Controlled Doses of Exceptional Blather

Smooth Sailing... Not On My Watch

2009-04-30T11:02:00.002-06:00

It has not been a pleasant week. I've been feeling under the weather since Sunday. Probably a combination of the change of season and the fact that I worked like mad late last week. I'm still not feeling all that zippy and I'm going to be working like mad once again starting today... hopefully I don't die. :P

So I decided that I would pursue Physics after considering my options at The Fork (see last entry). Not only would it be fairly simple to put in place (afterall, I had Farseer available, I'd used it in the past and was somewhat familiar with the way it worked, and I didn't have all that many objects in need of physicality just yet...), but it would impact the way I approached some of the other items in my to-do list (level design mostly). I'm nearly done with it at this point, but it hasn't been without it's difficulties.

On a side note quickly, I can sum up my impressions with Farseer in one word: Wow! I guess I'd forgotten how functional it was. But it's also progressed since I used it last. I downloaded all their samples and ran them all and it's quite impressive what the engine can do. It's overkill for my game, but that's just better... I'm provided with this lightning fast, easy to implement, and very stable engine without having to worry about any sort of design of my own (aside from figuring out what physics to give all my objects). Not only that, but perusing it's code kind of opened my eyes a bit to some sloppy choices I've made for my own code lately. They've gone to great lengths to optimise their coding, and I've been pretty obsessive lately about doing so also. It's been very educational.

Progress
Over the past week, I've implemented Farseer Physics to my project. I've set up object pools to speed up the generation and disposal of enemies and bullets. I've allowed for the player, enemies, and bullets to make use of physics. I have not gotten them moving and colliding just yet, but it should be a fairly easy undertaking. I've been derailed somewhat by trying to implement the Farseer Debug View class. This draws overlays for all the physics objects. I've implemented it alright actually, it's really quite easy, but what hasn't been easy is getting it to transform coordinates properly according to the position and zooming of my camera. This is still a work in progress.

Up And Coming...

Fix the physics debug viewer.
Work on moving the physical objects around and handling collision.
Change the player input/AI so that it adds forces instead of manually rotates or accelerates
Dispose of bullets when they impact with hostile target
Spawn explosions
Maybe particles??
Track damage
Kill/crash enemies

Ohh, and I downloaded a myriad of fancy tutorials and samples for special effects. Before I move on down other huge involved aspects of project, I may put some time into beautifying things a bit. :D

The Fork In The Road

2009-04-24T11:37:00.003-06:00

Oy vey, it's been a pretty crazy week already, and I still have 2 days of work to go. Fortunately, I've been able to balance my work load with just the right amount of fun time to keep my mental and physical stability in check. I've played guitar, played some WAR, done some coding... sadly, the coding hasn't gone too far too quickly. It's become a real beast and now I've come to that fork in the road... I'm been working with some small scale stuff up til now. The organization was a beast, but that's aside now. I've got the controls working and the enemies working and the weapons and guns and all that... at least superficially, but now... now I've come to a crossroads. From here on out, what would really benefit me the most are the large components of the game. What good are flashy guns if they don't impact things? What good are flashy bullets without the fancy muzzle flash and animation associated with it? What good are ships flying around if they can't effect each other? All these depend on large scale functionality so the time has come for me to dig in to these.

Allow me to list those larger scale things that I feel I must tend to now or soon to progress my game:

