Progress & Problems

Although I am glad that I am writing a game, even if it is text based, I feel as if the game could be better. The design document isn't complete even at 15-17 pages long. I've still left out a lot of information that is essential to the game. Quite frankly, I never was a fan of text based games, such as the one I am trying to design. First off, It's fully text based and runs in a command prompt. My second issue is that because of my limited skills in programming, I run into multiple problems. Thirdly, I'm not exactly fond of my creation. All it is long code jumbled together that I myself find hard to understand sometimes. I comment my work but I then realize that I've made another mistake.

I copied the code and tried it in Blitz3D. I like it much better there because it doesn't run in a command prompt but adds on more problems cause I have to fix it to look good when running in Blitz3d. It's a whole bunch of if-else-endif statements, variables, arrays (which I suck at), GOTO sub limiters, crappy functions that I can't get to work well & inputs. Basically, all the player does in the game is enter some simple yes or no answers or options they can pick from, like numbers, to represent their desired things or classes; archer, swordsman etc.

Brick Break Twisted or LoM Online

I've been working on LoM (Legion of Mercenaries) for a while now. It's a text based game written in blitzplus and it's alright, seeing as it's a text based rpg running in a command prompt. BBT was put on hold while I worked on LoM but I feel as if I have completely abandoned the project. I beleive that it is only right that I work on it some more. Honestly, the code is just a slightly revised version of one of amcadam's vidtut sourcecodes from his space invaders' game. Instead it includes: a brick image, ball image and slider image. Taking place of the ship used in space invader, the slider makes the same left & right movements. Before I fixed the whole code, using just the ball and the slider, I was able to release the ball and have it deleted off the screen. However, it shouldn't be deleted because in an ordinary brick-break game, the ball is gravitated back down, leaving the player to catch the ball.

Once I added the brick image into the game, that's when all hell broke loose. I used the images I was emailed from a friend who agreed to be the graphics artist; as I mentioned earlier (Stephen Silva). I got the images to collide, however, once the ball hit the brick....it just stops. That's that! Ughhh. I'm getting tired quickly and yet it's only 2:00am. I guess I'll hit the couch and watch some tv until my eyelids get too heavy and eventually close. I'll finish where I left off later and continue discussing my projects. Stay tune!

A Fresh Start!

Here comes a head start to mark the last day of May and soon to embrace the month of June. I for one can say that I am pleased that the last month of school is approaching, leaving me with exactly 20 days left. Unfortunately, I will be covered from head to toe with school work. Ahh! I'll need new notebooks only to fill those pages with notes for finals.

Anyway, I am quite excited to be able to program efficiently and I believe I am on a roll. Though, I tend to scratch, move, and divert from work after writing long code. Sometimes, I return to my work confused about what was written. Then, it takes me a few minutes to fix, add on, and venture off again. I just downloaded a free ebook on game programming called "Game Programming for Teens, Second Edition by Maneeshi Sethi" and It's absolutely easy. I have only read a few chapters but I got the hang off it already due to all the tutorials read elsewhere on the internet (which are suprisingly few) and on youtube. I praise a tuber named amcadam for taking his time to make such vidtuts that allow beginners like myself to learn and begin game programming. He doesn't cover everything, at least not all the topics I'd like to learn but because of him, I am able to dip my hand into a more beginner-friendly programming language. Fortunately, the book deals with the same langauge I am currently learning and the compiler being used; BlitzPlus.

A Little Absence Is Better than Never Showing Up...

Late!,

GOD....there is no possible excuse for my absence. I've disappointed all my possible viewers and left my work unfinished, lonely and rusty. Ah! No seriously, I have been gone for a month but now I'm back and there is nothing to fret. I have good news and bad news (we all knew that was coming...how could there be good news without the bad?). Okay, so the good news is that I have begun my video blog on youtube for people to see and for my enjoyment of seeing a pretty face on a mass-public viewed video site. No...I'm just kidding ya but yeah this way I can get way more things done instead of writing it down. Though, the only downside to my videos is that I cannot make them all the time whereas with my blogsite it's a possibility. Now, the bad news is dreadfully horrible. Nope it's not really but I have to say that Legion of Mercenaries is over. You may know the project as IdleRuins but the name was changed a while ago and then the project was dumped for a smaller project that will be introduce to you in the next post.

I'll just wet your fingers by telling you the name of the game; Brick-Break Twisted. Obviously, it's a remake and not entirely original but it has some unique features. GloryStomp Gaming is proud to introduce this new addition to our game development projects and we will be working on it 12/7...sure enough. Yes, I am not a Lone Developer anymore. I have a teammate working with me named Stephen Silva and he is GloryStomp's new Graphics Artist. He has already shown progress by making and sending game art for BBT and you can see most of it on MMOCCForum.com. It's the official forum which withholds most information on the project in a mini-thread named after the game. You can find it easily by searching my name, MattCG on the forum and going strait for the gold. However, what the thread doesn't have is the complete design document which will only be posted on this blogsite and youtube as a bulletin. It will be available in MSDoc format & PDF so you can't go wrong with your choice. Anyway, that's it for this post and I hope to be back soon for more information on updates, releases on ours games and some of my boring rambling off.

Im trying to be Practical

Did you notice yet? Hopefully not. What do you think about my idea of a game, do you think it can be created. Will it succeed or just fail easily before the actual development is even started? As I expand on the design document and prepare to make it's fullfillment possible, I've come to realize that my programming experience is below standards for a fully adventurous game such as this. However, embracing the nature of who I am, I gladly and fortunatlly stumbled upon research. I noticed that I am partly fluent in Windows, fairly old but yet usable and compact programming language, Qbasic. From there, I've decided to mix in some Visual Basic and dabble a bit in Java. As for the scripting part of the website, Javascript will do it!

Anywho, Im going to italize and organize what I believe I, as an indie developer, can manage on my own for this project and what I'm going to have to set aside or come back to.

We Want You (Logo)

Motivated or Envious: Optimistic about the Future!

Having your game be the certain of attention is the hopes of every game developer; even if a few are playing and enjoying it. That sure feels great to me. Knowing that most of you were probably lead here from Gamedev.net, I figured I would show my appreciation and continue showing my love to the website. Roaming within, I found myself in the forum, category "Your Annoucements" and wandering through various projects created by other users. It never ceases to amaze me of how much work people get done with in a year on development for their projects, whether indie or party-wise. Anyways, my blood began pumping faster, eyes widen and fingers itching to get to a computer. However, right now I'm in class, computer class that is, looking around gamedev. Unfortunately I am too much of a scaredy-cat to download any big files on the computer, though hardly knowing the specific specs of its hard-drive. Anywho, I'm still unable to play with any game engines, compilers and of the such. Here, take a quick look at this game I had come across; a project I believe was released late 2007 named Unpaladin. Link below: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=484607

There were also interesting browser based rpgs and other genre games. Therefore I'll show you some more. Take another look at these;

http://www.freewebs.com/wanderonline or http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=482415 & http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=474632 yet lastly, http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=483400

I hope these get alot of publicity. There not professional but as far as making a game goes, they've got it. Oh yes! That's right. I still haven't gotten to the point of my games but hey I dont want to outdo this post with a-cadrillon words so I'll just leave it as is.