Oh well, as this is my first post I might as well introduce myself. I've been doing game programming on and off for the last 9 years or so as a hobby. But lately i'm in a unemployed / thinking about going back to school mode - giving me some time to code.
I've been "programming" since the Apple II, though I barely consider the BASIC code I made back then programming, but you have to start somewhere. Also played around with Hypertalk for awhile when I was younger (as you might be able to guess by now, I grew up with Apple computers - don't blame me, blame my parents).
My first "real" experience was with pascal in high school (this was awhile ago, and but it was the last year before the course switched over to C). Afterwards I taught myself C, which really wasn't much of a transition - though I was a bit shocked to find out how C handles strings.
Never really did much with C, a minesweeper clone, some card games, and a Super Metroid clone (which never got finished due to a hard drive meltdown, which taught me the importance of regularly backing up anything important) really a shame as it was shaping up to be a good game, but I just didn't have the energy to start over.
I've played around with Inform for interactive fiction, but never released anything. And i'm comfortable with scripting languages like perl and PHP (they have their uses, but it's pointless to try to do much game dev with them).
So that leads me to the present, a couple of years ago I switched over to Linux, and have never looked back. I'm currently "learning" C++. I put learning in parenthesis because i've been at it for almost 2 years and I feel comfortable with OO programming, but the language can be a beast. However, std::string and std::vector are a godsend (I guess it's not that hard to make your own string and dynamic array classes, but the standard library is great).
I've also just started with OpenGL in the past couple months, which has actually been much easier than I thought (had I known I would have used it years ago). I never would have thought how easy things like terrain with height maps are.
Well, Except for the math that is, going back and learning all the stuff i've forgotten since high school plus more hasn't been the most pleasant experience, but at least it's leading somewhere this time.
I'm currently working on a graphical rogue-like game which may or may not ever get finished. It's really more of an exercise in creating a reusable application framework and creating tools like a map editor.
Maybe i'll put up some screen shots if it ever looks like i'm getting closer to finishing it, but as all it has right now is programmer art, i'd be a little embarassed to show the world my art skills (though I am slowly getting better at using the GIMP and Blender).
Oh well, till next time...
