GoldFire Studios

Project Agora and the Future of Social Gaming

Tue, 07 Feb 12 14:29:19 -0600

If you've been following my blog or social media, you'll know that I've been working on a secret project called Agora for several months now (agora meant a social gathering place in ancient Greece). This project actually goes all the way back to August when I started looking for ways to take GoldFire Studios to the next level, and that thought process has taken me on a six month journey that will reshape GoldFire Studios and hopefully browser-based gaming.

The idea for Project Agora came from the realization that the so-called social gaming of today is broken. The gaming industry tends to go in cycles, like many other industries, and generally speaking a trend will spark something that is farther reaching and has more staying...

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Favorite Web Apps of 2011

Fri, 13 Jan 12 15:01:34 -0600

2011 was definitely a year of learning and trying new things. In that spirit, I tried many new web apps/services and here is the list of the ones that stuck and have helped propel me into what should be a great 2012. This list is in alphabetical order, I love all of these startups equally!

Beanstalk - Private Git repos and deployment
Github is the obvious choice for hosted git repositories, but it is aimed more at the open source crowd. So, for my private code, I turned to this gorgeous web app, Beanstalk, by the...

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2012 New Year's Resolutions

Mon, 02 Jan 12 16:07:13 -0600

The great Michelangelo uttered one of my favorite quotes when he said "the greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." When I look back at last year's resolutions I see a lot of missed targets, but that doesn't mean the year was a failure.

Of the four major goals I outlined a year ago, only one was really completed. I did indeed move out of the apartment, and am now working out of an amazing coworking space in downtown Oklahoma City. The network didn't come close to...

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Rockstar is to games as Apple is to computers

Wed, 02 Nov 11 13:59:44 -0500

There's something special that separates the ordinary from the incredible. It's hard to place your finger on it because it isn't really something you can explain, but you know it when you see it. This is the feeling you get when using most any Apple product and is what separates the iPhones, Macbooks, iPads and iPods from your Dells and HPs of the world. Steve Jobs really nailed it on the head in just about every keynote he gave -- these products really are magical.

The same could be said for my personal favorite game developer, Rockstar Games of Grand Theft Auto fame. You distinctly know it when you are playing a game out of of one of their ten worldwide studios. Again, it is...

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GDC Online 2011 Recap

Fri, 14 Oct 11 17:38:00 -0500

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I've been having a blast at the Game Developer Conference Online 2011 all week in Austin, TX (what a fitting destination for a Sooner after thrashing Texas over the weekend). This was my first business conference of any kind, and GDC was definitely a great start.

I spent Monday through Thursday learning from the best in the business and getting motivated/inspired to bring some...

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RIP Steve Jobs

Wed, 05 Oct 11 04:13:54 -0500

You were a true visionary and an inspiration. I use your example as motivation for my own life and my own endeavors into the future, whether gaming related or otherwise. You truly did put a dent in the universe, and I thank you for that.

Goodbye Steve, RIP. ï£¿

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GFS Future: HTML5, Node.js, MongoDB

Wed, 21 Sep 11 17:53:24 -0500

It has almost been a month since my last post, and there is good reason for that. I've been learning. A lot. I began my learning a few months ago when I decided to use MongoDB as the primary database for Leet Media. My learning continued about a month ago with the first installment of Friday Freedays, where I made an HTML5 Snake Game in order to get a taste of the technologies surrounding HTML5. Since then, my focus has been on Node.js, which is essentially Javascript on the server-side.

Node.js and MongoDB have been a pretty drastic departure...

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Friday Freeday: HTML5 Snake Game

Fri, 26 Aug 11 17:37:58 -0500

I've been wanting to start doing Friday Freeday for sometime now, but I kept pushing it back due to my recent workload. While that workload hasn't slowed down (and don't' get me wrong, I'm enjoying every second), I finally scheduled this afternoon to have the first of what will hopefully become a tradition within GoldFire Studios.

The idea is that everyone in the company (yes, just me for now), will take Friday afternoon to work on pretty much whatever project they want. This doesn't mean any project within the company, but rather any personal idea/project they are interested in. If you are familiar with how Google works, you no doubt know about their 20% time philosophy. Friday Freedays (if anyone has a less cheesy name,...

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miniTip jQuery Plugin

Thu, 21 Jul 11 12:53:47 -0500

I discovered the wonder that is jQuery during my development of Leet Media, and I have decided to convert all of the sites under the GoldFire Studios umbrella to use jQuery instead of
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Why HTML5 is the future of online gaming

Tue, 12 Jul 11 13:01:11 -0500

If you are reading this blog, you are probably aware of the massive shifts that the gaming industry has gone through over the last few years. Zynga has used flash to revolutionize casual online games, Rovio and countless others have revolutionized mobile gaming through native applications on iOS and Android and Unity has revolutionized how indie game developers create games for pretty much any device.

All of these different platforms create great opportunities for games and have contributed to the industries massive growth in reach over the past few years However, all of these great platforms poses one glaring weakness: there's too many different technologies involved.

If you want to create a great game for...

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