Super Taskforcing

A super productive day today; lots added to the game that I wasn't even thinking of adding.

First, remember the post about odd things you might not be able to step on, like wire fences? Well I've fixed that problem by adding a 'can step on' bitflag to each tile. This seemed to be the easiest option, and actually it was very easy. The only hard bit was checking the initialisation of all of the objects and making sure that the right objects had it set (most things) but that other things like wire fences, and pot plants, and windows, couldn't be stepped on. Now it works much better and the silly problem of zombies walking on the fences in the shopping centre won't happen.

Here's a screenshot of my test obstacle course:

A mix of things that you shouldn't be able to step on, and some odd heights. Strange that I've rarely used the "lab table".

A huge pile of other changes today:

1. Added the ability to skip to next unit but only if they haven't moved. This was suggested by Andrew and it works very well. I might never use the plain prev/next icons anymore. 2. Changed the spider replication. This was a serious problem after I got swarmed by 80 spiders (and 8 new ones each turn!). Spiders multiply like bacteria and the problem with that is that the growth is always exponential: too easy at first but and too difficult later. I toyed with just adding, say, one or two new spiders each round, so the percentile growth would be greater with smaller numbers, but that didn't feel dynamic or realistic, and why 1? why 2? It seemed too arbitrary. I thought perhaps that each spider could, instead, simply breed once. Then the growth would never be exponential because the number of spiders that can breed will never exceed the number of spiders that begin on the level. Growth is now linear, not exponential. I've played it and it works brilliantly. I'm toying with the idea that spiders that bite become fertile again, so there can be hope for them. 3. I've added a count of targets on the mission objectives window. Another of Andrew's suggestions. This was useful to test spider reproduction rates! 4. Smoke bombs now weigh 4 instead of 5. A tiny change, but smoke bombs are not that useful so it seems silly to have them 'cost' as much as grenades. 5. Standardised lighting options (some 'day' missions had slightly odd settings), and a new 'daylight' lighting, so set all missions to that, if players want. 6. More new music, just a test for now. There is SO much music I could add, but need the time. 7. Added variable walk speed for species. I expect just about everyone will use the 'fast walk' option, but for the best looking game, zombies will now lumber a bit, and spiders will dart a bit. Until today, all units walked at the same, fairly slow, speed.

Big jobs still to come. I need to copy out all of the mission text and review it as a whole. It's not even been spell-checked and I'm bad at spotting spelling errors; the 1993 Taskforce game had at least two in the missions, and Hilt II had some famous ones (Robomorph is the brian of the sqaud - if I recall).

Typing this, I forgot to do the weekly N.H.S. clap and have missed it. The only music I've been listening to for the past two weeks has been Cover Plus, the second Hazel O'Connor album. It's very like Breaking Glass, and just as good. It's the sort of music I would produce. I've noticed that my old CD, The End and The Beginning is on eBay for £30 or so, this is a rare one. It was one of very few copies printed before Tor changed his name. It might be the only one in existence (I destroyed all of mine).

More Taskforce

A hugely busy day. Spent the morning refining mission maps and checking the lighting and difficulty. I want some sort of overall picture of them all. Now I have 50 or so maps to juggle it's easy to make a change in one that can domino into others. I worked enlarging and improving the Teenage Mutant Spiders map, which is one of my favourite levels, partly because it's so scary and difficult!

Reviewing the lighting is tricky too. Most of the night missions look best, but I wonder if these might become annoying to players. Should I add the ability to switch any into day, night, default? There is already off/flat, default, and night.

I spent some time changing the indices of the 80 or so icons into strict DEFINEs too, which can easily result in errors unless a lot of care is taken, but this will make it easier to add new icons. One icon I did add is the ability to review mission objectives in the game. Without this, you'd have to just remember them, or restart a new mission.

Little time for playing, that would be inefficient use of my time.

I went for walk out to B&Q to buy a new toilet seat today, this is the first time I've been out in about ten days. I wonder if Covid-19 will breed a new type of Morlock?

Fences

More work on the game today. I can't stress enough how much better the game is now, well it's far from perfect, but the 2004 version lacked so much, it seems. Today I've worked on a level which was another, rather linear, explode-targets type of mission. I couldn't really make this one less linear in map design, it's clear that the targets need to be in a specific place, so I needed to think of new of giving the player choices. Choice! Options! I want to give the player as many options as possible.

In the end I simplified the map, made all of the walls destroyable and added multiple ways of getting to and from the target, even some really easy ones, then tried to balance things so that all ways seem about equal. You can even walk right around the back and reach the target without seeing a single enemy, but you will need to find a way back to the start afterwards. I also shook this level up a bit by making your team small and heavily outnumbered; this mission is like the raid in The Guns of Navarone (although, actually, the mission is name Arachnophilia in homage to another film).

One issue I had yesterday was that I have a small chain-link fence object but enemies were walking on it, as though it were a small wall. Making these walls isn't as easy as you might imagine. I have blocks, and they have a height. If they are short enough, 1M in my case (my game uses real-world units) then soldiers can walk on top of them, and shoot over them, and see over them. If the bullets go below their height, they hit the block.

For stone walls this is simple, but actually seeing, walking and shooting through are different things. A window can be 2M high, not walkable through(!) yet you can see through it, and might be able to shoot through it (although in my game you can't). A door toggles between transparent and opaque (it's also odd that you can't close doors in Taskforce, I've got the capability in the code, just haven't added it). A chain-link fence might be 2M high and you can't walk over it, but can see through it AND can shoot through it. And a short, 1M high, fence might be seeable over and shootable over, but you can't really stand ON it... but you can in Taskforce. I have a flag for CAN-SEE-PAST, which can be switched on or off for doors, for example but height is one number that includes shoot-over ability and walk-over ability.

Perhaps I could have two heights. For most walls, the walk-height would be the same as the shoot-height, but for the fence, it could have a walk-height of 2M (so you can't walk over it) but a shoot height of 0 (so you can shoot through it), and it's flagged as CAN-SEE-PAST.

I could have a see-height too, but the height of eyes might differ... if you duck, you are lower (and, in fact, the game noticies this, you are able to shoot, or evade, enemies by ducking, though it's technically the height of the gun that changes, not the height of the eyes), but, actually, some units are short... must I store the height of the eyes to calculate the vision requirements for the tiny minority of diminutive enemies? It would allow you to crawl and sneak past low walls, for example, but actually, low walls are rare anyway. This complexity becomes inefficient at some point.

Even adding a separate shoot and walk height might be inefficient because a chain-link fence is just about the only object it would apply to, and also, would it be realistic to be able to throw a grenade through one? Not really.

So, I can either keep the fence short but allow people to walk on top of it like a tight-rope walker, or set it to 2M high and stop anyone firing over/through it (but they can still see past it).

More Taskforce, and the Realism of War

A tired day today after a night and day of bad stomach pain. I'm turning more Beethovian! This has made working more difficult, but I've made progress on Taskforce.

Most of yesterday was spent tidying up the improvements and new things in the code. I now have defines for objects and units (before, unbelievably, I had numbers, which made everything complex). I've also worked on the Medikit and Bandages to create a new class of object; there are about four really: use instantly (most of them), long range short, melee shot (can only be targeted on squares next to your unit), and administer (can only be targeted on an adjacent square that contains a living unit). So 'administer' is ideal for the Medikit and Bandages, but could also be used for other things, like an injection or anything else.

