Thanks to everyone who showed up. If you missed it, here it is…
I use Microsoft’s Azure to do cloud compiles of the c++ engine for my new game. For Thimbleweed Park builds were hand compiled which took a lot of time and was very error prone. More than once I made DEBUG builds rather than RELEASE builds or forgot to change some debug setting back. It’s nice to have builds compiled in the cloud and know they are from a pristine environment each time. I also don’t have to keep a Windows machine (or a VM) around just to do a build.
Cloud builds are also critical for my (slow) move off the Mac to Linux (more on that later).
To compile the Windows build on Azure takes between 6 and 15 minutes which is crazy since I can compile the game locally in 1-2 minutes. Same with the Mac build. For me to get a new playtest or (more importantly) a dev engine build can take 15-30 minutes.
While waiting on compiles to fix a critical bug, I can’t help but imagine Azure is running hundreds of jobs on some pour Windows machine stuffed in the corner of Steve Ballmer’s old and forgotten office. I know this isn’t true, but it’s what it feels like when I desperately need a new engine.
I might give AppVeyor another try now they can do Mac builds. The .yml files for Azure and AppVeyor are annoyingly different so I’ve resisted doing a compile speed run-off.
On Azure you can pay for 2 jobs which does allow the Mac and Windows builds to compile concurrently, but what I really want is to run on less overloaded machines. It’s not worth paying for a dedicated machine due to it being idle 99% of the time. Self-hosting is another option but it defeats the purpose of wanting to make maintaining machines “someone else’s problem”.
Ideally I would be able to get builds in less than 5 minutes.
Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.
For the first time in four years I am slowly remembering a feeling known as calm. I look forward to Jan 21st when I can read the morning news and not feel a sense of dread.
We now have two+ months of a narcissist ranting, blaming, and of course suing. Oh, he also has nukes.
What was I saying about calm? Never mind that.
git switch - is my new favorite command.
The Video Game History Foundation is working to save the history of the making of video games.
On Oct 30th they are doing a live stream special event to help raise money and I’ll be a guest talking about the making of Monkey Island where you can ask me questions (as long as it’s not about the secret because after 30 years I’ve completely forgotten what it was).
Some marking people just don’t understand that people hate ads not because they aren’t targeted, they hate them because they are fucking ads.
The only time I’ve ever enjoyed ads are when I would read Byte magazine as a kid. That didn’t mean everywhere I went I wanted to see ads for 16K of memory being as low as $795.
We’ve started doing some open alpha/beta testing for Linux Delores. If you run Linux and are interested in helping out, visit the Thimbleweed Park Forums Linux Test Topic
Thanks!
I went and looked through my old design notebooks and found these. I don’t know if they are related to Time Fly or not. Some of the dates I used for “present” are 1990? That would have put it right before or during Monkey Island 1. I wish I would have put dates on my old design docs.
Noah recently sent me a photo of an old Lucasfilm Games design doc of mine. I don’t know when I wrote this. After Maniac Mansion but probably before Monkey Island.
