The rise of Cobra Blade

Cobra Blade (Real name, no gimmicks) is an independent game developer who exclusively develops for the Mac platform.  His current project is PowerSlam, a Mac wrestling game powered by the engine of MDickie's Federation Wrestling. I thought it might be interesting to interview him for the blog, especially in regards to Mac game development, and so here it is.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I'm a 27 year old indie Mac game developer from Australia. I am also a Mac gamer with currently around 65 Mac games. My main interests are games, anime, as well as steampunk and cyberpunk.

What compelled you to become a game designer?

Well I have always been very artistic. The furthest back I can remember I wanted to create games. I use to draw all sorts of characters and think up stories and what the game would be like. For the most part they were all fighting based game ideas with the odd exception.

How did you become introduced to games?

Ah, I can blame my parents for that and my gaming addiction. They have a photo of me at around 6 months of age playing the Atari 2600. I've played games ever since. Growing up I got a Commodore 64 and then every SEGA console from the Master System onwards. Once SEGA pulled out of the console war I did too and don't play as many console games as I use to.

What tools do you use to create your games?

Well I have used all sorts in the past but I suppose the best place to focus is on my 1st finished project, Soulless. For this I started out in NovaShell, but being as hopeless at coding as I am I got frustrated so Googled game engines for the Mac that needed no programming. That is how I found Power Games Factory which I used to create Soulless from that point on.

Why do you exclusively make games for the Macintosh? Have you considered other platforms (Including Mobile, Web etc)

Game creation is very time consuming, even if you have nothing to show for it but a lot of half finished games. So I ended up retiring this aspect of my life for the remainder of being a PC owner.  It wasn't until as a Mac owner I came across the game Kill Monty and saw the logo "OMG Original Mac Games". As a Mac gamer, this really spoke to me. I felt this was exactly what the platform needed, more original games. As game creation was what I always wanted to do, it just felt right. Supporting other platforms certainly isn't out of the question, although the Mac will always be my main priority.

How did your deal with MDickie come about?

After the disappointment of how Soulless was received and having it compared to games made by entire studios I decided to try and think outside the square. What was something that hasn't been done before? Since I have been a fan of wrestling games for some time this sprung to mind. There are not any wrestling games on the Mac and very few even on PC. Wrestling games however are extremely complex,and there was one I thought was a lot of fun that I played a long time ago. So I contacted Mat and asked him if I could licence the engine from him.

I understand that Soulless has been distributed through pirate channels. How did you feel about this?

Really shocked and really hurt. A lot of hard work and money went into making it that I'll never get back and you really feel awful when someone just takes that all away from you and gives it away leaving you with nothing. What really keeps me going though are the people that have supported me by buying my game. So a huge thank you goes out to them.

Tell us about how you went about marketing and selling Soulless

As a regular customer of Macgamestore my original goal was to get it onto there. When I was knocked back from there I asked Wally of Game Socks (another store I regularly visit) if I could get my game on his site. He told me they source their games from Reflexive so I contacted them. Reflexive were great and gave me suggestions they thought would make my game more marketable so I did this and have had my game on there ever since. Aside from this I also put a demo out on all of the major Mac file portals and even submitted it to Apple themselves who have it on their games download section.

Are there any indie game developers that you admire or draw inspiration from?

Funnily enough when I started out I had no real idea there were others like me doing whole games on their own, my goal in the beginning was to make games and get noticed by a big company like SEGA. Today though, I know a lot more and I take pride in being independent. As for admiration, after seeing Mat's code itself that powers his games I have to say his name comes to mind as does yourself having seen your coding ability firsthand also. Jesse Simko is also awesome and to be honest, just how easy and fun his Power Game Factory was inspired me to finally see a game through from start to finish. I swear that game creator is just as much fun as playing a game itself.

Finally, if someone was to ask you for advice about becoming a game designer, what would you tell them?

