Story of how you could save a dying software project

Brand G. got his start in the game industry working at MicroProse, famous for classics such as Civilization, the X-COM series, Masters of Orion, Pirates, and Dark Earth (one of my personal favorites). MicroProse was also known for its military simulation games, such as Gunship, Pacific Air War, M-1 Tank Platoon, and Falcon 4.0. Brand was brought on to work on such a simulation, European Air War.

European Air War was doomed. It was four years in development and not even close to being ready to ship. In Brand’s first month at MicroProse, the whole programming team on European Air War quit, sensing that their project was on the verge of cancellation. Not only that, but everyone had grown tired enduring the stress of the weekly “why-shouldn’t-we-cancel-this-project” meetings with the executives. In these meetings, they’d have to choose their words carefully when answering the executives’ tough questions about the budget as well as major bugs in the system such as…

Why are the planes flying backwards sometimes?
Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I…
Why do the wings come off the plane whenever you fire the guns?
Uhh, err…
Why does the plane bounce up and out of the earth’s atmosphere when you crash into the ground?
Umm, in high-speed collisions like that it’s not totally unreasonable that a plane’s velocity torque rotary girder viscosity…

These meetings were tough. It almost seemed as though the execs were only keeping the project alive for the sadistic pleasure they took in watching the developers squirm. And among the bugs mentioned above, there were mountains more. For instance, planes couldn’t take off or land. At all. Well, you could try to land, but that would cause the bug where the plane would bounce off the ground and into outer space. So to address the issue, all missions started out mid-flight and wouldn’t require (or even allow) you to land.

Another fun bug caused the enemy AI to do your work for you. A rogue enemy plane would suddenly reject his mother country and start shooting down his own teammates. That is, until his wings fell off the plane since he was firing his guns. Then he’d kamikaze his plane into the ground, which would launch the plane into outer space that the MicroProse executives probably didn’t find nearly as funny as I do.

Brand would stress out about defending the game at the weekly meetings, but that didn’t mean that he thought concerns about European Air War’s progress were unfounded. Facing a mountain of bugs and a project ready for the chopping block, he was relieved when another developer was added to the team, effectively halving the abuse Brand would have to deal with on a weekly basis. We’ll call the new developer “Tim.”

Tim knew what he was getting into when he came aboard the project. He knew about the bugs, about the budget, and about the impending cancellation of the whole thing. And with the major issues, you’d figure he’d start with any one of them. Maybe the one with the wings falling off whenever guns were fired. Especially considering the game is called “European Air War.” If the wings (“air”) and guns (“war”) come off the plane, the game title should just be reduced to “European,” or perhaps “European Wingless Plane Amidst Nazi Battle Simulator.” You could start up a game and watch Nazis shoot eachothers’ planes down until yours crashed.

With all of the bugs he could get started on, he decided it was necessary to add a new feature instead. He developed a camera system that would focus on anything “cool” happening near the player. For instance, one plane shakes another with a delicate evasive maneuver. Or it’d mount to a bomb right as a B-17′s bay was opening, following its descent onto the earth. Or it’d follow a plane being shot down, ablaze and spiraling toward the ground, engines sputtering.

The “Cool Cam” was cool. But it didn’t change the fact that the game was almost completely broken. Brand wanted to confront Tim about bug priority and all of the code he was toiling away to debug, but held his tongue. No one could save the project at this point anyway.

At the next week’s meeting with management, the air felt heavy. With each passing week the execs were seeing money hemorrhaged into a dying project that they’d had a full team on for four years. Tim started up the game and played carefully to avoid the obvious bugs. Getting a double whammy of tough questions (“How overbudget is this project?” and “Why shouldn’t we cancel this right now?”), Tim made sure his plane was level and flying evenly and let go of the joystick and hit the cool cam button.

Brand sat there silently, watching the monitor. Tim turned toward the execs, about to stumble through an answer they probably wouldn’t accept. The room was silent, save for the steady hum of the plane’s engines coming out of the computer speakers. Suddenly, the camera zoomed in on an explosion, following a flaming plane barreling toward the earth, then the focus moved slightly to another plane quickly evading the flaming shell. Tim took the controls again when the execs lobbed another tough question about bugs they’d made no progress in fixing. Again, Tim leveled the plane and hit the cool cam button. And again, he didn’t have to answer because everyone was fixated on the screen.

Tim’s “cool cam” saved European Air War. It went from a money-leaking embarrassment to a top-tier release for MicroProse. The weekly meetings got easier, more developers were brought on, and the team managed to put together one hell of a game. It reviewed well after its 1998 release and is still a popular game for history buffs. And it probably wouldn’t have been released if not for a programmer that knew what the project needed most; the cool cam.

From TheDailyWTF.com

Remember the kids’ drawing competitions?

I remember many kids drawing competition, where the leaders of tomorrow were actually taught by parents that integrity means nothing and that results mean everything from the way the parents actively try to help the kids cheat in such competitions.

Technology has advanced, and I am not surprised that something like this happened.

Young programmers win big
By Tan Weizhen

Celine and Charlene trumped most of the older competitors handily in the contest organised by the Information Technology Standards Committee and supported by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA). — ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE
TALK about starting young: Celine Chan, four, took on competitors far older in a national computer programming contest held here recently.

Celine and her sister, Charlene, eight, proved more than a match for the older competitors, trumping most of them handily in the contest, organised by the Information Technology Standards Committee which is supported by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA).

Called XtremeApps, the competition required those taking part to program computer applications from scratch.

Armed with just the basics in the Squeak programming language, as well as encouragement – but no help – from mum and dad, the Chan sisters came up with an application called Health Fairies.

It is an interactive, educational story with an anti-smoking message: The main protaganist is a beautiful young girl who loses her youth, and good looks, because she puffs away like there’s no tomorrow.

The sisters took the bulk of the June holidays to complete their entry. They had to come up with the storyline, draw the characters, and write programs that animated the characters, among other things.

Their effort paid off: Health Fairies landed a merit award in the junior category of the contest, beating 68 other contestants, mostly 11 and 12 year olds.

The judges were impressed by the interactivity of the application.

One, Mr Robert Chew, chairman of the ITSC, said, ‘It was quite good, and I didn’t realise at all that the creators were just a four-year-old and an eight-year-old when I shortlisted the application. Celine was our youngest contestant ever.’

The sisters, who like online gaming, received lots of encouragement from their parents, both accountants.

‘I feel it was great that they had this chance to explore something out of their range,’said Mr Henry Chan, an avid gamer himself.

Source: Straits Times

Not saying that they are cheating, but I do have my suspicion..

Also, is using Squeak Etoy really programming? Lol. I have seen 12 years old creating (with real industry standard programming languages) unbeatable Connect-X game with built in AI (its called Connect-4, but the program was so flexible it allows you to specify the condition for winning), so I can’t see how a 4 years old and 8 years old pair should win a programming competition.

Additionally, Xtremeapp’s webby can’t seem to work on Chrome. What joke? And seriously, they use a css class called “textbold” just to bold text.

The irritations of having IT “know how”

This is a typical msn conversation, has happened to me many many times already.

First, being polite contacts who don’t talk to me unless they need my help, they will start with this standard opening.

TheGuy@hotmail.com said (9:38 AM):

u create using php ? is it diffcult?

what kind of software or programming u used? its take how long?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

php

made in 2 days

use notepad.

TheGuy says:

wow

so how is the hit rate like?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

not sure nv check lol

its released for fun

TheGuy says:

hehe

is it hard?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

hm how do u define hard

TheGuy says:

does it take alot of sKills to do such website?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

everything can be learnt from the internet

TheGuy says:

u r still in army?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

ord loh starting uni soon

TheGuy says:

so u kinda free now?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

working

TheGuy says:

as?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

clerk

TheGuy says:

ohh

when u starting sch?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

aug

TheGuy says:

ohh

y u work as clerk?

how is the pay like?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

easy pay

1200 nia

but i slack like mad

i made sgzap during office hours

TheGuy says:

lol

u still do php programming for site?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

unless i hav new ideas, no

TheGuy says:

what u mean by new ideas?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

like things to improve etc lor

After that, the main question would come…

TheGuy says:

hmm…

then if i need some assistance to finish the website… will yr charge be very expensive?

i have a website.. still quite some way to completion.. i need some help to complete it…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

link?

TheGuy says:

not yet up online…

my partner is handling it currently… as he is working full time.. the progress is quite slow..

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

well i’m working full time too

TheGuy says:

well… since u “slack” so much.. perhaps u can devote more time to it…

btw.. i am newbie to programming…

is it easy for u to “join” in… on where he is doing…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

think v hard, since its quite busy now

and i’m working on other things

i intend to start one more personal project b4 uni

TheGuy says:

then its fine..

btw are u earning via advertising thru the sgzap?

And then I would give my standard warning, in case they do something silly..

TheGuy says:

such website.. can earn u how much actually?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

of course not..

its a wrong idea to think of starting a website as a mean of earning money

lately everyone is thinking that

TheGuy says:

i do have a few doubts on that..

how do the advertising of clicking.. how they pay u?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

those are the lowest paying way

u wnat to make money from the internet u approach advertisers yrself

TheGuy says:

hmm…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

with a middle man u dun earn muchj

Time to dao.

Sorry for being dao… well.. seriously too many Singaporean youths are hatching the make money on the internet dreams, even those who have no idea what they are doing.