Clixmaker + GAE will be Hiring

Cathy, if you're reading this very, very long post, I know I've sent you a lot of lengthy emails lately. Nothing in this post is both terribly new and terribly important, so feel free to skip reading it for now (but I'd like you to be a good sport and read it whenever you get a chance, if you don't mind). Hopefully I won't send you anymore emails today.

I intend to post a help wanted notice on SourceForge.net for a Python programmer and a JavaScript programmer, to help me implement the Clixmaker Toolkit (which is open source). Both of those are volunteer positions. First I must write up the detailed design specs of Clixmaker, and before that I must develop 2 test games: a 2-player Scrabble game and a game of Pong. After writing the design specs, I might ask my boss if he's interested in partnering with me. He would own 10 percent of Clixmaker and receive 10 percent of the profits, and in return his employees and himself would be available to provide me with business advice and technical advice from time to time.

The following paragraph was copied from my previous blog post:

I'm going to use Google App Engine to implement Clixmaker. In order to do so, I must simplify my game model. All game objects are either cell-based or missiles. All cell-based objects (which includes all players and non-player characters) occupy a grid cell. Missiles can be located anywhere, not just in grid cells. Two kinds of missiles exist: circular and rectangular. The shape of a missile indicates how collision detection works for that missile (a circular missile can be any shape, but has a circle which is used for collision detection). Circular missiles can move in any direction; rectangular missiles can only move up, down, left and right. All collision detection between missiles and either cell-based objects or other missiles takes place at the client level (on the players' computers, not on the server).

All game action takes place inside polygons, grids, and tables (a table is like a table in Word with different sized cells which can be split/merged). Those 3 things I just mentioned, along with multilevels, are always contained within levels (rectangular regions). A multilevel is a stack of levels. Board games use grids and tables. Each cell can contain a single game object, or a stack of game objects (with or without a horizontal/vertical offset between each game object in the stack).

To summarize my business model, I would sell subscription fees to gamers and game designers. Paying members can access members-only forums and receive technical support (via email), and they can also play/create games in which money changes hands. Clixmaker would charge a transaction fee of say 5 percent whenever money changes hands between members of the Clixmaker community. The financial database resides at Clixmaker.com, and all Clixmaker game designers (who are paying members) are free to make use of that database.

All game designers must download the Google App Engine Software Development Kit from Google, as well as the Clixmaker Toolkit. The game designers are responsible for covering their bandwidth fees (network traffic) to Google. Many Google apps are hosted for free, but above a certain quota Google charges bandwidth fees. The main goal of Clixmaker is to make it as easy as possible to develop multiplayer games that run on GAE.

I will have 4 days a week to devote to Clixmaker development. On Thursdays I go to my APROM job in Mississauga, and on Tuesday afternoons I go downtown to my volunteer job at Fred Victor. On Saturdays I read the Globe and Mail, and often get depressed.

Today I'm going to buy an electric kettle, a month-at-a-glance refill for my date book, and a pair of blue jeans at 3 different stores. All of those stores are located about a 15-minute walk north of my condo, near Keele St. It's sunny and very cold today. I might buy a winter coat as the zipper on my existing coat (which isn't very warm) keeps sticking. I keep warm by wearing my down vest underneath that coat. I must head out in about an hour.

I'm going to print out this post as it has all relevant material for my Clixmaker project in one place. Maybe later today I will download the GAE SDK and make sure all steps in the Python version of the GAE tutorial work correctly. Later I probably need to uninstall Python 2.6 and install Python 2.5, which is compatible with GAE (Python is the scripting language of the Clixmaker Toolkit). I face a steep learning curve to develop those 2 test games for GAE. I know next to nothing about web server-side programming. But after I have those 2 games under my belt, I can get down to the nitty-gritty of writing the Clixmaker design specs.

These are exciting times here at the Glen Lake (that's what my condo building is called, as it's located at Dundas St. West and Glenlake Ave.). My condo fees are outrageously high, but I like my unit and the location is perfect, so I put up with it. My sister suspected that my condo fees were higher than other units, but at the last annual general meeting a woman complained that the condo fees of her 2-bedroom unit were $650/month, making it hard to sell. I have a 1-bedroom + den and my condo fees are $487/month. So I'm not the only one.

Today I intend to call my brother and invite his family over for dinner on Saturday. I didn't sleep at all last night as I was excited about Clixmaker. Also, I was depressed on Saturday and the depression lifted the next day: when I switch from depression to non-depression, I often have trouble sleeping the following night. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Soon (maybe today) I'll have to take the bull by the horns and start learning the ins-and-outs of programming the Python version of GAE. I will be a bit of a trail-blazer, as only last month a feature was added to GAE making it "easy to build real-time applications such as multiplayer games," according to the GAE blog. As far as I know, no other game-making systems exist for GAE, which is a fantastic business opportunity for me. Anyway, this post has gone on forever so I should shut up already. Time to come up for air, print out a hard copy, and say goodbye to the nice blog readers, Reginald.