Mat Dickie said it is often a thankless job and he wasn't wrong. More often than not your single handed effort will be compared to what is done by entire studios so just ignored. Or even worse, if like myself your main focus is of more retro type games as that is what you feel is most enjoyable you even get those who will say they can just illegally download game X for free and run it on an emulator so why pay money for your game. Don't take it too much to heart if that happens though. I mean some of the most hated games by some can be loved by others. I know some of my favourite games aren't hits by any means. Also be sure to try and stick to one project, as you will find yourself with a million ideas flying through your head, but if you jump from one game to the other you'll end up in the situation I was in back when I tried to be a indie PC game maker and end up with just a whole bunch of unfinished games. Despite all the cons the great feeling you get when people buy your game and like it can't be described.

Cobra Blade can be contacted through his website at cobrablade.com. He also maintains a blog at insidemacgames.com

A couple of months back at the Auckland Drupal meetup, organiser Michael Dance gave an excellent talk on optimising Drupal performance. I thought that it might be useful for me to summarise what I got out of the session, and that it might be interesting to both Drupal users and non Drupal users alike that follow this blog.

Note that these enhancements deal only with optimising performance for anonymous users (Authenticated users is much trickier) and most of these should be turned off during site development.

Optimising the codebase

High level Drupal sites require both maximum performance and maximum stability. The problem with performance and stability is that they are often mutually exclusive, and the core Drupal team is focused on providing stability above everything else.

That's where PressFlow comes in. PressFlow is a custom version of the latest stable Drupal version that is fully compatible (As far as I am aware) with all existing contributed modules, but contains numerous performance enhancements as well.

Optimising the Drupal application

Drupal has several built in performance optimisation settings, but these are turned off by default in order to not interfere with site development.

They can be found under the Administration > Site configuration > Performance menu, and should be turned on when the site goes live. This contains several settings for page caches, as well as optimising CSS and Javascript.

Optimisation at the PHP level

Whenever the web server needs to interpret PHP code, it will take a performance hit.

The Drupal Boost module can bypass PHP (and therefore, Drupal) altogether, by creating cached HTML versions of the pages on your site. When the underlying web server is properly configured, it will use these static HTML versions instead, only running the Drupal PHP code if an HTML version does not exist.

Optimisation at the web server level

It's not a stretch to say that Apache is the most powerful web server software available, but that power comes with a relatively high processor and memory footprint.

For sites requiring better performance, a smaller but highly optimised web server such as nginx might be a better alternative.

Optimisation before the web server level

No matter how optimised, a web server will take a performance hit every time a user directly connects to it.

Instead of allowing direct access to your site, you could direct traffic to a reverse proxy server (Also known as a 'HTTP Accelerator') which will serve the pages on the web server's behalf, only interacting with the web server if it does not have a stored copy of the required page. Varnish is an extremely high performance reverse proxy server that has the added bonus of having a Drupal module for tight integration.

Although I don't have a dedicated server, and therefore can't do all of these optimisations, I'll definitely look into at least PressFlow and Boost.

I am now a veteran of the Retro Remakes competition, the 48 Hour Global Game Jam, Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo, having successfully completed entries for all of these within the allocated time.

Yet, every time I do one of those things, I find myself really struggling until near the end. In the aftermath of Script Frenzy, I thought it might be useful for me to write down and share my ideas on completing creative projects while they're still fresh in my mind, and so here it is:

First off, I believe that the most commonly given excuse, lacking time, is not normally the cause of creative projects not being completed:

Let's take this perfectly plausible conversation.

PERSON A: For years I've wanted wanted to write a novel about [such and such]
PERSON B: That sounds great, why don't you?
PERSON A: Well, you know, between work and raising the kids and exercise and [blah blah, long list of important things that need to be done] I just don't have the time.

I think there are very few people who don't actually  have the time to do the creative projects that they want to do.

Consider this, the basic minimum acceptable novel length is around 50,000 words (Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye etc). Spread that out over a year, that's just over 137 words. Maybe one or two paragraphs per day! Most people could easily fit that amount of writing into a coffee break. Some people could do far, far more in the same time.