Physics - Need this for my bullets to hit things, to restrict movement, to crash, to smash. Don't really see this as being a minor undertaking, or something that can be done in small increments. It's pretty much all or nothing. However, I think I've just about decided to integrate an existing solution... Farseer. It's 2D. It's come a long way since I used it last. It's finely tuned. It's fast. It's fairly easy to integrate, though it will take a decent chunk of time to do so.
Sprites - Need to allow my sprites to attach various optional Parts. This would allow me to attach a muzzle flash to the player ship when he fires his gun(s). These need to be able to be drawn if necessary and not, if not. Also, need to set it up so that the ship's movements are reflected in it's thrusters. This will also require special consideration for how and where they're attached and how they're drawn and animated when required. The multi-Part aspect is all setup already, but I need to allow them to be optionally drawn, optionally animated, and swap-able with minimal impact on appearance and performance.
Animation - This ties in deeply to the previous item. My multi-part sprites must be animated. This is also no small undertaking and I don't see this as being something that can easily be broken up into tiny pieces. Like Physics, it's also all or nothing. Fortunately, I don't see a need for too complex animations, but even to get simple ones going is a real trick. To top it off, I think I'll need to create a toolkit or editor to set up the animations. I've done much of one already I can borrow from which will make it easier, but it's also a time consuming endeavor, and also the step of development that I've crapped out on in previous projects.
Map - Sooner or later I'm going to need to flesh out what constitutes my levels. This will have to go hand in hand with the physics implementation, as the levels will dictate where the physical landscape exists. This will also require an editor and will also require a great deal of work. However, I do have much of an editor complete already so I'm halfway there. I will probably leave this for later, as my current test-level will be sufficient for the time being.
AI - Finally, the always present looming challenge of AI is there. This is a large undertaking, but fortunately, is one I can get away with doing in smaller chunks and with smaller finer tuning. Does this mean I should tend to this before tackling the huge undertakings? Your guess is as good as mine.

So I've got many choices ahead. What will benefit me the most the soonest? How do I prioritize things that are equally important? What might serve best to aid the creation of the following components? How should I tackle what I inevitably decide to pursue first without getting burnt out too deeply into it like I have in the past? I guess I'll keep you posted. :P

Strategic Disarray

2009-04-20T13:40:00.003-06:00

No hard work comes without it's sweat. If the American revolutionaries hadn't perceived the majesty of what could be, and deemed the sacrifice required to attain it worthy of the End, then what would have come of so productive a nation? Bodybuilders don't get where they're at without a world of pain and sweat and sacrifice, and none of that stuff is fun...

I'm currently neck-deep in a tangled mess of coded treachery of my own design, trying to untangle the threads into something vaguely resembling order. Lucky for me, I actually enjoy the painfulness of it all. No, I'm not a masochist, I can just recognize and appreciate the painlessness of my pain. I'd much rather have to untangle 10,000 lines of code into some semblance of order than break my back building muscle... but then... maybe bodybuilders think the same way in reverse... (hrm... do bodybuilders think? ...hehe, I keed).

While it hasn't happened everyday, I have managed to find a couple days this past week where I was in just the right frame of mind to dig into the tangled web of disorder I've knit and do a little rearranging. This "right frame of mind" is hard to explain, as it's mostly just some sort of ability generated from the right mix of caffeine, sleepiness, boredom, and duty that allows me (dunno if I'm unique here or if it's possible for others to attain) to turn into a thoughtful, plotting, organized zombie of sorts. There's a mindlessness to it. I am nothing but thankful for whatever provokes me into this uber-productive all-understanding state, as I've managed to accomplish crazy things this past week.

Progress
I've been lost in a morass of organization and modularization of my projects. I've faced a massive lack of communication between my logical objects (ships, bullets, etc) and drawn objects (the sprites themselves). I've dealt with the enormous task of defining what constitutes a player or enemy... what constitutes their weapons, and how to allow them to interact with bullets of any given description to accommodate my goals... and a myriad of other things I would have thought at a glance to be hopelessly complex and time consuming. And yet, in the end, a couple weeks later I've got quite a nice framework to show for it! Unfortunately, it doesn't really show... yet... but it will allow for smooooth truckin' now. Why, last night I even got bullets to zip across the screen from my ship! Yeah, I know it's crazy. That was, actually, my goal of a few blogs back I think, but the path to get there was riddled with a hundred potholes and detours I had to traverse.

Hard Part's Over...?
I have guns, now I need to tune them! The bullet spawn slightly off-center. The guns don't have burst animations or anything (though I've already found quite the lovely sprite for this already) yet. What about bombs? What about explosions? What about missiles? What about different rates of fire, and dealing damage, and ricochets??!??!??!??!?! HUH?!! Well, it's all on in the plan. Ohh, and what about my crazy broken AI? I need to fix that too. I overhauled the whole enemy ship hierarchy... I overhauled pretty much everything... and it's working better so I think my AI will work better too... some day soon.