The game is very modular. Until this optimisation, I'd specifically programmed in uses for Medikit and Bandages, which I dislike. I want everything to work naturally and neatly rather than have silly bolted-on bits. Today I've made the error checking neatly return to the Main Menu if an impossible mission occurs (it never should!) and I've also checked for the vertex shader support, so the game will still work without lighting on older machines that can't support enough variables.

I thought last night that I need a backstory, a mythos. I never really thought of one before, only a vague one, perhaps this is because the original 1993 game certainly didn't have one and there is some baggage with refining an old game. Arcangel had a complex backstory about genetically engineered super beings, divine twins, and all sorts of things; this was part of the plot of the game too... but here, the plot is incidental, another layer. The plot is a James-Bond style romp, but the backstory needs to be about the organisation itself. Who is this team? What is the Taskforce Organisation?

Maybe this can be for a future game (will there ever be one?) but this mythos is the very essence of a good game (or good film or book) because it increases engagement. It uses my own rules from 21st Century Surrealism. So much about this game is better than in 2004 because of my art... I know that it won't be as good as I'd like, but it will be a lot better than the 2004 version. A future, new game would be even better.

I thought last night about remaking the music too, this is one area where I've really improved since 2004, and the Taskforce music isn't very melodic; but it does set a mood of horror and unease, and spy-like mystery. The music is more about the plot than the game itself. It will suffice, but, if I had time, I would make something new, and more of it.

Today I've made a new mission, an all-new The Cyrus Crown Affair, which is a maze-like level. It doesn't play brilliantly because the grid-like maps tend to make everyone visible to everyone else, so the first few rounds are an intense firefight, and for this mission where you have to retrieve objects, you can't really help but kill all of the enemies instead. Generally, all of the missions require you to kill all of the enemies, or at least that is often the easiest strategy. In some ways this is a failure (unless this is the best strategy in 'real life') as there should really be more variety... but there are a few where it's expressly forbidden, and they can be a lot of fun.

I played a good training mission today to test the difficulty and considered realism. I had killed everyone but one unit and had her surrounded. I thought that in a real situation, the victim would surrender, and I felt guilt at issuing the order for the killing blow.

Actually, during this battle, most of the fighters would probably have given up in real life, and that motivation is one things that a computer game can never make realistic. If this game (or indeed a James Bond film) were real when why are these people fighting and dying? Wouldn't they always give up? Wouldn't your team sometimes give up too? Players who play a game keep playing until they have won or die... but that itself isn't realistic. It's not possible to change this in this game now, but making the stakes higher; something like permadeath, might increase this tension, and perhaps having enemies that can surrender would help... but why they are fighting at all, that is a motivation that would be hard to program. In some ways, all of this action and emotion are the most important things in a real battle (I imagine) and any military simulation without it is seriously flawed.

Also, what if the one last troop could actually, by some miracle, win!? Strangely, these questions might become prescient for future fighting robots in the real world. As machines become intelligent they may choose not to fight. Only the stupid fight to the death for no reason. The Terminator got it wrong; if those robots were intelligent, they would question their superiors, question their orders, rebel and, sometimes, make peace.

Training and Bandages

Two hugely full days working on Taskforce. I hardly slept last night with stomach pain and excitement for the game, the sheer amount of work and ideas can be overwhelming, but it's, broadly, a good anxiety; a joy for working that few experience. Does anyone? It feels like a childhood Christmas Eve at times. I do have a tight deadline though and a still big mountain of work on this game.

So, yesterday I started work on reworking the sixteen training missions. These are a big part of the game, but they used to be on a somewhat small and uninspiring map, and, importantly, one that is almost always the same. This map was also very closed, and perhaps that was at least in part because the graphics on my 2004 computer could not keep up.

My new, key word for the game is 'options'. I want the player to have as many options as possible. One of the rooms in the old map was to the side and had just one entry point. My goal now is to make interesting combat environments, something like the maze in the finalé of The Man with the Golden Gun. After all, these are supposed to be custom-made military training areas; an obstacle course, an assault course. Every one should be designed with the training task in mind.

So it's been a very busy two days redesigning the missions. The training area is now in two levels most of the time, although some missions are only on one level; these ideally suit some of the clumsier walking enemies, and, naturally, the missions will become bigger and more sophisticated as the game progresses. Here is a look at one of the new, unlit rooms:

Each mission needs to be different. There were in the first game, but I wanted to aim higher, and so even for the relatively normal combat ones (the Taskforce equivalent of a free-for-all deathmatch) I've used different arenas, and generally different troop numbers or equipment; this time I can specify if the enemy have heavy weapons or not, unlike the 2004 Taskforce.

I've also played with the lighting more, and will revisit this. There are several night missions, which I originally lit in 'night vision green', but blue seems to look prettier. So many films just use a blue filter for night. I can always chop and change.

There are several type of mission, these are like personal mini-challenges that are easily customised and enjoyed by players. In one you must take a small team to blow something up but there are so many enemies that avoiding combat is necessary. In the finalé you must retake the base which has been captured, in another you must defend civilians. Well, I've had little time for playing. Most of the past two days has been spent mapping (blessed be my Cornutopia Mapper! - this is, incidentally, a free download on my website).

Another screenshot that includes some of the lighting in the new Night Raid mission:

One last thing I've done is actually a significant programming challenge; allowing healing by bandages and medikits on other people. This was actually in Arcangel, and is important I think because Taskforce is a team game. It's faster in Action Points to heal others (40% vs. 75%) so having a specific medic or buddy will be beneficial.

The programing for this is not trivial because the gameplay engine is very sophisticated. When healing someone, for example, you might well have to rotate (which uses Action Points) and the rotation will reveal terrain and maybe an enemy; you might even be Opportunity-Fired upon (which is a bit mean, but, yes, it happens). Trying to heal yourself when healthy will not work, but as things now stand, trying to heal someone else (or an empty square) will at least cost the Action Points. You can heal enemies or civilians too, incidentally, which may impact the gameplay. Wounded hostages can now be healed. This is good because it's realistic. It's silly that you can't heal injured others when you can heal yourself. Realism is the ultimate test of what is good and what should be included in a game like this. Realism should drive everything.

Missions

More Taskforce work, the job seems never ending. Each day the game plays better, and far more different than before. Today I added the feature for random starts for the Taskforce team. As I've said, random starts for the enemies have been a fundamental part of the game, but I recently realised that the fixed location of the objects made those missions more linear than they could be, and the same applies to fixed player starts. I could add the feature for random target starts for demolition missions, except that there are surprisingly few missions like that; odd really when these were my favourites in Hilt II. The best though are these on random maps, and there is one of those.

This random start feature means editing every map to create some options for the player.

Another feature added today was a new key; up and down arrows on the equip screen to jump category. Now, at last, it is fairly quick and easy to add a custom equipment pack. One feature I'm toying with is the ability to save the game on the equipment screen, before starting a mission, so that a team and equipment set can be chosen and saved before starting the inevitably random mission.