Also, there's weekends, statutory holidays, annual leave from work etc. I am not saying that every free moment should be sunk into a creative endeavour, but how many of us truly couldn't put aside on average just half an hour day to work on a creative project that we really want to come to fruition?

I believe that the real issue is just a lack of motivation:

Working on creative projects is, frankly, really hard work, particularly between the 20% and 80% complete mark. And my theory of stress is, that given the possible expected outcomes of a decision, a human being will always choose the option he or she expects will cause the least amount of stress. Is it less stressful to work out the wording of the dramatic scene you want to write, or to re-check your twitter feed that you already did twenty minutes ago? Ummm..

Unless it is an idea you really exceptionally care about, creating the project in of itself is not normally enough motivation to complete it. Here are the ways that I build motivation:

1. Set a deadline - The most important thing you can do, which will help you prioritise that project over everything else that wants your attention.
2. Positive rewards - Allow yourself to have something nice for finishing the project.
3. Negative rewards - Do something like give money to the NRA if you miss the deadline. Alternatively, you could just stop playing games, watching TV etc until the project is complete.
4. Minimise distractions -  How difficult is it to unplug that ethernet cable or flick the wireless switch on your laptop?
5. Announce and discuss the project frequently - Which in itself can be a positive or negative reward, depending if you actually see it through!
6. Draft or prototype - As Stephen King says, the first draft of anything sucks. There's no point in trying to build it the exact right way the first time (Which is next to impossible) so just whip out a complete, if rough, iteration of the project as soon as you can.
7. Try to write every thought about your project - It's distracting to try and hold an idea in your mind until you actually implement it.
8. Keep a list of stuff left to do - It's a waste of time to open up a project and have to work out what you're supposed to be doing next.
9. Prioritise the list of stuff left do do - The easiest way to do this is ask yourself "If I can only do one more thing on the project, what would it be?"
10. Schedule the list of stuff left to do - Write a date next to each item on your to-do list. While this can be demoralising if you miss a deadline and have to start over, I find doing this gives useful reassurance that (Assuming your deadlines are achievable) that the project is possible to complete.
11. Know what you're supposed to do ahead of time - I find that if you know you're meant to do something by the end of a particular day, you'll keep that task in the back of your mind, and work on it mentally during the course of the day.
     
12. EDIT - As Josh had mentioned in the comments below, sometimes you need to force yourself to work on something, even if it's only a small addition. No Plot? No Problem! The official guide of NaNoWriMo suggests that you'll lose serious momentum if you take more than one day off from the project. Something that may help is to try working on a different part of your project, you could stop programming and do art, or you could stop writing that boring dinner table scene and start writing the awesome action packed climax to your novel.
13. Also, as Josh has mentioned, it helps setting aside a particular time to work on your project. The only problem is I've never been successful in doing that! Setting a time in the evenings or in the weekend is bound to be interrupted by social obligations, and setting a time in the morning before work.. well.. it's a struggle for me to get up most days!
14. Make your project about something you have a passion for. If you don't like reading epic historical romances or watching oscar winning dramas, don't try to make one!

Well, that's it! Some of it is pretty obvious, but I thought it might be useful none the less. Hope it helps.

Script Frenzy is nearly half over, and well, I'm having a real struggle. Only at 29 pages, which isn't too far behind (I should be at around 43 by now) though I restarted my script on Friday after I came up with a different idea.

I never really thought Script Frenzy would be more difficult for me then NaNoWriMo is, since you only have to write about half as much (100 pages of film script is approx 20,000 words). Though the additional burden of formatting makes it a lot harder to just write stream of conciousness, and you can't just load your sentences with useless adverbs until you reach 50k.

Also, I am really struggling with the story. I had been thinking about the characters in my NaNoWriMo novel for years, I only came up with most of the characters in my script this month.

That's not to say I'm about to throw in the towel though - I will write this damn script, this month, even if it's the worst script even written.

But I do have to go into crunch mode though. I'll have to stay away from the blog, movies, games and as much of the Internet as humanly possible until the damn thing is done.

Well, see you next month!