EvoWars - Release 3 - Coming Soon!

For all the EvoWars fans out there, I'm going to be publishing the 3rd release of the game come the end of this month.

It's been an interesting development expanding the play style from a single unit to multiple units being deployed.  With the addition of more units, I've encountered a few bugs that need to be fixed.

I've also anticipated some challenges with getting players to use multiple units and therefore, tweaked the upgrade mechanism to be incremented based on all upgrades for a single unit.  That means a single unit can become really powerful, but it will cost a whole lot to make it stronger and a different unit might be better to upgrade.  Not sure how this will play out in the game play, but I'm excited to find out.

This has been a fun adventure and though I was looking a doing 6 months, I'm going to stop at 3 releases over 3 months.  This release will get most of the major features out that I wanted...

• Multiple Units Deployed
• API Integration with Kongregate (high score as a goal)
• Allow players to save progress

I've played around with using caps, but instead, I'm changing the increment on speed & reload for upgrade purchases.  Now speed will increase by either .25 or .50 for each purchase and reload will decrease by 1% per purchase up to 75% (still needed a cap).  This will place more emphasis on the health, attack and defense stats.

One of the main reasons, I'm stopping further develop on EW is due to my desktop PC.  Right now, I'm using a dedicated but dated rig for Unity development.  But after the most recent Windows patches, I've noticed some significant performance issues with Unity on this machine.  And when I compiled this latest build, I could not resolve some of the bugs that kept coming up.  

The challenge of working on a machine that doesn't full support the development platform is one of the reasons I'm putting this on hold.  The other two major reasons are...

• my daughter will be born in a few months and I won't have time to work on this game with all the different activities and tasks that need to happen between now and then;
• and after looking doing my year-end review, I've define a new set of goals for 2018 and this game does not fit into it.  

For those reasons, I'm not going to continue to pursue EvoWars in the near future.  I may restart this project at some later time, but for now I'll be focused on three big projects for 2018.  

The first extraordinary goal will be to memorize the book of Proverbs from the Bible.  While this may not seem to be a business goal, I assure you that it is both good for business and my personal life.  I've learned so much from the book of Proverbs over the years, but I've never been good at memorizing scripture.  This study will help me to learn the word of God and cement the teachings of God in my heart.  I've struggled with memorization and this will be a good practice to help me gain confidence in my area of lacking.  

In addition, it is written in Proverbs 3:13-18:

Happy is the man who finds wisdom,
And the man who gains understanding;
14 For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver,
And her gain than fine gold.
15 She is more precious than rubies,
And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand,
In her left hand riches and honor.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her,
And happy are all who retain her.

Wisdom is found through out the Bible, and throughout it, Solomon is described as the wisest man who ever lived.  Why not study and learn from the man who was reputed to be the equivalent of a trillionaire, the man who received wisdom directly from God.  

If I can memorize this one book, how much fuller will my life be?  How much deeper would my relationship with God be?  How much more meaningful would my relationship with my wife be?  How much more successful would I be in business and entrepreneurship?  What would I be able to do in this life equipped with the knowledge of God.  

Therefore, this is the first extraordinary goal that I have set out for 2018.  I have other candidates for the other two goals, but until I accomplish my first goal, there will be no second or third goals.  

This is part of my self-optimization project where I plan to update and improve various areas of my life.  I've decided as part of it that I will pursue 3 extraordinary goals a year and go hard for 8-10 weeks and then take time off to relax and recharge.  I'll be recruiting coaches and trainers to help me of the next months and years to help me accomplish my goals.

I'm excited for 2018 and sharing my progress in life.  

I'm also excited to release EvoWars' third release.  It's been a journey to learn how to build a game from scratch and turn it into a game that is actually playable and fun.  :)

Cheers!

Alex

Time Tracking - The Best Personal Optimization Tool

Start yesterday, my life changed...

I was conversing with my wife on the upcoming changes in our lives and how I wanted to be better at organizing my time and making use of the time that we had together.  With a child on the way, we knew the both of us would have to re-evaluate how we spent our individual time.

We're both very independent people who have fairly busy lives. 

And that's when she said it... that's when she made the suggestion... "You should track your time to see where you're spending it..."

Ahhhh... I wanted to scream.  I thought I knew how I was spending my time already.  And it's not optimal.  I spend way too many hours on the computer typing away at this blog, or programming my game.  At night, I watch YouTube videos on my phone or play Clash Royale (let's face it, it really is one of the best games out there). 

Anyways, tracking the time spent on my devices would force me to face the facts... I've been spending way too much time on devices lately.  For me to have a healthier balance, I'd need to face reality and see the real numbers.

Enter - Rescue Time.

If you don't know about Rescue Time, check them out.  It's a free service that you can download which tracks the usage of your phone or computer or websites your visit.  It gives you a breakdown of how you're using your time and classifies it into different buckets, from entertainment and social media, to reference and work. 

It's the real deal and captures just about everything you can do on a digital device. 

I bit the bullet and installed it on my desktop, my phone and soon laptop as well. 

Why? 

Because at the end of the day, I do want a more balanced lifestyle and make sure that I'm making the best use of my time.  Maybe I'm distracted when I'm doing my daily programming and I can really focus in on making my programming time last only 20-30 minutes.  Maybe, I should cut back on YouTube time in the evening and having a tracker on my phone makes me more aware of my behaviors.

The idea is that having instant feedback on your behaviors or at the very least the awareness of it being tracked can change you.  And I'm hoping for the better. 

This will definitely help me understand how I spend my time.  But I hope that it will also help me shape my behavior into the person I want to become. 

The moral of the story... my wife was right again.  I need to be more mindful of how I spend the precious little hours in day we have and spend them where it counts.

Cheers!
Alex