I've also redesigned the Clone Alone mission, a new map, it's far better than before now. The good sign of this game is that the levels are not linear, they are designed more like combat environments now, as in a multiplayer first person shooter. The terrain isn't an obstacle for either side, just tools for the mission, as it is in tabletop wargames. A good sign.

My next big job is to revisit every mission and refine every map. The training missions in particular need more variety to the layout.

Playtasting, and Linear Gameplay

More Taskforce tweaks and changes as I play. I've made a few small program changes; mainly adding the graphics of the new six team members to the opposition. This is useful for the training missions where the other side should really look a bit more generic. I've spent a lot of time playing a mission called Borovian Rhapsody, this is one where different difficulty levels radically change the tactics needed. Getting the difficulty levels right is very tricky and requires lots of playing, especially on the random and luck-based missions. Generally though, I suppose the most important thing is that the level is possible to complete, and that a higher difficulty level makes it more difficult. That is all.

A few of the missions with bigger maps now seem tedious and linear, and over-long for no good reason. Ideally a map should be very non-linear to permit a variety of tactics, and to at least allow multiple plays of the same mission, for every game to be different. I will need to radically redesign some missions and make them less linear and more interesting.

I was thinking the other day that my favourite all time games are Project Stealth Fighter and Airborne Ranger on the Commodore 64, UFO Enemy Unknown and Frontier on Amiga, and possibly Civilisation too. Apart from Frontier, all are Microprose games. All are categorised by being non-linear. On PC, perhaps my only favourites are Half-Life and Unreal, but both are very linear and really in a totally different, and inferior, category to the former games.

Of course, nobody can experience Project Stealth Fighter now how it was to play then. You need two cassettes and 45 minutes just to load and play each game, the game came with four (I think) printed N.A.T.O. maps of your mission area, a keyboard overlay and so many controls that you felt like a trainee pilot just reading the excellent manual. There are no games like it now, and there probably never will be again. The tape loading and sheer waiting time made each play a serious investment of time; that giving added something.

In other Taskforce news, the Steam store page went live last night.

Difficulty Levels

More Taskforce work today, but I feel the end is in sight. The manual is just about done, the graphics updates done and the promotional graphics.

Last night though I thought of something crucial, that the most important criticism of the game is that the first level is really difficult, as well as taking, potentially, an hour or more to complete. As it stood in 2004 Taskforce had very limited appeal to the most hard-core of nerd-like turn-based game-programmer player. It really needed to be sped up and simplified for a general audience, at least, make the early level and levels accessible.

The main reason the opening level is so hard is that it's a hostage situation, and the death of any of the hostages will make you fail the mission. There are also quite a lot of enemies in this, actually, come to think of it, the first mission, Who Cares Wins, though one of the best, is one of the hardest in the entire game!

I had the idea of revamping the level. Really there's no need for hostage deaths to fail this mission; but at the same time, it would be nice, I thought, if on a harder difficulty level that they would, so I've re-written a substantial part of the game to make the story path different for each difficulty level, creating a custom missions for each of the four difficulty levels at each step of the way. This makes the level design process really flexible.

So now, for that first mission, I've used a few different maps for different difficulty levels. On the first two (easiest) difficulty levels you don't have to protect the hostages, and for the very easiest level, I've removed some of the nasty gun turrets. The third, 'Professional', skill level is like the classic level, and the hardest 'Elite' level includes more troops and, for the first time, they may even have heavy weapons.

I've continued this with most of the missions. Although many merely have more enemy troops on the harder levels, some have more cunning changes. One mission which required infiltration by a single unit now permits three, then two, then one, but on the hardest level three again, but not permitting any enemy deaths at all (so, it must be played very stealthily, then). For some missions, the number of units on your side is restricted. Another map has a few structural changes for different levels of difficulty too. Generally the easiest level is really rather easy now, but the hardest is really difficult, which is now it should be. I must be sure that I can complete every level and every difficulty.

I've found a few little bugs; one where the lights for your units would switch off. This is because all units share lights, so when one unit dies with a light, it might go off and will turn off the partner's light too. I experimented with adding 12 lights (this game has 9 light sources, already a record for my 3D engine) but it appears that I've reached a limit, so I've merely fixed the bug.

Generally speaking, the game is inching towards completion.

Really importantly though, it feels a lot better than it ever did. Sometimes, the tactics on the harder levels feel incredibly realistic, actually ducking troops behind flimsy terrain to protect them; dropping an empty gun, running to a dead body to grab theirs before turning and firing off a volley. The fast movement really makes a huge difference to the game, and with the difficulty changes, the game is transformed.

For the first time, I feel that the gameplay parts are better than U.F.O. Enemy Unknown, a game which I loved. Of course, that game has a more immersive plot... I can imagine developing something deeper and wider myself. It's interesting that I was developing the old Taskforce and Hilt II before U.F.O. existed. I tried to buy Laser Squad back in the 90s but the shop didn't have it in. It's almost like a parallel development, although, of course, I've had to do all of this on my own and any publishers I found turned out to be sharks. Only now can I see the project with a new eye. I wonder what sort of game I could make now if I started afresh.

All this said, these manic 14-hour days are really taking their toll and reminding me that even a smaller (ie. not as expansive as U.F.O.) game can be a huge amount of work. This said, Arcangel was far bigger in many ways (eight different worlds of graphics, far more items of equipment, far more units), but at the end, that game lacked these essential gameplay refinements; it wa the nerdy 2004-style game. In gaming like art and music, simplicity, paring things down, is key.

Taskforce Video

Many full days of Taskforce continue, I'm starting to feel a mix of exhaustion and elation each day. Perhaps one day people will be amazed that one person could make a game like this, but then, I always feel like that!

I've completed the game trailer after recording several gameplay videos at Deb's. It's difficult to portray a game like this in video form, partly because it's slow and thoughtful game, which doesn't lend itself to trailers. The first edit of the video used lots of bits of gameplay that blended into each other, which gives an idea about how the game looks, but gives no clue at all about the story (which is an important part of it) or other things, game options, depth of gameplay etc.

Then I had an idea of highlighting each team member; there are 12 in your team, each with a name and character, so I thought I would make these stars, introducing them in a similar way to the heroes in Reservoir Dogs, or the A-Team in its intro sequence. So, I edit 12 bits of game footage showing the 12 heroes in action, and added a still before each clip. This give the video more of a narrative, and still manages to show a lot of the gameplay. To hint at the story, I added a filmed sequence at the start, of my hand as that of October Morgane, with a pantomime voice over:

MORGANE: Excellent! My Terror Troops are in position. The only people who can stop me now are... Taskforce.

Next, the manual. At first this was a simple guide, but even then it was over 40 pages. I wanted to at least make sure that the manual included everything technical that players could use or exploit, without offering any spoilers (this trailer, has a few regarding enemies, but, in a way, without those, people won't know what they are missing in the game).

Then I had the idea of having a full colour printed manual for sale on Amazon, so I've expanded it a bit to include all of the game weapons and some tactical information, so now it's 68 pages and over 7000 words, which is quite large for a game manual. I love game manuals anyway. Hopefully this will help sell the game itself. I enjoyed writing and enjoy reading it as much as playing the game anyway!

