Sunday, December 13, 2009

destroyed

Hm...
I participated in the LudumDare contest this weekend. I knew I couldn't make an entire game but I hoped I could at least make a little part of it. boy was I wrong... Everything went to hell because I rushed things, entity management system was horrible, everything was full of hacks that didn't surpass the pressure of hard work, the engine was a disaster. But I was okay with that, I knew at the start I probably couldn't make it and I was cool. When I finally decided to drop off I was actually a bit happy as I learned a lot of important lessons, made a lot of mistakes and all in all this will help me in the future. However one thing happened I didn't account for. My game was going to be called "The world is beautiful out there...", I wanted to have a small guy jump through levels at a half fast pace, when I gave up I made a post on LudumDare blog saying that I can't finish the game. In the last few words I wrote That next Time I will finish the game and that I will win. I felt this was a pretty cool thing to say and decided to add an image to make it sound even cooler. In the same posy I put an image I composed in photoshop from the assets I've drawn as a preview level. Just a house on a hill going to water.
I showed the blog post to a friend and he noticed noticed that it could go great if it was the last the cool image was the continuation from that level. An incredibly short game, just 3 screens, and all you do is walk from the house to the cliff. It could be done by ANYONE in just those 5 hours left until the end of LD. Anyone except me. I grabbed my code and tried to forcibly put it together. My engine was so bad, so utterly putrid I couldn't add 3 simple classes to it and make 1 level. It would be a great "Well, I didn't manage to do my actual game but this makes me cool" farawell game.
God I feel bad right now. I failed so hard it hurts.
~Spliter

Sunday, December 6, 2009

El Poho going good

btw El Poho is the name of my game engine until I find a better name.
Ok, I finally added polygon collisions into it. It's a smaller version than the previous one but it's very easy to add features in it. For now the main features of it are:
-great scalability (should be easier to make a game in it now)
-Polygon-based collision system
-compact (most unnecessary features like GUI and a great number of other stuff was not implemented)
and as a bonus:
-simple yet powerful particle engine!

However I'm still planning on adding a simple GUI system for things like buttons and text at the very least, I should probably add an event system as well.
Another feature I'm working on is quite an important one: Scheduling.
So far it runs at 30 frames per second and it just waits some time between every frame to mantain that, but I need to add a feature that skips the drawing step completely if it runs too slow. So far every object in the game has a few functions like draw() and think(). With the scheduler I'll be able to set every object to think at diferent time periods, like every 1 second or every 1/20 seconds, which will make it a lot faster when I'll have to add AI support to it. With scheduling I can have AI's in Idle states that think every 5 seconds or so, or think every 1/20th second if on full alert, this'll be an enormous performance boost.

For testing the engine out I'm making a small game where you control a dust cloud. Not much to do for now as I'm having some trouble in porting things to the new collision system (what worked back then doesn't work now).


Ok, that's all for now.
maybe I'll update thig blog later this week.
-Spliter

Sunday, September 20, 2009

I love my life

It's so full of hope and joy getting crushed again and again and again....
Now everything is working, I bought the cable, I have a net connection... But I can't think of a single thing to program!! I don't want to make clones, they bore me with their lack of originality, I want to make a small game that's original and lots of fun. Or at least original! But I can't.
Whenever I sit in front of my pc with intent to make something I can't think of anything.
On top of that I discovered things aren't quite as easy as I thought at first. For once, I pay 120 Euros for the rent (which I already knew), then 170 euros for my uni (which I already new) and then 25 euros for water electricity etc... Or so I thought, I actually have to pay at least 40 euros for electricity and water and internet and gas and TV (which I don't even use) and it all accumulates into a pretty 330 Euros a month. If I get the same scholarship as last year I'll be getting 350 euros a month. which leaves 20 euros to live from per month (food,and other daily needs). So I have to look for a job. Actually I've already been on a job hunt yesterday and brought a few pamphlets with me, but it turns out that I have to have a documents which allows me to work here in portugal, funnily enough this document went missing when I sent it to DGES so I could go to university!!
Now I have to get a new one made and it can take quite some time. On tuesday I'm going to SE to ask for new one (luckily last year I needed the same document so I already have all the paperwork done to get the new one).

And if that wasn't enough a friend of my dad has my wacom in her house and she's outside the country now.

Things are going really sweet.

