Viridian Games

Ever since the Great Unpleasantness it’s been pretty damn easy to stick to my diet. I have not drunk a caffeinated drink nor made myself a sandwich with mayonnaise since it happened. As a result, my weight is currently at 345.2 pounds…and I started the year just shy of 360. If you’ll remember back to my new years resolutions post I wanted to lose five pounds a month and I’ve already done that and more.

I know, it’s been a week since I posted - kind of stupid to post a demo and then disappear off the face of the earth, huh?

Well…there’s no way to say this but to say it.

Last Wednesday I had a heart attack. A small one, but it was big enough. It seems that a combination of birth defects that weakened my heart and my atrocious diet finally conspired to put me in the hospital, which is where I’ve been for the last five days.

Now, I’m fine now. Really, I am. I am not susceptible to another heart attack at this time…but it does hammer home how all my attempts to Put That Freakin’ Sandwich Down were too little and too late. I might have been okay if it weren’t for my propensity to smear saturated fat all over practically everything I eat.

So I’m going to be resting up for the next week or so. I may post a bit, may not - just depends on how I feel. But I had to let you guys know what was going on.

I’m…just glad I didn’t have to leave you guys prematurely.

Production Resolution: Ship Planitia and at least one other project. I shipped exactly zero personal products in 2007; while I learned a heck of a lot, I can only consider that a failure. Planitia will ship this year with single-player AI skirmish and story modes as well as a two- to four-player network mode. I can’t guarantee that the gameplay will set the world on fire but the game will be available to play by the end of 2008.

For my second project, I will probably do something much smaller and lighter (and probably time limit-based like Inaria was) to cleanse my palate. It will probably be a one-page game.

I will then go on to start on 3D RPG That Really Needs a Name, incorporating everything I’ve learned so far. I do not expect to ship 3DRPGTRNAN in 2008 but I do expect to ship it in 2009.

Learning Resolution: My learning focus for this year will be on two topics: overall game engine design and networking.

To succeed at this goal my plan is to first read and take copious notes on the following books:

Game Coding Complete, Second Edition by Mike McShaffry

Code Complete, by Steve McConnell

Introduction to Algorithms, by Thomas Cormen, Charles Leiserson, Ronald Rivest and Clifford Stein

Now, I’ve read the first two but I have a learning technique that I use when I really want to absorb something, and that is to read a book while taking notes on it on the computer as I read and then marking pages read with a highlighter to track my progress through the book. I’ve used this technique before with The C++ Standard Library by Josuttis and Effective C++, More Effective C++ and Effective STL by Meyers, and that knowledge stuck very well and has served me very well.

Once these books are all complete the next step will be to implement a game engine using the currently accepted design, which separates hardware-dependent code from non-dependent code for easy porting and separates code from data as rigorously as possible for ease of engine re-use. This game engine will be network-enabled. Planitia will use this engine; again, I will work out the kinks with the engine on Planitia so that it will be ready to go for 3DRPGTRNAN.

Weight Resolution: It’s the return of Put That Freakin’ Sandwich Down! My goal is to lose 65 pounds this year, getting my weight down to 295. That will still be well above a healthy weight for me, but it will be a good start and allow me to finish next year. I will do this by eliminating sodas and mayonnaise from my diet and exercising at least twenty minutes and least three times a week.

I will be posting updates on both my current weight and how well I followed my diet and exercise goals every week.

Hmmm…it’s going to be a busy year!

So, crunch time on Top Spin 2 is over. So it’s time to start my diet up again.

We’re starting slow and simple, just like I did last time when I was nearly successful. All I’m doing this week is drinking water. No exercise, no food restrictions yet. To help wean me off the caffeine, I have laid in a large supply of Jolt Gum, which I ordered off of ThinkGeek.

I’ve already screwed up a perfect score for this week by forgetting and drinking a soda with my lunch, dangit. Hopefully I can redeem myself later.

Sorry about the lack of posts. We’re crunching at Aspyr as we move towards our first playable.

And I’m back on caffeine. Which means my diet is kaput. My energy level was just too low without caffeine to survive a crunch. And that low energy level is also why I haven’t been posting, and why I haven’t touched Star Revolution since I posted the combat demo.

Star Revolution is supposed to be done by the end of July. That simply is no longer possible, if it ever was in the first place. Star Revolution was a mistake; it’s just too big for me to do by myself. I am abandoning it (temporarily; I do want to make this game eventually).

Which means I need a new project. Something I can do on my own while surrounded by screaming children, which means something closer to the original Inaria in scope.

Any suggestions?

Weight: 349.5

Grade: B. I only exercised twice last week, but I did manage to get through the week drinking only water. I think I might be pushing it a bit…I’m still feeling the effects of the lack of caffeine (and sugar calories), and last time I was completely over that before I started exercising.

So I think I’ll actually back off for this week. If I push too hard, I’ll have a really bad week and then I’ll be tempted to just quit. So my goal this week is to drink only water.

