King of Chicago Box Pix
When you work on computer games you get to do fun, weird stuff. In the fall of 1986 I was working insanely hard on my game The King of Chicago. My publisher Cinemaware needed a designer photo for the box and since I was doing a gangster game I decided to dress the part by hitting up second hand clothes stores.
My buddy Sam Ross is a fine photographer so I asked him to take the pix. We found a grungy alley behind an abandoned train station which looked Chicagoish enough. We had a blast posing and clicking and got some decent pix.
Recently I’ve been acting as hitman for itsu jitsu so I thought I’d post these pix to strike fear in anyone who is thinking of crossing Jason Kavanagh.
The King of Chicago sold over 50,000 copies in 86-88. The Amiga version sold better than the Mac, Atari, or PC versions because of Rob Landeros’s amazing gangsters.
I’m proud of King of Chicago.
The King of Chicago
I scanned some old reviews of my computer games ChipWits and The King in the process of gussying up my bio at channelzilch.com.
In 1985 ChipWits was a hit so when my software agent Bob Jacobs formed Cinemaware he asked me to write a movie-themed game. He wanted his first line-up of cinematically-inspired games to include a knights in armor, a space, and a gangster game. I was a fan of old gangster movies so I dibsed that genre. My buddy Kellyn Beeck chose knights and wrote the smash hit Defender of the Crown.
In 1986 I wrote The King of Chicago – designed, did the artwork (for the Mac version), programmed, and wrote half the game script.
I came up with a new way of telling interactive stories which I called Dramaton. I hated hardbranching interactive storytelling – pick-a-path plotting – so I devised a way of telling a story probabilistically using a bunch of suitably-labeled animated scenes.
The Mac version got great reviews (“King of Chicago represents a landmark in computer gaming” MACazine Review ) and so we did an Amiga version. I coded it and Cinemaware artists (led by Rob Landeros) did some amazing gangster graphics.
The Amiga version of The King got rave reviews (“The King of Chicago is a brilliantly devised game that far outstrips others of its genre.” – Personal Computer World) and sold 50,000 copies in 1987 – my biggest hit.
I’m still immensely proud of The King of Chicago. It means a lot to me that The King is respected by some of today’s top game designers ( “I don’t think people realize what a landmark achievement in game development it was.” – Casey Muratori, creator of Sushi Bar Samurai). It’s fun to see fans’ enthusiasm on nostalgia gaming forums like Lemon Amiga.
Here’s a walkthrough of the Amiga version posted by a fan to YouTube:
I’m not finished writing hits!
Looking for Coder and Producer for ChipWits
It’s time to hand over coding and promoting ChipWits to someone else. My health doesn’t allow me to do a good job.
Here is the email I sent current ChipWits players:
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ChipHeads,
I’ve decided that I can’t program ChipWits any longer. My epilepsy has gotten worse and programming is difficult for me. So we are looking for a programmer and a producer to take over the game: http://chipwits.com/recruiting.html
ChipWits players are programmers so we are letting you guys know first. We’d love it if a hardcore ChipWits player took over.
I will continue to have a hand in game design along with Mike Johnston and our new team. I am going to concentrate on finishing rewriting my science fiction novel – www.helsbet.com – and working on a personal game about my disability – www.brainrot.wordpress.com.
Wish ChipWits luck this week in the Independent Games Festival: http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2009.php?id=731
They announce finalists on the 7th.
I am going to make a few tweaks this week and upload a new build, but I will wait until we’ve got a producer and coder onboard before running any more contests.
Thanks for your patience as we continue to improve ChipWits. Stay tuned for cool developments in 2009.
IFFEEL COFFEE T-> PICKUP,
Doug Sharp
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Feels both sad and good. Sad because I love programming and making games. Good because now ChipWits will grow and thrive (and make $$$!).
Happy New Year from The Pad
Best wishes for a great 2009 from Doug Sharp.
This year I am going to find a publisher for Hel’s Bet and get ChipWits II out the door with a new programmer.
2008 was a year of ups and downs. My health was down but my friends kept me going. Thanks, all.
Happy New Years from Mika, here waiting for me to leash her up for a walk. She will never understand why humans don’t walk dogs every waking hour.
Happy Hogmanay from Travis, waiting for me to open the gate so he can terrify small furry creatures. A walk is like a video game for Travis – chipmunks and squirrels and rabbits hiding and squeaking and running away. It’s a game he was evolved to play.