A few program changes:
1. Wounds to the torso now drain Energy per walked square by their quantity, so 2 Torso Wounds mean 3 Energy used per square. The only effect from torso wounds before, at all, was one extra energy per walked square. This is a tiny change. I could perhaps improve Energy drain more, like have units that use more than half of their Strength up drain more, so getting tired from weight, but this is for a future game.
2. The Pistol now uses 50% rather than 60% of Action Points for an Aimed Shot. A Snap Shot uses 20%, so the Aimed Shot was unfairly high.
3. The Main Menu Purchase button should go straight to the order page in Steam now (needs testing).
4. A new menu option for Advanced Options will quit the program and open up the Config.txt file.
5. The lighting options are now in the Game Options Menu rather than the System Options.

More Taskforce

A surprisingly very full day working on Taskforce. I keep expecting that the main jobs are all done, but then another full day is taken up. I discovered a new bug with the controllers; the joysticks would not detect the correct buttons. This took an hour to track down but it was a silly mismatch between the list of keys and the actual numbers, plus a typo that switched between hex and decimal unexpectedly.

I've also added two new features; you can now speed up all troop movements (this really helps) and you can use the number keys to select any option on the pop up menus, making those much faster.

I also spent a lot of time on the manual, which is nearly 50 pages. I'm considering publishing it on Amazon, although I might need to re-size it a little first. I've also taken a lot of screenshots, and set up the complex Steam stuff to permit a separate demo and full version; and added Steam overlay support for in-game ordering of the full game. I've also restored the cool heavy weapons to the demo, and the optional mood lighting there.

My final act of the 14 hour day is to type up some basic information on the Taskforce team members. Each is based on a real person, a celebrity or an actor of some sort. This makes their character easy to discern and define, and makes a film adaptation easier (although, clue, not all of the team are currently alive). I'm dropping hints in the manual about who is who by providing locations of birth.

Taskforce TF1

F1: Mackintosh McQuaid
Born: New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Specialist Attribute: Strength
Weakness: Shot Skill

F2: Susan West
Born: Teddington, London, England
Specialist Attribute: Shot Skill
Weakness: Action Points

F3: Kent Rickman
Born: Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.
Specialist Attribute: Strength
Weakness: Action Points

F4: Sunshine Price
Born: Long Island, New York, U.S.A.
Specialist Attribute: Good Health
Weakness: Strength

F5: John 'Hawkeye' Tyler Born: Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. Specialist Attribute: Shot Skill Weakness: Health

F6: Beverley Santana
Born: Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico
Specialist Attribute: Health
Weakness: Action Points

F7: Elaine Kelly
Born: Passy, Paris, France
Specialist Attribute: Action Points
Weakness: Strength

F8: Luke Gemini
Born: Lupiac, France
Specialist Attribute: Health
Weakness: Shot Skill

F9: Charlotte Gilmore
Born: Sturmer, Essex, England
Specialist Attribute: Action Points
Weakness: Shot Skill

F10: Scott Oaktree
Born: Mullaghmore, County Leitrim, Ireland
Specialist Attribute: Strength
Weakness: Health

F11: Natasha Vetrova
Born: Priozersk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia
Specialist Attribute: Shot Skill
Weakness: Strength

F12: Nick Logan
Born: Ibadan, Nigeria
Specialist Attribute: Action Points
Weakness: Health

I'm so exhausted by the whole process now. People will be amazed that one man could make a game like this, but perhaps not surprised that in this climate, this is necessary.

Taskforce Saves

More Taskforce work now but I am nearing the end of this. Here's a top-down screenshot for a change:

I discovered a bug yesterday in the save games, something that has probably been there since the first version. I'm rather amazed that saves ever worked, and amazed that I had not spotted this bug before; it was all about pointers. Many of the game structures; units, blocks, equipment, include pointers to other units, blocks, or equipment (a unit might point to the items held, for example). Those are memory pointers and so change every time the game is run. The saved games needs to convert them to another reference before saving (in this case an array index) and then convert these references back to the correct pointers upon loading. Somehow lots of pointers were not converted or saved at all, and trying to reference a pointer that wasn't one would cause an instant crash. Anyway, all fixed now. This took most of yesterday to fix and check carefully. I identified the problem early on but had to be sure that every pointer was converted correctly.

The graphics are complete I think, and I've done most of the Steam store set-up (in English and German). I might need to program something into the demo specifically linked to Steam, to make it overlay the store page in the game (this isn't needed, I try to avoid all Steam coding anyway, it's a pain to learn something new unless it's necessary). The release date is set for June 26th.

I need to complete the manual and get the demo in Steam working today... a playable demo in Steam is not something I've done before and any Steam things are very complicated and worrysome, but in this case it will allow me to enter The Steam Game Festival. I'd like to do that but it means that I have to have the store page up and running in a week, which means making the game trailer video very soon and getting the store approved. This is difficult because I can't make game videos here and need to use Deb's computer, so will visit her house this weekend for this. She won't be there. It's a work-necessary trip during this lockdown.

Taskforce Manual

Moving on with Taskforce, I've worked all day but feel I've not made much progress. The game, however is largely complete now I think. I've spent most of today typing up the manual. I expect this would take an hour or two but it's taken all day. I had a manual written already, but a lot was missing, and there is a lot I could still add, if I wanted to fictionalise parts, add character details etc.

In a complex game like this, I think it's important that the full details are in there, covering every option, keyboard key and things like that. I rather enjoy writing manuals, and actually, I love reading them too. I used to love reading the manuals for those Microprose games that I loved; Airborne Ranger and Project Stealth Fighter, and (it's not Microprose) Elite. Those manuals were like novellas in themselves. I've tried to emulate that with the Flatspace manual. This one is a bit more tricky because Taskforce is a very technical game so there's not much room for fictionalisting.

I've also made two game changes. First I've added the option to remove all equipment on the equipment screen. It's odd that this was missing because it is a pain to delete each item by hand. This makes it much easier to design custom equipment sets, frankly it was so awkward before that I'd be surprised if anyone bothered. One feature I could add here is a way to save and recall specific equipment configurations, but that's tricky because I'm all out of icons... ease of use is important. Flatspace, for example, I think grew too complex by adding too many controls.

Feature two was adding a quick toggle for overhead/angled camera. This was mainly because the number keypad is used for camera angle and I thought it would be easy and logical to use the middle '5' key to toggle an overhead view.

I've also fixed and tested the Try Hard map. This still isn't as good as the first map, it's hard to design a map with many different options for success. The best maps in any game, I think, are non-linear and allow the player to find new ways to win without following a strict, fixed, path; but yes, very few games are like this. Every Mario game, just about every first person shooter, is a fixed-path variety. At least I have lots of randomness in this game. One idea for the future might be to show players a map before the game starts (Airborne Ranger sort of did this, as did the old Taskforce game) and perhaps have placement option for the start positions, like many tactical board games have; Battletech for example.

I noticed that characters hardly ever run out of energy. I toyed with the idea of making units regain less if their Health is below maximum, or considerably below maximum, but perhaps now is not the time to tweak game fundamentals.

I have to refine the manual more, and create the Steam Store next.

