Pretty Good Solitaire Touch Edition 1.60

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We have updated the BEST iPad Solitaire game on the market.

Pretty Good Solitaire for iPad

Pretty Good Solitaire for iPad has been updated to version 1.60, which is now available on the App Store for the extraordinarily reasonable price of only $9.99 US.

Pretty Good Solitaire Touch Edition 1.60 now contains 750 games, adding 50 new games, as well as 10 new bonus games (for a total of 100 bonus games).

In addition to the new games, the entire program has been reworked to support the latest iPad models and iOS versions, including dark and light modes, and all known bugs (most introduced by iOS updates) have been resolved.

Development

This is the first update of Pretty Good Solitaire Touch Edition in almost four years. To be honest, the game does not sell nearly well enough to justify spending a lot of time updating, although it is clearly the best Solitaire game available for the iPad. It has had 700 games for all that time, which meant that it was probably the best Solitaire value available.

Historically, Apple released iOS 10 during the development process for the previous version, and it did not make sense at the time to rework the entire engine to adjust to the latest SDK, so we released the product as originally intended. However, in the years since that version, four more major versions of iOS were released, each adding (few) new features but deprecating loads of methods, so without any intervening updates, the performance of the product deteriorated slightly, including (quickly) problems with the pile popovers, some issues with orientation changes, and (most recently) some game preview images not drawing.

Among the victims of Apple’s ruthless deprecation were nicely sized launch images (forced to use less capable launch storyboards instead), previous popover behavior and its subsequent replacement (yes, double deprecation, proving the level of aggression), UIAlertView and UIActionSheet classes (both in favor of UIAlertController), the CFGregorianDate class (too convenient, I guess), bordered toolbar buttons (UIBarButtonItemStyleBordered), methods of launching and dismissing modal views, and the entire concept of orientation changes (an inherent aspect of tablet and phone usage).

The image bug was the result of a poorly redesigned image view class, for which I found a workaround, and there are also a large number of spurious log errors generated by internal Apple processes that cannot be easily fixed or suppressed (with precision) by developers. The page curl transition was apparently completely broken as of iOS 13 (and/or the iOS 14 SDK), but that was just a cutesy feature I had already decided to change anyway. The redesign of the controls, compounded with the addition of light and dark modes (to be fair, a decent iOS feature), made several of our views difficult to use under certain circumstances. All of this created a great deal more work than was originally envisioned for this update.

The product has 4 popover views, and associated control classes, which all needed to be completely reworked, as well as 2 more views that used controls affected by the recent redesign or dark/light mode setting. Alert views were used in a variety of places, as were action sheets, plus there were several other locations where code had to be reworked due to deprecation; changes due to the loss of a Gregorian calendar class (to a generic calendar that requires an extra layer or two of indirection) were particularly pervasive, as it was used in several places in the code.

Oh, yeah, lest we forget… the latest version of the iOS Simulator has a particularly egregious bug in which it will not play audio in any version prior to iOS 14.0 and instead (the worst part) introduces a timeout delay of approximately 15 seconds for every attempt to do so. I had to disable the audio when running in the Simulator on unsupported versions just to continue. With all of the new models of iPad (with different resolutions and aspect ratios) and 5 more versions of iOS to test (well, really just 4, because the Simulator no longer supports iOS 10), just finding a representative subset of devices and iOS versions was a chore.

Nevertheless, I managed to get all of this done, and compared with that work, adding the new games and updated engine code was a (relative) breeze. The only concern at all going forward is the reported deprecation of the UIWebView class, which we use for game rules and credits, but because there is no replacement for all of the iOS versions we support, and using two different view classes is untenable for this case, not to mention that there are no deprecation warnings during compilation, we chose to leave that (working) code alone. All known bugs were fixed, the interface and animations were improved, and everything seemed to be working perfectly.

My Mistake

The update has now been live for a little more than a week, and despite how solid the product felt (and still feels) to me, there were a number of bugs reported quickly. When distilled, it actually appears to be just 2 minor bugs.

The first bug appears to be a problem with random number seeding for the ‘Random’ deal button, where the same deal numbers now come up in the same order. While the exact cause has not yet been determined, the precipitating cause was almost certainly the calendar deprecation. Time seconds were used to seed the random number generator, and because that would now take extra code, I replaced the seed with the system time reference, which (in theory) changes at the same rate, resulting in less code. Apparently, somehow it must have resulted in non-working code, although the cause was not obvious from inspecting the method.

The second bug was my bigger mistake, and requires some history.

The previous version had a legitimate bug in the game results code. Results are stored in a database with a validation code (based partially on date and time) to insure integrity. When the original iOS port of the engine was written, this code was inadvertently using local time, rather than a fixed time based on UTC or something similar. The effect was that results earned in one time zone may not appear valid in another.

