 27

Posted by Connor in Game Maker

Earlier today, Sandy Duncan, CEO of YoYo Games, had the supposed privilege to unveil the all new Game Maker logo. Unfortunately, in the hearts and minds of many, he made the wrong choice. The logo, which was actually revealed two weeks ago Game Maker Blog, only garnered eight percent of the vote in a poll conducted on the set of potential new logos for the program. While there were only 500-odd voters in the poll, the fact that this particular design only received a total of 45 votes (and came in last place) is not insignificant. And, as the leadership of YoYo Games is starting to see in the aftermath of this announcement, many are not happy.

For a program such as Game Maker, its image and reputation is really the most important tool used to sell such a program. Yes, it’s easy to use. Yes, it’s inexpensive and, for a lightweight version, free. But the thing is, Game Maker has grown from a niche tool to a program that is used, by some counts, in schools and university programs and by hundreds of thousands of indie programmers across the world. Some would argue that the old icon was, well, old. Others argue that a change was needed, but not something this big. Frankly, I think YoYo misses the point of an icon or logo. The logo is more than just the icon one sees when they launch the application; it’s the face of the program to the public.

Soon, across the YoYo Games website, the fabled, still respected red ball will be replaced with a smiley face inside of a gear, with a facial expression similar to a person on crack cocaine. If that is how YoYo wishes to represent their program, then fine.

2 Comments

Game Maker (8?) Has a New Feature

Jun 22

Posted by Connor in Articles, Game Maker

I have not been told this new feature directly, but it’s pretty safe to say that it’s true. After all, I do have photographic evidence that YoYo is indeed working on this, despite what they are publically saying. Anyway, I can’t beat around the bush anymore. Just check out the picture below, and you should be able to pick it out fairly quick:

gamemaker_for_linux_final

What? Don’t see it? See the lower portion of the dialog in focus? “Mac OS X and Linux Ports”.

Yes, Game Maker is coming to Linux. I do not know when, I do not know how, but it is. Be ready. That is all.

14 Comments

Let the Races Begin!

Jan 11

Posted by Connor in Game Maker, Life, Other Things

I would like to point your attention to a news article posted on the Game Maker News blog, run and managed by Pythonpoole (Benjamin Poole) and his company, Scorptek. You see, pythonpoole wants to start his own phone and internet providing company, essentially an ISP. So, after I told him a story that he remembered from a few years back (one of a similar plan that failed miserably), I criticized his plans and said I would put money that it would fail. He took that bet.

Here is the story I told him:

Dear pythonpoole,

You may remember an old internet community from back in the day (almost three years ago) called Sub OS Dev 2. You know, a place were GM developers (as well as others with different skill sets) discussed and shared the Sub OS’s we were working on with others. We discussed things such as user interfaces, internal application programing languages, among other things.

You see, a few months before its timely death (which I must share credit for), a new member joined the forum called Cooleo (his MSN is mike.miner@hotmail.co.uk, he is currently giving away beta keys for Windows 7) joined the forums. But, you see, Cooleo wasn’t like the other developers. He wanted to try and create the greatest OS and internet service of all! He had plans not only to create a real Operating System (a feat not even expert developers in the community had even achieved), but also to create a network of phone and internet. With this service, he planned to also develop a SMS network, and an application to order pizza and have it sent to your door! But, you see, Cooleo failed. Know why? People like us, yes, you even called it a failure.

So, my question to you is this. How on earth do you plan on doing this? Do you honestly have any idea how ignorant, and I mean no offense, but it really is, this sounds? No, I won’t be signing up for your service. I currently have an amazing connection for 24.99 a month. But really, remember the story I told you, and you may recall what happened and why this seems so silly.

With Regards,

Dr. Watz0n

He responded with quite a lengthy response, pretty much retelling his whole business plan and the like:

@Dr. Watzon, this is a bit different. My dad is very successful businessman. He was the CEO of a multi-million dollar company for two years and now on the senior management team for an even larger more successful corporation in Canada,

He has a lot of business experience especially in the areas of marketing and logistics. We are working very closely with him to develop a viable business plan and bring the same success to Scorptek.

He is also helping to provide financial support along with other investors.

