The PushButton Game Engine™

by

Tech, tech, tech and more tech… its freaking everywhere. Today I just came across another game engine, open source (MIT License) that makes it easy for anyone to make their own games. Seems New World Notes is on top of everything.

This engine rides on Adobe Labs’ Flash engine, which you likely already have installed on your computer. Since it is Flash the graphics are probably going to be cartoonish. The Pushbutton engine™ is being developed by seasoned game developers. They are unleashing some amazing tools. Their business model is unique for a game engine development company. Give away the engine and sell the professional plugins. Plus one step more. Anyone can write plugins. They will be sold through the Pushbutton company with Pushbutton taking a 30% cut. This is another way for people to make money with games.

This is another engine that runs inside a web browser. It is currently in Beta testing. It made its showing at the Game Developers’ Conference.

Visit their site: Pushbutton Engine

Promoting Myst/Uru MOOS

by

There are only a small number of Second Life members that know what Myst Online or Uru Live, as some call it, is. Even fewer know what MOOS is (Myst Online: Open Source), the coming open source reincarnation of the game. And even fewer Second Life residents know that parts of Uru (the general name of the game land) are being built in Second Life. That is a problem Myst Online has always had. A big challenge for the community is how to get the word out now that the game is set to make a comeback. So how do we let prior fans know the game is in the hands of the fans?

 

The Great Zero Machine in Second Life
The Great Zero Machine in Second Life

One step is to put the information every place we can. So, there are posts like this one that give some help. Plus we tell people about the game. In some cases like the builds in Second Life, we show them. Yet, is that enough?

Read more

Ranking Second Life Blogs

by

Ranking Second Life Blogs

Everyone with a blog is probably interested in where they fit into the scheme of things. For objective opinion see ArminasX Saiman’s Who’s The Biggest? Redux a post about a list of the top blogs for Second Life. Of course to get to the top of any list one must know what criteria are used for ranking. Saiman’s post explains how he came up with his list and some problems with Technorati’s ranking information. These are handy things to know, if one wants their blog to rank well and have lots of readers.

He found Technorati rankings have some problems and as I understand about 10% of the rankings are whacked. He put a bunch of work into preparing the list. Yet, he realizes and states it is not perfect and likely has omissions and mis-rankings. But, it is the authoritative list. And it went obsolete as it was being published. The blogscape changes that fast. So, if you’re not in the top 100 or 600 or whatever, give it a few minutes. Things will change.

CNN SL News – iReport or Be a Reporter

by

Finding my previous post item I wondered what CNN is up to now. Well, CNN provides a place for virtual world types to report on the things they find. Now that is cool. They probably don’t want to pay a report to cover our worlds but at least they will let us do it. And who better could do it?

So, if you aspire to be a writer/reporter/journalist, check out iReport or visit CNN in world. You can learn how to be a reporter and file stories on iReport. Cool. I think the world needs more good reporters. Professional Journalists seem to be a bunch of lazy slime bags with no connection to RL… is that PC enough? Whatever, it’s time the people took back their countries and out the corrupt and abusive politicians and scam artists. Obviously the current main stream media reports have no clue. They certainly have no clue about the politics and abuses in virtual worlds or the directions they are taking.

Read more

Unsharding Virtual Worlds

by

Unsharding Virtual Worlds

Now there is an odd phrase.

I read an article that is talking about MMO’s and player participation in the story… players having a real effect on the game story. Sound familiar? Their thought is that this is currently the last real unsolved challenge in MMO game design. I read the review with Myst Online in mind thinking about the MMO features we may need and some of the challenges. So, here are some of the concepts and how I see them in Myst Online.

Read more