Dodongo dislikes smoke.

So we're about 8 hours into LD #20 now! The theme? "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this!"

I'm really excited about how well I'm doing! I ditched SDL, SFML, and C++ all together, and have been teaching myself Python and Pygame on the fly! And it's working! I'm about to take a ~6 hour sleep break, though... today really wore me out what with work and all, so I really can't pull of a productive all-nighter after all. Ah well. I have faith that I'll be able to finish in time! Once I am further along, I'll post some links and screen shots here.

Almost time for LD!

Yep! LD #20 starts tomorrow night and I am... not at all ready! I was making fair progess on my SFML conversion when I realized that the version I was using (1.6), dispite being the stable release, was actually waaaay unusably, and I needed to instal the dev version (2.0). Seems simple enough, yes? No. Apparently they don't just distribute the thing, noooo, that would be too easy. You can't even just compile it. You have to use cmake to compile the project to compile the library. Oh, and to get cmake to work you have to do some other hundred things that I STILL can't figure out after about 3 days of trying. I'm damn near ready to give up on the whole thing... but I shall not!

But not giving up doesn't really leave me with much. I can either go with my semi-functional SDL implementation of my framework, or... I don't know what other options I have. Teach myself Python and PyGame on the fly? I'm honestly considering it. I still really like the idea of using SFML, but I just plain can't get the darn thing working!

I suppose I'll know one way or another by tomorrow night...

One Step Forward, All Steps Back.

Well, as I mentioned I'd begun working in OpenGL for my engine. Not much sooner than I began that, though, I discovered SFML. I've now decided to throw out nearly my entire code base to ditch SDL in favor of SFML. There are a couple reasons; One is that it handles the OpenGL I wanted already. Another is that it has support for audio without further ibraries, and it does some socket stuff and has a few other features I'm interested in playing with. I dunno... we'll see where it leads. I'm probably about 1/3 of the way done rebuilding my previous capabilities. Onward to LD!

Three-Toed Tree Lazy

So... turns out work is a pain. Specifically, it saps all of my time and energy that would be better spent working on games. I've managed to get some bits of work done on the AF Engine/Framework, but nothing much to write home about at this point. Am am in the process of converting it from SDL blitting to using OpenGL, though, which will be nice once it's done.

Big news though! In an effort to refocus my efforts, I've decided to participate in the upcoming Ludum Dare 20! This is a contest help about every 4 months in which you are given the task of creating a full game based on a theme revealed at the start of the contest, and you must complete it within 48 hours! EEK! It seems like a good test of game design might, as well as programming endurance. It starts in roughly 9 days! That doesn't leave me much time to prepare.

As part of my preparation I spent some time looking for utilities I can use during the contest. One great one I want to share is bfxr, little program for generating sound effects. It's awesome! Try it out!

Bringing it back up to speed...

Alright, so I briefly mentioned a few things the other day, but let me try again...  When last I updated I was posting homework assignments for FSU's Game Design course.  I became quite engrossed in the coding for our actual group project, though, and as a result stopped posting anything here!  I also forgot all about the last couple of written assignments in the process!  EEK!  Ah well... the long and short is that we got the game working pretty well by the time we presented it to the class, and got a perfect score!  Woohoo!  It still isn't quite to a level that I'm happy with, though, and I want to clean it up a little bit before I'm willing to release it as a public prototype/demo-that-will-never-be-further-developed.  Davide has also expressed an interest in making it a bit clean, so that he can use it in applying for grad schools and the likes... so hopefully I'll have some more to report on that before long.

The main reason that it's been so long without updates, though, is actually more than just a rush to finish the class... I've been quite busy:  I got a full-time job!  Woo!  It's actually not very exciting, though- it drains most of my time and energy, and is not personally fulfilling.  But hey, I have income now, and that's quite useful.  Now that I've settled into the routine a bit, though, I decided it was time to get back to work!  For the past week or so I've been putting daily work into my game programming efforts.  Last year I built a game called Alpaca Fiesta, effectively a clone of Bejeweled Blitz, as a project and a gift for my girlfriend.  I talked about it some back here.  I've been continuing work on that, especially back-end stuff with how I deal with sub-windows on the screen, and how image files are dealt with.  My goal is to be completely done with AF by late February, and have a nice engine/library from it to use in my next big project!

Speaking of my next big project... it's not just some vague idea; it's a game I've been mentally designing for years and year now, and actual-paper-and-pencil designing for the last several months.  It's something like a spiritual successor to one of my favorite strategy games:  Star Wars Rebellion.  I've got some ideas that still need ironing, but the core of my design is coming along quite nicely, and I should have a pretty complete image of what it's going to look like by the time I start coding in a few weeks!  I've also got a lot of learning to do before then, especially in relation to OpenGL, since I've not worked with it before, and I want the game to incorporate at least some minor use of 3D.  The one key thing I haven't decided on for the game yet, though, is its name.  Details, details...

Anyway, that's a good enough rundown of what's been going on, perhaps?  Hopefully for the near future I'll be able to fall into a pattern of giving regular updates on the progress made each day, and any ideas I have or problems I run into.

Where have all the cookies gone?!?

Oh boy, what have we here?  Someone started a blog and then abandoned it after a couple months?  Actually, no!  I meant to give a last update about the Game Design class, but things got real hectic all of the sudden... final projects, and A JOB?! 

So I'm working now, but I haven't stopped progress on my game design aspirations!  I've been putting bits and pieces of time into my sprite engine where I can, and made a big chunk of progress last night.  Hopefully by this weekend I'll be able to give a long-belated update on how that course ended, and where I'm going from there... and also I'm aiming to have a first "beta" version of the Parsley Engine (the new name for what I've previously called the AFEngine) within a month or so, along with finally releasing Alapaca Fiesta, my Bejeweled-type game which I have been updating and co-developing with the engine so-as to be able to test all my nifty features!

Aaaand, back to work for now, but I just wanted to let y'all (the 0 of you who read this, I'm sure) know that I am still pushing forward, and the third dawn is not far off!

Game Design Homework 17 (Oops, where'd 16 go?!)

(Original assignment not yet on the blog!)
Please answer the following questions:
- What elements of chance are you using in your game?
Dynamic level generation allows for a lot of chance, in terms of what enemies you end up going against, how many, in what order, etc.  It also allows for random variance in how long the game is, the difficulty, the maps themselves, etc.
- Describe the skills used in your game, and their relationship to chance and probability
Most of the "skills" in the game just involve being cautious, avoiding and defeating enemies, etc.  There's not too much chance interaction with that part of the game.
- What elements of your game are out of the gamer’s control?
The map layouts, which objects become enemies, etc.
- Can the player influence chance in some way?
Not under any of our current plans, no.
- Is there a way that the player can estimate his opponent’s (the computer) skill
Perhaps just through experience?  The Computer in this case isn't meant to be skilled.  The enemies act is a fairly mindless and straightforward manner, but the difficult comes from not being able to anticipate which objects are enemies until you are already being attacked.
- Estimate the probability of drawing a king of diamond AND an ace of spades from two full decks of cards (that are shuffled)
Assuming it's two "full" 52-card decks (no jokers) which have been shuffled together and then had two cards drawn one after another (without the first card being replaced before the 2nd draw), the odds are 4/104 that the first draw is one of the target cards, and then 2/103 that the second draw is the OTHER target card, for a total of 8/10712, or 1 in 1339.
- Throw three dice (with faces 1-6). What is the probability that the sum will be 10? 12? 14?
Assuming fair dice, etc. you get....
27/216 for a sum of 10,
25/216 for a sum of 12 ,
and 15/216 for a sum of 14.

RANDOM PICTURE!