The solution going forward, of course, was to fix that bug by getting the UTC time instead of local (and, coincidentally, that code all had to be rewritten anyway because of the calendar deprecation). However, that change alone would invalidate all previous results, which is not desirable at all. Since all previous results would have a valid code in (some) local time, I decided to simply replace the old codes with the newer ones. Because it would be tedious, slow, and potentially inaccurate to check all time zones, I decided to only replace codes that validate in the current time zone, figuring that those few users (including myself, actually) who had invalid codes because, for instance, they played the game in both California and Michigan 😉, could just manually set the other time zone(s) temporarily (or visit the other time zone organically) and let those results correct themselves.

So the implemented logic was that any result failing a current validation check was then checked against the old method using local time, and if that validated, the code would be updated. Note also that I limited this correction behavior to results purported to be in 2020 or earlier, when I still expected the update to be released last year. (Do you see the logical flaw in my thinking here?) In theory, this should be fairly straightforward, but testing it was challenging, because once fixed, the results stayed fixed.

In the simulator, I tested a small sample of results, and everything worked flawlessly. Then, I went to a physical device where I had built up a collection of around 50 results in one game just testing this development version (prior to the validation code fix) and it worked perfectly and transparently. I had legitimate results, then after the UTC fix, they all appeared invalid, then after adding the correction code, they were just back to normal.

Then we released the update. I had a bit of trepidation, because I had my 5000 games of Lower 48 that had loads of invalid results peppered throughout. (That was my “go to” game for waiting… doctor visits, airports and airplanes, a brief unhappy stay in hospital, etc.) I should point out that because I do the development work as SophSoft, Incorporated, but deliver the source code to Goodsol Development, who actually publish the game, the products are considered different (with incompatible signatures), so I cannot test my live data from App Store downloads on development versions.

I downloaded my update from the App Store even before the publisher told me it had been submitted and anxiously brought up Lower 48, which showed 5000 games played but only four thousand and some won (when I have, in fact, won every single deal). I opened up the game action popover with the results list and… Well, it worked, eventually bringing my results to the correct 100% win rate, but not perfectly, for I had not really considered the effect of that many writes to the database; it took a period of several seconds, several unresponsive seconds, before the fixes were done.

This seemed minor, at first. However, we have some devoted fans, and the first report of problems came from somebody who has played a favorite game more than 110,000 times! My several seconds, when I knew what was happening, multiplied by more than a score for somebody who was just trying to play a game, looks a heck of a lot like a lockup. Fortunately, it only has to happen once (per game) and that user is now back to happily playing Russian Solitaire. I have to hope that somebody who has played one particular game that many times does not have too many games with that much activity.

For fun, I just calculated that playing every game in Pretty Good Solitaire for iPad that many times, assuming you could average one minute per game, would take more than 175 years playing around the clock. Of course, with a more realistic average of 10 minutes per game, my 5000 games of Lower 48 would be the equivalent of more than 20 weeks of full-time work!

Anyway, with a couple of simple miscalculations, I managed to make life a little more interesting for the customer support people. Sorry about that. 😔

January release: check.

happiness
productivity

2021: Year in Preview

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Happy New Year!

Although 2020 was fairly average for SophSoft, Incorporated and Digital Gamecraft™, I am not terribly satisfied with that outcome, given the huge number of internal (and external) projects we have and all of the unrealized potential. Therefore, with more than a little optimism, I have set a very aggressive development schedule for the coming year.

Digital Gamecraft logo

Development Goals

Our primary goal for 2021 is shipping our first, internally designed and developed, console title. This project is well underway, but still has a lot more to be done. We are hoping to be completed with the development within about 3 (more) months, but how long the approval and publishing process takes is beyond our control (or experience).

Depending on the success of that title, we may (or may not) adjust the rest of the schedule to take advantage of other related opportunities (in particular, adding another console platform or two to our repertoire). However, at the moment, the development schedule calls for brand new game releases in July and November, as well as the initial version of a productivity tool and the first look at another project, a reference site, as well as maintenance updates for Demolish! Pairs, during the year.

Combined with work for our current clients, we expect (amazingly) to have new products or product updates releasing every month in 2021.

For much of 2020, I have been working with a client who publishes a major utility to add a significant feature that will make an already indispensable tool (that I used and advocated prior to this gig) even more useful for programmers like myself. Although I have absolutely no control over feature integration or release scheduling, I am hopeful that the result of this work will become publicly available this year. (At some point, I will have to get permission to reveal the product name and promote it, instead of just teasing.)

Our work with Goodsol Development continues, too, and although I cannot give the planned schedule, you should expect to see many more games added to Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition, Pretty Good Solitaire for iPad, and Pretty Good Solitaire Mini for iPhone, probably some new layouts for Pretty Good MahJongg, and perhaps even some updates for Goodsol Solitaire 101, Most Popular Solitaire, FreeCell Plus, and Action Solitaire. Of course, these games are pretty great already, and Goodsol has not charged for updates for any of the above titles, so I recommend buying them all now. 😉

Business Goals

For the moment, the company has almost everything it needs to accomplish the above goals, although it will take a huge effort on my part. The one thing we still need is serious funding, such that we can afford more help, but for the moment we are still bootstrapping.