Spliter

Thursday, September 17, 2009

PC problems

I've arrived to my new room full of hope and joy that I'm finally getting independent of my parents and that I'm going to be able to just plug my PC in and play, make games and browse internet.
OH THE IRONY!
First thing I noteiced after plugging my pc is that it's not quite turning on, sure the vents worked but nothing appeared on the screen, when I sat down near my pc to check what's wrong and I touched the box it jolted me! It turned out I haven't got a single socket with ground connection, and the electricity which would usually just got to the ground traveled by me if I touched the computer. So ok, I walked 3 km back and forth to buy a socked with ground, I turned off the electricity and began my work. You know... it's funny I've chosen that socked because the ground cable inside it was too short for me to be able to plug it in normally, and so I had to do some weird twists to push that cable into the socket ground.
Fortunately my pc started working and my troubles ended.
OH THE IRONY AGAIN!
It turns out that to connect to our net adapter I must have a RJ45 cable which I don't.
So now I have a working PC but I have to buy that stupid cable to have internet access in my room.
Apart from that i discovered our apartment doesn't have a washing machine so from now on I'll have to wash my things manually... oh and I have to buy laundry detergent, dish detergent, shampoo and Q-tips and something to wipe the dust off the shelves.

On the gamedev news I'm thinking of creating a small game that's about pollination with a little twist, but I still don't know how it will work(yeah, basically I have no Ideas at all, and I'm trying to make things up as I go).

...I'm out
Spliter

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I'M BACK MUTHAFUKA!

So....yeah....
I'm back, I got a room pretty close to the uni, and I still can't sleep there tonight! Only tomorrow...
anyway, I'm thinking of changing the blog name to "CatBox Beta", which incidentally is the name I plan for my future company(except the Beta) (previously I was thinking of "Cat in a Box Studio", but I decided to use a simpler name) . The reason for change is that I kinda got inspired from other gamedev blogs, and since mine isn't as much about art as the gamedev and my life I kinda think it fits, so the next post won't be posted at spliterart.blogspot.com but on CatBoxBeta.blogspot.com
I'll save the rest of the news for my next blog update when I'll be writing on my pc sitting ona confortable chair and not on the undersized laptop and sitting on the floor.
cya!
Spliter

Friday, September 11, 2009

Going back to Portugal...

So....yeah....
I'm short on time so I'll just leave this here:
I'm going back for permanent now, I decided to rent a room in an apartement that a few of my friends live in. See ya on tuesday.
Spliter

Monday, August 31, 2009

Vacations Ending...

...and I still don't know if I'm accepted into my university!
My classes start 14 of September, and I don't even know WHEN I will know if I will be granted a condo by university.
In the best case in a few days I'll discover that I've been given an aparetement and that I'll have another schoolyear without much worries apart from the classes I failed last year (which can cost me going to uni this year).
Apart from that I'm making another small engine. After working with openGL and SDL, and making a 21.000 lines of code long engine doing this one is actually pretty easy, especially since I'm not making it for various games, but only the basis for some prototypes.
My current prototype is a simple 2D animation system, bundled with an IK system and ability to draw textured mesh on it. It's practically finished apart from few bugs and certain incoherence between parts which makes me correct the code I've written before, but apart from that it all worked. Now I want to make a very simple Animation editor that features: keyframe operations like moving, creating, deleting, and reasigning to another bone (yes, the keyframes are bone independent, they only store the angle of a bone, and the ease). IK based animation building. saving and loading the animation into and from a file. Undo-redo operations.
For now that's it. It's already difficult to make this program since I have little previous experience, and I'll have to make a small GUI (oh, this reminds me, I have to download and instal the openGL font creator and the png import library).
I think it's all for now. I don't have that much time here in poland to be on pc, so the work is going by little bits, and I generally can't be on the pc for more than 4 hours a day, including programming.
Maybe I'll come up with a cool and simple game Idea I'll want to make more than this (quite useless, apart from the experience) animation system.
I'm also interested in the GDC presentations lately, I've seen all of Chris Hecker's presentations and I have to say I must thank him a lot. I learned a ton of things, and he gave me the inspiration to start programming again with his and Chaim Gingold's Advanced Prototypig talk at GDC, which I can certainly reccommend if you have difficulty starting programming again.
That's it for now.
Cya later!
Spliter