Hello World!

2009-04-14T14:50:00.002-06:00

No, I haven't scrapped my game in favor of a whole new one again... Nor have I stripped down to a state of absolute simplicity. But, I've been without Internet access all week in the office and so have felt like an outcast. Funny, I had always thought that I wasn't so dependent on being "wired", but it felt like I had lost touch a bit. Ohh well, in the mean time I've made some excellent progress on my game I think...

Progress
Seems as I left things I was floundering around with some spotty enemy patrol AI. Well... my enemy patrol AI is still far from where it needs to be, but I have managed to improve it quite a bit. No longer will my enemy just fly off into nowhere... now at least he will focus on his goal destination and make his way in the right direction. Unfortunately, he'll kind of miss it and circle around it a ton of times until he finally accidentally gets close enough to be considered arrived, but it's closer. I think it'll be somewhat easy to fix this, I just need to tweak how often he's adjusting his bearings and correcting for misalignment.

I've also managed to make some improvements to the Input system I was using. The one I'd found was quite effective in handling Xbox controller and Keyboard inputs, but did not have any Mouse controls. I ended up adding those and it seems to work dandy now.

Most importantly however, I've put a great deal of time into organization and development of the modules and components that will control the game. This includes an Interface system which will now control the display of text info on the screen. I've also added a component-based Object system which will handle all the game objects that will populate the level. This includes the player ship(s), enemies, triggers and events, waypoints, sound effects, terrain, etc. They each inherit any number of component interfaces, such as Moveable, Physical, Audible, which identify how they interact with their surroundings. Ultimately, this will improve on the way the objects interact with each other because it will ensure that things that have no business effecting one another will be able to.

Finally, I've been working on adding some of the things that will add the zest to the game... weapons, armors, gear, an inventory system, money, etc. It's kind of ridiculous how much I've laid out in such little time. I hope to see some really cool results here shortly.

And Then...
I'll put a wee bit of time into the enemy patrol AI again tonight. I would like to see the enemy at least able to make it from point A to point B to point C smoothly before moving on. I'm relatively close to that now, so I anticipate finishing this up quickly tonight so that I can move on to more entertaining things, namely ...SHOOTING STUFF! As I mentioned, I have the architecture to manage the weapons and armor in place, I need simply integrate the controls so that weapons actually shoot. I also need to display the shooting somehow and generate bullets and then finally calculate the impact of the bullets and do damage. Lots to do, so little time. I'll keep me posted (being the only reader).

Bespin Ahoy

2009-04-02T10:58:00.002-06:00

I've been dreaming recently of where to take this little game of mine. The theme is actually kind of the hardest thing for me to settle on. There's infinite possibilities, really, limited only by my own imagination. Fortunately for me, I have a wild imagination. Unfortunately for me, I need to settle on one single idea and, as stated previously, I can be indecisive.

I've been thinking lately of graphical non-sense, for some reason. Like, how I will draw the moon in the sky and how I will light it? ...How I will draw clouds in the sky and allow the player to fly through them... perhaps hide in them, and how the light from the ship's guns will illuminate the clouds. How the backgrounds will show local detail when near the ground and also power lines going off into the distance, how that will grow into distant cities and lights and fields as you gain altitude. But ehh... all this stuff should be among the last things addressed - the art, the atmosphere, and the polish. Bleh, well I guess it's probably important in keeping me focused on the game and not too focused on the mundane aspects of it, so... Dream on!

Progress
Last night I came to a realization that I was over-complicating a few things. If the enemy needs to change heading and speed, then I should just let them do it, not worry about queuing and prioritizing and all that nonsense. The code will be simpler. The bookkeeping (See that? A word with 3 consecutive double-letters... crazy!) will be lessened. The enemy will behave much more player-like also. I put some work into streamlining this process. My enemy can now adjust angle and change speed at the same time as I'd wanted. As I left it however, the enemy does not re-adjust angle as needed... the enemy will set his desired angle, change speed, and as a result of acceleration the required angle-to-destination will change.

