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[JobLeonard]

Aww, no coop games?

[teefal]

We play Elder Scrolls together, but yesterday we were in separate places.  Our big one lately is Smash Brothers, but I think my daughter is getting too good.

[oahda]

Heh, lots of Pokémon X and Scribblenauts here too lately.

Good and bad to hear the varying news, but it seems like you're getting stuff done at a decent rate anyway. Do get some rest!

[teefal]

Thanks Prinsessa.  My wife plays Pokemon X with my daughter, but I never got in on that.  Played HeartGold a while back though.

[teefal]

It's been a while since I posted, as I've been heads-down on the alpha 3 release.  After finishing the new features two weeks ago, I found a whopping 40 bugs during our initial testing, which took me two weeks to fix.

Saturday's joy at reaching zero bugs was short-lived.  Yesterday's five hours of testing yielded another 30 bugs, eight of them show-stoppers, preventing our release.

As I wake this morning, I'm sick about it.  I've been neglecting my billable project, my daughter's homeschooling, my house chores, and myself.  Every responsible part of me says, "Put Tidepool on the shelf a while and tend to important things."   Every hopeful part says, "You're almost there ... keep going."

Last autumn, I listened to the responsible part and lost six months of Tidepool time.   As this new autumn starts, I have 150 playtesters waiting for the release, many of whom will forget their initial interest if too much time goes on.

Doing both billable and Tidepool is a practical choice, but I've been on the edge of debilitating burnout for a while now.  Also, my track record balancing both hasn't been great.  In the four months since last release, I've lost a whopping $15,000 of net income by putting Tidepool first.

So what's the choice?   Tidepool on the shelf?   Delay billable a bit more?   Do both and risk burnout?

The only certain thing is my 30 new bugs, which will not go away on their own.

[JobLeonard]

Have you thought of finding someone else interested in the project (on a technical level) to help you out?

[teefal]

The trick with bringing someone on at this point is balancing my bandwidth.  The codebase is fairly large, and while it's clean and mostly understandable, it'll take significant ramp up time for someone new to be productive.   Between helping them acclimate and reviewing their work, it's only worth it for me if my own time is less than it would take for me to do it all myself.  In the near term at least, I just don't see that happening.  I'm very productive, on average.

If I had funds to pay a senior developer or two, I'd farm out chunks of Milestone 4 (Oct) and 6 (Dec) ... there's some new functionality in both that could be delegated.   I do know some world-class developers and have managed them before on large projects.   They'd cost at least $90/hour though, and that would be charity for them.

With decades in the business, I know very well that you get what you pay for.

[teefal]

After painstaking analysis, the new version of Tidepool has 255 actions you can take, either by clicking, typing, or issuing commands.

Of these, there are 67 "overlaps" ... different ways to do the same thing (press a key or click a button).   This leaves 188 unique actions.

I'm making my "happy path" walkthrough to test expected behavior, which gets nearly doubled as actions need multiplayer verification too.

[Moth]

Hey, don't worry about people losing interest- there will be those that stay, and there will always be opportunities for new people to become interested (especially when you launch a kickstarter or something). Most importantly, don't neglect yourself!

The way I look at off-time is that it gives you time to further plan your direction once you get back to work. Every time I've had a project paused to pick up later it has only been better for the off-time. If you feel you have to take a break for a while, then do so.

Perhaps to avoid burnout you could work two weeks on, two weeks off- using your off time to cleanse your palate, stay on top of other work and figure out what should be next for this project- then digging back in. If you're worried about a lack of public activity for this game while you take a break from it, you could always produce updates in a batch and then stagger their release to one a week. You could also always just make updates that have your musings about and ideas for the project in its downtime.

[teefal]

Thanks Moth.  Today's much better after two days away.  Lesson learned ... take a weekend like the rest of the planet.

Getting those playtesters from last June's conference took a lot of work and money, which is why I guess I'm worried about losing them, if I haven't already. As a good friend said yesterday, this would all be much easier if I just didn't worry about it

I agree that "walk away time" is great for creative perspective.  The downside is losing the cloud of interconnected details inhabiting my brain right now.  Ramp up time is always a factor after a break.

Anyway, I've decided to finish this version and take a break after that.  Hoping to show it off at NY Maker Faire.  (I'm putting 3D scans of clay models in the game as avatars.)

[JobLeonard]

Lesson learned ... take a weekend like the rest of the planet.

Next lesson: do this regularly, until your cortisol levels are back at normal and you no longer risk getting an ulcer.

I mean it!