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Du di dam dam

Vomits, Spewing, Dripping, Splashing, Paint, Water and anything else I can think of, was the only thing I could think of for the last few days, in my free time from rummaging through cupboards, tables, and under the beds in search of documents I was supposed to deliver LAST MONTH!
Ah well...
I'm seriously thinking of implementing some cool looking spewing in my game, but It's really hard to find any kind of graphical and especially video resources for something like that (especially if you don't want to get grossed out, and looked funny at). I could do something like that at home if I had a few buckets of paint, or tinted water, a camera, and a place to do the footage, but although 1 and 2 are available, nr 3 is in short supply.
Apart of that things aren't getting much better. My brother's return to Poland is almost certain since I can't find a job. I'm going to stay here in Portugal, living in a University condo, but I still don't know what about my sister, She could stay here if she wants it, she's the only one of us three that has any working experience, and on top of that she's a girl, which means that getting any job for her isn't as much of a problem as for me and my brother (who is still too young to have a job).
But for now let's live bad things behind. Lately I wrote a bit of a story for my game called Alternate Gravity. I already wrote 4 chapters of a book when I was younger, and a ton of unfinished comic books I gave up on, so at least when writing for this game I have some previous experience. It's shaping up pretty well so far, and I've managed to fill in some of the holes I had from when I organized everything in my mind. Now I see why design docs are so important.
normally when I create a game, I write down all the technical stuff, and create a small technical design doc, thanks to which I can easily make all of that, unfortunately I never actually created any game design doc, so even though I had the technology, and the abilities I never quite knew how to put it together. The worst mistake I do when making a game is that I don't have a final product in my mind. I can see myself playing bits of it, but I never quite know how the entire game will be, and how do I sew those separate levels into one solid gameplay.
So far I can reveal some info about Alternate Gravity (I would hope this blog end up as a gossip source for my game in the future :) ).
1-You start in a lab complex called Newton doing beta tests for an exo-suit.
2-Newton is located at an unnamed part of the world that it NOT America.
3-The gameplay will revolve much around the gravity. The entire environment inside the Newton labs will have it's gravity twisted in various ways.

I'm still working on some of the bosses for the game, and on how will the player look, but I'll probably use an older design I did for a small experimental game with similar concept.
Here's Alternate Gravity in it's experimental form:
http://files.filefront.com/Alternate+Gravityzip/;13745447;/fileinfo.html
(filefront will be used only until I can find a safer location to upload in which I have more control over the content)

Okay! It's time to finish this post and get back to work finding that stupid document I need for my father to let me off the hook (for now).
See you later!
Spliter

Friday, April 17, 2009

Little update.

Hi!
Long time no see huh?
Well... since this blog is almost as dead as my hopes I decided to update it a little with how things are going.
First, I wanted to apologize for my continuous negligence of TTL2. I do some work every now and then but lately I have difficulties on concentrating. Even my Team Fortress 2 enthusiasm is starting to wilt. I think the obvious reason for that is my slight depression and tiredness. And me still not having a job isn't helping.
Luckily there's still one thing that keeps me sane: Alternate Gravity. So far my biggest programming project. It's a game that I plan on releasing commercially, and if it's not good enough at least I hope it'll give me a kick in the right direction. I have planned much, and much of that is being done. Right now I'm working on perfecting the lighting system, so far it works by brightening everything places that aren't in shadow, but I need something better, so I decided to try another method which consists of rendering the lights BEFORE the screen is drawn, then copy the final product to an offscreen texture, and then render that texture on top of everything simply darkening the places that are in shadow.
Apart from that I'm also working on the editor. I finally got the UNDO and REDO thing to work. but since I want the game do be easily modable I want the editor to parse the config from a file, so I can use the same editor for different projects (as far as those projects are 2D as well).

Every single time I post something on this blog I realize more and more how inappropriate and ironic the name is. Initially it was supposed to be a blog where I could upload doodles and drawings I do from time to time, but for the few past months I haven't done almost anything when it comes to art (Apart from the scarce TTL2 updates). So I was thinking of either changing the name, or go along with it and say that art is a expression of one's feelings, needs and hopes, and so even programming itself can be art!
...I'll most probably go with the second one since changing the name would be too much work :D

I also was thinking of starting a journal on gamedev.net where I could update my progress on alternate gravity and other programming projects and maybe even get some feedback (as opposed to this blog which no one reads ...).
Well... I have test today in about five hours and I've barely studied...
So i'll be going now and maybe soon I'll update this blog with how TTL2 is going and also I was thinking of starting a review column for both movies and games.
See you later!
Spliter

Sunday, March 22, 2009

TTL2 update



Yes! finally after 5 weeks of no news I am happy to announce that I become sufficiently bored with games, and programming to get into the artistic phase. So, what does that mean? Well, it means I'll be making more TTL2 updates now as I have been working on it! So far I'm halfway through "We don't go to ravenholm" which, thank god, is one of the easier to do episodes and so it's less work for me :) .
Since Raiki allowed me not to do any static models (wardrobes, cars, airboat etc) My work progression will be much faster from now on, cine I'll only be focusing on the essential models like Aantlions, gunships and other that aren't too complex yet are fun to make, and their animations!