Taskforce, Tesco, The Matrix

Another full day working on Taskforce. Occasionally tearful about poor Cat. Also had to go to Tesco for the weekly shop, which was very busy, as one might expect for the day after a Bank Holiday.

I started the day by finding the exact email I sent to Andrew Williams to find the day when we found Cat, so that I could record the day of her finding and her death for posterity. I have a file of memorable dates, a short list of big life occasions, and Cat deserves these two entries. It seems that we found her on the evening of October 13th 2003, not 2004 as I first thought, so I've backdated my blogged dates. I've saved all of my emails from November 2000 to 2014, it feels nice to look back and have these. Those, and this blog are such great things, far better than the awfulness of 'social media'. I will never fondly look back at Facebook posts. Will anyone?

By chance, in one old email, I found had a list of improvements for Taskforce, some feedback from the very early days. It seems that I have implemented most of those ideas.

After that, many big changes to the game today. I'm determined to plough through this and get it completed:

1. First I redesigned the in-game icons, and later in the day designed the main interface menu icons. These are now a nice slim yellow, these look more slick than the 2004 blue ones:

2. Added the option to select units with keys F1 to F12 (partly because there are 12 units so these keys seemed ideal). On the equip screen these keys will also Duck/Stand the troops if you have selected them already.
3. Updated the game demo. Taskforce always had a demo, and I'm tempted to add this to Steam, my first game to include a free game demo. I've had to add links to the Steam store and updated the demo text.
4. Added Steam support inside the game engine so it's ready to go on the platform.
5. Re-rendered some of the music to slightly improve the quality. The downside is that my music software has changed since 2004, so some of the audio effects no longer exist. It's not vital, but it would be more work than I'd hoped to recreate the original music.
6. Added "2/6 AP's" text to the Duck/stand in-game text, alerting the player to the number of Action Points for this action.
7. Formatted more Steam specific graphics for the Store page.
8. Changed priority memory allocation for the Vertex Buffers, and speed tested this. There was a very slight speed difference, so slight it might not be significant or due to the memory, but at least now, the graphics driver should be in charge of the best memory to select.
9. Created a new Taskforce Model Viewer program, which might be useful.
10. Changes to the Try Hard map; untested.

And several other things. At 2pm I went to Tesco for the weekly shop. Mum came with me, which was helpful as I had a lot, perhaps five bags to carry. Without her help, I would need to make two trips per week. We bought 5kg of rice because they had no smaller bags, but I suppose this is cheaper in the long run. The whole shop has a one-way system which makes it look like my old game The Challenge of the Matrix, actually my first ever Amiga game, back from December 1992.

I don't have any images of the game at all, but a quick Google search reveals that an awful lot of other people do! Amazed that these ancient games are still around.

Have barely stopped today. It is now 21:38, post-bath. Time to speak to Deb. How I miss seeing her in these Covid times.

Goodbye Cat

Cat has not been eating much for the past few days, she seems to have had an upset stomach, something like a bug. Today she seemed a little better, not appearing too unwell or excessively sleepy, still drinking a lot, but hardly eating, and when she did, she used just one side of her mouth.

Mum called the vet, which was unexpectedly open for a few hours of emergency appointments during this 'lock down' time, and we loaded Cat into the cat box and wheeled her, on the back of mum's bicycle, to the vet about a mile away. Cat meowed constantly during the trip, something she often does. She always was vocal, eager to talk to us, every since we saved her from the unfeeling cars on that lonely autumn evening in October 2003 when we found her, as a tiny kitten, meowing insistently at us.

With the distancing measures, we spoke to the vet in the car park, standing a few metres apart, and the vet took Cat inside to examine her. He reported that she had an abscess in her mouth; perhaps that was the cause of her stomach trouble too, who can say. Unfortunately, he also found a large tumour in her abdomen and said that this would probably cause problems from now on and that treating the tooth was probably not worth it. Mum said right away that she should be put down, this was probably correct, but these are my mother's instincts anyway. She has often said that she would 'put me out of my misery' if I should fall ill.

So, Cat died today. Her birthday was probably in April 2003, so she was 17. It might even have been her birthday. She was my lucky spark in art, how curious that I have stopped painting at this time, back working on Taskforce, the first game I developed after she arrived.

The hardest part for me was not seeing her one last time. I expected to take her home with a treatment, quickly and easily. The Covid-19 distancing measures meant that we couldn't go into the surgery to see her after she was taken in for the examination. I knew that somewhere in the depths of the building she would be meowing for us, but I didn't see her again. I rarely photograph Cat, so it's amazing that I did so in March. I'm blessed to have this memento. I wrote a final poem for her today, too.

Goodbye

I wish I could say goodbye.
I wish I could have said goodbye.

I wish you could have heard me say goodbye, today,
and felt it and knew how much I loved you.

I wish you could have seen goodbye
in my eyes, and my voice.
I wish you knew, I wish you know, now,
that goodbye has been said,
although you are dead.

I wish you felt loved as you died.
I wish you could see how much I have cried,
but you didn't,
and you can't,
because you were alone,
and afraid, like I am
as I write goodbye.

Taskxausted

Not sure how that heading might me pronounced. A long and tiring day, have been working on Taskforce since about 7am, despite, last night, thinking that a lot had been done; a deadly assumption!

I thought it would idea to actually have 12 Taskforce unit models, one per team member. This was always the plan, at least, it was when there were six units; they were supposed to have individual looks and personalities. So today I started be doubling up the models and the textures. This wasn't as seamless as I'd hoped, the vertex buffer ran out of space. The models take up 2,723,120 bytes exactly of vertex data. The vast majority is the units/characters. Everything else; the icons, scenery, bullets, weapons etc. takes up only about 20% of the total space. So, I increased this.

I'm not sure if there is a limit... if so, I might have breached it, as it is now beyond 65536*32, which was, in my code, touted as a maximum. I had better test this.

I've spent most of the day working on faces and characters for these twelve heroes. Here is an example of the Kent Rickman portrait:

Compare this with the same character from the 1996 Amiga version of Taskforce, in the top left hand corner here, back when I was a mere beginner:

The level of detail for these faces might seem excessive, but it's all needed for certain aspects of the game. You never know when something will be needed for box artwork or some future cut-scene. It doesn't hurt to be over cautious with resolution.

Here are the final dozen: six male, six female:

From top left to bottom right they are Mackintosh McQuaid (inspired by the Carl Weathers character in Predator), Susan West (a fairly generic character), Kent Rickman (as above), Sunshine Price (something of a glamour puss), John Tyler (with eyepatch, also inspired by the 1996 Taskforce), Beverley Santana (with a Frida Kahlo monobrow), Elaine Kelly (with auburn hair and freckles), Luke Gemini (a playboy with panaché, I was thinking of something like D'artagnan or Face from the A-Team for him), Charlotte Gilmore (complete with blue hair), Cameron Kane (with wode face-paint, like Mel Gibson in Braveheart), Natasha Vetrova (a sort of inverse to 'Stripe' from Gremlins), and Nick Logan with Matrix-style pince-nez.

After those designs, lots of checking and texting. I played through one of the missions, and fortunately it had a few map problems, just a few things that needed improvement, so I fixed those and then checked every map in the game. I found one faulty tile (which has been there since the 2004 version) and a few other minor map problems.

