Hi! What's everyone up to these days?

Heyyy! What’s new with everyone these days?

I figured it would be nice to start a topic since the forum reboot and stuff and see what’s new.

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Something lately has made me interested in looking at Verge again for fun. The other day I was feeling nostalgic, and started messing around with Maped2 in DOSBox and drawing tiles and maps. (It’s pretty fun! even if DOSBox crashes frequently!)

I’ve also played around with PICO-8 a bunch and something about an environment where it’s easy to draw sprites to the screen and make little scripted stuff is fun. I think some of the appeal that PICO-8 has is similar to what Verge had going for it, quick and easy to throw together projects and make small games.

(Part of me sorta wants to go back and revisit Verge 3 (and bring back VC from the 3.2 release into the master) and port it over to SDL2 for better portability, and add some sleep/vsync stuff to ShowPage so it runs with less CPU consumption for most games. It could be kinda neat as a small change to make the engine more usable/preserve older stuff and make it run more stable on new computers)

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So yeah, other stuff. For a while I worked at Tribute Games in Montreal here. In April 2017, I released a game called Flinthook for PC/PS4/XB1/Switch, which is a roguelike action platformer with pirates in space and run-and-gun action. Since then, I did a few odds and ends and eventually left there. This year has been all over the place (part freelance, part new job) but been poking around with little projects here and there.

What has everyone else been up to?

Hola!

Well damn, I don’t really know where to start. I spent most of my verging days during high school, and a little bit after that. Fell into some not so great times, a World of Warcraft addiction, and working hard to get myself out aforementioned not so great times, I ended up working for a big box chain, which is where I am now, sitting in a middle management position.

During this time, I kinda fell out of doing anything creative, which I regret, but the inspiration just wasn’t there I guess.

Then one day I picked up my guitar and just started playing again. Then I started writing again. I made some YouTube videos of covers, and even wrote/released an EP which is on iTunes, Google Play, etc. etc.

Working at my store, I met a super creative, awesome person, who’s youth was very much like mine and we clicked immediately. She used to mess around with RPG Maker back in the day, and is a pretty gifted artist.

We talked about game ideas and event attempted a couple, but they were far too ambitious, and both magically failed, although she swears we’ll finish at least one of them some day

Then, randomly one day I logged into Twitter, which is a social network I honestly never really got into, until recently. I saw a post by Grue about Kildorf’s “Simple Quest”, and I loved it. I loved the concept, I loved the game itself, and I thought to myself, “Man. I could do that!”

So I came up with a theme, a fun little story and decided to tackle it a little differently than past projects where I would focus on making all the systems work (menu’s, battle, etc.) first. This time, I’m focusing on the art, story, dialogue, etc. first. Then, after all that’s finished, I’ll add in the battle system later, and tune all the other parts where needed.

So that’s where I’m at. I work full time, some days some pretty long hours and have an amazing girlfriend I spend a lot of my free time with, so my development time is a bit limited. I don’t get to work on it as much as I used to when I was in high school, but it’s coming along nicely. In my head, I have maybe one more dungeon to do, and the wrap up the story before I start trying to think about how I want to do combat.

Of course, I did try different engines since Verge obviously isn’t a modern day engine. I messed around with Game Maker Studio, Unity, and even a custom engine from an e-book called “How To Make an RPG” by Dan Schuller. There’s a good chance I’ll give GMS another go at some point, but I was always drawn back to Verge. It’s the only engine I ever really “got”, as I was never really that great of a programmer, and it was something I could start with where I was seeing results immediately.

I will say, however, that it’s amazing how quickly this stuff can come back to you even after not doing it for over 10 years.

Wow, that was long. Sorry for the novel!
But I do post updates about the game I’m currently working on, on my twitter! (Link in Sig) if you are at all interested. It’s coming along at a decent pace, and since I’m doing EVERYTHING (no ripped art, or anything!) I’m pretty proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish so far.

Good see you again, Overkill! I hope everyone else is doing well!

-Rys

I went and made my own engine and released a game with it. Nothing big, just a little freebie on itch – https://speveril.itch.io/simplequest. I’ve got plans for more engine work (maybe even a release that other people can use!) and more games there.

The engine is pretty different than Verge in a lot of ways, but its design is definitely informed by Verge… stuff I liked and stuff I didn’t like as much.

I’m also still occasionally helping Grue with Sully but I’m kind of a flake there. Sorry, Grue.

Hey Overkill!

It’s Darien. Good to see you again. Cool to see you’ve been working on the games industry!

While I never got into programming back in the verge days (mostly just made pixel art and messed around with MapEd or the various sprite editors people made), I eventually went back to school and became a programmer. Currently working as a full stack web developer in SF.

