Hello, folks. July has been a month of emptiness, as far as game development goes. I've been occupied with moving to my house, finalizing details from the previous contest, and organizing my move to University this Fall. Not to mention a bit of a programming slump that I'm now passed.
The goal is to make August my Month of Progress(tm). With a new medium-sized project starting up over here, I think it's a great opportunity to get some coding done and push forward. The aim is to make a journal entry daily, if possible. If that day simply barred me from getting any work done, naturally I won't bother posting. Hopefully this voluntary obligation will help badger me into getting work done on a daily basis. Wish me luck!
Plug
If you want to see coolness, read Sir Sapo's Journal. Seriously. He's been making more progress -- shiny progress, too! -- lately than I was pumping out at the peak of Skirmish Online's development. I'm extremely impressed with his work, motivation, and dedication. Kudos, Sapo! [smile]
The Next Project
My next project -- yes, Skirmish retains its 'frozen' status! -- will be a healthy blending of the genres. To the untrained eye, it might be considered something like "Zelda + Diablo + DooM", but there will be more under the surface than just that. The game will take on a 3/4ths 2D perspective with a 'Zelda-like' feel to the character sprites and combat style (realtime battle; assigning an item for each action key), while taking the random level generation methods of Diablo, as well as its simple-but-effective inventory system, and the dark atmosphere and cannon-fodder-foes elements of DooM. That's a pretty rough synopsis, but hopefully it'll draw a rather nice picture in your head. More updates (hopefully) on a daily basis. [smile]
The Challenge
The other day I was going through my Completed Projects folder, and happened to play Gundown for a while. Previously I had only been able to get to Level 34 at the peak of my 'skill', but I managed to top it -- by far! -- and reach Level 51. Not a big accomplishment in the eyes of the passerby, but I thought that was mighty cool. Ego++ and all of that. And as such, I thought it might be neat if all of my journal readers would play a quick game and see how far they can get; posting a screenshot if it's anything over 30. Of course you don't have to, but it'd be neat for me to see how far the rest of you can get. :P
(Maybe a sequel will be brewing in the coming months? [smile])