From the business standpoint, our basic goals are:

  1. Stay healthy, safe, and productive.
  2. Continue to reliably make payroll while growing income.
  3. Connect with a great artist (or two) for our games, and maybe a marketing expert.

Note that we are not looking to take over the world until 2022 at the earliest.

Evaluation

This post lays out the goals for the year, obviously, so we can look forward, but part of the purpose of the post is also so we can look back on them at the end of the year and assess how the year has gone relative to what we hoped and expected. (More often than not, something external, like a new client, an emergency project, or an unexpected international hit game [knocking wood], causes priorities to shift.)

This is, truly, an incredibly aggressive development schedule, and if we can even get close, without disappointing ourselves or any of our clients, then that will be worth an A+.

If we can complete at least three of the (five) planned major releases this year, that will still be a great performance, but bittersweet for not getting everything done. Anything less would be disappointing, although just making it to our 40th anniversary early next year would be an accomplishment itself.

Of course, we give client projects priority over our internal projects, which is why (in the past) we have not made the desired progress with Digital Gamecraft products, but I believe (without going into detail here) that we have the organizational processes and development foundations in place to accomplish all of the above (without “crunch”).

Now, there is nothing left to do but DO.

2020: Year in Review

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Overall Performance Grade: B-

Digital Gamecraft logo

This past year has, surprisingly, been rather average for Digital Gamecraft™ and SophSoft, Incorporated. I probably would have rated it a C, but the fact that we did not merely tread water but actually made progress during a global pandemic gave it a small boost.

Accomplishments of 2020

Counting down the top 10 achievements of this year:

  1. We joined Apple’s App Store Small Business Program. This is at the bottom of the list because, frankly, we want to be ineligible by virtue of making more than $1 million per year, but since we have miles (and just about a million dollars) to go to reach that plateau, we will accept a larger percentage of the sales.
  2. We finally tracked down the cause (spoiler: bug in Apple graphics code) of a really annoying, and expensive, bug that affected our custom libraries, and we worked around that issue. In case you are wondering how a bug can be expensive: We had to buy a specific used piece of Apple hardware in order to even reproduce the bug, but now we have an Apple iMac for QA.
  3. We joined another Apple developer program, which includes a “loan” of the latest Apple hardware, so all new macOS (and iOS) development will be ready for the newest systems.
  4. We got our new Windows development system fully installed and configured, so all of the programming for Windows, Android, and consoles will be done faster and better in 2021.
  5. We shipped Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 3.56 in June, with 750 different Solitaire games for macOS, plus another 100 more bonus games (not to mention the bug fix from #9).
  6. We added another new development platform, Delphi, for an important client, so I personally picked up Pascal after, literally, three decades away (and, of course, learned Object Pascal for the first time, and continue learning.)
  7. We shipped Pretty Good Solitaire Touch Edition 1.60 (just a few minutes ago, actually), with those 750 Solitaire games for iPad, resolving issues with 4 years of Apple’s aggressive deprecation over as many major iOS releases, and fixing every reported problem on all iPad models running iOS 9.0 or higher. (Expect the update in the App Store in early January.)
  8. We were approved for major console development with a proposal accepted (n.b., not funded), on both the (then) current generation and the (now) latest generation, and we have our DevKit and TestKit in house and operational, with development actively underway. The original proposed release date was (naively) this year, but the approval process took more than 5 months to complete (from proposal to actually having SDK access and hardware).
  9. We shipped Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition 2.72 in October, with 55 original Solitaire games played with MahJongg tiles, as well as 355 tile matching layouts. This was a major rewrite of the successful product, switching from Carbon to Cocoa and revisiting every piece of code in the project, resulting in an excellent game.
  10. We survived a difficult year and are still here, with optimism for the future. As noted before, this pandemic has a smaller impact on this company than most, but fortunately, despite necessary changes, our clients have not pulled back. Instead, we leave 2020 with two more development platforms and five more development systems than when we entered.

Personal Perspective

I am pleased, or perhaps just relieved, that I have not gotten sick from, nor even knowingly exposed to, Covid-19, and I remain in good health. All of my family (of whom I have knowledge) and most of my friends have also remained safe (and the few friends who did contract Covid-19 seem to have recovered fully). I would call this “fortunate”, but it is actually more down to safe living practices, including limiting time in places where you might be exposed to an idiot who refuses to wear a mask. (To be clear, that means everyone who refuses to wear a mask in public.) It will probably be another half a year before I will be eligible for the vaccine, so we must remain vigilant and proactive.

