Day 1
Today is a special day for me. It is Day 1 of my Indie adventure! I’m pretty excited and a bit scared!I'll be blogging about my experien...
2018-11-19
Ludum Dare 41
I'll be participating in Ludum Dare 41! Pretty excited to use Godot for the first time! I might make some posts over on ldjam.com : MrP...
2018-04-20
Tower Defence: Ludum Dare 40 Warmup Game
Ludum Dare is coming soon, Dec 1 and occasionally I like to use new techs during the jam. So, I’ve decided to try Gamemaker 2 this time...
2017-12-01
Unite Austin 2017
I attended Unity’s Conference, Unite, in Austin this year. There are a lot of interesting improvements coming down the pipeline but not...
2017-10-03
Pixel Art: Lemon
I'm going to try my hand at pixel art. Here's my first piece:
2017-06-01
Weird Fractal Thing
It isn't a game, but I made this interesting looking thing, a sort of moving fractal. I know my Grandpa would have thought it was cool...
2017-03-01
Unity Subscriptions, What You Need to Know
Update: Unity has announced some changes here: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/16/evolution-of-our-products-and-pricing/ I've made ed...
2016-06-01
Seamless Texture Generator (Update)
A follow-up post about the Seamless Texture Generator with a link to learn more.
2016-04-01
Notes on Jiro Dreams of Sushi
I watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi on Jonathan Blow's recommendation, he calls it an example of "Deep Work." Jiro Ono makes sushi, and has be...
2016-01-01
What Unity Games are on Steam?
Updated 2014-01-16This is a question I hear a lot and here's what I've learned: 2013 Race the Sun [source] ittle Dew [source] ...
2015-12-01
Let's Play: Horse Lords of Bolighar
I decided to do an experiment this month and make some Let's Play YouTube videos. I'm playing Crusader Kingdoms 2 with the Horse Lords...
2015-11-01
I voted in the IGDA 2015 Board of Directors Election! Have you? #IGDAElection
I voted in the IGDA 2015 Board of Directors Election!
2015-10-01
Jai Compiler References
*Jai programming language reference/link collection*
2015-09-17
Notes on How To Design Deep Games with Jonathan Blow
I watched Jonathan Blow's talk How To Design Deep Games with Jonathan Blow which is actually kind of a misleading title because the tal...
2015-09-01
NAND To Rule Them All
Just a little something I've been messing with. #LogicGates #NANDToRuleThemAll pic.twitter.com/iIx7zaOUxl— MrPhil (@xMrPhil) January 2...
2015-06-01
Text Adventure gamejam from afar with IGDA DC
The DC chapter of IGDA is doing a Text Adventure gamejam this weekend at the Westwood college:http://sjklevine.com/igda_dc/textjam/I n...
2015-05-01
Tech Demo: Voronoi Algorithm
Here's a small tech demo I've been working on. It's the application of the Voronoi Algorithm to a map's political boundaries as two pla...
2015-03-01
Notes on Jonathan Blow's Reddit Ask Me Anything
Jonathan Blow did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit Friday: I am Jonathan Blow, game development person; ask me stuff.I was specifically int...
2014-09-01
Game A Week Resources (and Level A Week)
The idea: - Make Many Games: Learn Many Things and Game A Week: Getting Experienced At FailureGame A Week: Facebook Group, subRedditLev...
2014-05-05
Game A Week 2
Week 2Idea: Strategy game about screening army/infantry movements using Calvary (like Napoleon did.)What went right: Nothing really.Wha...
2014-04-21
Game A Week 1
Adriel Wallick's wonderful post-mortem about her Game A Week experiment inspired me to try it out.Week 1Idea: How many games of pong ca...
2014-04-14
Sustainable Creativity
Here's a wonderful webcomic about sustainable creativity by Stephen McCraine. It has some great insight and perspective on procrastinat...