On The Docket
First: Allow the enemy to adjust his angle on the move. Also, lower his cruising speed, cause currently it's at 50% and he kinda books it.
Second: Make the enemy monitor his progress to his destination and then slow down and stop when he arrives.
Third: Make sure he'll do his thing in continuing to the following waypoints and back again as necessary. (think this should already work, just haven't been able to get him to make it to the first waypoint yet... hehe)

With these 3 things done, the enemy Patrol AI will be complete for now and I can begin working on Attack mode... need to work on guns and bullets and whatnot. Fun stuff!

Goal: Blog... Plan: Sign-In To Blogspot, Collect Thoughts, Type

2009-04-01T15:33:00.002-06:00

Oy vey! You know, I thought AI coding would be a walk in the park. See the sights. Get some exercise. Feel good about life. Yep, not exactly. It's actually been a big headache so far. :P I'm not sure why either... usually when the problems and dilemmas arise when it comes to my game coding I get a little glisten in my eye and plot and scheme and it all turns out... as well as it could, I suppose. But this AI stuff ain't so easy.

I think these initial woes are probably mostly due to the overwhelming choices available in the AI field already (I don't tend to do well with choices, as I'm often one of those indecisive types). Also, I think I'm one to thrive in conceptualizing these sorts of things the way I want it. Sure, in such a field as AI that's been done to death since the 50's(?) it would almost certainly be reinventing the wheel, but I would ultimately hold a greater understanding of the result, and more importantly, it would truly be "my take" on it. So, I've been doing some scheming and here's a taste...

AI Notes

Goal (long term goal - e.g. kill enemies, work, score points)
Originally thought of a Goal Queue, listing more than one, but I don't foresee an enemy living long enough to require more than one...
PlanQueue (steps to accomplish goal - e.g. capture flag, return flag, defend flag, kill enemies)
Plan to accomplish goal is determined when the goal is set. May vary based on randomness or enemy smarts...
StrategyQueue (steps to accomplish plan - e.g. locate flag, pickup flag, attack, maneuver)
Small scale to-do list. Will vary based on randomness and enemy smarts...
ActionQueue (immediate actions or reactions)

Looping Logic
1. Gather Info / Build Awareness
2. Act (process plan/strategy queue if no threats present)
2. React (immediate reaction to threats found)

And an example of the queue-ing logic...
Goal: capture flag
PlanQueue: locate flag, pickup flag, return flag
StrategyQueue: locate flag
ActionQueue: locate flag
Awareness: flag found at enemy base
PlanQueue: pickup flag, return flag
StrategyQueue: go to flag, eliminate defenders, pickup flag
ActionQueue: go to flag
Awareness: 1 threat - long distance
ActionQueue: go to flag, determine threat level of Threat1
Awareness: 1 threat - no immediate threat
ActionQueue: go to flag
Awareness: reached flag
StrategyQueue: eliminate defenders, pickup flag
Awareness: 1 threat - short distance
ActionQueue: determine threat level of Threat2, go to flag
Awareness: 1 threat - engaging
ActionQueue: engage Threat2
etc.
etc.

Progress/To-Do
I managed to correct the enemy logic a bit. My enemy doesn't fly straight off the screen any more. Instead, he changes his angle and -then- flies off the screen. Oooooooooh! Well anyways, we'll see how it goes.

A Great Darkness Looming on the Horizon

2009-03-30T13:59:00.002-06:00

There are stirrings about. Rumors of war... with... gray blobby things! *gasp* Yeah, I don't really know what I'm talking about either... I started working on the enemies for my game and my first enemy test sprite is... well.. a gray blobby UFO looking thing. It's scary, lemme tell you!