The three of us hard at work while a blizzard rages outside.
I am determined to rock 2009!
Tons of ChipWits downloads
Someone listed ChipWits on Versiontracker, and listed us as freeware. We are getting lots of hits. They listed it under Mac software, and the Mac version is less tested that the Windows version. I wish they hadn’t linked us for 2 more weeks.
But the current build is looking pretty good. I quickly edited the ChipWits website to emphasize to visitors that the game is still in BETA! and that it is shareware.
I’ll be interested to see how many register their game.
Working on the game
I spend most of my days working on ChipWits. I am shooting to have a solid release for October 1st, which is the deadline for entering the Independent Games Festival.
I really like having deadlines. The Clarion West Write-a-thon deadline lit a fire under my tush to finish Hel’s Bet. I am getting better at working hard for a deadline but not letting it burn me out.
I am working on ChipWits content – tutorial missions. Each simple mission introduces a new chip ( SKATE, ELECTROCRAB, RIGHT45) or feature (comments, clicking on an existing chip to change it). I hadn’t created a new mission in many months until this week – I had a sort of mission block.
I’m through that now and being productive. Each mission requires lots of twiddling to get it right – the maze, the distribution of things in the maze, writing the intro text for the mission, creating a ChipWit to start the mission, allocating cycles, legal operators, and arguments.
I am still creating missions with a kludgey system starting with an Excel spreadsheet, saving the spreadsheet as text, and converting it into an XML-format mission with a utility program I wrote. Soon I’ll be able to use Mark Roth’s ChipWits Mission Editor. He’s working hard to get it ready for Oct 1. Can’t wait to see what missions players come up with.
The temp dropped from 77 to 47 today so the weather was wild. No rain but lots of wind. I took the dogs out canoeing and have sore shoulders from paddling into the wind.
The maples and birch away from the lake are about 50% into full Fall color. Surrounding the lake they’ve just started to turn color. Wonder why.
October is the prettiest month on Martel Lake. The oak, maple, and birch are psychadelic.
Got ChipWits working on the Mac
Running under Adobe Apollo. Apollo is slick. It was a cinch to convert my Flex project to an Apollo project.
I gave one last shot at getting ChipWits running under MDM Zinc and it went off into a loop that was impossible for me to debug on the Mac. So I bit the bullet and converted it to an Apollo app.
Apollo isn’t ideal because it’s in alpha right now. The installation will be a hassle because a user will need to install Apollo first and then the ChipWits.air Apollo file. When Adobe rolls out the release of Apollo installation will be a one-step deal, but for now if a player doesn’t already run Apollo they’ll need to install it manually.
I got a Mac Powerbook off eBay a few weeks ago – a 1.5 ghz G4, which will be the low-end Mac we support. I picked this Mac as the target at the suggestion of Jay Bibby of Jayisgames.com . ChipWits runs a tad slower on the Mac than my PC of the same speed, which concerns me. I may hire a Flax/Flex animation guru to review my code to help me pump up the performance of the game. Flash isn’t the speediest game platform, for sure.
It felt good to see ChipWits running stably on a Mac again after 23 years.
Major New Build of ChipWits
The latest build of ChipWits is filled with LOTs o’ new features. I really pumped up the IBOL editor. The most important features are undo/redo and multi-chip drag and drop. Both features were requested in ’84 and are finally ready for your enjoyment. Since a lot of the player’s time is spent in the IBOL editor, making it slicker is a big win for the game.
I also changed the Subpanel system, letting players create as many named Subpanels as they need rather than just A-G.
I added the new Register operators to let ‘Wits do math and have addressable variables. The ChipWit can now drop a Counter object, which has a numeric value. I am going to create Register-based missions with a CounterLock – a door that opens when a Counter with the correct value is dropped onto it.
I also added the ability to add comments to chips. This will help a lot in making IBOL programs understandable.
I am going to wait a week to get some feedback before I hold a contest.
Until then I am going to work on the Mac version and start working on a full suite of tutorial missions.
Feels great!
New Build and ChipWits Contest
Feels great to post a new build and kickoff a new ChipWits contest. I haven’t been very productive the past few weeks, so I can sleep well tonight knowing I’ve hit another goal.
