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Forward

On February 17th, 2025, my friend James Carlson (Jim) passed away just four days after his 50th birthday. Although Jim had many interests, one we shared, and I encouraged him on many occasions to cultivate, was Game Development.

The purpose of this post is to fondly recount the good times we’d shared, joking, plugging away at silly game ideas, and daydreaming about what it would be like to do this for a living…

I don’t think either of us really believed we’d make a career out of it… At best, I’d impart technical skills that might have helped him to escape the endless procession of entry-level, dead-end jobs he’d often lamented. At worst, it would have been a pleasant distraction.

In the Beginning…

“We should make him eat acorns!”
– James R. Carlson, 2/13/1975-2/17/2025

Jim and I met online in late 2014 when he logged on to an MMO I was active on to tell us that his brother had died in a car accident. I befriended Jim, and we eventually began corresponding over email. Later that year, Jim announced that he’d hit rock bottom and dreaded the new job he was starting at a Pizza and Fried Chicken buffet restaurant. We brainstormed other career ideas he might pursue, and after a couple of false starts, he decided to try his hand at blogging.

I created a website (www.porkcircus.com) for him, and for the next couple of weeks, Jim posted, and I edited (formatted, corrected spelling and grammar, etc.). Jim had a real talent for off-the-wall commentary that would give Matthew Inman a run for his money… For the next couple of weeks, we posted articles, recipes, [mis]quotes, and so on. I had a backlog of post ideas, kept a regular publishing schedule, and got a lot of enjoyment out of it for a brief while.

Unfortunately, Jim’s interest in the project waned within a couple of weeks, and his contributions only accounted for about 1/7th of the total posts, not including the half-dozen he’d started but never finished.

2016 was a tumultuous year for me. I worked 80 hours a week trying to shape up the Project Management Office of a corrupt Saudi solutions broker, but ultimately failed. Unable to find a new job, I took my savings and returned to the US. Unemployed and with nothing but time, I decided to try to teach myself game development in earnest. After completing the GPC (or at least as much as I could), and as Eric had dropped out, I decided to engage Jim.

On January 28th, 2017, Jim and I spent about 6 hours on a Google Hangouts call, developing the first iteration of what would become Porker: The Quest for Tastiness. While Jim drank beer and shouted suggestions and obscenities, I furiously coded, photoshopped Creative Commons-licensed artwork, and edited royalty-free sound effects. Over the next couple of days, we had:

• An Objective: Collect Acorns to increase your “Tastiness” score
• A Win Condition: Complete all five levels
• A Lose Condition: Lose all of your lives by colliding with dangerous obstacles

My goal was to publish a game, ANY game, no matter how simple, as long as it was complete and playable. I couldn’t rightly call myself a ‘Game Developer’ until I’d published a Game, and following the advice of the Extra Credits series on the topic, I did just that and moved on.

Fleeting Fame

A couple of weeks later, I discovered that someone had created a Let’s Play video for Porker, which inspired me to expand on it further. My mind raced with the possibility of it becoming a viral hit, but at the time, I’d been out of work for nearly a year, and my savings were dwindling. Somehow, around mid-April of ’17, I managed to complete and republish Porker. My “marketing campaign” didn’t go anywhere, and Jim had problems of his own…

Return to Reality

By May, I’d started a new job, and for the rest of the year, I was catching up on half a decade of advancements in Enterprise Information Technology… By December, I was dabbling with the GPC again, coming to grips with the reality of being a solo game developer, and itching to start creating again.

Jim and I flirted with the idea of a sequel, “Porker II: The Adventure Begins,” which was intended to be a top-down Legend of Zelda-style [primitive] Action RPG. I’d begun creating tilesets for it:

Unable to pique Jim’s interest, I partnered with a co-worker, Jason (an application developer by trade), instead, and we created Milk Smugglers. Unfortunately, it was never published for reasons not worth dredging up.