In total we have spent about 18 months researching, planning and developing our business plan. We have negotiated several contracts with business partners to provide our services across the continent at affordable prices and with some nice features/frills you wouldn’t normally expect. And we have also spent quite a bit of time researching tax laws and other applicable regulations that we have to follow to keep everything by the book.

So as you can see we have a real business plan here and the only reason we are asking the GM community about our services is because it is the only place where we already have a strong presence in the market and thus are likely to receive feedback without paying people to fill out surveys.

Also, GMNews is really meant for a target audience of people 16-24 (people who actually have some say in household matters). We try to write high quality articles that include a deep background on the subject and reference related information to adequately cover the story. In fact we have several pages worth of quality standards and “Copy Content Policies” which stipulate exactly how to write for GMNews, what spellings to use (American or British), how to reference sources, what topics can be covered, what diction to use, etc. (If you don’t believe us, just ask our ‘new’ writers that signed up a few months ago and disappeared after their first article because they simply couldn’t keep up with the high standard requirements and expectations.

We spend more time improving the quality of our articles as opposed to some competitors who often get straight to the point (sometimes only 1 sentence articles) and spend more time working on the visual aspect – thus appealing to a much younger market. So if most of the people here do fit in around the age group above, we are hoping some of them will be able to provide us with fair and valuable feedback.

Here is my response to his new comment:

But on several levels this is not very different, if at all, from the story I retold. The Scorptek website has been ‘coming soon’ for over a year now (I have been checking over that time), and now you jump out and say you’re going to be offering some massive service to people with no sort of company backing.

No offense, but I really do not care that your father was this or that. You see, you are doing EXACTLY the same thing Cooleo did back in the day: Starting off/jumping in with a massive plan that is bound to fail. 18 months of planning and researching means nothing, unless you have a truly viable plan. You say you do! But you have still failed to look at the demographic you are targeting.

You said it yourself: “Also, GMNews is really meant for a target audience of people 16-24 (people who actually have some say in household matters).” You also said: “…and the only reason we are asking the GM community about our services is because it is the only place where we already have a strong presence in the market…” If you consider people in the age range of 16-24 years, then you really have a failed business plan. The fact of the matter is this: While they may have some say in household matters, they aren’t the final decider. To top it off, if you take into account people in that age who are attending school (in a dorm), you have even less of a presence with independent people in that age range.

To be perfectly honest, I’d place money on this not working out. I hate to sound like a pessimist, but the backing exists for me to make that call.

And finally, here is his proposal for the bet:

Ok fair enough, that is your opinion.

Would you like to place bets?

I owe you $100 if we do not succeed in offering Internet and Phone services to (at the very least) the U.S. market for at least 6 months (starting within the next 12 months), and an additional $100 if we fail within the first 3 months.

You owe me $100 if we do succeed in offering such services for a minimum of 3 months, and an additional $100 if we succeed for a minimum of 6 months.

Time starts from the day the Scorptek website opens and is offering Internet and Phone services.

Are you in?

While the exact terms of the bet are still up in the air (number of customers using the service, the exact time of launch), I am confident that I will end up victorious in this bet. That being said, if I do lose, I will gladly hand over what is owed. I will keep all of you informed on the exact terms once it gets finalized!

1 Comment

How Can One Man Be So Retarded

Aug 11

Posted by Connor in Articles, Game Maker

Ah, I can already hear the choruses singing, ‘Why do you always bring up this Go Tech garbage. It is obvious he is an idiot, but why continue?’ That, my fellow readers, is why. I stopped harassing him, yet he continued to post random stupid comments on my blog. That is why I will continue. I promised him that I would make him sorry, and now he will be.

First off, stop impersonating the ESRB. I highly doubt the ESRB would waste time posting comments on my blog, and even if they did, they would most likely use an email like ’nate [at] esrb.org’, not ‘support [at] esrb.org’. I hope you know that by impersonating as an employee of a company is illegal, right? I mean, you don’t want to break even MORE rules, now do you?

Secondly, I want to point out the complete lack of intelligence in you. Ever since I felt that you were a sly and mischievous fellow, I decided that it would be best to take pictures of your websites, so if you do change your content and site (like you did, but see below for that), I will have a copy to show everyone. You see, once again outsmarted.

I also like how George claims that he is one individual, yet he posted multiple comments on the blog under multiple aliases. Oh yea, and he forgot to change his IP address. I am currently compiling a list off all of George’s comments on this blog, as well as a list of IP addresses he posted from. Once again, outsmarted.

