GMG is down. When I asked Quimp at the GMC as for why, he said that Tapeworm told him it was a matter of bandwidth usage, and that the GMG has been consuming more than what their current plan offered. Darthlupi is in negotiations as far as I’m aware, and the end result may be that a new server may need to be found.

In the meanwhile, I’ve been browsing through GMC topics. Checking out new dlls, getting some help concerning the use of win32 consoles, etc. Its funny to see that as much time I’ve spent at the GMG, whenever I go to the GMC, it feels as if I’ve stepped into a city; dwarfed by the larger personalities of the GMC.

As many are aware of, the company YoYo Games is going to spearhead future GM developments over the next few months. Overall, I find it interesting, amid complaints, most of which were alarmist in attitude. However, an issue I didn’t see discussed much at either the GMC or GMG, is how much competition is now going to be placed on GMG and 64D’s archives, and how they’ll respond. I doubt anything will change too much. The YoYo Games archive may be swamped with clones, half-baked ideas, demos etc. (although not to say GMG’s archive doesn’t already have these problems).

To keep myself from writing too much, I’m going to finish by saying that I’m working once again on an old idea of mine. Yes, a remake, yet at least not one of Mario or Sonic games. Anyone familiar with the NES game Pirates! will understand where I plan on going with this project.

What I want to do overall for the game, is allow the player to assume any combination or number of occupations that exist in the game. For instance, once the player has acquired land, they can begin growing crops on that land, or produce whatever other sort of resource exists in the game. The idea of owning land is that you’ll be able to sell what you make (only to other cities of course, to encourage traveling) and build upon your business, acquiring more land, eventually in different cities, as well as delivering those goods to more and more cities that exist in the Indian Ocean region.

Other occupations include delivering letters between governors, being privateer for occupying countries in the Indian Ocean, a renegade pirate, etc. In the course of the game, the player will be able to go on all sorts of side-adventures, such as obtaining portions of the world map, finding treasure, plundering cities, visiting bars for information, small-time jobs, and so on.

A lot of talk, I understand for a game I’ve yet to release a working demo for, so, in the coming weeks I’ll be posting demos and screenshots as my work evolves.