So, with the advent of of my acceptance into the Oculus Launch Pad program and their generosity in providing me with Quest (1) – I’ve been trying to spend as much time seeing how I can port my Rift/ Vive game over to mobile VR.

Lemme tell ya’, it ain’t easy folks.

A common complaint among gamers is ‘how hard is it to make a VR port?’ often echoed by RPG fans who long to play their beloved 200 hour hack-n-slasher standing up, swinging their broadsword while hewing foes left and right… I just had a minor panic attack just thinking about getting that to work in VR.

I have come to the conclusion that I will slap people upside the head with a freshly caught haddock if they even mention porting games – I nearly burst several blood vessels in trying to port my VR game to ANOTHER VR system. It already HAD VR support built in! Just switching from PC build to Android caused me to have to rebuild dozens of systems that I thought should work with zero problems.

Playmaker? Hello? Why do I have to rebuild FSM’s that work in another project? I’m not changing anything! Why won’t my assets work? Why is Unity asking if I’m missing a reference or an assembly – I ADDED IT, NITZ!

All this time, I’ve been doing this because the launch of Quest 2 might just be a huge explosion of the VR market – since its cheap, easy to lug somewhere to show grandma and the folk at SideQuest make it ridiculously easy to sideload apps to the device. Since I’m doing this whole game dev thing to donate part of the proceeds to autism awareness, I gotta get the proceeds – and that means getting my game in front of as many eyeballs as I can muster.

I finally got it uploaded to SideQuest. yesterday. And already there are a dozen problems with it.

And my poor game languishes off to the back of the room, wondering when I’ll get back to it…

So just as I’m making the push to get my game onto the Quest, I noticed my Rift started blacking out. Kiddo #2 had pointed out that there were times this happened when he played Minecraft in VR. I hadn’t really paid attention to it – but it started happening every time I put on the headset.

Based on what I’ve found on the interwebs, its the cable that connects the Rift to the PC – a rarified piece of tech that is no longer being made, is impossible to find and even broken ones are sold on eBay for 50+ dollars.

Which is an absolute shame – I was super proud when it was delivered – it was part of the Oculus Start program – designed to give people the ability to create for this amazing new medium, and while I despise the practices of their parent company – Oculus has really been a boon to developers who otherwise could not afford the heft entrance fee.

With their abandoning the Rift line and focusing more on the Quest, Oculus is signaling the end of an era. One I’m not terribly thrilled over; but one I have to accept as the tides are changing. Desktop VR will be more of a specialty – cost prohibitive and bulky. Mobile VR will keep expanding as its cheaper, easier to transport and set up.

So, after researching what was happening – and the lack of solutions, I started asking around in the various game dev outlets that I’m a part of – and in the Oculus Start discord, I got a suggestion to reach out to the Developer Support team, which I did… and I’m now getting a Rift S in a few weeks. Again, Oculus is amazing at taking care of indie devs. I hope the new headset brings as much joy as the old one did.

In another ending – I finished off a tub of gesso I got back in NYC when I worked at Pearl Paint, some 24 or 25 years ago.

Many a painting started from this humble can, some I sold, some I’ve gifted, others languishing away in a closet. Yet another piece of NYC comes to an end. When I got this, I was living in the greatest city in the world, I was hugely into rollerblading, doing a whole host of chemical colorants and learning just how tough the art industry truly is. And how little it paid.

I wish the art I created with this lives on long after I’ve faded from memory.

So, last week – as I’m busy planning a family camping trip with our neighbors; as sort of a ‘end of summer / welcome school & fall’ getaway, I get an email that kinda slammed the brakes on everything:

This will be happening EXACTLY when we are supposed to be camping. Wife, 2 kids, Neighbors & their kids in the next campsite. Marshmallows over the fire. nature hikes.

$#!+.

So; after a brief conference with the missus, she decides that Launch Pad aside, she really wants to go camping (even if it is for just one night) and wants to give me a little free time so I can focus on this with no distraction.

