NEWSFLASH !

30 June 2002	Chrysanthemum Sky Hi All, As the long development of Pacific Tide has ground along, we have run into many problems, among the largest financial resources to get the game done. In order to get an actual product out, we have decided to downsize the concept somewhat to something that we can realistically finish. The redesign is already well underway, and Gary is beginning to code it. This downsized version will be called Chrysanthemum Sky, Japan's War In The Pacific. Essentially the operational level of the game has been removed, and a simpler strategic level game is the result. As we get further along, we will release more details, however I believe in streamlining the design I have come up with a game that retains many of Pacific Tide's concepts and feel, and we have something we can realistically code and complete. Each turn will represent 1 week of time. Below is a little teaser of the initial version of the map. This shot shows China and Indo China, but as with Pacific Tide, the entire war from India to the US West Coast is covered. More to come as development continues.
15 July 2001	Down But Not Out Hi All, This site was down for about 2 weeks but that does not indicate the end of Pacific Tide or Star Games, was just a temporary problem. Work on Pacific Tide has been on a hiatus because I have not had the personal funds to keep Gary working on coding, which is what it will take at this point to finish the game. At the point where Gary had to stop working earlier this year, he had completed his reworking of the older code eliminating many bugs and fixing several major problems. This means at the point I can afford to get him working again, hopefully by the end of August, he will be able to start writing and inserting new code. Martin
1 October 2000	Saburo Sakai Dead Saburo Sakai, Ace of the Zero fighter died on Sept 26 at age 84 from a heart attack. Sakai was the highest scoring Japanese Naval pilot to survive the war, with 64 confirmed kills. Sakai scored 60 of these victories during the "Runaway Victory" period of the war, and was then badly shot up during the first day's fighting over Guadalcanal. Largely blinded and mostly delilious from his wounds and loss of blood, Saburo Sakai managed to fly his A6M2/21 the 600 miles back to Rabaul, and safely land his mauled aircraft. His fellow aces of the famed Tainan Ku were stunned by this feat of flying, having long since given him up for dead by the time he returned to base. After undergoing grueling and extremely painful eye surgery that he was required to remain concious for, Sakai was sent back to the Home Islands for recovery. He had permanently lost sight in one eye, and had only partial sight in the other. Gaining his wings in the "China Incident" in 1940, he was among the first pilots to fly the Zero, gaining some small success after nearly being shot down in his very first engagement ! Such experience would prove invaluable to him and many other Japanese pilots when facing the mostly green Allied flyers in the early days of the war. During the desperate times of late 1944, the great need for pilots resulted in Sakai again being assigned to a combat unit to help defend the island of Iwo Jima. During the pre-invasion raids while the Americans were building up their invasion force, Sakai fought in several battles leading mostly green pilots against the now veteran American Navy fliers and their F6F Hellcat fighters. Even with his blindness and other physical restrictions that were the results of his earlier wounds, Sakai would shoot down four more enemy planes during this period while continuing to fly the now badly outmoded Zero fighter. In one of these engagements Sakai single handedly fought an entire squadron of Hellcats and tangled with them for an extended time until the pilots either ran low on fuel or were driven off by anti-aircraft fire from the island, which Sakai had at last managed to lure the Americans into range of. Again his compatriots were amazed by a feat of flying they had never even dreamed off. How many pilots could have survived combat against and entire enemy squadron of superior aircraft? Withdrawn from the Island just a few days before the invasion, Sakai ended the war like many other Japanese pilots, preparing for a suicide attack against the Allied invasion armadas that were expected at any moment. After the war, Saburo Sakai would later write a best selling autobiography called "Samurai!". In recent years Sakai was honored in the Netherlands and brought there for a specific incident in which he had spared a Dutch transport full of women and children. He had flown closely parralell to the DC-3, and seen a woman with a child on her lap looking out the window at him with her hands before her in prayer. Even his compatriots considered this a valiant act and the showing of true Samurai spirit by not attacking the defenseless. A Dutch television station managed to track down that woman and reunite them on air during his recent visit there. His final statement on the Pacific War was released about 18 months ago in Japan, a new book that has to date been published