Progress
I was able to work on my game a wee bit this weekend. Only a few hours on one of the nights, but hey it's work, and progress was made! I mentioned the desire to complete my camera and control work so that I would have an enclosed playground to play around in. Well, my desires have come to fruition!
I was able to restrict the camera to within the map boundaries pretty easily. It took longer than it should have, because the landscape I was drawing to the screen was not positioned properly, and I took that as a flaw with the camera focusing, but I tracked it down before I spent too much time barking up the wrong tree.
I also managed to restrict the ship's movement to within the map boundaries. I'd originally messed with reversing the ship when it hit the boundary, but I found the resulting bounce-back somewhat undesirable. Ended up setting it up as if it were a wall. The ship will simply stop moving forward at the edges. Nice!
That stuff aside, I was finally able to start digging into the Enemy code... woo! I... actually made some substantial progress in a really short time. I've got a ship that appears on the screen and will try and patrol along predefined paths. More importantly, I've got some serious state and behavior management integrated already. The enemy will decide whether it should be Attacking, Guarding, Patrolling, Hiding, Fleeing, etc. Deeper still, he will decide when he's Patrolling (the only behavior I've addressed so far - want to get it working before proceeding), how he will patrol. Where will he go? How fast will he get there? What will he do when he arrives at each waypoint? Will he turn back when he reaches the end, or circle around back to the beginning? I've made all these variables... well, variables, so that I can make any number of enemies that might patrol differently quite easily.

The Rigamorole
I have several issues facing me immediately and they actually present quite a challenge. For instance, I set up a Queue of actions I want my ship to take... like correct it's angle, change it's speed, etc. The problem I see is, what if I want to change it's angle and accelerate at the same time? A single depth queue could make this quite difficult. Also, if I were to queue up multiple things at once, do I perform the entirety of the queue at once, or do one action, then the next when the first completes? I'll want the enemy to be capable of moving and firing at the same time, for example, so I need to figure out a way to achieve this. How will I prioritize some things over others? Hrm. Yeah, I don't know either. Perhaps some research on AI would shed some light on things. I'll see what I can find. Anyways... immediate goal: get my enemy ship to patrol properly... right now he doesn't change angle and slowly accelerates to the right off the screen forever. Smart guy...

Keep 'Em Coming!!

2009-03-25T10:44:00.002-06:00

Wow, this is easily the most consecutive updating I've done to this thing since I started it a year or more ago. Crazy! I'll take that as a sign that my plan to simplify my goals was a success, and also that my plan for a simpler overall game design was a success. I'm progressing with far more tangible result than I was at a much greater rate of return. :D

Progress
Last night I got off work early, so I had a chance to dig into my code a bit. First, I tackled the scaling of the camera, and with a little effort I managed to get it to cooperate with me. A little tuning, and it behaved much like I wanted... when the player increases speed the camera slowly pans out to reveal more of their surroundings. I'm quite pleased with the result, though it will probably require some fine tuning down the line so that it feels a bit more "tight".
My scaling work wasn't without trouble though... I found that there was a discrepancy with the way the ship itself was being scaled. The problem was... it wasn't. When the camera would scale the ship would remain the same. It took a bit of doing, but I was able to streamline the bridge between them and it works as intended now.
Finally, I addressed the parallax scrolling of the map. It was irksome before that my stars in the background scrolled along with the mock landscape I made when I wanted them to be a static background. Well, I managed to resolve this also, where background layers with a scroll value of 0 would no longer pan with the camera, and the result of this was also quite pleasing. :)
As one last thing (see, I accomplished a lot for one night :P) I began looking into restricting the camera within the map boundaries, and I came close to it working properly. With little effort tonight I should have it squared away.

