itch.io

Thanks, I may do that for my class next Fall. My class is a bunch of high school seniors that have a broad range of skills coming in, but the trend has been less and less individuals interested in programming each year. I think I've identified why that may be and I'm looking for an engine that will provide immediate gratification, while also teaching usable programming concepts in a real language that is used in the business world. Unity is great, because we use C# and Visual Studio - but the trend in my students is that they just aren't ready for that and/or have interest. In the Spring I have them do rounds of week long game jams, with at least one of them being for the itch.io. Most of my students fail to submit by the deadline, because they work right until the last second and then realize they don't exactly know how to and/or have the time to submit. That auto itch submission you have going on is looking pretty nice right about now.

Anyhow, I bought a license for myself to look into it. I don't have much time right now due to my MS degree hammering down on me. I'm sure I'll have some questions in the nearish future; though I do have one question now - Is anyone working on or seeing value in an editor. Not necessarily for entire game creation like Unity, but perhaps a WYSIWYG level designer? 

This summer my final MS course is a project class where I'll be on a team and we'll need to decide what we want to make. I don't know who my team will be, but if I can convince them, I'd like to make a tool for my class. If I were to roll with DragonRuby for 2d game development, all of my artists would love a visual design tool that lets them layout the visuals in a way they are accustomed. It would keep the programming focused on providing the functionality of the game. I hate saying the less code the better, but the less intimidating the better for my beginning students - many of whom are coming to my class only for exploring the art side of the job. Minimal but meaningful programming activities and concepts with a real language is my goal... And also, I just want to make something cool that people would want.

Intro

I'm Hodge. I've spent the last 20 years trying to finish making a game. It's a crazy trip that has lead to many prototypes and a career in technology that somehow landed me as a game design teacher in a public high-school program. Along the way I've done studio camera work and video editing, 3d animation and motions graphics for freelance clients and internal company projects (as a result of my AS in Digital Animation for Games). At one point I was even the director of web development for a local add agency. There are many more stops along the way than that, but I'll try to shorten this up by saying that since landing in a full time teacher position I have finished my BS in Software Development, and I am currently nearing the end of my MS in Applied Computer Science; which is actually what caused me to have interest in DragonRuby. I'm determining a final program to create for my last project class and I want to make something useful for students in the course I teach. I have lots of ideas and I'm currently looking into whether or not DragonRuby is a good fit... Oh ya, and I'm still trying to finish my own game project(s).

Internet:

I'm not currently active on the Internet. It's not a statement or anything, it's that the last few years of schooling have made me realize how bad of a coder I used to be. I just closed down most of my accounts, my website, and almost everything that would connect me to my old work, until such a time that I've built a project(s) that I'm proud to show off; though, I'm occasionally still active on platforms such as this. I'll update this section when I decide to relaunch my "internet self".

Dev Setup:

• MacBook Pro 2018 (Parallels for Microsoft Dev and Linux in a VM for most of my web related projects)
• Monitors: Ultra wide with a 16:9 on top and the laptop screen to the side + iPad mini 5 with Pencil and using sidecar to do artwork.
• Keyboard: I don't know but it sure does have pretty lights that I stare at it for too long.
• Editor: VS, VS Code, Eclipse - depends on the project, what class I'm in, and what the instructor recommends.

Top 10 Games of All Time (not necessarily in this order):

1. NES: Felix the Cat
2. GB: CatTrap
3. PC: Half Life
4. PC: Far Cry 5
5. N3DS: Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
6. Pretty much any first party 3DS title (3DS is my favorite console, I'm a sucker for the stereoscopic gimmick)
7. Lots of other's I'm sure, but these are the ones I go back to.

Languages I Know (In Random Order):

1. HTML, CSS, javascript, MySQL (you know, all the common web stuff)
2. Ruby - I'm very new, but my current college course is dousing me in this and Rails. I'm kind of loving it.
3. C, Java
4. C# for business applications and of course Unity game creation (my current game that is closest to releasable is built in Unity)
5. Probably other stuff that I'm not recalling.