Intermittent Interests

Jim and I never formally resumed our work on Porker II, but over the years, we would occasionally kick around the idea and brainstorm what that might look like. James was also a big fan of Shoot ’em Ups (SHMUPs), and while I was beginning work on Purgatory Purgers, Jim took a passing interest in creating SHMUP…

“damn you, went and got me interested in learning make a game again. think im going to set myself a September chgallenge. One shootey space game. Scroller type. Have score, enemies, a couple power ups, gui, home screen. all basic. I’ll use inkscape shapes as place holders if i have to. but the real challenge will come from not using a follow along tutorial – but actually read the documents and do it myself.”
– Jim, August 31, 2023

Unfortunately, Jim opted to use Godot rather than GameMaker, so I was unable to assist him with the code. However, I did create some graphics for him:

Although Jim never got a working prototype up and running, I managed to put together a quick and dirty GameMaker game using the assets I’d created for him.  The final result looked like this:

The style I was going for was a Terry Gilliam-style cutout animation, the sort of thing you’d find in a Monty Python episode. Jim had a terrible habit of never finishing anything he started, and this, too, was no exception. Still, it was an amusing diversion while it lasted!

Regrets

In December last year, I began working on a new SHMUP using modified graphics from Milk Smugglers. Over the Christmas holiday, I managed to get the basic engine, movement, power-ups, a few enemies, and other features working, but I ran out of time and abandoned the project.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever pick it back up. I might make it a tribute to his memory. On the other hand, it troubles me that he’d never get a chance to play it…

Background

For the last 10 years, I’ve bought pre-built PCs rather than building my own. This began in 2013, when I was traveling internationally and needed something robust yet portable. I didn’t want to lug around desktops, so I bought a pair of iBUYPOWER Valkyrie CZ-17s, one for me and one for my wife:

They served us well for about 4 years, and while I considered replacing the internal GPUs with GTX 980s, upgrading to desktops made more sense since we were now homebodies.

Once again, we bought iBUYPOWER systems, and like their mobile workstation counterparts, they are still running strong today. My intent at the time was to get at least 3-4 years out of them, and so far, we’ve managed over 5.

Could I squeeze another 2-3s out of them? Probably, but not at a level of performance I’d be happy with. I considered the upgrade path, but in order to get into a 30-series video card, I’d need to replace the following:

• The motherboard: the ASUS Prime Z270-K uses a PCIe 3.0 card slot (RTX 30 and 40 series cards utilize PCIe 4.0*)
• The CPU: Core i7 7700K  processors use an LGA 1151 socket; new motherboards use the LGA 1700 socket.
• The power supply: 650Ws isn’t enough for a 3080, I’d need at least 750W (although 850W would be better)

I could potentially keep the RAM (32GB DDR4 3200), case, and possibly the drives, but not the CPU AIO (it wouldn’t be powerful enough, even with an LGA 1700 socket adapter, assuming I could even find one)…in short, ~$1,840 worth of upgrades. In other words, I may as well buy a completely new system…

*Both 30 series and 40 series Nvidia GPUs can be used in PCIe 3.0 slots, albeit at reduced performance. 

The New Rigs

Once again, I went back to iBUYPOWER, and for about $2,167/system, I would get:

• Intel Core i7 12700K @ 5 GHz (Turbo)
• ASRock Z690 PG Riptide motherboard
• 32GB DDR4 @ 3200MHz
• NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti 12GB of VRAM
• 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Primary Drive
• Corsair RM850 850W – 80 PLUS Gold, Fully Modular power supply

I placed my orders on the morning of October 19th, 2022. A sales associate confirmed the orders later that day, and my card was charged. A couple of days later, the order went into the parts-gathering phase, where it says for days, then weeks…

Missed Deadlines

The scheduled ship date of November 2, 2022, came and went without a peep from iBUYPOWER. When I contacted them for an update, I was told that there would be a delay because the case model I selected was out of stock. They’d known this since October 21st, but rather than notify me and offer alternative options (e.g., a substitute model), they sat on it until I contacted them for an update.

I was told that they expected a shipment of new cases on Monday, November 8th, and that my build could continue once they were unloaded and scanned into inventory. When I didn’t hear anything at the end of the week, I checked back (again). This time, I received a canned answer citing organization-wide COVID-related delays, issues with the RTX 4090 power connectors, and so on. I asked if I could get a revised scheduled ship date and was told frankly that they couldn’t say when they’d ship but not to expect anything sooner than 7-10 business days (i.e., I would receive it sometime after November 24th, over three weeks later than the originally scheduled ship date…).

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

“Should I stay or should I go?”
– The Clash

I happily paid them over $4,334 of my hard-earned cash, with the good-faith expectation of receiving my merchandise the second week of November. Had I known that the true ship date would be closer to December 2nd, I would NOT have placed the order.

