Ever missed the boat?

Please note: This thread contains information about Grey Alien Games. If you don't want to read it, please find another thread instead of sniping/trollling/whatever thanks.

There's a game on Big Fish Games right now called Flower Shop, and by all accounts it's doing pretty well. What disappoints me is that I had a game plan doc called "Flower shop" on my hard drive since February, but it never got made because I was hired to make a match-3 game instead...oh well, great minds and all that.

Have any of you ever missed the boat in such a way? Perhaps you caught the next one however?

Wouldn't say I've missed any boats. I've certainly been on a few Titanics though.

I've had many ideas in the past that I haven't acted on and it usually turns out that someone's done it a few years later.

Lol. Hasn't happened to me yet, although I wonder about the software company that I build up over 9 years that is now left in other hands...

I guess the thing is, ideas are two a penny, it's who actually finishes them and gets them out there!

ive had quite a few ideas for casual games that get done on bigfish.com but executed much better than I could do it, with better gfx and gameplay.
I dont get much time to program (boo hoo)

Back in the Amiga days I was developing my own RPG - it was a sort of Dungeon Master/Eye of the Beholder one. I had nicked the graphics out of Eye of the Beholder using my Action Replay cartridge and reassembled them in-game.

This was all before I had internet access and the only person I knew about that was doing the same thing was a guy developing a game called Black Dawn as a public domain game.

I gave up on my effort. Based on the success he had with Black Dawn - all the magazine publicity, etc - I wish I had completed it.

Still, even uncomplete (like all of my masterworks) my dominance still looms into every home in the world.

Andrew Campbell?

Bloody hell - it was "Campbell" - I'd even forgotten that too.

Normally I would say something like "Full of yourself much?"

still. Every home in the world is a bit much, don't you think? Isn't it more like millions of homes, not even a billion?


Luckily. I haven't missed any boats yet. Have tossed one or two ideas out that were then taken and made. I don't consider it missing the boat, as I wasn't trying to get on the boat in the first place.

More power to whomever has the willpower to do one of my random ideas. I don't have the time to do -everything- which is one of the hardest things I have had to accept.

:)

.

Hey, so did I... except I ripped the gfx from the files instead of shonking around in AR =] The engine was coming along nicely but it was around the time the Amiga died and it didn't feel like anybody would be interested anymore.

Actually I had a system in place to turn it into a MUD/MMORPG type thing thru a BBS interface, before MMORPG's became termed MMORPGs...


Somebody needs a sense of humour.

That reminds me of what made me stop development - it was the birth of the 360 degree game - Ultima Underworld and Doom came along and rained on my parade. The world was going 360 degree mad.

Although EOB came out in 1991, I didn't actually start work until 1992 - mainly because I had no idea how to make the game until I had worked out how to create a 3D world. It took a mere few seconds for me to figure out how to construct a 3D world - it just took a long time for those few seconds to happen.

> I've certainly been on a few Titanics though.

You hit an iceberg, then drowned or escaped by lifeboat several times? Man, that is bad.

I'm not the one that missed the joke. you are :) :P

LOL - reminds me of Jim Carrey's character in Bruce Almighty. He was on a boat, live on air and didn't get the promotion.

What joke?

why does every thread turn into a cheese discussion or a snipe at each other? It's lame. You won't get very far in 2007 thinking like that.

So what you're saying is 2007 New Years Resolution, no more cheese? I'm sorry but cheesy is tasty, I can't agree to that.

eating cheese is fine, but discussing it in every thread, nah...

Why should this year be any different than the last year?

For me life is about quality, improvement and achievement, and having fun of course. So I aim to make each year better than the last. 2006 was great, and 2007 should be even better, I'm looking forward to it.

Heh, well I think everyone tries to do that! :)

Unfortunately, life is what happens to you whilst you're busy making other plans. New Year, Schmew Year, as far as I'm concerned. :p

I missed the boat, bloody Geometry Wars.

Cheers
Charlie

Often.

However, what's worse is the "so close but no cigar" situations, when you're one step away from real success but then something ridiculous happens and you're back at square one.

[quote]"so close but no cigar"[quote]aha, but try a couple more times and the cigar will be yours! Life is what you make it, not what "happens to you", well that's what I think anyway :-)

While true to a point, the Weather and the Natural Environment, to use only two examples, have their own plans on what could “happen to you”. ;)

depends on if you believe in subjective or objective reality.

Literally... I was living in Mazatlan and was going to take a girl on the tourboat that runs out to seal rock and around the bay... we hired a skiff to catchup and the captain stopped the boat and let us on!

Figurativley??? Yep. I watched my dad miss the boat, though I wanted to get on the boat... these two guys came over to the house. They had worked with Dad at NASA and they had an idea about producing a "portable computer" for the business market.

My father said "Who would want a portable computer?" I said THAT IS A GREAT IDEA!!! Dad did not listen to me... the two guys went on to found COMPAQ.

Rook: That's great, you actually *caught* a boat! As for the other story, YOUCH!

Indeed. I wonder which version of reality the 2004 tsunami victims believed in, or the families of the World Trade Centre 2001 terrorist attack casualties, or the survivors of the 1987 stock-market crash, or the nearby residents of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown…

It doesn’t matter what we believe. Many things just happen that are out of our control and not only extreme things, but little things every day.

Now, our attitude about what happens to us, is a different story.

for sure.

I do have a few other stories about missing the boat from my duties in the Katrina/Rita Hurricanes... Can't talk about some of them yet though!

"What disappoints me is that I had a game plan doc called "Flower shop" on my hard drive..."

You'd have ended up having to call it "Floral Bonus", I could quite safely put money on that I think! ;O)

polygoon: Nah it wasn't a match-3 it was a Diner Dash clone and it was going to be called Flower Shop *exactly* like the one that's out right now!

My boats just coming in, afraid the engine looks shot on it though..... might be a little while before it leaves harbor - gives me some time to add finish touches, populate Innosetup with numerous paths and blah.

@Rook... as long as when you missed the boat you didn't hit any potential survivors lol {;-)

@Grey, looked like you caught the boat pretty well with your Holiday Bonus - it'd be nice to catch all the boats - but then you'd need a team of coders (;-{} If your projects keep improving at the rate they are at the mo, shouldn't be too long before your next boats in. Looking forward to your next framework update - regards,

Blitzplotter: Thanks, been doing a bit of framework twiddling today. New version out soon, just doing a bit of BMax1.24 testing today.