Timeline
1997 or 1998
I'm learning my first programming language: Super Logo. I installed it from two floppy disks that came with a book.
In the next few years
I develop my first small games with Super Logo. e.g. Gnoms, Creatures Island, Brain Fire and UFO Hunting.
End of 2000
Time to take a look at C++. I'm developing some mini-programs. e.g. a number guessing game, Taskdevil (hides the taskbar until you win) and CD-Control (opens and closes the CD drive).
Early 2001
My parents are getting an ISDN modem. Finally internet. This opens up completely new possibilities for me.
4. Quarter 2001
I find something fantastic on the Internet: Flash. I use it to create some small animations but also games. One product of this is, for example, Mouse Trail. A simple game in which you have to guide your mouse cursor through a maze without bumping into anything.
4. Quarter 2002
Flash is great but doesn't provide enough performance for large games. So I focused my attention on Blitz Basic, a fast and simple programming language optimized for games. Because Counter-Strike often crashes on my computer at the time, I came up with the idea of creating my own 2D variant: CS2D.
Mid 2003
I'm losing interest to continue my work on CS2D. I prefer to focus on the third dimension instead and write Stranded. With around 10,000 lines of code, it is not only my first 3D game, but also my largest to date.
November 2003
Stranded is - to my surprise - a huge success. So big that I'm determined to make a second part. Stranded made it into at least 4 magazines (SharePlay, Bravo Screenfun, Computer Bild Spiele, PC-Action) and also the Rhein-Zeitung (German local newspaper). Before I start working on Stranded II, I want to finish CS2D.
July 2004
CS2D (which is now over twice as big as Stranded with over 22,000 lines) is becoming widely public. I don't know how it happened, but I suspect that it was mentioned in the news on a well-visited Counter-Strike site and made the rounds. csbanana.com (now gamebanana.com) kindly sponsors the domain cs2d.com. Shortly afterwards, work on Stranded II began.
Early 2005
Sometimes you need a break from larger projects. I'm pausing work on Stranded II to develop Minigolf Madness. The small mini golf game with multiplayer mode makes it into the magazine PC-Action.
End of 2005
gamebanana.com stops sponsoring cs2d.com. Information about the game is only available via cs2d.unrealsoftware.de. The online server list is also no longer available because it also ran via cs2d.com. Because of these problems, CS2D becomes quite quiet, where players would otherwise be found around the clock.
July 2006
Stranded II was still in development and was already relatively advanced. At the same time, I'm breathing new life into CS2D and getting the domain cs2d.com back.
April 2007
The German Stranded II Beta is finally released and downloaded around 1,500 times on UnrealSoftware.de within 10 days.
End of June 2007
Stranded II reaches "gold status", meaning it is more or less finished. With over 50,000 lines of program code and a development time of around 3 years, I have now completed work on my biggest project to date.
End of July 2008
CS2D 0.1.0.5 (working title: CS2D Max) is released. It is a completely reprogrammed version. This time I'm using Blitz Max as the programming language, the successor to Blitz Basic. It is my first project which is also available for Linux and MacOS. It also contains almost 50,000 lines of code.
29. September 2009
The new Unreal Software game Carnage Contest is released as an alpha version. The special thing is that all weapons in this game are written in Lua script so you can add your own ones. The game is a rather small project compared to Stranded and CS2D. Speaking of CS2D: Due to many updates, the length of the code has increased to over 60,000 lines. It has also supports Lua scripting since March 2009.
November 2009
Unreal Software needs too much traffic and CPU power. Therefore it is moved to a fast V-Server - including all related pages.
10. April 2010
UnrealSoftware.de has been completely rebuilt and now uses XHTML and UTF-8!
24. October 2011
Carnage Contest reaches the beta phase (version beta 0.1.0.0)!
End of 2012
Development of Stranded III is announced. A development blog is also launched to show progress.
August 2014
Work on Stranded III is progressing slowly as I was busy with my bachelor's thesis and my full-time job. In addition, the page Stranded3.com is created.
29. April 2017
CS2D is being put on Steam Greenlight.
8. June 2017
CS2D gets green light on Steam Greenlight and Unreal Software is completely focused on releasing it on Steam.
15. November 2017
Finally CS2D is released on Steam. It starts with over 50 Steam Achievements. Within a very short time it reached 200,000 activations and over 1,000 players were in CS2D at the same time via Steam. The reviews are "very positive" (i.e. over 90% positive)!
In between
I work full time in the games industry. This makes it harder for me to find motivation and time for my private projects. There are minor updates for CS2D. Also I'm still working on Stranded III and writing dev blogs from time to time.
16. July 2023
The YouTuber LamWarp publishes a super video about CS2D, which cracks the 1 million viewer mark within a few days. This event briefly caused a significant increase in the number of players in CS2D.
December 2023
The last all-round renewal of UnrealSoftware.de was over 13 years ago - and it shows. In the meantime, smartphones became much more popular. So in the last few months I have created a new design that is responsive and works much better on smartphones and small screens.