This update models are:
The omnipresent Fast Headcrab:
Quite simple, so far there are only two versions I've done of him. This is the second.

The annoying eye blinding Scanner:
Simple to animate, but it's one of my most complex models I've done so far.

And finally the glorious Strider:

He's quite difficult to animate, but the result is always worth it.


So here you have it. The strider on the right and the scanner were both done several years ago, when I and Raiki decided to work in a team on TTL2 for the first time.

I should have the Ravenholm chapter finished by today night, and tomorrow I start working on the highway 17 when I get back from uni. I can finally feel the inspiration flowing through my veins, And as a plus, I'll be able to show this movie in my portfolio.

Oh yeah, a little life update.
I'm currently searching for a job, so far I've sent my CV and an motivation letter to two companies, one of them is Dephos, a 3D imagery company (they do maps, gps's etc) they're looking for a student with experience in C++ and 3D graphics, so I guess I fit, and the other is a Portuguese store line where my uncle works. I'll also send my CV to another graphic company, and I hope I can put TTL2 as one of my works in my portfolio.

Well... I'll see you in a week with more TTL2 updates!
Spliter

ps: I finally managed to get more writing space in blogger, it's quite usefull.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Projects

I decided I want to do something other than just games, but also something will help mAdd Imagee achieve my goals.
So, in beforehand here's the list of things I want to achieve in my life:
-work at valve
-work at/for Pixar
-get a first job
-get married and have at least one son and one daughter
-Make the greatest game ever (or at least a game that will win the Game of the Year award)
...and finally after I've had my fun being awesome:
-Become a teacher at a good university, and pass on my knowledge to other people, helping them to get even better than I was.
-Die for someone I love (the last one preferably at the end >. < )

7 things to do before I die, not a big list but not easy as well. If there's ever an advice I can give to someone it is this: Create goals for your life. Even if you don't accomplish them you'll go farther than if you had none.

So in the meantime I plan on creating few things on my own that will help me in the future.
It's not a secret so I'll share it with you:
Let's start with something small
that's not so bad! And yet it will help me learning Quaternions which I'll need later!

Ok, now something more ambitious!
Now that's more like it! I'll still have to create a program to create the models, which although not listed, is still part of this project.

Ok, this one's a real leap forwards
It's starting to get interesting! especially 8 and 10, which are also a part of the next project:


Now THAT's advanced. It will be the first time I'll attempt making something this complex. By the time I'll start that project I'm hoping to have a model editor ready, and a working basic animation editor. it's gonna be quite difficult to create those 4, but it'll be worth it, because if I do them, that'll mean I'm prepared for the future, and have done a good share of work to prove it, and to show my potential employers.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I'll be posting updates on this blog as I work through these projects.
Seeya!

Projects update

Okay, I decided to update this blog because it has fallen into forgetfulness recently.

First of all I'm pausing my 48 hour game project. The reason? I still don't have a collision system ready. My biggest problem I keep running into is how do I incorporate collisions into the game entities like players, projectiles or triggers?
I think I have a solution for this, so I'm currently changing the collision management code to fix it.

TTL2 (and a little life ramblings): nothing to report, I'm kind of depressed now since my dad has lost his job and now it's up to me to get one as soon as possible, but I still have to get my scholarship at the UNI to pay for the first semester, and I have to get documents for my dad, since he'll be trying to enter a orchestra here in Portugal. (but even if he starts working again it will NOT be his dream job, and the payment would be 550 Euro max).

Drawings: Hm... the funny thing about this blog is that the actual "art" section is never updated.... and apparently I'm not going to change that soon.

Life ramblings: see TTL2 paragraph.