2014-02-01
Posttraumatic Growth
We often hear of Posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD, especially associated with combat veterans and difficulties they face returnin...
2014-01-15
The New Yorker's THE OPEN-OFFICE TRAP
An extremely interesting article has been published in The New Yorker this week: THE OPEN-OFFICE TRAP I think this is a very important ...
2014-01-01
Iron Roads has a Greenlight Page!
I'm happy to report that the Greenlight page for Iron Roads went live last night! Please, show your support by Voting for the project!T...
2013-09-01
PAX East!
2013-06-28
Seamless Texture Generator
Exciting news! I've become the owner of Seamless Texture Generator which is a great tool for making tile textures for games (and other s...
2013-06-01
GDC 2013
This was my best GDC yet. I had some great business cards, my resume and something to talk about: founding and running the Washington...
2013-03-25
PAX East!
I went to PAX East! My first PAX. It was overwhelming and I had a great time. I was so busy going to panels and meeting people I di...
2013-03-22
Global Game Jam 2013
I participated in the Global Game Jam this year. It was my second appearence, the first time being in 2010 on Space Exodus.Here are my...
2013-01-28
Dev Log 1/11/2013
This evening I worked on basic boiler plate stuff. I put some stuff up on github including Futile QuickStart I even made a pull reques...
2013-01-11
Recommended Game Development Reading, Watching and Playing
Updated 8/08/2013 Where to Start? Tips on your "First Game" Indie Game Design Do-s and Don't-s: A Manifesto Indie Resources @ Pix...
2012-10-01
Kickstarter: The Last Sleeper
I added The Last Sleeper to my list of Kickstart projects today. I really think the music by Erik Aadahl is well done. The latest upd...
2012-07-01
Kickstarter Projects Worthy of Your Support
Here's another batch of interesting game project I've supporting on Kickstarter. They a look they need more support: UFHO2 - A Turn-ba...
2012-05-15
Seeds Of Destruction
I've just finished Ludum Dare 23. The theme was Tiny World, so I made a game about Seed warfare. It came out pretty good. You can pla...
2012-04-22
Iron Roads Goes to New Orleans
- Figured out how to drawn lines using sprites, Thank you to XNA wiki - Rail links between cities drawn - Added a bunch of cities: Spr...
2012-02-15
WAUUG is born!
One my achomplishments of the holidays was the sucessful launch of WAUUG or the Washington (DC) Area Unity3D Users Group.http://capitalg...
2012-01-15
XNA SpriteFonts
While working on Iron Roads today, I tried to use the custom font Radius (a free font from Urban Fonts.) I like how the letters look...
2012-01-01
Unity3D #pragma strict Gotch
I was working with some code in a book today and could not figure out why a variable was giving me problems.
2011-12-29
2011 Indie of the Year
GO VOTE NOW!
2011-12-15
Venus Patrol – Kickstarter
I've added Venus Patrol to my stable of Kickstarter projects. It's basically rebooting Offworld for Boing Boing.
2011-10-04
Americana Dawn: The Long Goodbye
An interesting freeware project with an early America setting, funded on 8-Bit Funding.
2011-09-02
Free RPG tileset for indie game developers
I came across an interesting Kickstarter project today called Free RPG tileset for indie game developers.
2011-09-01
Hurricane Irene
If you want to help the victims of Irene start here: Network For Good: Hurricane Irene Hurricane Irene is causing a lot of stir. Game...
2011-08-27
Ludum Dare 21 - Conclusion
I didn't finish. I just didn't have my weekend clear. You really need a clear weekend to finish Ludum Dare. The tech change in the midd...
2011-08-22
Ludum Dare 21 - Update 3
The XNA version of my game now surpasses the Unity version. What's working: Player display Player movement Player collision with i...
2011-08-21
Ludum Dare 20
*Ludum Dare 20 game page. The original was playable in-browser using Silverlight, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2011-04-30
Ludum Dare 20 Has Begun
It's going to be a hard Ludum Dare, because the theme is It's Dangerous to go Alone! Take this!