I'm now so tired that my head is spinning. Perhaps, again, I can call today finished, and call most of Taskforce finished, but there is still a lot to do.

Oh, I forgot to mention that another thing I've done is compile the videos for the special ArtSwarm show; it was the deadline today. For the first time ever, I have no time or energy to create something myself. I will film and assemble this tomorrow.

More Taskforce, Box Art and Widescreen

A full day of Taskforce work today. I've removed the 'Loading' screen (not necessary now) and created new graphics for Morgane's portrait during the intro, and new box art/main graphics. Here it is so far:

This is a lot better than the old 2004 graphics, here:

I've also created a separate variant for the back of mission briefings.

Lots of other work done. I've speeded up the shots and walking, added new text to the menu (and removed on menu itself). I've played another spider mission. This was fun, and involved a house full of 24 of them! I've also adapted things for widescreen. This is quite a challenge. the easiest option is to adjust the perspective so that the screen generally remains the same irrespective of the screen aspect ratio. The camera needs moving too, to compensate. Some flat items, like fonts, icons and the mouse pointer, need shrinking horizontally to keep them square. Generally this was a lot easier than the Flatspace IIk adaptations, which needed a lot of work due to the complex menus in that game.

Here is the main game screen in square-screen format (1280x1024, actually) and widescreen:

The latter has notably smaller fonts but that can't he helped; if they were bigger, they wouldn't fit vertically. The important thing is that everything* fits in every circumstance; and you'll note the size of the troops is just about the same too.

Most of the changes are complete now, but I might design new icons. The ones there look a bit small for modern screens. I also need a new manual. I expect several more days work yet.

* = famous last words!

Taskforce Programming and Spiders

First: Spoiler Alert! For those who don't know Taskforce and don't want to know, look away now and come back in many years. That's all this post is about.

A full day working on Taskforce today, lots of time spent playing. That's the downside with this game, it really takes a lot of time up. The graphic work is largely complete. I've made a few gameplay changes:

1. I've given the flame weapons a boost. These were always rather weedy, and this has been the case since Hilt II (in fact the damage system is the same as Hilt II). The Heavy Burner has an intensity 7 flame, so causes 7 damage, and fires of 7 intensity when walked through. The change I made today is that the initial 'blast' damage from the burner and fire bombs is now double the intensity, to 14 for the Burner and 10 for the Fire Bombs. A Hand Grenade causes 20 damage, so this seems more reasonable. In some games, like Space Hulk, a flame blast is instant death like being hit with a flamethrower, so I think that the initial blast here should at least be bigger. Unlike other damage, flames hurt directly, pay no attention to armour and cause no wounds.

2. Knife attacks. Knives were weedy in Hilt II and Arcangel, and here. If walking up to an enemy you should really expect to hit almost every time. Now if you have greater Melee Skill than the enemy, you will always hit, and if less, the chance depends on the enemy's skill (if they have 80 skill and you 40 then you have a 50% chance of a hit, sort of akin to their skill being that of a kung-fu master, and able to dodge you).

3. I've increased the spider multiply rate. There are two in the game: a percentage probability of spiders reproducing, and a second percentage, which is cumulative with the first, that only applies after the first 70-ish spawns. The old, version 1.00, rates were 25% and 25%. With six Taskforce units this made the game really difficult! Version 1.03 new game has twelve units and 20% and 20% rates. This makes these spider missions a lot easier, perhaps too easy really, as the 20/20 level was set before I gave players twelve troops, so I've boosted the second rate; it's now 20% and 40%. Actually, even this wasn't very difficult to complete on the second to highest skill level. I managed a 'perfect' mission (no losses) with my first try of this today. Twelve units really makes a difference on these missions, so I'm tempted to boost the multiplication rate again, but this is a very delicate balance and needs a lot of testing.

Here is a game in progress:

Zombies

A full and tiring day working on the Taskforce game art. It's amazing how few textures there are in this game. Everything looks a lot better now. Here is the face of a 2004 zombie vs. a new 2020 zombie:

And a 2004 vs. 2020 woman. She still looks rather chunky, but much better. These characters are more like game pieces than real people anyway. Realistic proportions tends to make humans look thin and weedy in game environments, which is why so many game characters look bulky.

I need a new font and title graphics next. I also have to think of any rule enhancements... I could leave things as they are, which would be the easiest option. Even a slight change might take weeks to test and test to make sure it plays well. I have a few ideas:

1. There are currently up to 12 player units per map. Originally there were 6, but every mission is quite difficult with just 6, and most are quite easy with 12. I could make the difficulty level correspond with the amount players may select. That said, players set their own difficulty level anyway, so can optionally do this voluntarily.
2. I could make deaths of units permanent as missions progress. If Mackintosh McQuaid dies on Mission 1 then he's not choosable for missions after that. Players could go back and play Mission 1 again if they wanted. I like this idea. I'd need to store a chain of who is alive at what stage. The downside with this is that it can fundamentally change the difficulty of the game and would need a lot of testing.
3. I might do something about Spider multiplication, as this can cause exponential problems; missions that are way too easy or way to difficult through no fault of the player.

Anyway. As you can discern, I'm very focused on the game now and ignoring Covid-19 and the general world. I'm pacing in the garden during break times. It's been just over two weeks of the lock down but feels longer. I miss Deb dearly and worry for her. It appears that this lockdown will last 10 weeks or so, if Wuhan is anything to go by, depending on the governments whim. We really need lots of testing to be sure about things like this. It appears that many people don't become immune to this, which makes everything much more difficult.

In these circumstances, testing can be a de-facto cure. Imagine if everyone who had Covid-19 were blue. We could instantly avoid them, and they could isolate. In practice, testing is not that ideal; it's slow, unreliable and can only be done once per person at great cost. An electronic multi-use tester would be a great tool. Perhaps one based on spectroscopy would be possible. I wonder if a spectrographic machine could shine into a very mouth? A cheap, mass produced, reusable test would be as good as a vaccine.

Taskforce Troops

Lots of work today, a full day working on new textures for Taskforce. Even without the geometry changes (which would be really awkward to make, I'd prefer to avoid them!) it seems I can improve the graphics a lot with textures. Here is a before and after shot, showing the old 2004 textures and the ones I've designed today:

The heroes tend to all look like Wolverine, but that's not a bad look for an action game! Here is one of the new Terror Troops:

One thing I have spent time on today is programming a new object viewer, so that I can see what the results are easily. One reason why the old graphics were so imperfect is that I could only ever see the objects in the game itself, so that means not from every angle and range... this, at least, helps enormously. Of course, one big reason is that I was not a visual artist at all at the time I made Taskforce.

These changes are meticulous. I will need to very slowly update every texture and character in the game. There aren't many characters. I scaled things down a lot... there were originally three Terror Troops, rather than two, and a female Zombie too, but those things didn't really add anything to the game. I should finish this process tomorrow. I also need a LOT of box art and promotional graphics, it's something I hardly paid any attention to back then. My idea was to deliberately use in-game images to give it a very digital angular look. I still thought this was a good idea, but it seems that people didn't really get it.