Gaming:
The new TF2 update is out since Wednesday, it's cool running around with the new weapons. it's even cooler to pick up a baseball and knock someone out from 50 meters away, and enjoy the sight as he's being ripped to shreds by your teammates. Also the spy is updated... now I'm feeling kind of neutral about this one... You have the incredibly quick backstab, and now you can see the enemy stats when you're disguised, which is all awesome, but at the same time valve wrecked the backstabbing.... seriously, I remember even before the first backstab "fix" came out, it was great, you could run around backstabbing everyone. You still had a very hard time getting behind enemy lines, but once there, you were sure you could get some well deserved kills especially on those damn cowardly snipers. Then valve fixed the backstab and so the backstab range, and angle tolerance have gotten smaller. Over time we got used to it. Couple of updates later (I mean now), you are lucky you'll backstab a heavy standing right in font of you!!! he's got the biggest back, and your backstabs don't count because you are slightly to the left! So what if he's facing away from you, you're right behind him, the right backstab animation plays, he's not moving, and you hear the "tcht" which means you hit him? You're still not in those 2.5 degrees that MAKE FOR HIS FRIKKIN BACK.
So I sent a mail to Valve, hoping they'll read it in about 5 years, and fix the bug.
Oh, by the way, you can't backstab snipers that are close to wall either. Which means all that trouble that you have to go through getting near that sniper is wasted. Of course it's a lot less trouble getting behind the enemy lines now that you can see their stats, and you can recharge the cloak with ammo, so that's why I don't wine about it anymore.

eh... I don't have much more to say here... wait! I got!
Randy Pausch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0
....watch it... it's very good

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Forest Cancelled

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I went to gamedev.com and went up to the IRC channel, and in the chat they asked me if the game was even fun..... no it isn't. They've helped me to reach a definitive decision, and abandon this project.
At least I've learned a few things from this:
First set the gameplay mechanics, only then think about the game itself
Don't do the graphics, and don't even think about them before you finish the mechanics.
If it's boring to play, just leave it, it's not worth it, if it's just annoying, but not boring, then there still might be hope to make it better from player input.
Everything has to be interconnected in a certain way. But at the same time robust. The game engine must work as a whole.

An a secondary note: my dad has lost his job, and he couldn't get into any new one, which means we'll have to go back to Poland because he can't sustain us here. (I just received the message as I was writing this post).
Eh.... I really would prefer to stay in cozy Portugal...


I guess this is all for now...

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Limbo

yeah.... the title pretty much explains my condition now =_=
not as bad as when I don't have time, not as good when I have time, but want to do something....
I've got 5 free days, and I can't get myself to do ANYTHING!
It's not programmers block, it's not artistic block, it's frikkin LIMBO, and I can't do anything about it. As soon as I start doing anything purposeful I get distracted easier than a dog passing through a meat shop.
I never have JUST enough time!!! I either have too little, and I can't DO anything, or I have too much, and I get into the damn limbo mode!
Damn procanistration...
well... I'll maybe update this blog later when I've got some actual news.
See ya!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

The Forest 18 Hours Update

Hi again!
I'm happy to announce that I've achieved the Milestone I've set for myself in the last update.
In this demo/Alpha release you can see some of the tech I've promissed:
1-Layered display. It's a 2D Game in a 3D World. You have background layer, Player layer, Monster layer and foreground layer. doing it in layers allows me not to worry about Alpha blending depth related problems, and I can have everything organized.
2-One enemy, although he doesn't do much... he's just standing there... maybe he's tired?
Okay, I admit, you can't interact with him, but that's because I still haven't completed the 2D collisions engine.
3-All the entities in the game already have a loadFrom() function which allows every entity to be loaded from a file after creation. But the loading function still isn't implemented.

As promised, you can download the demo here

simply extract it to a separate folder and run ElPoho.exe
You can't do much, but still I wanted to show you my progress :3
I'll maybe update the TTL section this week, I'm gonna start making the Antlion Guard model when I get the time.

So, without further ado I'm saying farewell!

