Shrapnel Games Blog

As I mentioned in my first blog post, I would like to address the problem of losing data while working on a game. I know, I know, EVERYONE who works on games or other software creation KNOWS this already. My dilemma is WHEN you save! I save all the time, but always seem I get an error or a crash of some kind when I’m saving something I’ve spent a particularly large chunk of my life completing.

I have tried to find the reason this happens for more than 2 years now, and the only answer I keep coming up with is that whatever I took so long to create is important to know HOW to create, so God is forcing me to REALLY learn it! Yeah, kinda weak, but it tends to keep me from tossing my expensive laptop across the room. Seriously, though, I’ve found that when I did have to go back and rebuild what I’d labored so long over, I have found errors that would have been very difficult to find and fix outside of the beta-testing process, or a better way of doing the whole process.

What’s strange is that I don’t always look on the bright side of life. Maybe having the power to destroy a laptop and all it contains in my hands makes me cautious!? Anyway, I’ve yet to figure out the PERFECT time to save my work, beyond what I’ve done at the end of a session of manipulating enemy AI or painstakingly recreating a new piece of military equipment. The save process can be excruciatingly time consuming as well when you work with a program that can, due to circumstances which don’t reveal themselves, also CORRUPT the data you have already saved! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!

This has happened to me 4 times over the last 2 years, and each time I figured I had learned my lesson and would avoid any problems in the future. Each time I got cocky with my skills, God slaps me back into place. It’s hard to describe what it’s like when you get into a game-designing groove (my phrase, but feel free to use it!) and nothing can stop you! Your AI is working perfectly and all of your vehicles are performing as designed, and you just have to plot a route for the final enemy air strike and “POOF”, it’s all gone! Some of you know exactly what it’s like. These are the times when prayer, even for the anti-Christ, seems appropriate!

Even beyond these things are the times when you ARE saving often and in numerous places, and there is a power surge or your CPU decides it’s had enough. We are at the mercy of electrons, as it were.

So, the whole point of this blog is to let you know that first, you aren’t alone if you’ve suffered through something similar, and second, when you have taken all of the precautions to avoid losing your hard work, sometimes you should just look at it as the journey being the reward and the process is what’s important…

…or something like that.