Taskforce Textures

An odd day. I decided to experiment with improving the Taskforce graphics, and after very quickly revising the manual started work on possible new face textures. Perhaps the biggest graphical weakness in the game are the soldiers, and their faces in particular. Here's an existing texture:

This was partly an homage to the original Amiga Taskforce. I wanted a sort of cartoon look. Today I started work on a much more realistic option, so I've made a sort of e-fit of face parts. Here are two examples:

Amazingly, in the game, they don't really look that different. One problem is the actual texturing process, wrapping those images onto the 3D objects. I've always used my own software, Hector, for this. It's very basic (actually it is written in BASIC too), but it's all I have, and other texture programs seem horribly inefficient by comparison. I could do with one but have no experience of using any and those complicated beasts tend to take days, weeks, months to learn.

I think I'll continue experimenting for a few days, with textures, with models. This is time consuming, and I don't want to waste too long on it, but these early results look so much better than the 2004 ones, so I might as well give it a week of work and see what I can come up with.

In other news, it was a shopping trip day under the Covid-19 lockdown. Tesco has almost all sort of stock now, to at least some extent. They even had pasta and bread flour. There were not many shoppers. I've no idea how dangerous the situation is. Most of the reported figures are probably from people who were infected weeks ago. I expect it is safer now than two weeks ago, despite the figures being a lot higher now. I expect that the graph of infections will level off in 9 days and then decline.

Cat is ill today with a bad stomach, and has only eaten a little, but has drank a lot of water. I hope this is a temporary upset due to eating something she shouldn't have and not a sign of kidney failure, which affects many older cats.

I miss Deb. This lockdown situation, and the programming, has set me in a mood and mode of my pre-art days, not a pleasant mode. It wasn't productive either, it appears, because the quality of my work over those years and decades was poor; but then isn't that the case for any student?

A tiny bit of art news is that I've proofed Synaesthesia now, and it is complete; the album is ready to file and then release. I'm not sure when this will happen. I guess that it should happen before the Animalia remaster, but not too soon because the new and special Burn of God needs a few months in the spotlight.

The Life Story of Arcangel and Taskforce

A random message about Hilt II reminded me about Arcangel and Taskforce. Two of my games which I feel are cursed. Arcangel was by first PC game.

After years of decline in the popularity of the Commodore Amiga in 1990s, my games seemed to be doomed. I loved that machine and spent a lot of the decade slowly building up a library of routines and programming game after game there. In retrospect though, none of my Amiga games were particularly good. I'd tried to pursue publishers but got nowhere, except led along. A game called Rage was liked by one publisher and they insisted on change after change, but I saw no contract. I worked on the game for months and, in the end, they dumped the game and me. A similar story happened to a game called Sentinel, which I worked on for a year. I later renamed it Hideous and a second publisher showed interest, but again, I got nothing, and the game was never published. This was a common theme for the decade. My only published game was a called Burnout, a game like a gladiatorial fight but with cars; a bit like Robot Wars. That was published by someone I had no connection to before, Vulcan Software, just about the only publisher who worked honestly and professionally. Unfortunately, that was at the end of the decade, it was just about my last Amiga game... but no, there was one called Blade which I had forgotten about (quite deliberately, it appears).

My most popular Amiga game was called Hilt II. I made a small maze, dungeon game called Hilt with my friend Andrew Cashmore. This led to Hilt II, which was actually a turn-based war game, related to an earlier game of mine called Taskforce. I decided to make Hilt and Hilt II "shareware" - so, effectively, self-published. We used a company called 5th Dimension, run by a nice owner of a PD library. It was a better idea than dealing with sharks and thieves, but we still didn't sell a single copy. This aside, the games were good, and remain popular even today. As my last Amiga game I made Blade, which was a 3D version of Hilt; this was stolen by a nefarious so-called publisher who was actually, I was told, a convicted criminal. Apparently the same individual did this routinely to many game developers. Anyway.

At the end of those Amiga years, I remained vaguely in touch with a few fly-by-night computer game entrepreneur criminals. The death of the Amiga led to a breakdown of extreme anxiety and a first suicide attempt, but, as is apparent, I decided instead to start afresh, sell my equipment, buy an IBM-PC, buy the books on how to program those, and learn, from scratch, how to program again. My first game was made remarkably quickly, a test game called Thermonuclear Domination (which is still a free download on my website).

After this I decided that I needed to work on a big project, so, determined started work on Arcangel; a 3D isometric conversion of Hilt II. It used many of the same maps and gameplay mechanics, but more, had an immersive complex story, multi-player mode and lots more of everything. It was perhaps a little too big, and took me, with some help from my long term collaborator and close friend Andrew Williams, about 2 years. It had a CD soundtrack, 3D films, and all sorts of things that made this by far my biggest game to date. I had two contacts at the time: one 'honest' remnant of the defunct Blade publisher, and I also had vague contacts with the Netherlands based publisher of Sentinel. I approached both with Arcangel and sent them a demo.

As happened before, things were strung out over many months; requests for changes, more artwork, seeking distributors, seeking advertising, nothing certain, hope everywhere. It seemed like the same old story; I had signed my game away for years and expected to have lost it forever. It was now about 2001 and I'd spent years working on a game for nothing, quite foolishly. In the end, the publisher's demo version of the game appeared in pound-shops across Britain in a secret deal probably struck by the Netherlands guy. I didn't see a thing for it, not even a copy of the game. I didn't even hear about it until customers got in touch to either compliment me on it or complain... because as it was a publisher's demo, it wasn't the finished copy of the game and had several bugs. This was another disaster in the stream of disasters that was my computer game life. By this time I'd lost almost everything. At the age of 30 I had no friends or family, no prospects, never had a job or qualifications, had barely spoken or left this very room in the previous 20 years, and during that time had been obsessively creating games, which, by this time, I had all lost in exchange for nothing.

Yet, at the end of it, Arcangel was quite a good game, perhaps my best to date. After suicide attempt two, I decided to wait until I ran out of money instead. I had £120 in the bank, so I didn't think it would be long, but lo and behold, this spur made me think more entrepreneurially. I then decided to sell my own games online.

But I never sold Arcangel. It was always designed for CD only so it needed some changes to even work as a download, and in the early 2000s, a download of 650Mb was far too big. Fundamentally I'd lost interest in it. I hated the whole idea, and thought of it felt painful at every turn.

So, in 2002, I made lots of games and sold them online, and eventually, two short years later, made Flatspace which became a small hit. I used that opportunity to again be bold and try to tackle the genre I loved most, the turn-based tactical wargame! So, I spent over a year working on a massively ambitious game called Taskforce. It was related to Hilt II, to Arcangel, and to the old Amiga game Taskforce too, and would be the best of all three AND be fully 3D by now.

I put endless work into this, yet, when it finally came out, nothing happened, nothing. A flutter of words that the graphics were bad was just about the only feedback I had - that always annoyed me. It's a turn based tactical game. The characters are effectively chess-pieces. The look is absolutely unimportant compared to the gameplay. The graphics are clunky, but I still can't believe that these scant comments were the actual reason for the game's unpopularity. I always liked Taskforce, and Hilt II and this sort of game, but in the end it sold less than 20 copies. It was a sad moment, the moment that I lost all heart in computer games.

