April 20, 2002

Again, I'm really sorry for not updating the website enough... I've had a lot of work this month. I'm not going to explain what I've been doing, nothing interesting for you. There are just other things than Kyodai Mahjongg in my life right now. I'm still working on the game from time to time, though... Lots of things have been added or improved, I'm banging my head on the wall for not having the time to release a final version for you to see... Yes, I have to tell you : releasing a new version is really not so fun for me. Basically, I have to make sure my English help files and French translations are up to date. Then, I update my installation script. I compile the final project. I upload it on my server. I contact Tucows to ask them to mirror the file. I then have to wait for about a day, until they actually have the file online. Then I have to update my website, send an e-mail to my registered users, contact some other websites to propagate the release information. And then, I anxiously hope that nobody will write to complain about the latest version. And, strangely, that nobody either will write to congratulate, because I will feel compelled to answer...

Then, usually after a couple of days, I will realize that I forgot to include an important feature that was supposed to make it into the final version. And I have to start again from scratch... You may have noticed that I tend to release a new version every other month, and a minor update less than two weeks later (sometimes the following day). Then, I get back to my usual work, adding several new things at the same time, and I have to wait for another couple of months before I'm convinced there are enough additions to make a new version worthwhile... I would release a new version every week if it wasn't so hard to go through the update process. Which explains the gap between the new versions in these last months... Sometimes I really need to take a break. But I never can rest for more than two weeks without having everyone coming to ask what I'm up to...

My silence is also, somehow, proof that Kyodai Mahjongg has reached a state of completion that I never thought I'd achieve before. In short, everything in Kyodai Mahjongg is fine, I could even consider it a finished product and start another project instead. But this is not the case, in my opinion -- I still have things to do with it. It's just that the longer I work on the game, the harder the goals I assign to myself. Did anyone see the last episode of Quantum Leap ? Ah, what a good show this was. I sometimes feel like I now have the opportunity to choose my own "leaps", and that I'm therefore going to make sure these are useful leaps. I mean, noticeable features. Things I can be proud of. Things that will make everyone go, "I never thought that game could become even better, but you did it !". Reaching the top is tough to achieve. So I need time. I need to think. I need to choose my directions. I need to discover, by myself, what Kyodai Mahjongg needs right now, in order to mature, to become something better than it should have been. Speaking about completion, I wanted to add something. Several months ago, I was dying to upgrade to DirectX 7.0, but I'd been really disappointed by how much people had rejected my first attempt at it (Kyodai 15.00). Crashes everywhere except on my machine. But the initial beta process for version 18.00 was really exciting for me. I had the feeling that I had done things better than previously, and that this time, it just wouldn't crash anymore... And I think I managed to do this indeed. We're still getting some technical support e-mail here, but it's nowhere as abundant as it used to be last year. Maybe people simply upgraded their machines to something that can actually show some good 3D. I don't know. What I know, is that I've fixed all the 3D problems I managed to reproduce. And I'm so happy with that. It gives me some confidence for the future... Now, wasn't that a long update... Eh eh, it should make up for my recent silence ! Add to this the new website design I've made in a few minutes earlier today... I hope you like it. I like changing things, from time to time. Speaking of change, my friend Miguel Samiez, whom you all know of course (if you don't, check out the Original Soundtrack page), paid me a visit 3 weeks ago... He used to live near my place (North of France), but now he has moved to Switzerland (which made me a bit jealous, eheh). But from time to time he shows up to say hello

... This time he made me listen to his new works. There are so many songs he's working on, it's pretty impressive. Not only that, but any single song he made me listen to, is easily ten times better than everything he did in the past. Simply put, he's now a real professional, and my feeling that he was going to become a great composer, is even stronger now. If you like his first album, you're going to enjoy the new one so much. I can't wait for the official release. Plus, he's going to give me a few of his songs to include in future versions of Kyodai Mahjongg, of course ! Now, if you'll let me rest for some time until the next update (which hopefully will be posted along with the next version of Kyodai Mahjongg !), I think I'll just sit on a more comfortable chair and start reading another French independent comic book... Yes, I've become a big fan of these lately (especially books from L'Association). You can partly blame them for my being so lazy...

Good night