Since I’ve been working on the Arcadium Software Forums, I’ve found a few things that I wanted to modify about SMF but couldn’t find a working mod to accomplish it. This is my first release. Basically it changes the users group name into whatever color their group has been designated. Simple. Easy. Nice.
Before:
After:
Release: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2225
Let me know of any problems!
I guess my invoices got lost in my spam box… we’re back 
I wonder how many emails I missed?
What can I say? I’m a hobbyist. I like working on anything related to games. Even if I don’t finish a project per-say; I still enjoy the journey.
Modulus Software… Bakburner Etc… Arcadium Software. What’s up with all the name changes? Its just a branding really… nothing official. And to be honest they’re all 100% pointless. I’m pretty sure Arcadium Software is where we’ll stop, though. I’m confident in that because its the one that really means something to us; not just a name we invented just for the sake of having a name. We started out writing stuff for The Arcadium and all of our projects have evolved from that. It fits.
We’ve had our ups and downs as far as projects go. Those of you who’ve followed us from PGM to GATM until now have seen some interesting shit come and go. Successes? PGM+gNIX, Hoverboard, Firebox and MuseX, The Zinger Gamemode… plus Chad’s numerous useful modules. Failures and disappointments? GATM+Gear, Gadget, Zahmbeez!, The Zinger XNA Game/Arclyte, etc, etc, etc… lets not dwell on those; what we take away and learn from them is more important.
What have we learned? LOTS!
Chad and I both have what we’ve come to refer to as Developers A.D.D.! We really have a hard time focusing on projects. Its not a lack of commitment, its just we often find other things of interest that detours us from— holy shit that cat has a big nutsack!
Secondly, we’re also O.C.D.-ish perfectionists. Which is why we “start over from scratch” oh too often.
And finally… although we both retain the ability to do all sorts of extravagant stuff, including writing a game engine from scratch, what we’re really best at is developing for Garry’s Mod. Why? Its simple: its where our roots are at. And as a couple of programmers, using all the already existing content of Garry’s Mod makes our work so much easier. When we try to do standalone projects we find ourselves like a couple of bums wandering around town begging for content… “maps for the poor? a few models please? just spare me a texture or two? no I won’t buy alcohol with it… ninjas kidnapped my family I need assets to buy kung-fu lessons”.
So whats Arcadium Software up to these days? Surprisingly to most of you… LOADS. We don’t talk about our projects much anymore. We’ve learned that hype isn’t really something you need at the start. Sure, once you have something to show… something worth showing… then you can start fishing for interest and find yourself some followers to get decent feedback.
On my days off when I’m in my garage (because the rest of the family is sleeping) I’ve started working on the Arcadium Software website from my laptop. I’m trying to manage my time better. So instead of working on the website stuff during the day (when I have access to my desktop computer), I work on whatever project I’m currently occupied with. I’m maximizing my time! A concept new to me 
If you know what we’re up to, you sneaky bastard! If not… patience. Because we are up to stuff 
I’d like to invite you all the rejoin the forums and tinker with them; let us know of anything that needs to be fixed. (read this thread as to why you need to rejoin the forums)
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhh. I never update my blog anymore. Its like… I can’t find anything to blog about. But I have stuff to blog about, just too lazy to blog about it. I have stuff I want to say and talk about, and to be honest I don’t really care if anyone reads it. But its shit I need to verbally (textually?) vent to help me sort things out. Sorta like when you talk out loud to solve a math problem…. yea, totally like that.
So to those who read this: Hi. Sup? Remember when I loaned you that $10? You totally need to pay me back now. Thanks.
Okay so I’ll post more about stuff I’m up to. K?
So we spent about 6 hours attempting, reattempting and double reattempting to give the GUI textbox support for multiple colors… which by itself isn’t all that hard, but then trying to word wrap at the same time made it a pain in the ass! Eventually we figured it out and we were so excited.
Then we found it had an incredible FPS drop with a lot of text…
…so we reverted…
…then we found out that even without multiple colors there was an insane FPS drop with a lot of text…
…back to the drawing board.
True story bro.
Okay so I’ve been lost. I haven’t done much of anything lately but I have a good excuse. Well its a pretty shitty excuse but its an excuse nonetheless.
Anyways. I while back I was introduced to a game called Infiniminer. I think I’ve mentioned it on my blog before but I don’t remember and I’m too lazy to search my own blog and find out if I blogged about what I’m blogging about… which is Infiniminer.
Okay enough of that. Well I stumbled across another game called Minecraft which is pretty much inspired by Infiniminer except its currently only a sandbox and is a java application embedded in a webpage– which is really sweet because its self updating. So long story short I didn’t pay much attention to the game but was always inspired by the awesome artwork people manage to create (mostly pixel art, but also other cool 3D shit).
So one day I get a wild hair up my ass and decide to try some servers… which was totally boring because 90% of servers have “jailspawns”. Those are areas where you enter the game and you’re trapped in a tiny ass area made of adminium… a block that only admins can remove. Its pretty much pointless. You can’t move, can’t spawn, can’t do shit except beg for an admin to let you free. I understand why people use these– to protect their work. But whats the point of a public server if you don’t let public people join?
So I went ahead and created my own server but left it private. I announced it on The Arcadium Forums and no one really paid much attention to it for a few weeks. After convincing a friend to play with me for a bit, we found ourselves genuinely intrigued by the game. Its pretty much like virtual Legos but with square blocks. We started out making random stupid shit then decide to start a new map and build a city.
Holy Shit.
It turned out to be a huge undertaking that other people started joining in. We tried to make the city as realistic as possible. Soon there were 5 to 8 of us in the server at a time and all in Ventrilo discussing what buildings we were going to do next. I played this game too damn much I started dreaming weird dreams about blocks and shit. I know I know, I’m lame… anyways eat a dick.
So after almost 2 weeks of work we’ve got a large majority of the city built. I decided to do a simple walk through of the city record it. There’s so much more to it that isn’t shown in the video, but enjoy anyways.
Update on the GUI, started working on skinning. As always, make sure to view it in HD:
This is a Garry’s Mod gamemode I began developing a few months ago. It started out as an experiment to see how much of a horror atmosphere I could introduce to an existing level using dynamically generated audio & visual effects.
Everyone loved how it turned out and asked me to add more of a “game” to it; which I eventually did. There are several puzzle-quests the players are put through (yes its multiplayer), but I didn’t spend any time in the video demonstrating them. Maybe I’ll show them in another video (if anyone is interested)
P.S. Click here and watch it in HD
Now that I have my video recording working 100% (and at a higher quality I might add–thanks Borsty) I figured I would start posting videos of our progress. Not only is this interesting for anyone following our work (which is probably a very small group) but it will be fun to look back 6 months/1 year/5 years from now and see what it all started from.
HD link (recommended to read text)