The next few weeks are mainly about building ChipWits missions, and I had some fun with ChipWits Caves tonight. The maze is 8 rooms in a row that spell out “ChipWits” with their walls. There are 2 CDs worth 2,000 points in 6 of the 8 rooms, and those CDs don’t respawn. They are each adjacent to “islands” of walls in the center of rooms. I’ll be interested to see if any playtester codes for that condition or if blind fumbling is the most efficient strategy.
It snowed today – wet and sticking to the trunks of trees. The whole world got whiter again. With the grey sky it’s like the contrast got turned way down.
I decided to do some fish watching this evening so I took my dogs and flashlights down to the lake. It was way too wavy and snowy to see a thing in the water. But it was fun walking with a flashlight through the snow.
So I still haven’t seen a single fish after a week of open water. I wonder when I’ll see the first Central Mudminnow swimming up Mudminnow Creek? I’ve got 4 of them in my aquariums and they are cool fish with a very commanding attitude. Their spawning run is like a miniature version of a salmon run. I spent hours last Spring watching these cool little fish fight their way upstream over dams made of twigs and leaves. The water is running in the creeks but the isn’t warm enough to trigger their spawning yet.
I just announced ChipWits in Some Geek Gamers Forum
This is a big night for me. ChipWits is ready for a fresh new round of playtesters and so I’ve asked for feedback on the Indie Gamer Forums, which is the best forum I’ve found for independent game programmers. Also Gamedev.net, which I am just beginning to explore and which looks quite good.
I expect to get some really useful crit out of these geek gamers. I’ve left posts asking for playtesters in a couple other programmer forums as well.
I had a lot of fun today working on a new type of mission – the mini mission. I decided it would be good to have a bunch of really small 1 or 2 rooms missions under 250 cycles. Once that thought popped into my head I began to get lots of ideas for actual missions. I knocked off 2 today and it was a blast.
A lot of the work we have before we ship the game is developing new missions – intro (tutorial) missions and game missions. This is really fun work and I’m looking forward to the next weeks.
I am keeping on an even keel – not stressing out – and that’s helping me be fresher in my creative efforts.
Usually the last month before shipping a game is hell, no fun at all. Concentrating on bugs and being very very conscious of time slipping by. Shipping ChipWits soon is crucial financially, but I am in a pretty good groove of productivity right now. I still get stressed, believe me, but I am enjoying myself, too.
It helps that this time ChipWits isn’t headed into a box on a shelf in a computer store. I’ll be able to keep improving it after our initial release, so I don’t feel that every second is do-or-die.
I spent yesterday in the Twin Cities at a friend’s house working on the Mac version. Made lots of progress, but I hit a snag when it started crashing randomly – a bug in MDM Zinc which is out of my control. This means I probably won’t have an installable Mac version ready for our initial release, bummer. Since I developed ChipWits on the original Mac it means a lot to me to get a Mac version running ASAP, but I can’t take the time to do it now.
I feel really good about the game. Within 2 weeks ChipWits will be released and raking in the dough. Count on it.
Buried in the Drifts
We are snowed in for the 2nd time this week. This time the snowplow guy refused to plow the last 1/3 mile of “road” to The Pad. He plowed only to my 2nd-nearest neighbor (the nearest neighbor is a Summer cabin – no one home) so I moved the car to their house in the middle of the storm – up the hill.
The hill is a challenge in Winter – it slopes North and often has got an icy underlayer – and I don’t blame the snowplow guy for giving up on it. He plowed partway down before giving up, though, so he left a 3-foot high plowed mound of snow right in the middle of the hill. I had to get the Subaru’s speed up and punch through the mound while climbing the hill. The snow is light and it made a satisfying snow explosion as I slammed through it.
So we’ve got a 1/3 mile walk to the car. Getting another load of firewood will have to wait. We’re doing pretty good on propane, but I’ve cut the thermostat to 60. If we’re snowed in long we’ll have to use our toboggan to haul wood to the cabin.
I had a great day of programming yesterday. I will probably drop a new build of ChipWits tonight. I fixed a bug in ELECTROCRABS – now they can actually damage your ChipWit – 20 E-CRAB ZAPs and you’re done.
We’ll finish the current contest and then next week let some of the geek game forums into the playtest.
And the Winner is…
Visit ChipWit.com’s Prestigious Hall of Pie.
That was fun.
Got a late entry in the 14 and under category and since it’s the only one I am running it right now to generate scores. Looks like it might kick the tin bootie of the oldsters. [Update: Eric Hsu’s tightly coded and elegant ChipWit takes the youth division and, yep, comes out on top over all. Congrats!]