And Then
Next time I sit down at the computer, I will fix the camera movement restrictions. As mentioned above, I've got most of it done, so it will be a quick and easy fix. Then, I will restrict the ship's movements to within the map boundary also. This will be a very simple fix and probably require very little time. I need to simple check whether they're within bounds, and if they're not, reverse their direction/angle! Piece of cake!
So... what to work on next? Hmm. With those things done I'll have a nice little enclosed playground to work in. The possibilities are endless! I think what will give me the greatest return at this point will probably be to start working on enemy ships. This will entail drawing one or more, figuring out where to spawn them, figuring out how to control them (really looking forward to AI coding!), and working on the mechanics behind weaponry. Lots of fun stuff ahead, I'm really looking forward to playing around with these toys a bit. :)

Hullaballoo

2009-03-24T10:20:00.002-06:00

Lookin' like I'll be working alot again. First day of another 3-day work spree... woo! The first one tired me out, but I've had 2 days to recoup. Hopefully, recoup enough so that the next 3 days don't kill me. :P

Progress
Last night I took care of the camera tracking code. It wasn't as simple and straight-forward as I'd anticipated though... I actually ended up trying several approaches with varying complication and was having one heck of a time managing the positioning of the camera, the camera's central pivot, the ship, and the target where I wanted to move the camera to. I was getting all confused because many times the camera would track the opposite direction expected, as if it had inverted X and Y directions, and most times the ship wouldn't even be visible. In the end, the simplest solution worked... it just took me too long (probably due to fatigue) to connect the dots in my brain. :P The end result is close to what I'd wanted, though with playing with it I found it may induce motion sickness if I'm not careful. :P I'll likely tune it more as I go, but the foundation is laid out.

Next Up
As mentioned in my list of things to do previously, after getting the camera tracking down I need to work on the zooming. I also need to work on restricting the camera and ship within the map boundaries. However, I realize with my testing now that the camera is actually panning, that there's another thing I have to do. I need to fix the parallax scrolling. You know, when background layers pan slower than the foreground layers? That's not functional at all now. It needs to be. I will likely work on this prior to my map-boundary restriction tasks, as it's going to be extremely important in the long run.

Comcast Drops The Ball!

2009-03-23T14:26:00.002-06:00

Yessir, I've been without Internet access at home for 3 days now, and it's not looking like much will change any time soon. Comcast swore they wouldn't have any problem hooking me up with new service, and that I could go ahead and cancel my existing one... of course when they came out to do so on Friday it didn't take long for the installer to realize it wouldn't be possible. Some major hardware needed to hook up the house was missing, so a crew will have to come fix it before I can consider trying to install the service again... bleh. Anyways... I'm not one to let a bad thing keep me down. I'll be making the most of my time away from Halo 3 multiplayer by coding as much and as quickly as possible, and probably also finishing some games I've had on my plate for far too long... :P Bioshock, Fallout 3, DMC 4, etc.

Progress
Little to none... Been too busy working. :( I did debug enough to figure out why my camera isn't panning properly though... My classes are stepping on each other's toes. My keyboard moves my ships sprite. My scene manager also moves my ship's sprite to where it thinks it should be shown relative to the camera's view. And then my game manager moves my camera to where it thinks it should be in relation to the ship's location... so my camera is moving according to the ship, and the ship is moving according to the camera... so yeah, they fly away immediately and it doesn't work very well. I'll fix this tonight. :P

TO-DO
Same as last time. :|

Since I'm without progress today, I will comment on some detail as to the game's content. I think I will start with what I think the beginning of the game will entail.

You sign into your Xbox, select your profile, and select New Pilot. Your pilot will be your link to your ranking, your money, your progress, and what resources and ships you might have available. You will select from one of three ship chassis to begin with... some standard military issue grunt's ships. One will be agile, one will be a heavy weapons platform, and one will specialize in subterfuge and intelligence. Overall, these will be the 3 ship types available as the game progresses. The agile ship will zip all over the place dodging threats and hitting behind enemy lines. The brute force ship will take a beating and take out a small chunk of the galaxy with it. The subterfuge ship will focus on radar systems, cloaking devices, disabling the enemies, and scouting.