Next "The Forest" milestone/update:
-Finish the 2D collisions and implement them in the game
-basic AI for the enemies
-another enemy
-Level and Config loading (so far everything has been hardcoded).
And I guess that's it.

ps: in case you didn't notice that "here" was a link.
here's another one:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VQ0NCXNP

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Forest

So, as promised I'm posting an update on how the game is coming along.
After a rough 12 hours of developing it, the player can now walk, jump, and change shape.
it's not much, but I spent most of that time trying to create a particle system for it, which sadly didn't work, mainly because the system I wrote earlier was written for a 3D camera, and here the camera is facing only in one direction. I don't know why it doesn't work, it should since in another project I did it worked perfectly. Never mind that, another most of the time was spent on drawings, and not on actually making them as on choosing the style, and the details.
Here's the promo poster:
The game is about a soul, trapped in a mysterious forest (I know, it's so cliche it's sad). Something in the forest is changing all the animals into monsters, you don't know what it is, but you know that you must stop it. As you step deeper into the forest you notice that you've been split in half. Good and Evil. As white/good, you cannot harm enemies, but you can transform them back to their original forms, which means you'll have to outsmart them and lure them into the healing portals. As red/evil, you can kill the enemies, be it directly with claws, or by setting up traps.
So what does this gives to player?
Different games.
For Poyo Adventure, I plan on creating something I call a Story Tree. Even if the game is pretty linear itself, your actions define which path you'll take, and therefore even different storylines can be created.
I don't want to spoil too much, but I plan to make some of the enemies vital in a certain way. depending on which enemies you save, and which you'll kill you may be opening a new path and closing another, that way you can play the same game, and reach two different, even completely unrelated endings. You'll be playing through levels you haven't even seen before, or thought of when you played the first time.

Now for the technical stuff.
Graphics:
It's a 2D side scrolling game. I don't know in which genre it would fit because that'll depend on how the player plays. The player will be able to avoid most of the enemies, like in a standard platformer, outsmart them, fight them directly, or place traps in appropriate places.
But here's the thing: Even though it's 2D side scrolling game, I plan on using the 3D space.
here's a basic level layout:
As you can see even though the graphics and all the action is happening in 2D, the world itself will be 3 Dimensional, allowing that way to create layers. In here we have 4 basic layers.
1-The ground/platforms, it's normal always perpendicular to the camera normal, it'll represent the space on which the player will be able to stand on.
2-the background, here you can see the trees, but it can contain more layers, that are further away from the camera.
3-the player and enemy layer, that's where all the action will take place that can actually affect the player.
4- the foreground, bushes, grass, and anything else that doesn't obstructs the view too much, but adds to the view.

Of course all the layers will follow a set of rules.
Background and foreground layers will mostly be gray, and have lower resolution images to fake depth of field. They cannot create visual clutter, but at the same time must set the right mood.
Gameplay layer will use either brighter tones, or Red. Yes, I plan on making the whole game in shades of gray and red, by that I can not only maintain visual cleanliness, but also make the separate parts of the gameplay stand out. For example, enemies are red, cleansed ones are white. The player itself will be white or red, depending on his stance.

Engine Features:
2D collisions using 2D static models (no rotation, and no flexible models so far) for collision detection.
Loadable maps.
Out of screen testing, AKA if it's not on the screen, don't draw it.
Basic AI.

Art Direction:
The objects will be drawings made in photoshop using my Wacom Tablet, they'll have rough, sketchy edges, and overflowing colour.
Here are some of them I've done so far:

Some player poses:
And some plants:
The plants will be a bit darker in the game.

In general what I'm looking for the mood is abandonment, alienation and mystery.

Music:
...so far I've got no idea if I'll add any sounds at all, since I don't know how to use any music software, nor I have any instruments I can play on (I can play piano, but I don't have one, and my dad took my keyboard to Poland).
But I would gladly accept help from anyone that has experience in making music. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to pay though.... and it kinda would ruin the game being developed by one person idea.


Final note:
I don't expect that I finish this game on time, there's still a long way to go, and only 35 hours allowed left.
Next time I update on the development I should have a small demo ready, with a test level which should contain the layered display, one enemy, and the ability to interact with it. Still, I don't suppose the level loading will be ready, nor the AI will be active. I'll post the demo here when that time comes.

That's enough for today, I gotta go sleep.
Cheers!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

One week, One game...