While I had no doubt that I’d eventually receive my order, I was not confident in what I would actually get… if they’re as busy as they claim to be, how do I know my systems will be built, tested, and packaged properly to ensure that I get what I paid for? What if a part is DOA? Am I to wait ANOTHER 5-6 weeks to get a replacement, with the Christmas rush around the corner?

###

As painful as it was, I decided to cancel the order and buy from someone else. After looking at a few other custom builders, I decided to take a chance with Alexander PCs, a boutique PC builder. I learned about them through a YouTube channel specializing in custom PC content.

I intended to purchase a read-to-ship system, but they didn’t have any on hand that supported an RTX 3080. Due to a misunderstanding (mine, not theirs), I purchased two systems that they had the parts for but were not yet assembled, and here’s what I ended up with:

• Intel Core i7 12700K
• ASUS TUF Gaming Z690-PLUS WIFI D4
• Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB DDR4 @ 3600MHz
• MSI RTX 3080 Gaming Z Trio 10GB LHR
• 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Primary Drive
• Corsair iCUE 4000D case
• Corsair RM850 850W

The RAM is slightly better, the video card is slightly worse, but it’s a big step up from my aging GTX 1080. I had to drop down to a Core i5 12600K processor and an RTX 3070 graphics card on my wife’s PC, but for the games she was playing, that was more than enough.

We placed the orders on November 10th and finally received them on December 7, just under 4 weeks later. All in all, I was happy enough with the purchase, but not something I’m looking forward to doing again.

A couple of weeks ago, I found a new job through a good friend of mine. It’s a technical role, pretty much what I was looking for…The pay could be better, but it’s good enough for now.

They have a lot of challenges, but none are particularly difficult to resolve. It’s just going to take time and money, and the business has to decide to move forward.

Needless to say, I’ve got about 2-3 months worth of 60+ hour weeks ahead of my friend and me to right the course. Once things are stable enough to be able to work only 40 hours a week, I can return to game development. Until then, I’ll just have to pick at it when time and energy permit…

In my last post, I began working my way through the free video lessons on www.gameprogrammingcourse.com and it’s associated YouTube channel.

It’s important to note that the YouTube channel is supplementary to the website, not the other way around; as such, if you arrive at the YouTube channel first (as I did) you might find yourself scratching your head when you get to the playlists, particularly where to start…

If you’re looking for Level 01, that’s on his website here. There isn’t a video for this as you’re just downloading and installing GMS, the videos begin at Level 02.

###

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been 2 days since I started these courses, and I just finished Level 04, which wasn’t a lesson series, but rather a series of challenges designed to utilize all the skills I’d acquired in Levels 02 and 03.

Random Solutions

One of the problems we’d be wrestling with is game speed and it’s effect on action timing. Suppose you plant a brick wall in front a horde of advancing peasants.

Event > Collision > Obj_Peasant > Obj_BrickWall

//subtracts 1 hitpoint from the brick wall upon collision
with other {
hp=hp-1
}

Assuming you’ve given the Obj_BrickWall an instance variable called “hp” (i.e. hitpoints) and assigned a numeric value to it (e.g. 100), it would take one peasant about 3.2 seconds or so to break it down as he’s colliding with it 30 times a second, dealing 1 damage each time.

My solution to this was simple, but lacking – give the wall more hitpoints, say 1000 for instance. This isn’t a very elegant way to handle this, but it worked, and it took a peasant about 32 seconds or so to break down the wall, which is what I was looking for.

Then I completed Level 03, and in the process of doing so, learned about irandom_range (#,#). What this does is allow you to replace any integer with randomized range of numbers. For example, you could have the peasant do a savings throw (much like a tabletop RPG) to determine whether or not he landed a successful blow. That would look something like this:

//Utilizes a random number to determine whether or not a hit is scored,
//subtracts 1 hitpoint from the brick wall upon successful roll.

savingsthrow=irandom_range(0,100)

If savingsthrow=1 {
with other {
hp=hp-1
}
}

As such, the peasant has ~30 chances a second to hit the wall, dealing 1 point of damage on every successful hit. Towards the end of Level 03, and a few times in Level 04, this method was used as a makeshift timer of sorts to throttle the speed of an event by adjusting the range (i.e. bigger range = more time, smaller range = less time).

Looking ahead toward Level 05, I suspect that this will be replaced with a far more precise way of handling timing.