TwinSky Games

Bacon Calc, my first "wacky app."

I always thought it would be fun to make parody applications in addition to games. Applications with actual — but somewhat impractical — uses. Sure, in some Windows Programming class I made a graphical “bacon calculator” instead of a regular calc clone like the assignment called for, but that wasn’t really worth showing off.

My day job involves a lot of file organization, so I commonly have to move and delete big data sets. Always on a quest for new types of ridiculousness, the main reason for Directory Blaster’s existence was so I could tell coworkers “hang on, I need to delete some files,” slip on some 3D glasses, then start playing a space shooter. (The idea was to have the visuals enhanced with 3D glasses without making them mandatory.)

After spending a week or so figuring out how to pull as much information from files as possible using Multimedia Fusion, I put together a plan for how to turn that into a game. Identifying, loading and playing sound and music files, reading embedded text and tags, and playing animation files were all on my list, but in the end I kept it more simple, focusing instead on just image and icon loading. As cool as it would be to have a .txt file throw its actual embedded text at you, this type of thing — if implemented in a way so it’s even noticeable — would slow down the action too much. Similarly, I wanted compressed files to appear as boss characters, tossing their contents at you as you blast them, but then deleting a directory full of zip files could take a ridiculous amount of time. I knew it would be important to rip through all files in a directory fairly quickly. The biggest bummer is that the windows recycle bin is a very complex animal these days, so while it sounds like it should naturally be a feature, the process of allowing a player to run Directory Blaster on their recycle bin would require a ton of additional work and research.

The overall design fluctuated a bit. I wanted to have big swarms of enemy files on the screen at once, like space invaders, galaga, etc, but this layout trivialized the files themselves. I realized that each individual file had to be bigger and more noticeable so the player is always aware of the files that are blasted as they’re shot down. Then it was just a matter of adding the scoring system, random enemy movement patterns, and a bit of polish, with Kat Davis helping me with a couple of miscellaneous assets. I’m a pretty big fan of oldschool music modules, so I tossed in some tunes using windows sounds as the defaults.

When I put this for download, a number of people accidentally deleted files, not realizing that yes, it does actually delete the files and directory you blast. This surprised me since actually deleting files is the whole point. The name and description heavily implied this, and the included readme has a very clear warning. I’ve since added more blatant disclaimers, so hopefully we won’t have this problem anymore.

While it would be fun to add more features, I think I’d prefer to move onto other silly applications. During the day I’m an Install Engineer, so it seemed natural to follow this up with a snake game that uninstalls software called “Adder Removes Programs,” but this didn’t seem as practical as just deleting files. Besides, starting with Windows Vista, this applet is now called “Programs and Features” instead of “Add or Remove Programs.”

Are there features you wish Directory Blaster encompassed? Do you have a horrible, heartbreaking story of the files you lost because of this application? Want to be notified when the next wacky app is available? All of the above? Then email me via TWinsky at TwinSkyGames dot com, why dontcha?