Update: March 1st, 2009 - Been Busy

Next Update by: July 5th, 2009

It has been quite a while since my last report. Things here have shifted quite a bit. Empire Deluxe and The Perfect General are alive and well, but my time to devote to new development in these areas has been hampered by many things, and for the foreseeable future I will not be working on new or continuing development projects.

The bank I did do some work for has gone where most banks are going these days, and that has caused a move to the oil/gas industry – another industry which is in a little turmoil. However, where I am is a nice little company with a good deal of opportunity if it can weather the storm, and for now it has that start-up feel to it and is an interesting challenge, which means it is very busy – and as a consequence my time is going there mostly.

So I am still around. I know it has been very quiet from me as I work some very long hours. The holiday season was also quiet as I unfortunately got sick and did not get to enjoy the holidays like I usually do. Santa Sarge did not get to come out ;<

But these work changes in my life do not mean that Empire Deluxe and The Perfect General are on a slow road going no where. I am still eagerly awaiting the results of the work with Graphitti on their version of Empire Deluxe. I still do not know when it will be released, but was told over the holidays that it was part of their focus for this year. However, as I have mentioned in other reports, I will believe it when I see it.

For the Perfect General, there is a great fan based tourney going on, and several people seem to be participating, It is nice to see that the fan base has reached critical mass to do something like that. They have posted a few screens of a few games, and it does seem to be moving along : http://www.coralnet.de/

An absolutely fascinating project that is also going on is the Artificial Intelligence one I mentioned last year. A University Professor who is a player, now has no less than three graduate students working on writing an AI DLL that interfaces with a large AI system. I have been giving them some technical tips about the AI for a little over a month and they have already begun to produce units and move them around. This is a long term project for them and very exciting. Can you imaging writing your thesis on Empire Deluxe! Some guys get all the luck….Hopefully as this semester goes on the info on this research will become public and we can all hope to hear about what they are doing,

As always, I am available for contact via email, and there often seems to be chatter on the Yahoo forums and Salient Games as well. Even the EDEE Mod group has picked up somewhat as of late.

So even though I may be somewhat quiet and not doing a lot of updates this year, these great games are still going strong and people continue to get them and play. Feel free to drop me a line if you wish. I will do my best to post another status report in early July.