I didn’t do anything video game related for a while but recently started making my first game as a programmer in Godot: https://twitter.com/snowflakestudio . So that’s been fun.

I’ve been a lot of things over the years. Funny what a recession can do at the start of your career. At present, I’m the corporate training manager for a logistics company. Which is nice, since it’s a job that pays a professional wage and still ends at the end of the day so I can do other things. Like make games, or act in community theater.

I’m also a husband and father of a four-year-old (who I swear hasn’t stopped running in this airport play area for the hour I’ve been sitting here.) Both are very supportive of my creative endeavors. My daughter likes to draw or color at her desk while I’m “building” at my computer. My wife mostly tells me it’d be easier just to write a book, but is thrilled I’m finally publishing something after seeing all the projects I never finished.

Hi guys,

I just started freshman year of college (ME-CS double major [I would have done just ME but thanks to Verge I’m studying CS too]). The adjustment to college has been a long one, but with semester 1 almost done I’m looking forward to abusing my vacation time by working on a Java game my friends and I are developing and I have an idea for a new Verge game too! I also am trying to learn some better HTML/CSS/Javascript to make my website a little more professional looking.

I’m still playing around with the story a bit, but Kildorf’s Simple Quest inspired me to keep it short and sweet. I guess this’ll be a test of my not-so-great-but-developing pixel art skills too.

Anyways, it’s great to see this place alive again. Here’s to finishing projects!

-M_Dragon

Hello!

Some folks may remember me from the 98-02 Verge2 era. That was high school for me and in those days I was big into playing and making JRPGs. I made a handle of Hours or Verge games, but no big releases. I think the most well received was Beyond Babel which was sort of a top down 2D pixel art homage to Fallout 1.

After high school I intended to be a software developer but that didn’t pan out. Not a lot of things panned out for me for a while until about 2007 when I met my now wife. Suffice to say that was the kick in ass I needed, and I now work as a web developer (JavaScript/PHP) and am the father of five (yes 5) kids aged 2 to 15.

Creativity wise, I’ve never quite gotten back into game dev as intensively as I did in the old days. I toyed with making a Metroidvania in the Godot engine maybe a year ago, which was fun. Mainly my creative energy has been focused on science fiction / fantasy fiction writing. I spent 2014 to 2017 or so writing seriously in my free time, and ended up getting a few short stories published. My best piece is probably a short story I sold to Compelling Science Fiction, a Bona Fide professional market.

Lately I can’t seem to find the time (or gumption rather) to focus on much other than work or family. Although I plan to pick up a new or old hobby once the youngest gets a bit bigger.

-choris

Feel free to follow me on Twitter @aaron_a_wright. I follow a few other Verge guys I’ve found from the old days. Can’t say I’ll post much!

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That’s a lot of bots visiting!

@bengrue said in Hi! What's everyone up to these days?:

That’s a lot of bots visiting!

Some people are just shy, Grue.

Hey there guys ,

Bluestar here (Matt) , just wanted to say hello - I miss verge! Lots of good memories from my pre- and high school days. I really value what I learned from some of the people involved with verge. Many good times in front of a computer screen. Part of me wishes I had pursued video game art as a career.

My wife and I just moved into New York state. Hudson valley area. I’ve been tattooing full time and make a living from my art for ten years now. I spent a lot of time doing portraiture , since moved on… I am doing a lot of work with stain on wood nowadays.

I really miss being involved in the creation of video games. I still play games frequently, recently I’ve been loving hollow knight. I’d absolutely love the opportunity to make some art for video games . I don’t have a lot of digital art experience, although if I had to create tile set and sprites I don’t think that the software would be too complicated. I really still love pixel art.
I had a long battle with alcohol abuse, stayed sober for three years and now I’m trying my hand at controlled drinking. My mind is my worst enemy. I have good days and bad days but frankly I am blessed.
Miss you guys, hope I hear from y’all more on this board. Check me out on Instagram if you want . @cloranthy

Worked for EA several years, got some health issues because of the stress and everything. I have mostly recovered, currently at a temporary job, and working on a new project, more ambitious than previous ones, but using some nice tools to organize my work (https://www.worldanvil.com). It’s titled “Record of the Dragon Goddess”

It’s about a world created by a Dragon God, and how things don’t go as he expected. The story follows the actions of his two offsprings, Amaxis and Draxenath, as perceived from the mortals’ perspective. I have been working on an “Interview with the Dragon Goddess” as a form of introductory series of texts.
Record of the Dragon Goddess blog

I hope to join you on Discord soon.