Weight: 348.8

Grade: B. I occasionally drank something other than water at work (usually when I got something to drink with lunch and took it back to the office) but at no point did I ever drink anything carbonated or caffeinated. And my caffeine gum ran out on Wednesday, so I’m really off the stuff now. My energy has been kind of low, but I know that will get better.

Goal for next week: Drink only water, and do 20 minutes of exercises on at least three different days next week. This is going to be hard, because really the only time I have to exercise is right when I wake up, and I hate exercising right when I wake up. But I’ll do it anyway if I want a good grade.

Weight: 348.1. At one point this week, I weighed about 345, which was encouraging.

Grade: C. My original goal was to drink only water; I ended up changing that to “nothing caffeinated” and then I was able to fulfill the goal. It’s not just the caffeine from soft drinks that you miss, it’s the constant supply of sugar calories. Several times this week I got home from work and had to go straight to bed (I expected this, it happened last time). Next week will be better.

Goal for next week: Drink only water while I’m at work. Drink nothing caffeinated and nothing carbonated. I’m pretty sure I can fulfill this one.

Tom has actually been really good at keeping me on track. I would like to publicly thank him.

The PTFSD (Put That Freakin’ Sandwich Down) project starts today in earnest. I have decided that rather than posting my weight every day, I’ll post it every weekend with a summary of how well I followed my restrictions for the week.

I’m starting slow. Right now I’m just getting off caffeinated drinks. My goal this week is to drink only water. I have a good supply of Jolt Gum I can chew when I need a caffeine boost. Jolt Gum is actually excellent for getting off caffeine…the last time I dieted, I found that if I just naturally chewed a piece whenever I felt my energy level dipping, I ended up chewing less and less until finally I started going whole days without any caffeine at all. The people at Jolt would be appalled to see their gum used in this manner, I’m sure.

Here’s basically what I learned from the last time I dieted:

1. Everybody knows how to lose weight. Everybody. You lose weight when you take in fewer calories than you burn. It doesn’t matter if those calories are fat or carbs or textured vegetable protein, if you eat fewer than you burn, you will lose weight. If you eat more than you burn, you will gain weight. It is that simple. This means that no, Atkins and South Beach do not work (and if you have lost weight on those diets, it’s not because you restricted your carbohydrate intake, it’s because you ended up eating less than you burned). Heck, there’s good evidence that Atkins is actually harmful. Everybody knows this, but calorie counting, eating balanced meals and exercising is such a PITA that lots of people are willing to believe in these fad diets, at least in the short term.

2. Exercise doesn’t burn nearly as many calories as you think it does. An hour of strenuous exercise (say, playing tennis or soccer) only burns about 600 calories. That’s as much as one Big Mac. So if you are eating considerably more than you burn (and if you’re overweight, then you are), you cannot simply exercise your fat away. You must change your eating habits.

2A. This is not to say that exercise isn’t a good thing and won’t help you lose weight. Quite the opposite. Exercise and diet will provide much better weight loss than diet alone. But you must diet; you can’t simply exercise your weight off (unless you’re willing to spend just about every moment you’re not eating playing racquetball).

3. When the weight starts to come off, the stomach goes last. When I lost weight last time, my legs firmed up and started looking really nice, the weight came off my arms and under my chin, but I still had this enormous gut. This was disappointing. I just need to be prepared for that this time.

4. Calorie counting is annoying, but eventually you start to get a sense for how many calories foods have and you don’t have to count quite as rigorously any more.

5. The best source of protein is seafood. Seafood tends to have very little or no fat and has lots of yummy Omega-3 fatty acids. The next best sources are chicken and turkey, which are fattier but are still within acceptable boundaries. (Ground turkey is also very cheap.) Pork is next, and it’s okay since American pork tends to be very lean. Beef is the worst source of protein there is - it’s fatty and difficult to digest.

6. The best, most balanced meal consists of two parts carbohydrates, one part vegetables and one part protein. This means that a properly constructed sandwich is good for you. So is pizza. So are properly-constructed casseroles and pasta dishes.

7. Pickles are the dieter’s friend. They taste good. (Unless you hate pickles, in which case…um…well, I feel sorry for you.) And they only have about 10-15 calories each, so you can satisfy your munchies with them without blowing your diet.

So I had to go to the doctor yesterday. It wasn’t anything major, just needed a prescription.

The nurse couldn’t weigh me on the normal scale because I was over 350.

This is the most I’ve ever weighed. I gained a lot while I was unemployed and now it’s time to get rid of it. And I’m going to be using this blog to help me. I’m going to post my weight every day. You guys will be able to see whether or not I’m following my diet; I won’t be able to hide it.

I’m sick of this. Being overweight affects every aspect of your life, because it drains away all of your energy. It gets in the way of everything you want to do.

Time to put this thing away once and for all.