The past life of Robit Studios

Before I began working on TAG, a friend and I were using the Robit Studios name in an attempt to have a t-shirt empire. Although it was a lot of fun, and there was much success along the way, it was harder to break into that business than we were prepared for. You can still see our designs here: http://rumplo.com/people/person/RobitStudios. We were very much into geek culture and trying to design shirts that's made you think a little too. One of our most popular shirts was Joust, based on the classic arcade game.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Lonnie McDonald, who is a Joust champion. He can run the score of any Joust machine up to 9999999 (the max the machine can show on screen). He wanted to puachase a Joust shirt from me so he could wear them at competitions and events. Since I didn't have anymore in stock I sent him the original design files so he could get them printed up himself. 

And he did just that. He rocked the Robit Studios Joust shirt at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY over the weekend and sent me a couple photos. The fact that a video game champion (not unlike Steve Sanders and Billy Mitchell) would hunt me down for a t-shirt I created moved me so much. 

... but it does have happy endings.

After a full month of living at my parents house (while my dad recovered from pneumonia) I'm finally back home in Virginia! My dad made a great recovery and was released from the hospital just a couple of days ago. Thanks to everyone who sent me kind messages! It was definitely appreciated.

Living back home with my mom is something I've tried to avoid since I was old enough to leave home. But, I'm glad I spent that time there helping any way I could, while the family was in need. Plus, my 5-year old sister got a chance to play-test Treasure Adventure Game. She quickly became a big fan and would ask me to let her play it every day. She also told me she wants to make video games when she grows up -- Awesome!

Since I've been home I finally had some time to spend working on TAG. I jumped right into where I left off: the most complex boss fight I've done yet. Luckily I was able to pick it right back up and things are going pretty smoothly so far. Progress on TAG will now continue at a steady pace, and I hope to have the game finished this fall.

I've decided that I'm going to be using Unity for my next project. I'm absolutely in love with this dev-tool. It's been a little daunting for me in the past, because I have a limited amount of experience with scripting/programming. But, over the past month I took any free-time I had to watch tutorials and read everything I could find about Unity. The absolute best tutorial series I've ever seen on the subject is by Walker Boys Studio (link). It's as detailed as a full college course and I'm convinced that once I'm done with these videos and labs I'll be ready to create my next game in Unity.

Life is not a Game...

August will mark the 3rd year I've been developing TAG. My goal was to have a finished game available by the end of August. Even though the game is so close to being done, unfortunately, an August release is not going to happen now. When a project takes three years to complete chances are that some real-life event will occur that will delay progress, and that's exactly what has happened to me. Before I get into the details, I just want to assure you that TAG is still well on it's way to completion. It's just going to take a little longer than I had hoped for.

Two weeks ago my dad was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. I just moved away recently, and wasn't around at the time, but my understanding was that he waited to go until he could barely walk on his own. That, combined with a heavy smoking habit, has really done a number on his lungs and it's really adding to his recovery time. As I'm writing this he's currently recovering from a tracheotomy that was needed to help him ween off of the respirator that's been keeping him alive. 

Because of all this I've been back "home", helping out the rest of the family as much as I can. I've hardly had time to even think about TAG. Not to mention, I don't have my computer, notes and the rest of the resources I need to continue working on the game. TAG has been close to an obsession for me for these past three years. I hardly went a day, or maybe even an hour without thinking about it. It's amazing how all that can change so quickly when life demands your attention elsewhere. 

I believe that there are always positive things that come out of even horrible circumstances. For example, I'm learning a lot about what it means to be an adult, as well as a son. Also, since there is a lot of down time:  waiting around at the hospital and babysitting and what-not, I've been trying to take advantage by doing a lot of reading and researching about Unity 3D. I've been wanting to get into it for a long time but was forcing myself to wait until TAG was finished. Now that I've got to find ways to stay busy, and distracted I'm taking the time to learn and I'm really excited about the possibilities of using Unity for my next project. 

I know this post is pretty "rambly" and of a personal nature, but I wanted to let every one who is following the progress of TAG know why I haven't been active lately. Oh, and that reminds me, the "baddie naming" gimmick, from the last post, worked out great! I got so many great names so far. I want to thank Stefan "bitowl" Hanßen, William "Skywilly" Bertin, Patrick "Ezekiel" Ezechiele, Simon Kaizen and Peter Stock for their name suggestions. All of them will be included in the game's credits. There are still some baddies left to name. So if you want to give it a shot, refer to the last post for details on how to help out. 

Thanks again to everyone who has expressed an interest in my silly game. It will get done, I promise you all. It  will probably only be a couple more weeks before I can get back to a normal life. I think it's realistic to say that Treasure Adventure Game will be ready for you to play sometime this fall.