** Update **

1. Steve found and corrected numerous leaks and increased framerate by 200%. He even got fullscreen working (I wasn't sure how to do that).

2. Jorge's artwork is brillant. He's creating bird's eye art which is very difficult. We're gonna try a few things to add richness. I'm gonna put in a "poor man's" shadow effect tonight.

3. We're enhancing the game level editor to allow him to generate a new sprite, update sprite data file, assign a layer...and then he can immediately add it to the landscape.dat file and test with the game engine. Here's a screen shot. I did the train and tracks...he's done everything else. Absolutely fantastic!



Regards,
Chuck

Hi,
Here's a quick and dirty shadow effect for testing.
Chuck

That simple shadow effect adds so much depth to the image! The floating campfire looks a bit strange though :-)

Wow, it is pretty impressive how much work you could provide in so little time ! I'm hesitating myself about starting one or not, because of the possible lack of time.

I wish you very good luck !

Matt,
We know about the campfire. =) We've implemented a form of layering in drawing graphics...so only a few layers get shadows. But it was funny nonetheless.

Tenoch,
Several of us are competing in a 4 week programming contest over at www.gameinstitute.com. It just started Friday. You need to register first. Just visit the Game Challenge forum. The theme is 'winter'.

** Update **
I've taken our game engine and I'm developing it further in the game institute programming contest. This should be a better program in a few weeks.

Regards,
Chuck

**Update**

I've been working with two other people on the 4 week game programming competition over at gameinstitute.com. The challenge is a "winter theme". I've teamed up with an artist and musician. The project is going very well.

I've made several changes to the 4E6 game engine that I've been using for the GI project. The way that we manage defining sprites, graphic images has been significantly improved.The use of a config.ini file allows us to customize several things without recompiling. In fact for testing we can turn things on and off.

We also have fullscreen ability and we can select this or another screen resolution from the config file.

We'll be done with the contest in 2 weeks at which time I will integrate some improvements into the 4E6 engine.

The railroad track creation is definitely cool. However we have the problem of rendering the railroad track. When we get over 1000 wooden supports the framerate drops off. This will need some tweaking.

Regards,
Chuck

**Update**
I and two others just completed my first game programming team project over at gameinstitute.com. The theme was 'winter'.

The game is a sidescroller. A programmer named Byl did the art. He did a great job. A musician named Roland composed original music. This is my favorite project to date. The team members were very professional.

GC4 Entry

Here's a screen shot showing the team artist's work.



Jorge, our artist on this 4E6 project, will be taking time off to work a project to earn money. =) I'll be recruiting another artist over the next several weeks.

I made a lot of improvements to our 4E6 engine during this recent contest.

Regards,
Chuck

**Update**
I posted a screenshot in the screenshots thread.

To summarize what's happened over the past 2 weeks:

1) Byl has come onboard to replace Jorge as the lead artist. Jorge did a great job. Byl did spectacular work with our latest 4 week project. Incidently we placed 2nd in the game challenge contest over at gameinstitute.com. However, it was our first team game programming project with others on the internet. Roland did a great job creating music. Byl's art was great. In fact we developed a pretty good system of creating and managing 2D sprites.

2) Converting the ClimbingTheCitadel 2D engine over to one to replace our current 4E6 engine. We made several improvements and I thought it best to capture them.

3) Wrote a console version over the past week to work out all details concerning the game play. We've got workable game play involving all 4 game elements.

a) Crystals - The game has red, green and blue which have valuable. Throughout the game (1 hour = 5 years) the value fluctuates based upon current events. Red enhances healing, green promotes agricultural growth blue makes work safe and enhances fish growth.

b) Explosions - Explosions occur regularly in the creation of mines. A secondary occurence is when the explosions are triggered by accidents or earthquakes.

c) Accounting - The game is a Tycoon game. It's all about accumulating net worth based upon investment decisions.

d)Ponies - They will be used to pull carts or mining cars inside the mines. They are also used to distribute processed crystals to town...before the train arrives.

The following screenshot illustrates the progress made in game play.



I've asked our software engineer to take over the lead programming role. However he is still deliberating over that. :D I personally want to spend more time on game play and a great editor.

Regards,
Chuck

Hi,
It is with great regret that I must withdraw from the 4E6 competition. I'm in the process of orchestrating a career change and I need my evenings over the next several months honing specific C++ skills and knowledge. Additionally, our artist had to withdraw from the team to work on making money. ;) The need for creating nice art assets is very overwhelming. I can say there is not enough of me to go around at the moment.

It has been a pleasure working on this project. I'm pleased with what has been accomplished.
1) A functional 'basic' demo using DirectX 2D...including multiple game states.
2) A functional 'console' version to demonstrate Tycoon game play.
3) An exhaustive 20+ page design spec...and it was still growing.
4) Met an extremely talented artist/programmer: Jorge.

You can find me over at www.gameinstitute.com. I'll probably continue to participate in the shorter 4 week contests...with the primary purpose of applying what I am learning. :)

I'll be following this forum with great interest. I wish all of you the best of luck in the upcoming months.

With warm regards,
Chuck