Chapter 1 - The Introduction I Disliked About.

This is the first part of the many infinite journal entries I'll be doing in the future. This is a diary, without written dates or manuscripts about identities in which they are not relevant to what I'm about to do and write, that only keeps log of my production and developments of game projects I had done since I graduated from college. How long I'll be doing this is not important, but it is what I'll be doing when I'm on my computer, and doing nothing but typing, typing, and more typing.

Many people are doing blogs to remind them of their past, their experiences, and their knowledge. That's a good thing, and I'm following along. Some day, I'll be able to explain to my superiors that I created this journal just for them to view/read, and probably leave out the details that follows during my interviews and such. This way, I can easily get a raise, surprise my bosses, get more money to pay off future expenses, etc. Oh, a man can dream, right?

This is the first entry, and the start of many frustrating moments where I just don't have the time to write this down or something. But I don't have anything else to do other than to waste my time, so why not start doing this? It's a thought worth pondering, I guess...

So, where should I start?

There was a time that I was working on an Android college project, but I felt like the whole project is forced upon me to complete. At the end, I do not like the way how it turns out, nor do I miss the project and its good times. There's probably none of it.

That leads me to think, what else can I start off? Oh I know, my current game development project, the so-called "Demo" game.

But before venturing into the realms of my Demo project, I must insist to you, that I write entries of this diary after I had completed a milestone. Note that milestones I had given to myself are, in reality, just simple goals that can be easily met if motivated long enough. If I don't reach the next milestone, I probably wouldn't be writing an entry here, would I? There's no point in remembering all the hardships and pain I have to endure when I'm stuck in a loop somewhere.

For future references, I can tell you that all my projects are hosted first-handedly at The Helper Forums. (Link here.) This is the place where I began my journey a long time ago, and it's now a part of me. If you wanted to look at my past projects, you may follow the link given above, and browse around, until you find me. You should be able to find all of my projects under my profile name, if there's nothing changed at the time of this piece being written down.

Now, let's delve ourselves in the road of my journey...

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Chapter 2 - My Current Game Project, The Demo.



Yeah, that's it. My project's first ever game logo. I love it. I may be going to hell for this, but who cares?

The very first development started off in a different direction. I'll be honest with you, I don't even know what I'm doing at the time. The demo consists of nothing but nothing. I'll quote what I said down below, so you don't have to leave the page just to read my old submissions.

First submission of the "Demo" game.
[quote]
I would like to share something with you guys, so I can get some feedback on what directions I should go.

Here is a Java program consisting of a white box in a black background. You control a light pink square by left clicking to select it, and right clicking to move. A green square follows you where ever you go.

It's bland, it's not really much. But it's a concept I'm experimenting with during the little free time on my hands.[/quote]

And here's what it looks like when you start the game:



At the time, I was playing around with how to select the unit by left-clicking using the mouse, and moving the unit by right-clicking using the mouse.



That's the gist of the demo. Practicing what I know is definitely fun to do, especially the logic behind all of this. Now the main problem I have yet to face lingers when I did this, and you readers probably already knew about this. Graphics. I couldn't for the life of me get to use good-looking artworks for the demo. The best I can do is to use pixel manipulation techniques to (lamely) achieve what I wanted to do. I don't know how, and reading some graphics books won't help you delve into this problem and work the solution out.

Maybe I should start asking people how to do this better in the future... Good plan, I suppose. Now comes my review of this demo, since you really don't think I'm just here showing off my demo just for nothing, right?

The flaws of this demo is that this "demo" is merely an application. An useless, bland, empty application that has no uses. To a newbie programmer, they probably don't even know what this demo is for really, even after all the introduction that said about this demo's purpose of life. The only action you're able to see is the green enemy unit chasing you forever until you quit the application. And while the enemy is chasing you, you couldn't bring yourself to stay attentive to the application, after all, this "demo" isn't really a "game."

And now, here's where the meaning of this journey becomes important to you readers. Do you now realize what problems my demo is having? It turns out that there are a lot of problems that I can easily explain it to you:

• No motive to continue "playing" the demo.
  
• No meaningful actions that give off incentives to keep the player glued to the screen.
  
• No rewards. How can you win when the enemy unit is chasing you constantly with no consequences?
  
• No story. Who is the enemy? Why is the enemy chasing you? What is with the non-working border surrounding both of the units?
  
• No scenarios. What is the game plot? If there's no game plot, can a "user" make up one?
  
• No feedback. No one wants to comment about a useless "application" that does nothing. Try giving some inputs yourself, I welcome anything from you.
  

And that's how, instead of receiving feedback about the demo and what else I can add to it, I get comments about my programming taste. It's just sad.

But one thing that led to another, I started to give new life to this demo. I can start telling you all about this exciting story, but I need to know if you can answer or complete these questions before moving on.

1. Can you come up with just one simple feedback, based on the first revision of this "demo" I have shown you?
   
2. If you were in my shoes, would you rather scrap this project and start over?
   

Post your answers in the comments below, and I'll gladly read them, even if you post your animadversions of me, my diary, and/or this demo.

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To be continued...