http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368-horror-stories-of-ranblade/ Horror Stories of RanBlade Syndication Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:26:05 +0000 support@gamedev.net (GameDev.net) IP.Blog 60 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2256283-moving-forward/
Source]]> Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:18:06 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2256283-moving-forward/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2255317-did-i-just-get-played/
They were all about the project. But I get a call today saying they want to redesign a lot of things and are going to put development on hold and that they will call me back when they are done with there design phase and they didn't see a need to renew a programmer's contract during this phase.

I have this odd feelign they are going to take my tech demo I made for them and go somewhere else with it. I know it was good experience and all but I was just looking forward to taking this to the next level with them. Oh well life moves on I guess.]]> Wed, 31 Oct 2012 05:35:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2255317-did-i-just-get-played/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2255117-pay-attention-to-your-math/
Eventually the next day on random chance I tried to copy paste my first message(that worked) to the code block I was trying to send my message at. It worked. so I looked, the ONLY diffrence was the len variable the first message used a variable that had a sizeof(message param) summed for all the parameters being sent for that message. The next one had the len hard-coded. So I did the same with second message. IT WORKED!. I had no idea why to me the two should have been identical. I thought it had to be something in the buffer.writeUInt() function provided by node.js.

Being happy I finally fixed my issues I called my wife in(no one else around to talk too about my code). And showed her the issue... my code was as follows.
message.writeUInt16LE(8, 0); //this was the bad code
var len = 2+4;message.writeUInt16LE(len, 0); // this code worked....
And my wife replies. "In what world does 2+4 = 8"... DOH! I spent all that time because I was trying to pass 8 instead of 6 as length for the variable. I did the math in my head and was just flying through stuff I thought I was a no brainer. It snagged me for far too long. This problem produced no errors or crashes, and everything reported success in sending/recevivng... I thought it HAD to be something buggy in node.js.

So a little annoyed at myself. But happy I fixed it. I figured I could help others remember that sometimes you need to slow down and check EVERYTHING you did even if you don't think it could possibly be the problem.

Thanks guys,

Eric R.]]> Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:12:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2255117-pay-attention-to-your-math/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254277-the-struggle-continues/
I recently was in the hospital for suspicion of a heart attack(I am 29 and not in horrible shape or overweight). This was a major eye opener for me though on the importance of health. I have a much stronger drive in my life now understanding the fragility of life and how quickly it can all change. So it has inspired me to not only work harder on my goals in life but to make sure I enjoy all the moments in life with my children and family.

(Now off the personal not and back to what this blog should be about)
My android game I am working on is taking shape and progressing quickly now. I have rewritten the core systems to function more like a multiplayer message system. This way I can push out a version 2 faster that has multiplayer support with a client-server system. So now the *clients* and *server* pass messages back to each other as if they were all separate entities even though they are part of the same system. I also need to find a good "engine" for droid because I don't really want to do it all by hand if i don't have to. I know about Unity Android but I don't feel like this project is worth the 400$ out of my money at this time. Overall I am a lot more excited about the project then I was at the beginning of the project. Soon I should have screenshot and more details on the project.

Eric Ranaldi
a.k.a. RanBlade]]> Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:14:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254277-the-struggle-continues/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254091-swtor-work-and-programming/
Source]]> Thu, 26 Jan 2012 23:10:08 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254091-swtor-work-and-programming/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254020-life-moves-on/
Source]]> Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:53:59 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2254020-life-moves-on/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250954-yes/
This has been a crazy process, Im not use to waiting for ansewers about a job. Having to wait for a e-mail or phone call to tell me if they liked my interview is rough.. It has been a great expeirence... Thanks to all of gamedev for your support.]]> Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:56:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250954-yes/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250893-made-it-past-the-programming-test/
On a different subject my android hearts game is coming a long nicely. The whole game logic is there right now the 4 AI's will play a full game against each other. Working on a couple bugs and deciding how I am going to do the gfx part. I hear there are some good android engines out there but haven't really looked into them yet. In the meantime while I make up my mind there and work on my couple bugs in the messaging system I am implementing the human player and the interaction so it can be more of a "game" then a A.I. demo lol.

Hoping to know more about my future by next friday. I would like to give a big thanks to the gamdev community, even though I haven't posted a lot you have all helped me so much in just reading the forums and the articles on the site. I owe a lot of my success to this site and hope to be a bigger contributer in the future.

P.S. for some reason spell check isnt working.

RanBlade.

]]> Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:05:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250893-made-it-past-the-programming-test/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250892-made-it-past-the-programming-test/
On a different subject my android hearts game is coming a long nicely. The whole game logic is there right now the 4 AI's will play a full game against each other. Working on a couple bugs and deciding how I am going to do the gfx part. I hear there are some good android engines out there but haven't really looked into them yet. In the meantime while I make up my mind there and work on my couple bugs in the messaging system I am implementing the human player and the interaction so it can be more of a "game" then a A.I. demo lol.

Hoping to know more about my future by next friday. I would like to give a big thanks to the gamdev community, even though I haven't posted a lot you have all helped me so much in just reading the forums and the articles on the site. I owe a lot of my success to this site and hope to be a bigger contributer in the future.

P.S. for some reason spell check isnt working.

RanBlade.

]]> Sat, 29 Oct 2011 04:05:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250892-made-it-past-the-programming-test/ http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250764-nevous-today/
It is going to be a complete life change for me that I have been working on for almost ten years now. Currently I work as a crane operator for a sub company of General Electric. I travel all over the US and this is what I know as I have been doing it since my wife got pregnant in college. Easiest choice was joining the union with my dad and make good money. I have worked since then on my programming skills so one day I could do what I love and stay home with my family while I do it. But as this is all I know it is really scary to me to change so much of what I am doing on a daily basis. So lets hope I don't mess this up and I can finally make my move to professional developer.

See you on the other side. And thanks for reading my rambling here.]]> Tue, 11 Oct 2011 05:33:00 +0000 http://www.gamedev.net/blog/368/entry-2250764-nevous-today/