My only real indulgence in this difficult year was to pick up two more pinball machines (to join the one I have had for about 20 years). I discovered that somebody (relatively) local had a 1974 Gottlieb Big Shot for sale, and since this was the 2-player version of my favorite machine ever, I bought it for myself; this one is a bit of a project machine, and I am working with my sons on restoring it completely. Immediately after getting it, I found (nearby) a 1972 Gottlieb King Rock, the 4-player version of the machine that made me fall in love with pinball and was the seed of my actual career, so I (perhaps foolishly) extended myself to get that, too; this one, however, was ready to play, so it gets regular use, as well as minor repairs and cleaning.

The addition of the new games, and the chance to spend time with my children working on them, inspired me to refurbish the 1973 Williams Fun-Fest I already had, but which had fallen into disuse a bit; it now has been nearly completely revamped and thoroughly cleaned, with new bumper caps (needed since I bought it) and fresh rubbers, and gets played almost daily. I still need to “debug” one feature, resolder a few questionable joints, and replace some cracked bumper skirts, but it is nice to have this machine working well again (and playing faster than ever).

During this brief frenzy, I also chose to upgrade my tools, especially my soldering station and my multi-meter, and to stock some specialty cleaning and polishing supplies, so now I can be a proper pinball hobbyist, rather than somebody who just owns a machine. Beyond that, while I had the rented truck from one of the pinball purchases, I retrieved my (original) upright Galaga machine from storage, prepared to diagnose and fix or replace the broken monitor (control board); I still need to get this completed (remember, I am a “software guy”, so hardware repairs, especially board-level work to supply power to a CRT, are a stretch for me).

Ultimately, this year has brought me some moments of joy, and in particular [buried lead] the news that I will become a grandfather in the coming year. With the family growth, political changes, and new business opportunities, there is good cause for optimism and hope for 2021.

The Beauty of Code

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Programming itself provides opportunities for self-expression.

In the midst of chaos and strife, when I need to take a break from the “real world”, I most often find my escape in source code, programming anything really. Of course, having more projects than I could hope to finish, and clients providing additional work to boot, means that I always have a ready avenue for directing my focus. However, it is not solely about the product, nor the money; it is also about the pleasure and enjoyment of coding itself.

There are a number of fairly passive experiences that I (and I imagine most of us) use to pass the time: playing games, reading books, watching television or movies. There are also more productive activities such as exercise (I quite enjoy hiking, bicycling, and swimming), house cleaning and organization, home improvement, and “gardening” (of a sort). None of these activities, however, provides the same creative outlet as programming.

When it comes to creative expression, appropriately, there are lots of different ways that people find to fulfill that need, which is important to our being. I know lots of people who like to sketch or doodle, or to write (for which I have gained some appreciation over the years), and others participate in higher commitment activities such as making stuffed animals, woodworking, or designing jewelry. When I was younger, I turned to more “design” oriented expression, such as creating original mazes, designing pinball machines, and architecting dream houses; at one time I designed a complete go-kart business, including the tracks and buildings.

The beauty of code is that it allows for self-expression within a systematic framework. I have always enjoyed numbers, logic, and the rational, and these all factor into programming. Within the rules, though, there are essentially infinite ways to express an idea, both in terms of method and of presentation. Of course, there are demonstrably “wrong” ways to do things, such as code that does not compile, fails to work, or crashes, but there are many levels of “right” ways to accomplish things, including how to efficiently increase functionality, how to handle errors and unexpected situations, and (importantly) how to make the source code understandable.

When I was required to attend an “advanced” BASIC course in high school, having already programmed for years (but with no formal education to show it took vociferous insistence just to avoid the “beginner” class), one of the first problems we were presented was to take a three-digit number as input and reverse the digits. I was the very first person to complete the task, twice. My second version was the anticipated method of accepting numerical input, with constraints placed on the operator (not the program) to limit the input to 3 digits, separating the number into ones, tens, and hundreds places, and printing them in reverse order, just to prove that I knew how to do it that way. My first version accepted the input as a string and printed the characters in reverse order, which worked on the specified input type, but also on numbers of arbitrary size, or any characters that could be input.

Around that time, I also set myself a challenge to create an “unbreakable” game, which I was able to accomplish with a high degree of confidence. To be unbreakable, the program had to be bulletproof, once executed, such that nobody could deliberately nor accidentally get to the prompt (and, hence, have access to the source code). This meant that the program needed to have no syntax errors (BASIC was interpreted code, rather than compiled, so such errors would only be found when executed), no logic or constraint errors that would allow a crash (such as selecting an unexpected/illogical action or overloading an input buffer), and also disallow breaking (via ^C), which was accomplished via system-specific methods. The only ways to end the program were turning off the power or hitting the reset button.

Programming has a lot in common with the scientific method. Although you use known logic to devise provably correct solutions, rather than testing hypotheses, you still test to confirm your approach and resolve errors, whether they be in your understanding of the problem, your design of a potential solution, or your execution of the plan. In fact, I constantly use this approach when building a program to regularly test my assumptions. I will make an interim change and state (to myself) the expected failure outcome, whether that be a compiler error (or specific number of compilation errors) or some weird behavior, just to confirm my understanding. If some code compiles unexpectedly, or the behavior is not as anticipated, I revisit the problem and make sure than I can explain why things went differently.