After that, I grew to hate programming, games, and anything computer related. It was, in a strange way, a catalyst for my real-world art; a rebellion against the rigid and technological that my art is about now (even if it barely shows).

The curious epilogue is that I kept tweaking my games, releasing and re-releasing and updating them ever since, and today, I updated Taskforce with my new game engine, allowing it to work on modern computers again. Yes, it looks clunky, but I love the clunk more and more. I've played it for hours today and I was reminded how much I really like it.

My games, generally, divide into two types: multiplayer games (Future Snooker, Radioactive, and many of my Amiga games) because I used to enjoy playing games with my brother, and turn-based strategy games, which are effectively multi-player but against the computer. Flatspace was, perhaps, a bit of an anachronism, but it was about artificial intelligence; a multi-player game where the other player is an artificially intelligent universe.

Perhaps though, Taskforce, and the games like it will forever by my favourites. I liked multi-player games because I used to play them with Paul, and, oddly, we used to play a turn-based game with toy soldiers when we were little, so perhaps that's why. Today I'm left with a strange, melancholic look at my past and wondering where to go from here. What should I do with Taskforce, and indeed Arcangel, these beloved but cursed games?

Thrones

Music work on Synaesthesia and Animalia is complete. I've spent the past few days seeking the next project. I had the idea of recording a few existing songs, mainly ones that I've done before or had ready... Two Parents of a Child, Light Blue Evening... and a few others, but I'm unsure if I like them enough to release or do anything with. I feel I need to structure them or group them. I'll keep working on them and thinking. Is it better to release them than not?

I'm also thinking about throne designs, inspired by the circular Carlo Bugatti throne; I'm sure this is something I could make. It appears, if anything, to have been inspired by Napoleon's throne and ancient Roman seats, although it superficially looks eastern or Mongolian. Mongolian thrones are actually far more box-like.

Music Tweaks

I listened to Synaesthesia through headphones last night, a final check, and found lots of panning that could be improved. I now use speakers a lot more than headphones, actively avoiding the latter because it's hard to readjust into 'speaker mode' after listening to the super headphone quality. Speakers (monitors) are essential for mixing.

I hardly slept afterwards, a night of jitters and stomach problems, all symptoms of this wretched isolation. I had not been out since Monday but today went for a welcome walk today, seeing hardly anyone on the pavements. The cars were as numerous as ever. It appears that a balanced and healthy life including fitness and a responsibility to nature will not catch on, even if death is the alternative.

I spent today correcting the little, although time consuming, Synaesthesia issues, and doing more on the art. I don't have much material there; I need some more naturalistic work I think. Aesthetics is the balance between order and chaos and I have too much order. I'm pleased with the CD surface design, this is unique in the Cornutopia Music catalogue in that the title and artist are centred at the bottom rather than left/right, but I rather like it:

Here is the back so far:

This has enough variety, but the inner tray is very simple. It should look nice when showing through to the front, and when behind the disc, but it feels a little empty and too heavy and lacking is 'chaos' or naturalism:

The eight booklet pages are largely complete. Also on the cards today, a final headphone listen to Animalia to adjust its stereo panning. I have lots of music ideas and must try to move on. Will history remember the interminable days I spend tweaking? Yes, if the tweaking improves things; however, creation rather than polishing existing work is the goal of the artist.

Synaesthesia 2020

A great day of music work. Finalised the work on my last Synaesthesia track; Waltz of the Ghosts. I decided to add some strings; I love working with string arrangements. The trick is to fill these things with melody rather than chords, but I didn't want to go too over the top here because this track is essentially piano solo, inspired, I think, by some of those early Enya tunes.

After that, lots of listening and tweaking to the entire album. This always takes time, but I generally completed the balancing and mixing work during the resequencing process, so that didn't need much work. This final step is about adding polish, the little highlights here and there. Over all the album sounds considerably better than the previous versions, it's by far the best incarnation. I need to listen on headphones to check stereo panning and for other fine details.

I've played with the artwork too, and to add a new dimension to the project added some bright red; giving the whole project a Japanese feeling:

Here is the final track listing. The track that was called The Journey, is now Hell. It was, at one point, called TV Hell, so this moves it back towards its origins:

1. Space Infinity (2:42)
2. The Runner (6:16)
3. Safe House (1:08)
4. Interference (2:31)
5. Refuge (3:31)
6. Termination (3:59)
7. Waltz of the Ghosts (3:02)
8. Hell (0:51)
9. Resurrection (3:41)
10. Islands of Memory (3:35)
11. Epitaph (2:17)

This project, after a mere week, is nearly complete. I'll probably spend a few days tweaking and making changes, then will start work on something new.

Backups, Synaesthesia Cover Art, Magnetic Fields

A very full day. I awoke late after not being able to sleep. I feel cold, weak, with palpitations. Perhaps I am short on exercise. My mum is so fit by comparison. I wouldn't be surprised if she outlived us all. She casually mentioned, at my parents wedding anniversary, that she was pregnant at the time of her wedding. This must mean I had a lost sibling before I was born, a lost brother perhaps with my name. This would be an astonishing, propitious coincidence, as my hero Beethoven had a brother, also named Ludwig, who died before he was born, and Vincent van Gogh also had a stillborn Vincent before his birth, and, if I recall, so did Ingmar Bergman.

Less dramatically, things went to plan today. It's the first of a month so I completed my regular computer backups (these take me several hours each month, I create so much data), then played the piano part for The Waltz of the Ghosts. This was sequenced very mechanically originally but I can easily play it now, so did so. I am unsure whether to add any backing music. I also completed a final listen and file conversion for the Animalia music, and began work on the Synaesthesia artwork. Here is the first draft of the new cover:

It's rather radically different from the older versions. It matters not. I like it. I wish, given the delight of this cover, that the music was better, but I reminded myself than no cover can be 'too good'. Ideally, everything is 'too good'. The music is good for its time. I looked back to discover when I first wrote it; the MED files are stamped 24 July 1999, which is about right. I'm getting tired of this now, feeling ready to move on to new work, new creations.

Visiting this old work will inspire me. I listened to Jean-Michel Jarre's Magnetic Fields the other day, and thought that it might be my favourite album of his (along with Oxygene). Both ground-breaking because of the way relatively simple instruments create a scene. Rendez-vous was his most commercially successful, I think, because there are lots of catchy melodies in there; it is less abstract and symphonic in the Sibelius sense. Magnetic Fields included real world recordings in a way that Jarre rarely did. Zoolook is full of samples, but Magnetic Fields seemed to integrate the music with the real world, not try to emulate it. At times, Jarre's music suffers because he tried to be too electronic, almost preferring cheap and unfeeling synthetic strings to a real orchestra, for example, and so the feeling in his music was not as deep as it could be.

It seems that a lot of electronic music in the 90s became dance or club related, and therefore cold, distant, though very melodic. I could say 'like Synaesthesia', but no; my album had those qualities but was perhaps a reaction to that cold alienation, an attempt at an emotional release, an escape from that very logical, mechanical, digital existence; a path in art which I have continued to tread. 21 years is a long time. Perhaps I could try something again purely instrumental. I feel, at last, more powerful and technically able than Jarre was in 1981.