2011-04-29
Ludum Dare Career
Ludum Dare 19 is right around the corner, so let's take a moment to review my Ludum Dare Career.LD #6 - Light and Darkness, 2005 Puzzle...
2011-04-01
Minecraft: The Story of Mojang
The film makers behind the Penny Arcade series are making a documentary about Minecraft (you've heard of Minecraft right!?!) They are...
2011-02-21
WIN!!!
Woo hoo! I had my first sale today!!!
2011-01-15
Shoppe is back up
The Mr. Phil Games Shoppe's database crashed horrible this weekend. I tried several different ways to get it back in operations, but w...
2011-01-01
Ludum Dare 19 – UNSS Pasteur
What is Ludum Dare?: You have 48 hours to make a game from scratch meeting a theme announced at the start of the contest. Learn more ab...
2010-12-19
Ludum Dare 19 – UNSS Pasteur
*Ludum Dare 19 game page. The original was playable in-browser using Silverlight, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2010-12-18
Ludum Dare 19 Coming Soon
I'll be participating in Ludum Dare 19 - December 17th-20th, 2010, you can follow my dev diary of the event at Ludum Dare's site. I'm a...
2010-12-15
October Challenge Released
I’ve put Stacker up for sale: here.
2010-10-31
Ludum Dare 12 – Stacker
*Stacker game page. The original was playable in-browser but the technology is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2010-10-31
Pretty Target
I created a nice visual target, literally, to aim for. It took me a little bit of time to figure out how to visually display the target separate from the col...
2010-10-08
Ludum Dare 18
*Ludum Dare 18 game entry. The original was playable in-browser using Flash, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2010-08-21
LD17
*Ludum Dare 17 game entry. The original was playable in-browser using Unity Web Player, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2010-04-22
Goodbye Shoppe
I knew when Amazon.com bought Reflexive that my game shoppee’s days where numbered. It is a big reason why I left Vermont and found a “real” job. Today, my ...
2010-03-31
SteamBirds
SteamBirds, planes and dog fights! Imagine if someone updated that old Atari combat game.
2010-03-10
PAX BRITANNICA
2010-03-09
Mini Ludum Dare #16: Constraints
I'll be participating this weekend in the Mini Ludum Dare #16, whose theme is Constraints.
2010-02-19
Whitney Hess
[](https://whitneyhess.com/blog/)I discovered http://whitneyhess.com/blog/ thanks to http://www.gaminghorror.net/ today and watched her presentation Evangelizing Y...
2010-01-19
Game Legend is now in open beta
 I’ve opened the door to my new website Game Legend It is a...
2009-11-12
Iron Roads Retargeted to SilverLight 3.0
The big news today is that Silverlight 3.0 has been released. This is means a change for Iron Roads. I've been working with Silverlight...
2009-11-01
Can I choose in which screen corner Steam notifications show up?
This was moved here from GameLegend.com after StackExchange took the site down. As long as I can remember, Steam notifications always popped up in the bottom...
2009-10-31
City Builder Game DRM Burned
The city builder game Dawn of Discovery was released at the end of June and I’ve heard a lot of good buzz about it. It even got a Metascore of 84. It seems l...
2009-07-13
No Progress on Iron Roads
It has been a while since I'm made any posts because I've been so busy with the move. On April 1st (no fooling) I drove a U-Haul with...
2009-07-01
More wiggly coasts
The top image is an older screen shot so you can better see my progress and the second one I took today. You have to look hard to see...
2009-03-01
Mr. Phil Games - Home - PC Strategy Games
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2009-01-01
Ludum Dare 12
*Ludum Dare 12 game entry. The original was playable in-browser using Flash, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.*
2008-12-15
Ludum Dare 13: Iron Roads
I went on a old hard drive adventure this evening. My quest was to recover my code and executable from Ludum Dare 13 - Roads, from way b...