You see George, if you would have admitted that you had broken the law with the rating logos the first time around, and if you hadn’t emailed me saying, quote ‘suck my dick’, then maybe I wouldn’t have to waste my time to do this. Unfortunately for you, you did. And on top of that, you continued to instigate things after I had finished them, so you fail. Now, let the epic pwnage begin.

First up is George James Ray Ortiz’s fan site. When t3mp3st posted the link to this a few days ago I literally laughed out loud and told my friend Tanner. Yea, he laughed too. You see, George thought it would be fine to simply redirect his fan site URL to Google to cover up his idiocy. But once again you failed. Did you not think I would be able to get the original page? Well I did, and here it is: URL and Picture.

As you can see, George created a little fan site for himself, as if anyone was a fan of him. Honestly, it looks as if you have a tumor on your chin, and you really do hurt the reputation of good big chinned people, like Super Chinned Steve. As I told the kind man named Steve, ‘You should get that shit cut off.’ I hate to bring it to personal attacks, but you left me no choice.

Your fan site also displays that you have become a fan of the Jonas Brothers. Guess what? No one cares. If you are any kind of popish, Disney Channel fan, then you are a Jonas Brothers fan. Hell, even Tanner is! That being said, no one cares that you became a fan. I mean, it’s not like George Bush endorsing Obama or anything.

The second thing of note is the copyright, which you can tell is a George classic. Instead of, ya know, initiating the copyright from the date of the site/content’s creation up until the current year, he went ahead and gave himself a copyright until 2017. Guess what asshole? You can’t do that. Do you have content on your website that is copyright 2017, 2012, etc? No. Thus, you cannot have that copyright. What a retard.

The second thing I would like to showcase is the Go Tech Games website: URL and Picture. As you can see, they thought it would be fun to claim that they use a non-existent to the public version of Game Maker, version 7.1. People don’t usually make that mistake. You claim that it isn’t the best program in the world, but that it is decent. Well guess what? If your games are shit in Game Maker, they probably won’t be any better in any other programming language or tool, shit head.

Also of note is their Go Tech Rating Co. FAQ page: URL and Picture. As you can see, they name both t3mp3st and me as immature and really rude Go Tech attackers. You see, the thing is, I have maintained my maturity throughout this entire ordeal, and all he does is worthless spam and other crap on my blog and email. Get over it. I have also asked him to remove my name from his web page, seeing as though: a) I don’t want my name on there and b) People will know Dr. Watz0n more than Connor.

No, we don’t. We don’t even agree with eachother about certain ratings. for example: we believe that Halo 3 should be rated for Teenagers, not Mature. why? Because the teenagers are playing it anyway, so whats the point of rating it mature?

Haha haha ha. You see, that is the stupidity of this guy, honestly. He says that Halo 3 should be rated Teen, yet it is in content and in game dialogue language, a Mature game. If parents buy the game for their kids then they obviously know the details about it, so rating it lower would only open yourself up to lawsuits.

How do I find out what the titles are of games GO TECH Rating Network has rated?
Since it hasn’t been requested yet, we won’t post all of the titles on our site. Right now, you will just have to contact us for them! If we get at least 5 requests, we’ll add them.

Post the titles. Post the titles. Post the titles. Post the titles. You have rated, what, 11 games? And you don’t have the five minutes to post a list of the games and their ratings? Honestly, how do you expect to succeed in the real world if you can’t dedicate a few minutes to a simple list? Oh, and post the titles.

Finally, I would just like to address one more fact. George, I don’t fool around. When I see people breaking laws or trying to scoot around rules that everyone else has to follow, I take action. I believe in a fair and just way of life. Why do you think that all of your comments have been approved and posted, uncensored? Because no matter how much you attack me, my ideals are firm. As such, I will be contacting all 8 of your George James Ray Ortiz fan group on Facebook telling them about all of this nonsense. I will also spend the time to send an email to the PR department and executive branch of the ESRB, letting them know about your copyright issues, as well as your impersonation of an ESRB employee. Finally, I would just like to thank all of the people who have sent me things, such as his Facebook page, his fan site, and other things. You guys have really helped me to expose the fraud for who he is. You are the true pwners, not me. I just write what I see. And with that, George, have a good day.

18 Comments