...or at least something similar. I noticed that my programming vibe has been going downhill since the start of the year, and I wasn't able to do a single thing about it.
So after reading a while, browsing and thinking, I decided to start a small project on my own:
For a month, I'll make one game every week, a week being 47 working hours.
I'll have to make a game, from start to finish, in those 47 hours.
I'll try finishing one game per actual week, but since I've got classes, and most of my free time I'm spending in university (most of my free time is between classes and I live 20 KM from uni), it'll mean that it'll take around one and a half week for each game. I might post one game earlier than another but meh.... I'll see.
My hopes for this project are to create one noteworthy game that'll be fun to play, to get better at programming and game making in particular, I'm especially interested in creating a better game engine, and improving my development pipeline. All my games will be bowered by the same API/Game Engine El_Poho, Yes, I know the name sucks, and I especially know what Raiki thinks about it, well deal with it! I got used to that name, and even came to like it in my own way so I'll stick with it.
Basically what it gives me is this:
input/Event API->SDL
Graphic API->SDL+OpenGL for 3D
States API->my own creation
Particle Engine->my own creation

So it's more like a wrapper forADL and openGL than an actual game engine, but I plan on expanding it in the future. So far I plan:
-Map support
-Model support
-GUI
-Sounds with openAL
-Config loading and saving
-Command line
-3D model based collisions
-2D model based collisions

Well... that's all for now.
I'll come back today afternoon to show you how is my first 7 day game coming along, with 12 hours of development.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

TTL update

Ok. since my friend Raiki will probably kill me if I don't show any interest in TTL, and kill me even more if we don't finish it this month, I'll be posting updates on the TTL development here. (As a co-creator of TTL I think I can do updates without his permission, but I'll still have to talk with him).
So far the entire 1/3 of the "Two Thirds Life" is done.... um... no, I don't mean half , I really mean 1/3.
This means that all the chapters up to the Black Mesa East are ready, and all that's left are some minor enhancements, and fixes we'll do after I finish the models for the movie.
Ok, since we've been delaying endlessly the release of TTL I feel obliged to give you some screens from the movie, but since I'm only in charge of the models I can only post those models here.
ok, so Here are three of them:
Barnacle:the first model I did for TTL a very long time ago.
Ichty: The element of surprise *gasp* :O

Antlion: horribly difficult to animate,I'll make a simpler model to use when he's further away from the camera.

On a side note these models have outlines which will be erased in the final stage of making TTL.

That's all for now! Check out my blog tomorrow, I'm planning to put on another update when I get back from UNI. I'll talk about a new game Idea I have, and already started working on it.

PS: I hate blogger for their stupid super narrow writing space. I've got like 400 unused pixels to the left and right!!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Programming and stuff

Okay, Lately I've been programming more than usual (which means I've been programming at all). Funny thing is: I normally do things I shouldn't.
When I have to program (like on programming classes) I don't, I do something completely irrelevant. Now, that I should be making stuff for Two Thirds Life, which is finished in it's 80%, lacking only models and SFX which I am responsible for, I'm programming!
I must find a way to make me want to work on the models again... I mean... I want to, but some higher force is stopping me from it every time I walk to the pc to do some serious modeling and animations. Probably the fact that I'm this houses errand boy doesn't helps either. Any thing that has to be done, be it from cutting wood to burn, to getting the papers for the car or from my father's work it's me that has to do this... Yeah.. the elder sons have it rough...
But anyway. My finals are finished!!! I have whole 3 days of vacation....left..... SHIIITTTT.
I hate university more than I hated school =_=
Not only I have more responsibilities as the elder son, I also have more work to do but I have to STUDY!! Can you believe that? I've ran through the entire school almost without studying, only before finals, and now I have to study almost every day when I have classes.... I should have gone to an art class, at least that's a couple hundred formulas less...

I started modding HL2 it's pretty fun watching the effects of your work (YES! I can finally kill allies!! HAHA!). But I also learned a good handful of things I plan to bring to my own engine. i've ran into a couple of problems with my GUI system earlier and I had to scrap the whole Frames, windows and Layout Managers section. I have no Idea what was wrong with all that but meh... I'll make another one later. Right now I must focus on making the game engine a game engine, so far it's just a graphic and input/output engine.

I've made new concept art for my game few days ago:

It's a Jumper. A spider-looking biomechanic (it means it's been a biologic creature but was enhanced with technology). You'll be either fighting these or alongside these. I can't say much more because:
a) I don't want to spoil
b) I still haven't figured out the complete story and pacing, only general things.

I have two more concepts here, first it's the Poyo Adventure logo:


And If I ever make a game company (even if it's just two people) This will be it's logo:


Yup, "Cat in a Box Studio" will be the name of my yet inexistent Game Studio.
I came up with the logo on my math class (I think), I remembered one those cardboard boxes and I decided to draw one to see if I could get it right... and then I decided to stick a face on it for some reason. The face is from a cat I sometimes draw:

Ok that's all for now.
See you later!