Welcome to Eden!

By Justin Gattuso
Posted on May 3, 2009

You might visit this blog and often (or perhaps never ;) ponder, ‘These guys are great! I wonder what these InetSolution folks do after a hard days work?’  While I can’t speak for the others, I generally turn around and write more software, only I focus on making games for a change of pace, it keeps my senses sharp and helps me to grow and evolve as a software developer.

As a result of these after work hobby activities, I recently released the first version of my first playable and completely original game I have developed in my spare time over just about the last year. This game is called Eden.

I’ve been an avid gamer since I was a young kid when I first saw through the monochrome green screen of a Tandy to realize I could actually fly planes in Microsoft’s very early Flight Simulator (I wasn’t very good at it however). I think my future was basically sealed at that point, not only did I find a fascination with computer games (and gaming in general) but also the science behind what made those games tick.

Eden is kind of survival game in which the most immediate goal is simply to survive. However I plan to implement much deeper and complex elements into the game over time.  My goal for this game is for it to be an open-ended sandbox type game in which the player basically creates their own story and sets their own goals, much like a child might do with a set of LEGO bricks (my favorite and I’d argue THE best toy on the planet). Unlike many traditional games where the player is essentially watching and interacting with the game to be told a story, the player is actually engaged and weaving that story as they play, in this way, hopefully many people will play this game and get something different out of it each time they play, that’s my goal anyway, we’ll see how I do. From a higher level point of view, Eden is a simulation of survival. The game is completely free and can be downloaded and enjoyed (or not ;) right now, so go ahead and snag yourself a copy! I recommend checking out the small website I’ve created for the game (particularly the manual) before jumping in the game so you know how it works.

The graphics are admittedly, poor, but they are original and all created by myself with my lackluster ‘programmer’ artistic sense, except for both the sand and grass textures, which were provided by Donovan. This is actually by design, being that the game is 2D, I wasn’t looking to create an outstanding looking game visually (I just don’t have those skills), rather I focused and continue to do so on the features the game.  If the screenshot above has at least made you smile, smirk, raise a brow or guffaw, I’ve at least met half of the goal of any decent game, I’ve entertained you, even if just for a second ;) The artwork was all created (again except for the sand and grass textures) using GIMP, the free image manipulation software.

I must forewarn anyone who’s interested in trying the game out that it is early in it’s development and is probably more of an interactive toy or sandbox type of experience rather than a start and finish type of game. Over time, with public interest I intend to continue developing the game and add more features and functionality to it.

For the geeky visitors Eden is developed using the using the SDL.NET graphics library against the .NET 3.5 runtime with the C# language.  As an added bit of fun trivia, Eden was actually started in Ubuntu linux using Mono, which is the linux implementation of the .NET framework, however as Mono is a fair bit behind Microsoft’s implementation of .NET, I chose to revert back to Windows in order to take advantage of the latest and greatest of C# and .NET 3.5.

Most of what I write in my spare time never makes it to the forefront of the world, I’ve only ever put on public display one game that never made it to ‘playable’ status, a remake of an old favorite of mine called Master of Magic by Simtex, you can look at where I left off with it over here if your interested: Master of Magic .NET. Overall it was an ambitious effort and I learned a ton; I’ll probably revisit it some day I figure.

Caution: While it is a game, I want to be clear that it is not intended for children, while there’s nothing inherently bad about the game, there is some questionable violence and as time goes on, more such questionable material will make it’s way in :D

I enjoy reading comments and constructive criticism of my work, so feel free to send me an email to either address: