last
update
July 16, 2003
Italian
Version
     
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Copyright
© 2002-2003 by Albegor.
Don't
copy or redistribute the
contents of this page in any way without the
expressed written consent of the author.
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"The squad of A10s was returning
to base. The fuel was finishing and they had to land immediately. They
were horrified when they saw that the landing zone was theater of a
fierce clash with enemy forces and was then impossible to land. Fortunately
there was an asphalted and straight enough street nearby, controlled
by friendly forces. They landed, were supplied safely and they took
off again ready to kick the enemy out of their operating base. "
...this is also Strike or Die
| Cogito
ergo sum |
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I'm a lonely kind
of guy and I usually don't like to talk too much about myself, but
I guess that quite a lot of visitors of my website are asking themselves
who's that crazy guy who created all this and so here in this page
I'll try to satisfy your curiosity. 
| Where
I live |
|
My real name
is Davide, I was born in 1975 and I live in Como,
in the north of Italy. Como is a city with 90.000 people
located on the west branch of the lake with the same name,
a city well known for silk processing and it was the birthplace
of the well known scientist Alessandro
Volta.
I've studied Computer Science at the Polytechnic
of Como and I'm working part-time in a Bar at the moment,
although I'm trying to put all my resources into this project
because I think that in the field of game programming a
degree isn't of much use if you don't have a minimum of
practical experience.
My nickname is Albegor, a name I originally invented
for my AD&D character, but later became my virtual alter
ego when I began to use it playing Quake2 online and whose
etymology is so demential that only a few friends know what
it means exactly. 
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| My
two passions |
Since I
was a child I had a big passion for the military world,
in particular for aviation and I think that if the circumstances
of my life had been different I probably would have joined
the Italian Air Force. But as the French say: C'est la
vie! 
My passion for computer science came later, but it is
not at all difficult to reconcile the two things since
nowadays they integrate themselves so well.
I refer to flight simulators and not by chance the real
first game that I bought was Secret Weapons of the
Luftwaffe by LucasArts. The hours of virtual flight
spent with that game only rival those spent playing Quake2
on Internet... and they're such a lot! 
I don't have a genre of games that I prefer more than
others, since different games can give me different feelings,
but equally gratifying.
The games I played when I was a teen-ager that have left
me an indelible memory have been Secret Weapons of the
Luftwaffe, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Strike Commander, Ultima
Underworld 2, Ultima 7, System Shock, Battle Isle 2, Doom
2, Quake 2, X-Wing, Warcraft 2, Starcraft. The presence
of many "sequels" could seem curious, but I legitimate
it considering how the programmers have managed to improve
the original idea of a game to make its sequel a real
masterpiece of digital art.
It was thanks to Combat Mission, a revolutionary
W.W.II tactical wargame, that I discovered the fascinating
world of wargames and rose my passion for military history.
By then I played with other excellent wargames like Total
Operational Art of War, Close Combat, Steel Panthers World
at War.
Coming back to aviation my favorite airplanes are absolutely
the P-51D Mustang and F-16 Fighting Falcon. I simply love
their design and beyond that the P-51 boasts a glorious
history. When I saw it for the first time at an Airshow
the emotion was indescribable. These are the two photos
that I took of the thoroughbred of the air:
 
The two
following photos, taken at the Ambri Air Show 98, are
instead of better quality and show two excellent acrobatic
planes, that I had the chance to virtually pilot in Flight
Unlimited by Looking Glass, the Pitts and the Sukhoi Su-31.
 
