I hope everyone's doing alright out there, ;P. I haven't been quite as productive as I would've hoped but I feel a little bit like I'm off of my usual beaten path when it comes to programming and game development. Away from tutorials and engine structure articles, I'm in the thick of it and I have to figure out how to really make a game. Lately I've been messing around with getting a 2D character on the screen and triggering (+ playing) its animations correctly. I'm kind of gearing up for a playable prototype. Soon I'd like to have my character punch and kick with real collision boxes that work correctly and cause an enemy to react effectively.
But while this is my current major project (a 2D Sidescroller / Brawler I'm working on with my current Engine), I want to make sure I provide for the club as well and run an above average project over the next month. Why? GDC, my friends. Game Developer's Conference is coming up and there is much to do. The Westwood Game Development Club (basically me) is attempting to lead and finish a group project designed for its providing members to show off at the conference. If anything, it's a way to get people to notice you at the conference.
Well-- I'm about to collapse. I stayed up too late watching LOST (addictive show, I might add). Good night and good luck.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Well, my last school term ended on the 20th, we had a LAN party on the 21st (7 hours of Crysis.. we had other games, we just didn't want to play them. Omigod hand-held tactical nukes.) and I turned off my brain for christmas. After the new-year, though, I renewed my programming addiction and made a little pong clone fairly quickly with the 2D Game Engine I'm building.
Since then I've decided to continue to improve my game engine. Today I've added a game state (or screen) management system. The base "screen" for this system encapsulates all of my engine in it, so that whenever you want to make a new game you can: Derive from it, make a new object associated with a texture, and add that object to "MyObjectManager". After that, you're golden, it auto updates and draws itself.
It's pretty cool since now I've implemented a simple pause menu into my game as proof that simple menu systems can be created very quickly and easily, allowing for even more polish in a quicker amount of time. If there's anything that impresses people more than explosions (aka particle effects ;P) it's polish.
So as I continue to work on learning games and figuring out how to do certain things, the goals that I accomplish may not particularly excite anyone who isn't acquainted with the challenges. However, when all my accomplishments come with a nice menu system and a little chrome (that doesn't take time away from developing the core), people will (hopefully) be more receptive.
I think it's a funny coincidence that I used to want to be a chef, and now I'm a programmer, mixing ingredients in a different way. In essence, I'm talking about Presentation.
In any case, the next term is starting-- I've got to organize events over the next couple of months to keep the club running and active, preparing for the Game Development Competition my school holds in March, and we all have GDC to look forward on Feb. 22nd! I'm very excited, things are getting interesting-- that's for sure.
Since then I've decided to continue to improve my game engine. Today I've added a game state (or screen) management system. The base "screen" for this system encapsulates all of my engine in it, so that whenever you want to make a new game you can: Derive from it, make a new object associated with a texture, and add that object to "MyObjectManager". After that, you're golden, it auto updates and draws itself.
It's pretty cool since now I've implemented a simple pause menu into my game as proof that simple menu systems can be created very quickly and easily, allowing for even more polish in a quicker amount of time. If there's anything that impresses people more than explosions (aka particle effects ;P) it's polish.
So as I continue to work on learning games and figuring out how to do certain things, the goals that I accomplish may not particularly excite anyone who isn't acquainted with the challenges. However, when all my accomplishments come with a nice menu system and a little chrome (that doesn't take time away from developing the core), people will (hopefully) be more receptive.
I think it's a funny coincidence that I used to want to be a chef, and now I'm a programmer, mixing ingredients in a different way. In essence, I'm talking about Presentation.
In any case, the next term is starting-- I've got to organize events over the next couple of months to keep the club running and active, preparing for the Game Development Competition my school holds in March, and we all have GDC to look forward on Feb. 22nd! I'm very excited, things are getting interesting-- that's for sure.
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