only in Japan and Taiwan. He ruffled many feathers among the "old boys" of the Imperial Navy, accusing the officers of doing almost no flying and stating that the bulk of the risk, exposure and credit was due to the enlisted men and warrant officers who flew. He further stated the officer corps was guilty of negligence because by not flying much in combat, the result was that they never fully understood the lackings of the Japanese aircraft as they became more and more outclassed, and the needs of the frontline pilots. These are stunning accusations from one so revered by the Japanese, and who's word is so respected, especially since he apparently backs the claims with much evidence. Many pilots were incensed for instance, that there was not system of accelerated promotion or other reward for combat pilots who showed great ability and success. While the midget submarine crews who went into Pearl Harbor were given the national status of War Gods, those flyers who were shot down in the attack received no special recognition or credit. **** In other news Gary has just about finished correcting the problems in the previously written movement and mapping routines of the Mac version of Pacific Tide, and will soon be writing new code. I was pleased to receive and inquiry from Bas Kreuger, former curator of the Royal Netherlands Air Force Museum, volunteering to help with research on the Royal Netherlands forces that defended the East Indies. I have been hard at work compiling what I did have on the Dutch, and have started sending it to him for review and correction. Hopefully we'll have a new Digital History out soon on the Dutch. While the fought with relatively limited resources, the Netherlands forces fought well and at times scored considerable success against the advancing Japanese. That's the latest, Martin
27 August 2000	To Busy For Words I have to apologize for not being able to respond to quite a number of emails lately. I have been immersed in 3 different jobs that between them have been occupying about 120 hours a week. I am way behind on mail, so please don't take it as a personal slight if I have not been able to respond to you. Most of the mail has asked if Pacific Tide is available or when it will be. PT is not yet done, though our Mac programmer has been making very good progress lately. My other jobs are allowing me to pay him a regular albeit small salary, but its enough to keep him working. On the PC side of things development is moving slower. No exact date for completing either version, but it will not be in the near future. Martin
5 July 2000	New Code Is Nice To See ! Gary has recently been posting the first new code we've seen in awhile, improvedments and bug fixes to the mapping engine and game infrastructure. Once that is out of the way, we'll get him to work on the naval combat module. The other programmers are continuing at their relatively slow and steady pace, and hopefully we'll get some new code from them soon too. Other than that I have been very busy with other areas my life, but expect to update this site over the next month, and I should have time to finish off the next Digital History as well. Martin
10 June 2000	Work And Play Gary has everything loaded up on his new hard drive and is working on the mapping routines to fix some existing bugs before moving on to new stuff. Matt continues to plug away at the PC side of things in the time he can manage. Hopefully he will finish up the lucrative commercial contract he's been working on soon, and will have more time for PT this summer. Jim has not had much time for PT coding the last couple months, but also expects to have more free time over the summer, and when it becomes available will also start working for a small salary when previously he has been working only on spec. The work Jim has done made some big gains in the coding for the air combat module, and I am anxious to have him back coding Pacific Tide. I have been busy with my other work in order to generate funds to get Pacific Tide development going quickly again. I was very happy to find out that the band I work with, Mourning Widows, has its second album being released there on the 14th of this month in Japan, and we will tour there again in October. I look forwards to seeing all my Japanese friends again. Isamu Maruhashi, your email address is no longer any good, I have not yet had a good opportunity to call you, so if you see this before the phone rings with me on it please email me. Last time in Japan I got to the Yasukuni Shrine, the Peace Museum and A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, and the War History Library. Hopefully I will have at least as many off days this time around. I want to present hardcopy copies of Sword Of The Emperor and The Swift And Deadly to the War History Library this time. I must confess I am curious to see if mine and Mr Kawamoto's book on Japanese Airpower has been checked out much in the year and a half it will have been residing in the Library. Also, anyone in Rhode Island, Connecticut or Massachusetts looking for a mortgage? Check out the company I work for, www.southcountymortgage.com. Refer