[teefal]

Thanks JobLeonard.  I'm doing that this weekend ... sort of.  We're going to Maker Faire in New York City for two days.

And I'm down to two bugs!   (unfortunately both blockers)

[teefal]

Kismet book chapter 22 - maker faire morning

From the eleventh floor of our Queens hotel, I see new Manhattan skyscrapers, several bridges, and a row of cliffs along the Hudson where lies Alpine, my childhood home. Before me is a panoramic view of my father’s ambitions, with the vibrance and energy of New York emerging in his youth, then his agency on Madison Avenue, his move across the river to Englewood Cliffs, his commute ten minutes north along the Palisades.

We’re here for Maker Faire, a grand collection of DIY inventors and artists, all showing each other what’s possible with some found materials and a little ingenuity.  I’ve been talking Tidepool with many of them, including Stephen Wolfram, of Mathematica fame, and Gary Stager, a long-time collaborator of Seymour Papert.  In a few hours, I'll show Paula and Isabel the nifty things I found yesterday.  I’m hoping Isabel takes away some of the shared optimism and motivation found here in abundance, that most precious of attitudes: that there’s nothing she can’t do.

Looking out on my father’s city, seeing the towers and roadways of my own young imaginings, I’m feeling less than brave.  Seeing the bright eyes at Maker Faire with Kickstarter hopes and wild ideas, I’m feeling daunted and exhausted.  Standing on the edge of Tidepool’s first public alpha, with hundreds waiting to use it, I’m feeling afraid.

In the womb I likely walked these paths at the 64/65 World’s Fair at which computers were first shown and Disney’s magical toys made their debut.  Now a half century later, though given every advantage for this exact moment, I feel not up to the task.  I’m wishing for more of the ego-driven arrogance of my father and his city.

For Tidepool to succeed,  I need to create beauty.  I need to build community.  I need to find play.  To make my dreams real, I need to spread my light like blazes all across the sky.  To achieve my life’s work, to make real my ambitions, to outlast my own life, I need somehow to find my courage.  On this morning, in this place, I don’t believe I can.

[teefal]

Hi everyone,

After running a gauntlet of showstopper bugs and last-minute preparations, I’m very pleased to announce the launch of our first public Tidepool alpha!

Tidepool Alpha 3 adds true programmability to your sketches, allowing you to make games and stories that interact with players.

Since this is an alpha release, you should expect to find some unexpected behavior or slow spots.  Everything will get smoother, faster, and easier.

More than 150 of you have signed up to playtest Tidepool, so we’re going to roll things out slowly to assure we don’t swamp our server.

Before playing, you’ll need to pick a slot in our schedule.  We’re allowing ten new players a day in the first week, which should allow us to fix performance issues.

For more details, visit the launch page, which includes a five-minute Welcome Video.

Take care,
Timothy

p.s.  Watch us play together in our Let’s Play Tidepool YouTube series.

[niccokunzmann]

Hi Tim,

I have a suggestion that would be very new to programming games:
"Enable libraries"

You, as a developer of Tidepool, only expose the basics like position, direction, surroundings.
As a player of Tidepool one can use them to create own functions and see the functions of other players.
This way I could make a "move" command and others can use it. Also, the "here" command would not be hard-coded by you but I could import it. If I do not like the distance, I can edit it.

I feel that this way you would give people more access and involve them much more.
It is a multiplayer programming game, so, one should be able to program together.

Regards,
Nicco

[teefal]

Hi Nicco,

You're able to create your own commands now by defining rules, so:

#cinder when "mosey", forward 2

will let you

#cinder mosey

As for changing default values, that's a good idea.  I also have APIs in the schedule for the later milestones.  We plan to support mods using Java, Ruby, Python ... and I forgot the last one.

[teefal]

Highlight from 2nd Let's Play Tidepool episode ...



My daughter "fixed" her mom's goat drawing, then made it huge and terrifying.  

Also note my elephant that I drew during the tutorials.

[JobLeonard]

You're a wonderful dad, with a wonderfully supportive family

Maybe you want to add the ability to pan across the canvas?

[teefal]

Thanks JobLeonard.

Do you mean add scroll bars inside the drawing canvas?

I considered it but left them out for simplicity.  I'll try it both ways and see how the kids react.

It would help with that chop-image-from-right bug, though so does resizing the canvas window.

[teefal]

Highlight from

...



Isabel has gone on a graffiti spree.  My poor elephant

She's also gotten serious about making new agents ... everything on our lexicon above "alpha 3" is in the last two days.

(Yes, I know the GIFs aren't updating correctly.  I'll get to that