2008-12-07
I've moved my blog
It's official, I've folded my blog, MrPhil Makes Games, into Mr. Phil Games. I'll be adding all new content there. For now, all my old posts here will rema...
2007-01-14
The 10 reasons you will never finish your game
The 10 pitfalls of independent game development.
2007-01-14
Surprise in my stocking from Garage Games
I’m sure you heard that Microsoft released XNA Game Studio Express yesterday. What you might not have heard was Garage Games also released an open beta for T...
2006-12-12
XNA Magic
Frank Savage will amaze you by compiling a game on his PC and then deploying it to his XBOX 360 using XNA magic!
2006-12-08
GameProducer.NET
Today, I joined a very new forum belonging to GameProducer.Net. You probably recognized the name because author Juuso Hietalahti has had several very popula...
2006-08-23
DOH!, Pause = Thread.Sleep(42)
So I’ve been working with .Net for years and today I put something together that made me feel foolish for not already realizing. Especially since I’ve used T...
2006-06-25
Our Strange Lingo
When the English tongue we speak. Why is break not rhymed with freak? Will you tell me why it’s true We say sew but likewise few? And the maker of the verse,...
2006-04-07
April 8-9 Game in a Day J (19)
Originally Posted by Tom Bampton Garage Games Associate
2006-04-05
Re-Mission - a game saving children's lives
A scientific study showed that young people who played Re-Mission were more likely to stick to their medication regimens.
2006-04-02
New word from the Gulf Coast
My family lives on the Gulf Coast. They survived hurricane Katrina, but not much of their stuff did. I recently noticed they have begun using an interesti...
2006-03-28
Video Games Help Kids
I read this fascinating article on News.com: Video game therapy--a new frontier. It is about how video games are being used to help children with brain damag...
2006-03-20
Politicians like to ignore reality
The politicians are at it again, trying to use the game industry to score points, all the while ignoring reality. I’m always suspicious when politicians want...
2006-03-10
I'm addicted to Grow
Truly, I'm addicted to these cool Grow games. The maker should put together a game where each one is a level. I'd definitely buy it.
2006-02-22
Videogame market set to double by 2011
"According to the study, the videogame market will expand from $32.6 billion in 2005 to $65.9 billion in 2011. Online and mobile gaming will be the primary s...
2006-02-18
It'll ship when it is ready
GameDailyBIZ is reporting, "Sony will not be releasing the PlayStation 3 until the company is completely prepared." (Link) They didn’t have any quotes that I...
2006-02-17
DirectX 10 SDK updated (Feb 2006)
The DirectX10 preview has a new update available. Highlights include the cross-platform audio tool XACT, more samples, tutorials and improved multithreaded ...
2006-02-14
Gamer's brains work better, but I still wouldn't want my kids to play them.
Studies show that gamer's brains work better and are more resilient to aging.
2006-02-13
Band albums sales take off because of... a game!?!
Chicago band Fall Out Boy sold 70,000 copies of their new album in one week after the music was featured on "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland," a skateboarding...
2006-01-27
Call for essays on advanced rendering techniques
Wolfgang Engel of the Shader...
2006-01-26
Texas proposes 100% Game Tax
 Gamespot has a disturbing ...
2006-01-26
BBC's Gamers in the UK
Wonderland has gotten a hold of the BBC's Gamers in the UK. It is a great collection and explanation of research on gamer's habits.
2006-01-25
Do the little things now
I have a procrastination problem (as some of you may have noticed.) One of the ‘reason’ behind this is I tend to over engineer things and make mountains out ...
2006-01-25
Moving to subversion
 I've recently decided to move my source control from my local visual SourceSafe setup to a subversion hosting co...
2006-01-23
Messed about a little today with Torque’s networking code
I messed about a little today with Torque's networking code. I was looking to see if they used bit packing.
