"Faced with crisis, the man of character falls back on himself."
- Charles de Gaulle

They say God gives with one hand and repeatedly punches you in the face with the other. We've certainly found that to be true here at MDickie.com! From day one, every year of miraculous productivity has been plagued by at least one month of inexplicable bad luck. One particular month to be precise. Although my work as we know it began one August, the month has since grown to be a rather unsavoury anniversary. For the past 5 years in a row, as regular as clockwork, the end of the summer has left my career sunburnt and in critical condition...

An Explosive Debut ~ August 2000
The month of August has only ever had one positive contribution to my work, and that's the rather large "contribution" of existence! It began, at the turn of the 21st century, as a joyous period of time that held nothing but promise - for both myself and my players. After months of slaving over various industry-standard (difficult) programming languages, I finally discovered the blissful simplicity of DIV Games Studio. Instead of struggling by with crude text games, the door to action-packed graphical games was finally unlocked to me - and my design skills shot to the forefront. The result was a charming tribute to the high-flying stunts of pro wrestling, which would go on to form the backbone of many future games (culminating in the 3D Big BumpZ concept that we know today). In addition to giving me a style to build on, the game also gave me audience to play to. Within 24 hours of being posted on a wrestling website, the game had been downloaded some 15'000 times - and established MDickie as an exciting new contributor to the wrestling phenomenon. Shortly afterwards, the website was launched due to popular demand - and the rest is history. Unfortunately, as far as August is concerned, that history would be forever tainted...

Foreign Languages ~ August 2001
DIV Games Studio had served me well in the early months, but it was rapidly running out of steam as my first anniversary approached. A fully blown 2D wrestling simulator had pushed its modest capabilities to the limit, and it became clear that I would have to reinvent myself to progress beyond mediocrity. It pained me to leave the one and only language that I had ever enjoyed success with, but the 21st century stylings of Blitz and Dark BASIC provided the perfect escape route. Unfortunately, my novice mind found them substantially harder to master - and a decent project in either camp was failing to materialize. I was in creative limbo - with nowhere to go in one language and nowhere to start in the others! Not only was this a stressful time for me, but the lack of activity at the site also made the fans question their faith in my work. It wasn't until Blitz returned at the end of the year with a new & improved product that I finally regained my focus, and strived to rebuild my faltering empire. In the meantime, it seemed August had drawn first blood - giving us a slight knock as a warning of things to come...

The Boxing Match ~ August 2002
Any worries the previous year had caused were compensated for in the months that followed. My exploits with Blitz BASIC were so productive that the first 3D game I ever made in the language was marked for a publishing deal! Meanwhile, an all-new 2D wrestling simulator was showing even greater promise and looked sure to follow in its footsteps. I spent much of the year simultaneously grooming these 2 projects for a career-defining debut in the world of publishing. However, the curse giveth and it taketh away. With both projects nearing completion - and with deadlines to meet - my monitor burnt out beyond repair and rendered me helpless to continue. Ironically, I needed to deliver the games to make enough money to repair the situation - yet I couldn't do that until I had a computer to work with! The curse had manifested itself in the world's most excruciating "Catch-22" situation - and at the worst possible time to boot. Trying to struggle through it was proving costly and time-consuming, so I threw what little money I had at the cheapest second-hand monitor in town. Its sorry excuse for a display wasn't ideal, but it did allow me to press forward with the games and negotiate their release in time for Christmas. Crisis #2 had been averted, but the curse had given us a taste of what it was really capable of...

The MDickie No-Show ~ August 2003
Despite the cult success of Federation Wrestling, the publishers dropped the ball on many following projects - including its infinitely superior sequel Federation Booker. Fuelled by my unshakable faith in the project, I was forced to go into business for myself and added publishing to the growing list of responsibilities. It was a surprisingly smooth transition that brought me more creative and financial freedom than ever before. I invested the profits in a new state-of-the-art laptop, and embarked on a new era of superior projects that would culminate in my first true 3D wrestling simulator. The first such project was the generic 3D fighting of The MDickie Show, but my system froze just as it was nearing completion! It was a haunting reminder of the previous year's events - whereby I had a near-complete project wasting away in a rotten shell. This particular problem was neither costly nor time consuming, but it did involve technicians trying to get in and salvage what little they could from memory. Countless pieces of data (including many early unreleased games) were lost forever, and the project I just spent the last 3 months making could have been one of them. Fortunately, it wasn't and went on to get its release. Some might say that's not necessarily a good thing, but its engine did provide the backbone of my career-defining project Wrestling MPire and kept my work headed in the right direction...

Fade To Black ~ August 2004
After that initial hiccup, my laptop would serve me well throughout the following year. It gave me the power to make Wrestling MPire as good as I could muster, and the freedom to develop the project on American soil as well as various parts of England! Unfortunately, the curse would limit its reign to just that one year. Sure enough, as soon as August rolled around again, it was time for the system to go down. This time is was a severe problem with the screen that had left me unable to work on the games. An important (and expensive) component had burnt out due to excessive use, and it would take the technicians almost a month to come to that conclusion! In a business where time is money, such a lengthy hiatus was near-fatal. Not least because it interrupted the progress of a project that I had just started. Sure Shot 3D was supposed to be a casual little entry to the arcade genre, but the delay stretched it out to status of a fully-fledged game! Unfortunately, it was then destined to be perceived as such - and many players resented having to wait so long for such a modest release. However, like The MDickie Show before it, the game proved to be a vital stepping stone to future successes - and served the empire well by surviving the curse...

Rotten To The Encore ~ August 2005
After the laptop had burnt out and been repaired, I always knew I was on borrowed time. Sure enough, the screen gave out again exactly one year later (when else?) and left me in the same conundrum as last time. This time, I took the hint and emptied my bank account to buy a new computer. However, I couldn't even do that without incident! In classic curse fashion, the company I place an order with goes out of business between taking my money and delivering the goods - leaving me with no money AND no laptop to show for it. Meanwhile, masters of my new Tour Of Duty compilation are failing to get through to California - leaving a gap in my production schedule (and earning power). Fortunately, the CD finally does go live towards the end of the month - and I push those profits into a much-needed new laptop. However, by this time my business has been castrated for almost 2 months. Not only does the website suffer an inevitable dip in popularity, but the once unstoppable progress of Wrestling Encore also grinds to a halt (which almost prevents it from meeting a very important deadline). Although it would be a long time before it felt like it, this debacle turns out to be a blessing in disguise. The 2nd laptop is infinitely more powerful than the one that never materialized - and leaves my work firing on all cylinders as we go into 2006...

Final Thought
Of course, the moral of the story is that "every cloud has a silver lining". A path without obstacles doesn't lead anywhere. Resistance builds strength - whether it's in the gym or in everyday life. No course of action is without challenges and setbacks, but it's overcoming those hindrances that prove your passion and ensure your success. Lesser men would have given up at the first hurdle, but at MDickie.com we get up after each blow and hit back stronger than ever. Look at each entry in this article and imagine what would have happened if the story ended at each one. No Federation Booker, no Wrestling MPire, and we certainly wouldn't be looking forward to Wrestling Encore right now! It would be a figment in the imagination of some other, more determined game designer. As it is, there is no other. This is the tried and tested saviour of gaming. Let's just hope my sentence has been served at 5 years, so that I can be released on parole to do some real work! And if not, give me another 5 years. We know what it's about now, so it holds no power. When the lesson has been learnt, school is over...