This shows yet another beautiful aspect of programming: its digital nature makes it precise and enables, at least ostensibly, the pursuit of perfection. You can experiment with something new with confidence that, if it does not work out, you can return to exactly the original situation. It does not matter how far out in the weeds I get with an idea; I can always get back to where I started. (Try that with oil painting.😉) Also, as my first computer book helpfully pointed out at the start of my career, nothing that you do with source code, short of typing it with a hammer, can break your computer (and while that is not strictly true, exceptions are exceptionally rare and not worth concern).

The fact that I value the actual source code as well as the outcome, which tends to be better for such appreciation, explains why I am not a fan of “visual programming”. With traditional source code, everything is enumerated and readily viewable, having been written by you or another programmer. While visual programming is ostensibly the same, it hides aspects of the code and logic behind objects, making development more like hide-and-seek. My first experiences were in the very early ’90s with Asymetrix ToolBook and Borland ObjectVision, where one would have to check every page and object to find all of the scripts to have a complete understanding of the logic, which unnecessarily fragmented the code. Today, such tools as Unity, Unreal Engine, and Interface Builder certainly make visual layout easier, but with the inherent risk that the complexity hides some of the logic, removing it from the source code and fragmenting it. It can be quicker to develop visually (especially if one is inclined toward fast results over quality), but it is inarguably harder to debug.

Outstanding programming is more craft than art, by which I mean that it can be learned and refined over the course of years, and one does not necessarily require an inherent creative ability. I can explain the rationale behind decisions in my source code, and I can teach you techniques, and if you have the requisite logical intelligence (which many people do not), then you can become at least a very good programmer. (I doubt one can read a book about fine art and learn what it takes to be a master.) One of the best compliments I can get is when I am told that I taught somebody the value of maintainable source code, or defensive programming, or quality assurance techniques.

With that in mind, I intend to document more of my approaches to development in general, to provide insights that interested parties can take or leave, along the lines of my Quality [index] series from many years ago. One current focus is refining my programming standards, so look for that in the near future.

Why I Do It

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The origins of my passion for computer programming and games

I have always loved games, as far back as I can remember. Even as a small child, I enjoyed all kinds of games, and I remember making up games and contests of my own. However, most analog games have at least a couple of drawbacks surrounding one concept: competition.

First, one had to find other people to play the game. I spent a lot of time alone in my childhood, so the opportunities to compete against others was limited. Even when players were available, the choices were limited by the number of people. Some games do not work with too few players, and if you have too many, somebody can get left out.

Second, when there are enough people to play a game, there are a lot of issues with inequity. Sometimes the skill difference at a game (or in general) is just too great for enjoyment, and the degree to which one enjoys any particular game is usually imbalanced. My sister was often around for games for two players, but she was three and a half years younger, so there were few interesting games where we were matched well.

At the time, I had not developed enough life skills to solve these problems through negotiation and sheer enjoyment of playing the game. I took games far too seriously, and probably was something of a poor sport. Nowadays, we have (well, had) Game Nights, which we have been doing for a couple of decades, and I am now far more concerned that everybody is having a good time than whether or not I win (or even play), in marked contrast to my youth.

One solution is provided by one-player games, and I have had a love for Solitaire since I first learned Klondike around the age of five (as fully documented when I wrote “I come by my love of Solitaire honestly“). Likewise, I have loved Pinball for about as long, as my uncle owned Campus Pinball in Ann Arbor (and that experience factors heavily in my life story), but Pinball was not readily available to me on a regular basis in my early childhood due to both location and funding.

Instead, I made up games and similar activities that I could play on my own. I created solitaire games (like the one player version of Go Fish! mentioned in the linked Solitaire post), held competitive events with my toys, like marble races or a challenge to see which Matchbox/Hot Wheels/cheap knockoff car would go the farthest (for which I invented different match systems, including the double-elimination bracket system), or made up strict sets of rules (i.e., algorithms) for automatic players in multiplayer games, like Monopoly, and then played against them. I had no reference to know that this was a rudimentary form of programming, but it is obvious looking back.

More to the point, I used to fantasize about having a “robot” (because in those days, there were no personal computers, simple calculators cost hundreds of dollars, and the only real computer I had ever seen was an enormous mainframe at MSU with multiple huge tape drives 😉) who would serve as my opponent(s) in these games, effectively making them one-player games.

About that time, Pong was released, and as fun as that was, it was still a two-player game (although on many occasions I played both sides, where the inequality of the experience between my dominant hand and the other was striking), so it was actually Breakout, released 4 years later, that became the first video game I really loved. (It was decades later before I learned that Steve Wozniak programmed that game just before founding Apple with Steve Jobs, who was also on that project.) Of course, from that point on, the video games came faster and faster. (Plus, Pinball Pete’s opened nearby, and I made slightly more than nothing with a paper route, giving me better access.)

I was also introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, which is ostensibly a social role playing game, but for the first several years of my fascination, I never actually played it as designed, but rather read through the books of rules and played scenarios (alone) as Dungeon Master, as well as controlling the players, and/or a group of monsters, given algorithmic motivations, which (unbeknownst to me) was building toward computer adventure/role-playing games.

All of this led up to My First Programming Experience. I was hooked; for years I had dreamed to be able to do exactly what I have been able to do since then. Also, the technology rapidly exceeded what I could ever imagine (as detailed in Still Coding After All These Years). Occasionally, I have to take a deep breath and reflect on this fact.

This job is truly, and literally, a dream come true.

SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 Update

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No Problems…  So Far

Fortunately, there have been no business changes due to the current worldwide pandemic, not because SophSoft, Incorporated and Digital Gamecraft are essential producers, but primarily because the company has always been set up to work in this fashion.  I only work from home, and when there were more of us, everybody worked from home (or, at least, remotely).  Our active projects for outside clients always have been delivered digitally, so nothing changes there either.

In truth, in the midst of all sorts of upheaval, my personal situation is actually quite stable, for several reasons:

  1. As noted above, I work from a home office, so (in theory) development work and company business do not change at all.  The only two analog functions that were regularly performed out of the office were banking and picking up the mail.
  2. My world was turned upside down and my life completely torn apart a little over a year ago.  Compared to suddenly losing my wife, this current situation is a mere aggravation, but very minor when put into perspective.
  3. Due to the above, I had already been adjusting to life (and work) alone here, so the solitude and loneliness were already something I was managing.  Of course, I do have two cats (plus a new stray on the porch), so that helps.
  4. Perhaps to the surprise of some, I am very much an introvert and, for the most part, prefer to be at home.  My default stance is to not leave or go anywhere, so I no longer need to make an effort to be social (for a while).
  5. I am quite healthy, and still relatively young, so I am not in a high risk group for hospitalization from COVID-19; nevertheless, I am taking as many precautions as practical.  Also, I got my “affairs in order” a while back, so I am not scared of being unprepared should I suddenly get sick or even die.

At this time, I have no known exposure and no symptoms; in fact, my body temperature has been running low ever since I started daily checks a couple of weeks ago.  I went to the grocery store today for the first time in more than a week (and only the third time since the pandemic was declared) and should be stocked for two more weeks.  Aside from that, I get fresh air and go walking outside, completely alone (and irregularly, it must be said) and otherwise have not gone anywhere (nor had take-out or delivered food) at all in the two weeks since Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed her “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order for the State of Michigan.

What annoys me right now (beyond those ignoring the recommendations and endangering us all, which registers fury with me) is the number of people who seem to be complaining about getting to stay home.  Because I was already close to self-quarantine before we had even heard of this coronavirus, I did not gain any significant quantity of extra time, and I never have enough time to do the things (at home) that I want to accomplish.  Now, some people have gained lots of excess time and talk about being bored.  Bored?  What is that?  Seriously…  I do not think that I have been bored at home in 30 years!

That said, productivity during this crisis has not been what I would have liked, although it has been getting better, with progress being made on all fronts.  I think that I may be dwelling too much on pandemic concerns, and that could be taking away some of my focus, all of which prompted me to write down my thoughts here.

It is my full and honest intention to make this the last COVID-19 related post for a while, and instead get back to product development and posting about other topics, all while maintaining the maximum practical physical separation from other people.

Digital Gamecraft 2020

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It has been just more than a year since SophSoft, Incorporated lost its second founding partner (of three) and I lost my wife of 31 years.  In a week, the company will be celebrating its 38th anniversary, and it will continue to develop game software.

During 2019, I took time to reflect on what was really important and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and I decided that the plans that Sherry, Rick, and I had devised (and undertaken) as business partners were honest and true representations of what we wanted to achieve.  Therefore, I will continue those pursuits, not just out of a sense of loyalty, but because they are why we got into this venture in the first place.

Digital Gamecraft will continue to develop and publish game titles in a variety of genres, and this will be our primary focus.  While some of these games may be a little different to what they would have been with my partners to help guide the development, the games will nevertheless embody the spirits of Sherry and Rick to the best of my capabilities.

SophSoft will also continue to do consulting work; however, due to sheer limitations of time, our regular client roster is effectively full.  Please feel free to contact us if you are in desperate straits or need our help with a fully-funded project that is right down our alley, but realize that we may not be able to fit you into the schedule.  (If you have just an idea, a shoestring budget, or a need for fleet management software, go somewhere else.)

We also have a couple of adjunct projects that I expect to see the full light of day within 2020; announcements will be made here as and when appropriate.

In an industry where companies come and go with a disturbing regularity, remember that we have had the same address for 30 years:

Post Office Box 4936
East Lansing, MI  48826-4936

We have had the same business phone number for 25 years:

(517) 337-3905

Our web site has also been in steady operation since 1995 (though this blog is just a baby at a mere 15 years old).  Plus, having been originally founded in 1982…

We are the oldest independent video game company in the world.