I’ve been applying to this for the past 2 or 3 years; and OF COURSE I get it THIS year. Any other year, they would have flown me out to San Jose, free hotel, food, the works. I went out for Oculus Connect 5 a couple of years ago and it was simply amazing.

OH well – I will certainly take what I can get.This is too much of an opportunity, even if it is from the comfort of my desk (thank goodness my wife grabbed a couple of the high tech industrial chairs from her office when they were throwing them away – my back feels SO much better)

Even more exciting is that Oculus is sending us all a Quest for further development work; and I have been desperately wanting one for the longest time. It’ll be a pain in the ass to wrangle my game onto it (as I have just the tiniest amount of Android dev experience) BUT – if I can get this to work and the world doesn’t end; demoing my game will be several measures easier, since I won’t have to lug around a whole PC, VR headset, speakers, etc. OR… I could bring BOTH and be able to demo even more; since I usually end up with a line in front of my booth… Hmm.

In the meantime.. I’m joining the Discord channel they set up and their online hub and chatting with people – I got to share info about the Playmaker Slack, nice to add to our ranks of ‘non-coders’ Now I just need to network my @$$ off to see if there is any grant $$ to be had out there…

Back before the world came to a halt, I had set up a cork board with ‘big picture’ reminders, namely a weekly organizer so I didn’t let any aspect of dev work slip without giving it some attention.

I had:

• Marketing Monday – make some attempt at promoting my game
• Tech Tuesday – make backups, clean and organize my projects
• Writing Wednesday – blog, write marketing materials, grant proposals
• Texture Thursday – create assets and art
• Free-for-all-Friday – which I’m now considering changing to Followup Friday

When I woke up this morning, I saw my board and realized, I hadn’t written a blog post since JUNE, I felt it was high time to rectify that – even though I rarely get more than a glance or two (and most of my hits are bots and scrapers) I still feel its important to keep up with scribbling down hasty notes about my development journey – on the hopes that someone might find it useful.

The featured image is a book written by a friend of mine. I was totally flattered when he approached me to illustrate the cover. he wanted a ‘ Jules Feiffer’ styled loose sketch, and I did my best to deliver. I should be getting the paperback delivered tomorrow, it’ll have a honored spot on my bookshelf.

So, I finally finished the #100daysofgamedev challenge. Per the rules:

Each day you do some game dev, just post your update. If you miss a day, don’t post an update. When you start up again, continue from where you left off. Simple as that! You’ll get the badge whenever you finish the milestone. So it may take you 40 days to complete 30 days of game dev – that’s fine! Still a success

For those who want to go for a streak, by all means! You can challenge yourself as much as you choose to. I’ve updated the #guidelines to reflect this new change.

So – I started on Sept. 28th; and obviously did not post every single day. Some days I forgot. Some days I got called away before I could even post a progress update. Some days the entire world went to hell in a handbasket and I took a couple of depressed months away from working on my game – bound by duty to first care for my family during a pandemic; while the wife worked from home, I tended to the wee lads and their home schooled quarantine education while providing semi-nutritious meals for all and cleaning up after my cat with a sensitive stomach.

I was seriously crushed that right after showing my game at MakerX, and I was neck deep in prep for both a radio interview, a big push for fundraising / grant research and getting my demo polished for the Cleveland Int’l Film Festival that all of it got… cancelled.

I stopped working for weeks.

I just didn’t have the energy to look at anything other than the constant stream of news about the virus. Corrupt government. Murder hornets. The Mayans were off about 2012 and its really supposed to be 2020.

I played a LOT of Stardew Valley.

I started back after seeing an Asset Store Sale and picking up a haptic feedback asset. And started looking at dev discord channels again. And seeing the #100daysofgamedev challenge.

I had been languishing in the 60 day mark for months. Time to remedy that. Taking a page from the dev who made ‘The First Tree’- I decided to have zero sum day – something must be worked on the game, even if it was just tweaking a texture. And I did it the next day. And the next.

And now – here I am, finally finished my #100days – the workd has changed since I started. I’ve changed. And I am still working on my game.