Looks Like my game King of Chicago is coming to the Wii
http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/news.html?d=109706
Flashback: The King of Chicago box
Playtesting week and the Contest
We are uncovering some good bugs in ChipWits playtesting this week. So far none have been a mystery. I’ve been able to replicate and squash them in short order.
Also doing a little gameplay tweaking. I was nervous about the SAY chip because when I first implemented it the voice synthesizer would lock out all mouse and keyboard input while it had its SAY. So I set the cycle cost to 5 to ensure that the mission would end quickly. Now it’s much better behaved and Mark Roth suggested it be free to encourage its use. So be it. Along with that I made SING free. So ChipWits can talk and sing without sacrificing scoring.
Now that I know ChipWits behaves well on a number of people’s machines I am going to slowly spread the word. Not going to do a major PR campaign until we’ve run another week’s contest with a more challenging mission.
The next few days I’ll tweak baddie behavior and animation. Electrocrabs were idiots in the original game and I plan to raise their IQ’s a few points.
We will start selling the beta game tomorrow. I’ve got an account with the online distributer BMT Micro and just uploaded a batch of serial numbers. By the end of February I should know whether I have a future as an Indie Gamer.
First ChipWits.com Contest
We are kicking off our very first contest at chipwits.com with fabyoolous t-shirt prizes. Greedville is the mission and high average score for a series of 20 is the contest.
2 age brackets – 14 and under and Unlimited – so grownups have a chance to win something, too.
We will enroll the winners in ChipWit.com’s prestigious Hall of Pie. 1st week’s winner gets +10 Geek Cred points.
I notice traffic at this blog and chipwits.com has picked up quite a bit since I dropped the playable build. Cool.
Moving Forward
I haven’t published a game in 15 years. Haven’t programmed professionally in 9 1/2 years. For most of the past decade I was too disabled by my brainrot to work. I had a part-time aide.
My “brainrot” is a nasty blend of epilepsy, peripheral neuropathy, and quite probably chronic fatigue syndrome. It is an hourly challenge to work around my cognitive limitations to get ChipWits out the door. I am about 30% as productive a programmer as I was 10 years ago.
I have been really beating myself up about missed “deadlines” for dropping a playable build. In the past when I was shipping a game it made sense to make myself feel awful for schedule slips – back when timing for Christmas release was life-or-death for a game’s sales. While working on King of Chicago I can remembering seeing the first orange Autumn leaf and my knuckles going white with stress.
In talking to friends about how ChipWits is going I find myself saying We made progress today, or We got something done, or It keeps moving forward.
I have a great deal of hope that releasing ChipWits as an ongoing beta will be the ideal way for me to get back into the game industry. I will post known bugs and features to be added and knock them off at the pace I can accomplish.
Stressing about deadlines was keeping me from enjoying rebuilding ChipWit. I am getting better at feeling good about moving forward.
ChipWits and The Mac
Mike and I wrote ChipWits in 1984 – the year of the Mac. We got our hands on one of the futuristic little beige toaster the first week they were available retail.
Within 6 months we had created one of the best games for the Mac, as certified by numerous year-end magazine Best Educational Game awards
The first time I saw ChipWits in a computer store was a real rush. I stopped in to check out an Apple store and there was my baby running as the demo on their single Mac. Proudly I buttonholed an employee and asked where the boxes were.
The dude got flustered and admitted that it was a pirate copy. He said that a friend who worked at Apple had given him the copy. Hope ChipWits sold a few Macs for you, Mr. Jobs.
Now, being rather poor due to my neural problems, I don’t own a Mac. But it is important to me to release a Mac version of ChipWits on the same day as the Windows (and I hope Linux) versions. So I’m at an old friend’s house in Minneapolis working on his Mac to get an OS X hqx bundle ready.
And I look forward to buying a new Mac with some of the first ChipWit bucks to roll in.
Love the Mac, but Amiga was the most fun computer to program for.
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*Thanks, Senor Wences, for the photo of ChipWits running on an old Mac.
Dr. Droog Recommends The ChipWits Breakfast
I ate pie and coffee for breakfast. Peach pie – Sarah Lee “Oven Fresh”. Latte from my trusty Gaggia Carezza.
That’s my menu this week. Perfect way to start the Year of ChipWits.
So my advice is IFSEE PIE -> PICKUP!->IFSEE COFFEE->PICKUP.
Walden 3.0 
Get OFF MY LAWN!