I truly appreciate your support as we continue to move forward.

Sincerely,
Gregg Seelhoff

RIP: Sherry Seelhoff (1964-2019)

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Sherry Seelhoff

At the start of the year, my wife died unexpectedly at the age of 54.  We had been married for more than 31 years and have two wonderful sons.  Sherry was a founding member of SophSoft, Incorporated, and her passing has had a profound impact on me personally and will have a lasting effect on the company, including this blog.

Sherry was a dedicated and loving wife and mother, who gave herself fully to her family and friends. Her kindness and generosity touched everyone she met, leading to recognition for her service with volunteer organizations. She was loving and loved, and her memory will be carried by all she knew.

Sherry passed away quietly and unexpectedly in her sleep as the new year began. She is survived by her husband of 31 years, Gregg Seelhoff, sons James Seelhoff (Meredith Baumann) and William Seelhoff-Ely (Sandy Seelhoff-Ely), sister Melissa Short, mother-in-law Margot Hellerman (Lance Hellerman), sister-in-law Lori Seelhoff, niece Heather Joswik, half-sisters-in-law Angelina Hellerman and Andrea Hellerman (Jim Arnold), half-brother-in-law Samuel Hellerman, two half-nieces, one half-nephew, and innumerable friends. She was preceded in death by her mother, Mary Theresa Short, her father Wyman Richard Short, and her father-in-law, Gerald Norman Seelhoff.

Sherry lived her life with empathy and passion, and had an infectious spirit. She enjoyed hiking, camping, canoeing, dancing, reading, hosting game nights, playing trivia, watching movies, and listening to music. She loved laughing with friends and family. She would want to be remembered by those she loved continuing to participate in her favorite activities and striving for the ideals and compassionate causes in which she believed.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in Sherry’s name to Sierra Club, ACLU of Michigan, and/or Planned Parenthood.

“… our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed.” ― Richard Dawkins

“Don’t think of it as dying. Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.” ― Terry Pratchett

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” ― Dr. Seuss


Still Coding After All These Years

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Today is my 40th anniversary of programming a computer.

December 22, 1978: This day marked the first time I walked into a computer store, the first time I played a game on a home computer (or even touched one), and the very first time I wrote a computer program.

Exidy Sourcerer

Of course, that very first program was pretty BASIC. 😉  I learned the concept of programming, line numbers, how to RUN and LIST a program, and (at least) my first two commands, PRINT and GOTO, on that same day.

The very next day, I learned (more) about variables, FOR loops, and number theory (mathematics, not programming), as I helped an MSU student debug his program, and then further experiment with it.  We noticed that abundant numbers are often bounded on each side by primes, but this is not universal.

I urge you to read more about My First Programming Experience.

Computers were awesome!

A few years later, as I was on an airline flight, I took out my pen and paper and started writing a wishlist for the “perfect computer” for me, dreaming about what could be possible in the future.  I envisioned lots of colors, crazy amounts of memory (like 64K!), and larger custom character sets, which idea gave way to (really out there) thoughts of individually addressable pixels at very high resolution (say, 640×400).  At a conference, I saw a display with a “true color” screen image of an apple (fruit) at 1024×1024 and that blew my mind.

In the intervening years, I have had loads of milestones and accomplishments:

  • January 13, 1982: founded Sophisticated Software Systems
  • Summer 1982: had first professional programming job
  • Late summer 1982: purchased very first computer, a Commodore VIC-20
  • 1984: won the ComCon ’84 International Programming Competition
  • 1984: started first full-time programming job with Michigan State University
  • 1988: landed game programming job with Quest Software
  • 1989: published first retail game product, Legacy of the Ancients
  • April 22, 1990: self-published shareware game, Pacmania 1.10
  • February 1, 1993: started as Senior Software Engineer at Spectrum Holobyte
  • 1994: went full-time as an independent game developer
  • 1995: incorporated business as SophSoft, Incorporated
  • 1996: launched Digital Gamecraft for developing independent games
  • 2002: Goodsol Development released Pretty Good MahJongg
  • 2004: served as Chairman for the Association of Software Professionals
  • 2007: created first Mac game, Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition
  • March 27, 2013: A Little Solitaire became the #1 card game for iPad
  • 2013: published first Digital Gamecraft title for iOS, Demolish! Pairs
  • 2016: established and ran Advanced Concepts Group at DAQRI
  • 2018: published an Android version of Demolish! Pairs

These are just a few of the major highlights, but none of these events made as much of a difference in my life as that day I walked into New Dimensions in Computing.  Of course, there are a few personal milestones that really affected things as well, but most of these also happened within this time frame (more than 76% of my lifetime).