2006-01-11
Verizon and Allegheny Power halts Christmas Lights
The Washington Post has a story about how Verizon and Allegheny Power put the brake on a Christmas tradition going back over sixty years. The city of Lonacon...
2005-12-27
Bug Me Not
Hate having to always register with sites to view the useful information? Have trouble remebering what you user name was? This is the prefect solution. Bug M...
2005-12-26
Real Arcade Top Ten History
James C. Smith of Reflexive Entertainment fame, makers of Ricochet has started an interesting website collecting information about the Top Ten Games on Real ...
2005-12-23
The Digital Boneyard
Wondering what to do with the great art and tools created for a game that never saw the light of day? Put them up for adoption at the The Digital Boneyard!
2005-12-21
Things I learned at Torque Boot Camp Day 3
Notes from Day 3 of Torque Boot Camp. Variable naming conventions, memory management, and more.
2005-10-20
Things I learned at Torque Boot Camp Day 2
Notes from Day 2 of Torque Boot Camp. Successful people fiddle with Torque before trying to make a game.
2005-10-13
Things I learned at Torque Boot Camp Day 1
Notes from Day 1 of Torque Boot Camp. Doxygen, ShowTool Pro, DTS vs DIF shapes, and more.
2005-10-12
Things I learned at IGC Day 3
Notes from Day 3 of the Indie Games Conference. Attach rate vs conversion rate, Apple's third party sales, and Ghetto Linux.
2005-10-11
Things I learned at IGC Day 2
Notes from Day 2 of the Indie Games Conference. Business cards are a must, even if you are just a hobbyist.
2005-10-09
Things I learned at IGC Day 1
Notes from Day 1 of the Indie Games Conference. TDN is in beta, drink tickets, and the universal urge to build game engines from scratch.
2005-10-08
Hello, welcome to Mr.Phil's group therapy session.
Hello, welcome to Mr.Phil's group therapy session.
2005-07-14
Editors Note
Editor note: this first appeared at garagegames.com. A deep dive into choosing a Torque Script editor.
2005-03-17
Torque 2D Stealth Launch
The big news last week was the stealth release of Torque 2D, more affectionately know as T2D. I've already started a parallel version of my game using it an...
2005-03-13
They can't eat you
I found this very interseting article today and instead of just tucking it away in my files I decided it'd be fun to share with everyone. Plus I'll know exac...
2005-02-15
Object Cloning Using Reflection
Today on Alastair Patrick’s blog he shared a way to use reflection to clone objects which I found really interesting. I took the liberty of expanding the exa...
2005-01-10
Your Own “Servlet” or HTML Spew Machine
So you want a quick way to spew your own html?
2004-09-22
Engine Code Reorganized
Feeling pretty sick today, but I finished the code reorganizing I started yesterday.
2004-06-08
Portal Code Organized
Got the portal code all organized today and into the Vault, thanks SourceGear.
2004-06-01
Portal Experiments
Experimenting today with creating and modifying the portal modules.
2004-05-28
Moved log entries
Moved all the log entries from the old site to the new one today.
2004-05-27
Site Overhaul
I switched the website to the ASP.Net platform today using the www.asp.net portal starter kit.
2004-05-27
A blog day
Lately I've found myself reading blogs because I'll come across them while hunting for a coding solution on the web.
2004-04-15
Interesting Fail States and more
I spent my first day at the Game Developer Conference this year in the Play Testing Strategies Tutorial.
2004-03-22
Did you say, "Make a game with C#?"
Been doing a lot of research and work lately! I found some resources and technology I'm really excited about.
2004-02-12
Bootstraps Vs Tall Shoulders
Should I use a game engine or not? Initially my gut reaction is to resist. I don't want to use someone else's work.
2003-11-04
(INSERT BIG BANG SOUND)
And so Mr. Phil makes his first blog entry. The purpose of this blog is to create a record of my struggle against procrastination and other ghastly inner demons.
2003-10-03