any application directly to me and note seeing this on the Star Games site, and if it closes I will put 50% of my commission into the programming fund for PT, as opposed to the about 10% I can generally manage at the point. Not to mention that I will get you loan at a great rate and pricing! While this is not all Pacific Tide related news, since PT development is at this point driven by my personal financial success in other areas, I thought it wouldn't hurt to let everyone know I've been doing very well. As to the mixup with www.pacifictide.com, that is stuck in Network Solutions beauracracy but is being worked on. At this point it may be impossible to effect the transfer because our former publisher Adventure Software registered the domain under their name, and since they have been defunct for awhile it is making the Network Solutions people very unhappy. For now it remains unfortunately pointed the wrong way. That's the latest..... Martin
30 April 2000	Picking Up The Pace Development will start picking up the pace in the next month as we try a new programming concept, actually paying the programmers instead of them working entirely on spec. The good news is I am doing so well at my mortgage broker day job that I can afford to put my own $$ back into the company and start paying the guys. While not a fortune by any means, some pay gives immediate material gain for the work. Pacific Tide is such a complex game that expecting programmers to program it fully on spec has just not worked out well, so hopefully this will result in the games completion and sooner than later. At this point I also want to update the icons and some of the graphics to current standards, but that will involve simple replacement of artwork in the game resources, and not involve programming so I can do it myself. Other things have occupied my time and prevented me finishing up the fourth Digital History, but I peck away at it when I can. Happily it looks like I will be going back to Japan later this year, and can't wait for that trip. I have received a couple emails lately mentioning that www.pacifictide.com was directed to Matrix Games site. This resulted as part misunderstanding and part screw up by Network Solutions, however the domain should be pointed back at our site within the next 24-48 hours. This was all resolved amicably between myself and Matrix Games owner David Heath, who formerly owned Adventure Software who we worked with for awhile. That's the latest, Martin
11 March 2000	Working Away A few of you wrote to me lately reminding me I hadn't updatd the site since December. Thing have been rather quiet, and I have been occupied heavily with a day job and other work so I haven't had much time for the site. After the hollidays a between a death in his family and heavy demands by paying work our PC programmer Matt has unfortunately had only limited time for Pacific Tide, so he has made some progress but not the dramatic improvements I had hoped for. Both our Mac programmers have managed similar amounts of work, but everyone has been well occupied with survival. The good news is that my day job selling mortgages is going so well that I expect to have the funds to start paying these guys out of pocket, and while the salaries won't be great that should get all the programmers a lot more interested and make some real progress. I have also been making progress on the fourth Digital History, which will cover the Allied fleets when the war broke out. And that's the latest. Not the best of news, but at least gradual progress is being made, with good reason to think that the pace will soon pick up. Martin
12 December 1999	New Builds On Both Platforms Our new programmers have been hard at work, and in the last month I have received 2 new Mac builds, and a new PC build. There's still a long way to go, but I'm very encouraged that these guys are actually producing new code and delivering the results to me pretty quickly. I have been nicking away at the next Digital History, a snapshot of the Allied navies at the outbreak of the Pacific War. We expect to start needing beta testers again around the end of March or early April, so for those of you who have expressed interest in helping out, that's when you can expect to be contacted if you are selected as a tester. Martin
28 October 1999	Reorganization Complete In the last month we have been reorganizing Pacific Tide development and bringing in new programming help. I am pleased to welcome Matt Sanchez and Steve Fatula on the PC side, Jim Brown on the Mac side of things. Gary Osborn remains in overall charge of the coding effort, and as chief Mac programmer. I am happy to say that more new PT code has been written in the last couple weeks than the last 18 months. Its great to see active coding underway again for PT, and hopefully this team will be able to finish off what we have been working on for so long. Thanks to all of you who have been so patient in waiting for PT, these new guys seem to have the drive to finish the game, and hopefully we'll see at least a new Mac beta in the near future. Martin
