Computer Repair Simulator

 

It was early in the year 2014, maybe January, where I was sitting in my basement full of computers and computer hardware.  I am a collector of electronics and assemblies, the guy who thinks to himself that I will need “this” one day for something.  In that same night, I started pondering an idea, a concept, a game.  My notebook began to look like it was dragged through a thorn bush, and pretty soon my desk, table tops, and even floor were covered with notebook paper sketches and tables.  I don’t believe I slept that night because I was so excited about this project.  This boredom turned into curiosity, which then brought my attention to the 3D Game Studio engine.  I began copying code from my other projects I worked in over the course of the years, and before you knew it I had a table top prepared to begin my work “the table top in the game”.  As I began experimenting, I found myself building and modeling all of my computers and computer hardware using the 3D Game Studio Model Editor.  I must have spent over 1,000 hours just modeling every little detail on the computer hardware.  Before you knew it, I made a little video and submitted it to AMD(TM) and Kingston(TM), and the next day I was on the phone with the marketing director speaking about this project.

As I continued to “fool” around with this project, I soon found myself playing my own game.  I then began to think my friends would like it, so I started to share.  Before you knew it, YouTube had several videos uploaded and comments / interest were being developed.  It was then I began to realize this little project was no longer a project, but an opportunity to fulfill my all time dream of developing a video game from scratch.  The project has since grown…

I will be honest, the team (even newly added developers) have been getting pushed to the limits over the past 2 weeks, buried in legal documentation, registration, fees, licensing, etc., but good progress is being made and I am really proud of the team even though stress levels have been extremely high (not to mention I am getting married in 1 month from now).  We absolutely need to do this stuff now in order to have a successful launch.

We have been using the 3D Game Studio modeling tool (MED) up until now for the models in the game, but we have just invested in 3D Studio Max 2017 and additional Adobe graphics tools which will not only make the entire process more efficient, but allow us to do things we have not been able to do before, along with shortening the time to market.  We also plan to use the 3D Studio Max software to sell models to begin raising money for this project.

We also completed the paperwork for Copyright protection which is now in active, along with registering the “Computer Repair Simulator” title with the US Trademark and Patent office which now gives us the legal ability to claim this project as our own.

I also have even better news…

I would like to welcome Brooke Swindell and Andrew MacArthur to the team.

Brooke Swindell is not only my sister, but an amazing graphics artists and designer.  She has experience running large commercial projects related to marketing, advertising, and logos.  She designs some of the top commercial business signature logos in the market.

Andrew MacArthur is not only my my best friend and considered a brother, but he is an excellent sound engineer.  Andrew has top end equipment for sound and sound FX recording and will be creating sound FX for the game.  This poor guy will need to spend his Friday / Saturday nights taking apart computers recording every sound 10 times.  Not to mention he owes me a sound clip of a human being eaten by a dragon, not sure how he will figure that one out.

 

Also, even though we have been swamped in legal items, I have managed to continue adding to the game…little progress, but good progress.

Added three play modes, each offer its own benefits.  I only started working on these, so after some time I should have some pretty fun stuff.

Random:  Random items will be broken and when board is completely repaired, you beat scenario and get another.  Each round offers their own rewards.  This is really used for fun / bug testing all items.
Scenario:  This will be scenario based situations that links problems with actual failures that need to be analyzed and resolved.  Use the skill you gain from the Training to take these on as they will get more and more difficult.
Training:  This is the one item I am coding first as it verifies controls are understood, and explains how the game is played.  Once you pass the basics, you begin to learn about technology as it is broken down and explained piece by piece.  You will learn terms, methods, hardware, and general technology while traveling through the ranks of training.

 

Tonight I was able to finish coding the interaction between the user and the PCI Slots, PCIe Slots, and the AGP Slot.  I was able to completely add / finish the code on the SouthBridge, CMOS Battery socket, and the actual CR2032 Battery.  I will show an image below of the new additions, but also will share some Isle of Polm pictures to add more interesting things to this post haha.  This Isle of Polm project was the one that taught me most of my programming skills as it was an online survival game.

 

 

 

I got a bit tired this evening, so I thought it would be good to share some game play.  I was able to patch a lot of existing bugs that were found by my test team which is good.  Please ignore the SATA port labeling, I didn’t get to code them yet.  Thoughts?

 

 

Just an update of adding some items.  Also, several bugs were noted which are slowly being patched up.