The Mustang has also inspired me an artwork, if so it
can be called... click on the picture to learn more about
it and above all how I made it.
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| My
programming experience |
I often read
that many game programmers, professionals and not, have begun
to program since the golden age of the Commodore 64. I instead
have discovered the art of the programming rather later and
I still wonder if have lost anything and what...
Since I was a child, like all children naturally, I was very
attracted by videogames in general, both by the arcade ones
and by the small pocket ones such as the Nintendo Game&Watch,
a couple of which I still safeguard jealously.
My first computer was the Commodore Vic20. Despite
I had only two games, Pacman and a space shooter and few friends
to exchange them with, I spent quite a lot of time with them.
I remember that I also tried to program in Basic language
following the examples that were on the manual, but my programming
knowledge was too limited and I hadn't enough motivations
to expand it, so after a while I came back the my beloved
Legos, which I called "constructions," and to more traditional
games like small soldiers or small cars.
So I stayed away from computers until I bought my first real
PC, an Olivetti 286 and since then my gaming experience
began.
The first contact with programming took place only at the
first year of university, when they taught me the old Modula2,
a language similar to the Pascal, during the basic computer
science class and although I immediately started to appreciate
the potentialities offered by a programming language, at the
end of the class there was a question in particular that bothered
me: How damn I could get the control of each individual pixel
on the screen, just like they did in videogames. The question
found an answer during the advanced computer science class
in which I learned assembly. I wrote "I learned" instead of
"they taught me" to accentuate the fact that if I hadn't learnt
by myself I would have known just as before...
It was love at first sight with assembly, I finally was able
to control the computer up to the minimums details and it
didn't take much time to understand it was what I needed to
create any graphic effect and then to make videogames. In
that time I discovered Internet also and it was thank to it
that I managed to expand my programming knowledge.
So I began to experiment in DOS and I learned at my expenses
that if I ever wanted to program a videogame I would not ever
be able to make it in proper times only using assembly. Then
I learned C by myself and I continued my experiments with
a recipe based on C and Asm in the right helpings.
The idea to program a game like Strike or Die was born
in this time while playing strategy classics such as the Battle
Isle series by Blue Byte,
but for countless reasons the development went on sobbing
for a long time, until the beginning of the year 2000, when
I decided that it was time to do it seriously.
I then downloaded the DirectX7 SDK, I abandoned the DOS and
with a good experience of C and Asm on my shoulders I started
to program Strike or Die.
Obviously I had to overcome quite a lot of obstacles that
seem almost insuperable to whoever embarks on such a project,
but had it been easy it would not have been fun.
So in that year the development proceeded slowly during my
spare time. In November, as you can read in my old
development diary, I opened the website and published
a nice demo of the game that attracted the attention of many
players. That really encouraged me and I was ready to continue
the development with more energy, but towards the end of the
year I received a job offer I could not reject from Trecision,
the well known italian software house. Although I don't like
to take important decisions in a hurry I thought it was a
great opportunity for me.
So I moved to Rapallo and began working with a very friendly
team. The experience in Trecision did not lasted long because
after some months I decided to leave to take care of some
important personal matters, but it has been a fundamental
experience because I learnt a lot of things about professional
game development and it changed my rhythm of work and the
way I develop games.
The last news in my old development diary go back to February
2001 after I released the demo version 3.0 of Strike or Die.
That could have been the end of the story, but...
In the month of September of 2001, just after the tragic terrorist
attack to the twin towers I took back my old sources and resumed
coding almost without being aware of it.
Well, you can read the rest of the story in the current
development diary, but I can now say I followed my hearth
and only time will tell me if I did the right choice...
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| My
PC |
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The configuration
of my PC is at present:
- AMD K7
Athlon 1200Mhz microprocessor
- Asus A7V133
motherboard
- 256Mb SDRam
Infineon
- Nvidia
GeeForce4 Ti 4200 64Mb DDR
- 2 hard
disks IBM 40Gb
- Monitor
Nokia 447XPro 17"
- CD Recorder
Yamaha 8x4x24x
- DVD-Rom
Pioneer 40X
- Logitech
Mouseman Wheel Optical
- Sound Blaster
Live! 5.1
- Creative
Inspire 5300 5.1 speakers
- ISDN terminal
adapter
- Pinnacle
PCTV PRO radio/tv tuner
- MiddleTower
case
My good old
PC helps me remote-debugging SoD and is still good to play
some multiplayer games:
- AMD K6-2
500Mhz microprocessor
- Asus P5A-B
motherboard
- 128Mb Ram
- Voodoo3
2000 16Mb VRam
- Hard disk
IBM 10Gb
- Monitor
Compaq 15"
- CD-Rom
EIDE Toshiba 36X
- Mouse
Logitech Pilot Plus
- Sound
Blaster AWE 64 Gold
- BigTower
case
I believe that
you can do nice things even if you haven't got the last generation
hardware.
So don't believe the hype and upgrade only when it's necessary.
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