8 September 1999	Now You See Us...Now You Don't ! You may have noticed that our site was offline for about the last 2 weeks. I have received several pieces of email asking if this meant that Pacific Tide is dead. The answer is no. Development is actually picking up steam for the first time in more than a year, but more about that later. Our disappearance was due to our former ISP going belly up unexpectedly, and the people who bought out their remains being exceedinly difficult t deal with. We have now moved to a new provider, and as you can see, are back up and running. You may experience problems during the next few days as I rebuild the site. The Ready Room will be down until futher notice until I find a cgi webboard to replace the old one. PT Developmnet Regaining Momentum Our main PC programmer, Mike McMain has pulled out of the PT developent effort. He has gotten 3 promotions at his day job in the last year and simply had no time for PT. What is good about that is that Mike was kind enough to turn his code over to us, including a fully debugged spotting module that we did not have before. Gary and I are now actively working on the Mac version again, and I am learning how to code dialogues with Gary's help. The biggest problem we have had to overcome has been my inability to code my own game, and its about time I corrected that lack. Anyway, at least we are back working actively rather than wait for someone else to produce code they have no time to write. As to the PC version, Gary will probably end up doing the port himself at this point, once the Mac version is done. Martin
3 August 1999	Hiatus Over Hi all, I know its been quite awhile since the site and news was updated and some of you have been wondering if much progress has been made in the time being. I have largely been on hiatus from PT and the other Star Games works for several months, due to - Moving Helping my girlfriend sell her house Helping her pack and move Searching for and buying a new house, Moving again Going To Japan Without my leadership the project predictably languished. We have also suffered as our main programmer has received repeated promotions at his day job over the last year, and had little time for PT. Gary and I and now actively working again on the Mac code for the game, and we are searching for some additional programming help to finish PT. Any programmers that might be interested in working with us may write me at martin@star-games.com. The Ready Room has been down the last several days due to problems at Incredibyte. There are further complications in that Incredibyte has just been sold to Net Access and we may be moving our sites in the near future. Do not be alarmed if the site is down for a few days sometime in the next month, it probably means we're moving. I have converted Japanese Airpower At The Outbreak Of The Pacific War to PDF format, and this new version will be uploaded in the near future. I want to wait until the ISP issue is resolved before I do so. Look for updates to the our site in the near future. I will be adding exhibits on the Yasukuni Shrine, Peace Museum and A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, and on the War History Library in Tokyo, all of which I visited on my recent trip to Japan. A high point was presenting a copy of Japanese Airpower to the director of the War History Library, and knowing that my work now has a catalogue card in the Japanese Archives. I want to issue a special thanks to Mr. Shibata at the Library for his kindness during my visit there. That's the latest ! Martin
2 February 1999	Sword Of The Emperor NOW AVAILABLE ! Our 3rd Digital History is ready at long last. Available for both Mac and PC, Sword Of The Emperor has in depth order of battle info on the Imperial Army that stormed through the Philippines, Malaya and Burma. Sword consists of a 175 page main document, a map document with 7 maps on five 11 x 17 pages, and a short user's guide. All are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, which can be read easily using Adobe's free Acrobat Reader. For the next Digital History I will probably deal with the Allied air forces or navies in December 1941. Sword is available for $20 US. Order here. I am continuing to clean up the site and correct omissions when I rebuilt the site a few weeks ago. Among them the failure to include a button to this News page, and the Mailing List page. Martin
1 January 1999	HAPPY NEW YEAR ! Happy hollidays to everyone from Star Games. We appreciate the support you've given us in the past year, and it looks like 1999 will be the year we're finally able to deliver Pacific Tide. With the coming of the new year, Star Games is undergoing some reorganization - The new look and additions to the site. A renewed commitment from our programming team to work on no projects other than Pacific Tide and their day jobs until the game is done. I am going into the end phase of development on several new Digital Histories. The Macintosh version of the third in the series, Sword Of The Emperor, should be ready sometime in January. Keep the faith and watch this page during the next couple months for good news all around ! Peace