Today, I am back doing what I love: programming.  Even when things are tough, I truly enjoy the development process and can get ‘in the zone’.  When people would ask me what my favorite game was, I would often reply something like, “C++”. 🙂

Amazingly, I now have a stable of portable devices, each of which far exceeds my ultimate imagination for my perfect computer, and many of them blow away the visual capabilities of that screen that mesmerized me back in the early 1980s (and I never even considered the possibility of 3D rendering capabilities).  My phone fits in my pocket yet is more powerful than my first PC, and my watch is more powerful than that first computer.

Computers are awesome!


Meaningful Play 2018: Day 3

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Saturday was the final day of the best conference on meaningful gameplay.

This shorter day ends the Meaningful Play 2018 conference.  As always, I leave with inspiration and a greater sense of purpose, not to mention hope.

Saturday morning keynote

The day began with a very informative and practical talk, The Promise of Games for Personlized Learning, in which Diana Hughes of Age of Learning discussed and demonstrated practices they used in ABCmouse Mastering Math to teach and assess mathematics skills in children ages 4-8.

One fundamental takeaway from the keynote was the importance of providing proper understanding (mastery) of basic mathematical principles (of which I had not realized there were so many) before attempting to teach a skill that relies on those principles.  The software uses various (positive) “scaffolding” for supporting a learner who does not demonstrate knowledge of a topic, as measured by incorrect answers in a game.

Initial results of scientific testing show great promise, based on significant improvements with just limited classroom time spent using the game, as well as anecdotal evidence from teachers that the software is effective.  I believe that numerical understanding is as important as the ability to read for educational success, so these are hopeful results.

Breakout sessions

There were only two breakout sessions on this final day.  For the first one, I attended Game Post-Mortem Microtalks II.

The first (of 3) games featured was a VR simulation of a Brazilian chicken farm.  Pericles Gomes presented the software running on Google Cardboard, along with some detailed information about the huge quantity of meat produced and exported from Brazil, and more detailed information about the number of chickens produced from the particular farm that was captured with 360 degree cameras to make the simulation.  Even running in just Cardboard, the VR version had proven more effective than the tablet version.

The second postmortem was from Phillip Cameron about the use of games with students learning the German language.  He presented the results of a limited survey of potential students and how likely they would be to continue with advanced German studies, and then again with similar classes using games and software.  The total numbers showed a slight improvement, but upon correlating answers between the two questions, it was shown that some “likely” to continue initially actually became “unlikely” in the class with games, while other moved from “unlikely” or “unsure” to “likely”.

The third and final postmortem was by Mars Ashton, who is very active in the Michigan game development community, on his award-winning game project, Axis Descending.  He discussed the personal origin of the project about a decade ago, its creation in Flash, the marketing and reception (including awards) of the project during development, and the ultimate decision to cancel the project.  Mars was very upfront about how his focus on the game had become “unhealthy” and how that affected him and those around him.

For the second breakout session, I chose to do the Tour of MSU Libraries Rovi Game Collection.  We walked to the MSU Library and, first, visited the Video Game Lab which houses the Rovi Game Collection, a collection of approximately 18,000 PC and console games dating back to the early 1990s (including at least 7 games I worked on 😉 ).

We then walked downstairs to visit the Digital Scholarship Lab, which is an impressive collection of technology available to students, faculty, researchers, and the public at large.  It includes a 360-degree visualization room, with seamless video projected on the walls of the round room, a VR room with Oculus Rift and HTC Vive set up and ready for use, a room with scanners, including a small 3D scanner, and numerous very powerful desktop computers with just about all the creation and development software one could want.

On the way out, we also passed the MakeCentral Makerspace, which has 3D printing, structure scanning, laser cutting, and vinyl cutting available, as well as a technology lending program with a number of digital toys…  I mean, tools.  Very cool.

Saturday afternoon keynote

The closing keynote was Imagineers at Play, by Bei Yang of Walt Disney Imagineering.  He discussed several aspects of “imagineering”, including the many disciplines involved, how they test and revise experiences, and the benefits of using BIM (Building Information Modeling) for design of spaces.  He then showed a number of projects, ranging from experimentation to final implementation, to illustrate the ideas.  This included the revelation that an upcoming Disney experience will allow guests to pilot the Millennium Falcon!

The key takeaways were that the design loop (ideate, prototype, test) is essentially the scientific method (hypothesis, experiment, conclusion) in practice, and the following observations on technology:

  1. Everything is design
  2. Technology is making design loops faster
  3. Technology is changing what we can do in those designs

Coincidentally, I ended up asking the last public question of the conference, which was (from memory): For new experiences, does the storytelling drive the technology, or does the technology drive the storytelling?  The short answer was, “Both.”  The longer answer was that sometimes there is a story to tell and they seek out the best technology to do that, which sometime results in ideas being shelved, and other times advances in technology make it possible to tell a story that had been ruled out in the past.

Conclusion

I leave this awesome conference full of new ideas, as well as with a couple new goals to be completed before Meaningful Play 2020.