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Exceptional Journals (in no order): [Eliwood] [Steve Healy] [Ravuya] [Mark the Artist] [Scet] [Ysaneya] [Mayan Obsidian]
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  Bioshock'd. | 
Posted - 8/26/2007 10:04:08 PM | if( developmentTime() < gameTime(GAME_BIOSHOCK) ) {
Purchased Bioshock today after confirming that it ran satisfactorily on my machine. I can run it with most of the goodies enabled, but only at 800x600. Certainly more than good enough. The game is gorgeous, and the atmosphere is absolutely stellar. I'm amazed at how much research and thought has gone into the levels, characters, environment, graphics and audio. Bioshock feels surreal. I've only managed to knock off two Big Daddies so far, but I'll take down more as I get a better grip on the physics/controls. }
Next Game?
The whole physics fiasco with Gloom really left a bad taste in my mouth. But more importantly, it made me realize how inexperienced I am with physics programming. To me, one of the most important factors in writing a game is ensuring that the game is at the right difficulty level for me. If it's too easy, I'll quickly get bored and can it. If it's too hard, I'll get stuck frequently during development and get too frustrated to work on it.
The other factor is choosing a genre/theme that interests me in a long-term manner. By this, I refer to that fleeting sensation that we game developers get after playing a really awesome game for a day or two, and become very motivated to write a game similar to this. This is a mistake! I cannot stress that enough. For those of you with a bit of memory, my last project attempt after I finished Membrane Massacre was called RavenKeep, a roguelike hack/slash. I had just finished playing Diablo for several days with Dean, and so my motivation for it was *flying*. Of course, motivation like that is entirely short-term, which results in the game crashing+burning as interest wanes. Gloom got its motivational-boost from Deus Ex and Neuromancer, which kept me going for a while. However, like RavenKeep, it's juice ran out too. The end result? No game project once again.
The most important things, one can then conclude, is that: a) the game idea is not too far above or below one's abilities as a developer; and b) the game's theme/genre must be one that the developer has had a long-term interest in, to ensure motivation does not dry up after a few weeks.
And that's where I stand. I feel really crummy at junking another potentially awesome project, but I'd much rather take on something like how I took on Membrane Massacre: by using a basis that I've always enjoyed (free-floating Asteroids controls and a destructible environment), and then giving it my own original direction to take it in. I didn't take any huge development risks either; I stuck to things that I knew (reasonably well) that I could implement. Same idea for my other completed games.
Thus, some serious pondering will take place, and I'll try and get some groundwork done before I go announcing what I'm working on. Clear skies ahead! 
The entry at the new Dev-Journal location.
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| Thursday, August 23, 2007 |
| Wave 46? | |
Posted - 8/23/2007 8:55:46 PM | More Pluggage
First and foremost, the main motivation behind this entry was to offer a plug to my good friend DogPriest, who was kind enough to write up a nice little review about Membrane Massacre. The least I could do was give his nice journal a counter-plug. In his entry, he mentions an MMer who managed to reach Wave 46 of Survival, which I applaud. I can say that this is no easy feat -- I think I've only reached Wave 48 myself! :)
...
Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location.
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| Working hard, or hardly working? | |
Posted - 8/21/2007 8:17:46 AM | Working hard, I most readily assure you.
As I’m sure many of you whom already juggle a full-time job and a game development hobby already know: it’s tough. It’s especially tough when you write code all day at work and then come home and try and write some more. It’s even tougher when your physics code keeps on breaking on you for 3 weeks straight — but I digress. Sort of. 
...
Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location.
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| Saturday, August 11, 2007 |
| One pixel at a time. | |
Posted - 8/11/2007 10:40:34 PM | Side projects sure are sinister, aren't they? Well, lucky this one isn't anything large like a full-fledged game, so it serves as just enough to keep my mind feeling fresh at thought when I'm all Gloomed out. What is this project of which I speak?
Why, a Raytracer, of course. If you aren't familiar with exactly what raytracing is, then I strongly recommend you take a read-through on the aforementioned link.
Writing a raytracer has always been a huge ambition of mine -- it's just so cool to think that such a simple algorithm can produce incredibly realistic 3D images with such ease. Not to mention the utter awesomeness of being able to define this world using shapes composed of raw mathematical equations...
...
Read the rest over at the new Dev-Journal location.
(Shiiiiny.)
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| Wednesday, August 8, 2007 |
| Drowning in physics. | |
Posted - 8/8/2007 10:33:46 PM | Well, sort of.
Like I’ve been raving about for the past few entries, I’ve been focusing on the physics engine that Gloom will be powered by. The original plan was to have it fully dynamic and fancy-pants-èsque, which I regret having had to decide to water down. I’m quite confident that, given enough time, I could complete this goal. However, I’m really tired of working on it, so a simplification is in over.
By fully dynamic, all objects would react to eachother in terms of linear and angular effects (velocity, acceleration, forces and torques) within a polygonal environment. What I had was somewhat close, but my limited knowledge and experience in physics programming left it still a little buggy and dysfunctional — mostly in collision response. I’ve decided to aim a little lower by creating a rift between two types of objects: static and dynamic...
...
Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
(Physics ahoy!)
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| Becoming a cyberpunk'er. | |
Posted - 8/4/2007 10:43:01 PM | Pushing forward! With much sweat, I finally have physics collisions just about done. I had made a lot of silly mistakes in the vertex->edge collision detection regarding the intersection of line-segments and the resulting normals, but it’s working now.
One particular item of note was forgetting to clear the map data whenever a map was loaded into the editor, Polyspawn, which resulted in me loading in a half-finished copy of the map overtop of itself. The result was that a collision with a wall was processed twice, which made some walls (those which I had built earliest) to repel the test object with twice as much force. Naturally until I hunted it down there was the thought, “Why on earth do some walls make me fly back when I run into them!?”.
...
Read the entry at the new Dev-Journal location.
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| Project "Gloom" -- Cyberpunk buffet! | |
Posted - 8/2/2007 10:05:53 PM | Despite it’s downcast name, “Gloom” is actually pretty motivational stuff. ;)
I had promised to talk about me and Dean’s latest project, “Gloom”. The title is totally temporary, but it’ll do the job for the time being. “Project X” just doesn’t have the same ring to it anymore.
Project “Gloom”
“Gloom” follows the cyberpunk genre, fitting in as an overhead action/RPG game inspired by titles such as the famous Deus Ex, Ravuya’s sinister Glow, and the sort of grim world that Skirmish Online might have taken place in. Occurring in a dark futuristic world, corporations, gangs and other consolidated organizations rule atop the governments.
...
Read the rest at the new Dev-Journal location!
(Placeholder-graphics-laden lame screenshot teaser: )
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"Good night, Monster Land."
"Good night, brave warrior."
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