Frequently Asked Questions

Updated 1/4/2007

About nightmist.us

Where am I?

nightmist.us!

Who are you?

Axe.  (David)

What do you do?

I'm forming a small company, and apparently taking my time about it.  We write software.

What is the name of the company?

We're still discussing it.  Right now, we're loosely doing business as nightmist.us.

What kind of software do you write?

We have a game engine we hope to introduce in 2008 that's been in the pipe a while.  It's a powerful, high-performance framework that can be used to create interactive 2D and 3D environments under any operating system.  We are concurrently developing two games using the new engine.  One is a simple, old-school platform game (the same general type as Nintendo's original Mario), and the other is a first-person shooter (the same general type as Id Software's original Quake).  Developing these games in parallel has slowed us down, but it has helped us complete the engine.

We also hope to publish a few of the tools we've developed along the way, software we needed but couldn't find.

And in addition to the game engine, the games, and the related tools, we have a number of small programs we've written that are more generally useful.  We hope to eventually publish these as well, probably at little or no cost.

Will you be publishing playable demos of the games?

Yes!  We plan to publish a playable demo of the platform game later this year.

What's are the games called, and what are they about?

To be announced.

About Sites

Do you also build sites?

Yes.  We originally developed this site’s software core for our own use.  The design incorporates blogging software, shopping cart software, and more.  Though we don't have use for much of the site’s technology at the moment, we've been able to adapt it for other people and companies.

Also, and along the same lines of capitalizing on technology we've already developed, we maintain a few small sites, commercial kiosks advertising different things, around the web.

Are all the sites you build moody and dark?

Only nightmist.us, so far.  Moody?  Anyway, please keep in mind the original styling for nightmist.us is experimental, and intended for a game-based site.

By the way, though nightmist.us is still too dark, if you are viewing nightmist.us on a CRT monitor, it's probably much darker than we'd like.  We apologize for this, and we're working on it.  In the beginning, we didn't have much public traffic and we could do pretty much whatever we wanted, but lately our traffic is ticking up noticeably.

Do you promote site building?

We mention it in this FAQ and nowhere else.  Our site design business is almost exclusively a matter of clients recommending us to new clients.

Shouldn't you toss all this site building business and focus on the games?

Er, Yes.  Eventually, we plan to bundle the kiosks together and spin them off, and lock our site software down for our own use.  In the meantime, we're just trying to keep the lights on.

Lastly on this topic, and briefly please, how much do you charge for a site?

We work cheap.  A business site is almost certainly between $500 and $1500.  A minimalist site can be cheaper, but we need to know exactly what's needed before we can pin the price down exactly.  A site using Adobe's Flash technology will be more expensive, with a starting price of $1500.  We build exactly what we're instructed to build, and our clients pay us only when the site is done and they approve of it.  We have also been known to help out with the occasional odd problem for little or nothing, and to work for free on the occasional interesting project.

No worries.  Just let us know what you need.

About the Study

Something about this site I still don't get:  what's this "Study" business?

I always thought it would be convenient for the company to have a central library that was accessible from anywhere.  We want to keep local copies of various things, since we can't depend on them being available when we need them any other way.  We also want otherwise unrelated materials grouped together as we need them grouped.  We decided to try this idea out and created the Study.

It's worked well so far.  It's even helped us get organized, forcing us to clean up and arrange various loose material.

So it's literally the company's study.  But accessible to the public?

Sure.  If it's useful for us, it might be useful for someone else.

Why would a software company need a copy of Sleepy Hollow?

It has a particular feel, a particular atmosphere.  In that way, it's instructive when trying to create environments.  The other compositions are similar, or they contain interesting ideas.  In our opinion, literature is a natural basis for computer games, just as it is for movies.

—A copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights?

It expresses a clear philosophy of government.  It's instructive when trying to create bad guys and good guys and planning what they are going to do next.

The study isn't about ad revenue?

No.  The study existed before we ever considered placing advertisements.

In fact, the ad and referral revenue generated by the study is embarrassingly low.  We will probably nuke the ads and referrals as soon as we can.  But on a related note, a mug as nice as yours should have it's own stamp!  Or at least it's own mug!

Here's a link to an interesting company:

Do you ever feel embarrassed about shameless promotion?

There's no time.  We have too much high-quality, inexpensive software to develop and deliver in a professional and timely fashion.

Does the study have any independent theme or structure?

Yes, in the Literature and Non-Fiction libraries.  The compositions relate to each other.  One story will mention another, and the other is added to the study.  One composition will use another composition as a basis, and the basis is added.  The Study has taken on a life of it's own, with much of the material interconnected.

Also, the material in the Non-Fiction library could almost be called "Lost Western History," and we hope to encourage as many people as we can to read everything in it.  That's as political as nightmist.us gets, though.

Do you plan to cross-link the compositions?

Yes.

Do you plan to add commentary?

We think the internet has enough commentary.

Why is the study so small?

Time.  But at the moment, the study is around 1500 pages.

Last

Does it really take all this work to create a software development company?

Probably not.  But it takes all this work to create ours.  Please bookmark us and check back in!