New pilots will begin at an air force base on Earth. It will be some time in the late 21st century or early 22nd. From the system colonies, reports of an alien threat have begun to pop up. It seems scouting parties of alien craft have begun to enter the solar system, many even trying to scout Earth and it's moon. The player will take off on a recon assignment and will quickly encounter enemy scouting parties scattered all over the place. They will be very very very high in number, but fortunately they'll only be scouts, so they will be weak. By the time the player has managed to get their first flight out of the way, they will have managed to secure a new rank (rewards keep people happy!) the reward of which will be an upgrade to their cannons allowing for tracers (the "basic" gun will be a nose mounted machine gun. Until the tracers become available it will just come out of the front of the ship and hit whatever's in direct line of sight). Ranking promotions will follow regularly along with other rewards.
The player will be notified that debris was found in the wreckage, and that the need for them to begin salvaging will be of utmost importance. Next flight, they will be equiped with a claw that descends out of the bottom of their ship to collect stuff. In this way, kills may result in any number of "drops" much like WoW or Diablo, varying in rarity and effect. Game will more or less proceed thusly, with the player getting kills, getting money, buying upgrades (scientists will develop new technology based on that which you discover), salvaging drops, and making their ship into a terrible alien killing machine. Threats will get smarter, faster, bigger, and meaner as they go.
The player will eventually go from Earth to the Moon to Jupiter and/or Saturn, the asteroid belt, the Sun itself perhaps, and eventually to the alien home world. When that's all said and done, then multiplayer will give them a whole other mess of stuff to do for fun.

4 Breakfast Shots to the Gut

2009-03-19T10:15:00.002-06:00

Got up early and went up to the Hammond DMV this morning to get my license reinstated before it became suspended. I got a BS speeding ticket a couple months back, was going to defer it, but missed the due date, so they started the whole license suspension process. But that's done and taken care of now... Phew! Ate some BK Breakfast Shots on the way up there and... wow, they kind of turn into rocks in your stomach. Blech.

Progress
Last night I accomplished a number of things... Fixed some issues with the accelerate/decelerate code that remained from the other night. It wasn't behaving properly when I would decelerate to 0% speed and then continue in the backwards direction. But now, it will turn the ship around and head back the other way properly.
I also enabled a switch so that L/R could always mean Accel/Decel regardless of direction facing, or L/R could mean Accel or Decel depending on which way the ship was facing. I had intended the L=Decel/R=Accel scheme to be the default, but upon testing it comes across as a little awkward to me... so it will be available as a control option to the user in the end, but it will not be the default scheme.
Next, I enabled the rotation of the ship with the Up/Down keys. This was very very simple. I also put a switch in so that controls could optionally be Inverted (pilot controls). I will likely make Inverted the default, but, playing Halo often I know many people just can't handle Inverted controls, so an option was necessary.
Then, I took care of the Climb/Dive controls and ship movement. I mentioned there would be fancy math involved with that, but it turned out not to be anything too crazy. It simply rotates the ship with Up/Down and then instead of moving the ship strictly on the X-axis as it was before it uses some Trigonometry to find out what the X and Y coordinates are given a certain speed and a certain angle. Done and done.
Finally, I did some setup of the camera for a tracking system. I got the basis down... the camera will have a GoalPosition to try and track to and will constantly be panning around trying to catch it... I think this will result in some smooth panning regardless of how quickly the ship is flying around. I also set it up to use the same Trig code for linear destination to set the camera GoalPosition to X distance in front of the ship's heading. My first run of it it didn't work perfectly, but that's to be expected for a first run. I will tend to this more next time until it's solid.

The Agenda
Next time I sit down at the PC (I say next time, cause I have to work like 40 hours in the next 3 days and who knows when I will code again) my 1st goal will be to iron out the kinks with the camera tracking system. Once the tracking system is done, the 2nd goal will be to get the camera zoom worked out right... I need to find a sweet spot of zoom depth which will allow the user to see his surroundings well enough to understand where he is, and also set it up to zoom out slowly as the ship's speed increases so that the same relative alertness of the play field is available when flying around. The 3rd goal will be to restrict camera movement to within the borders of the map area. Right now I'm testing with a 5 width by 2 height tile set, but there's nothing keeping the camera there. Once the camera is restricted, the 4th goal will be to restrict the ship's movements to within the map area.

Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?

2009-03-18T10:56:00.002-06:00

Coded quite a while last night, interspersed with some acoustical guitar thrashing. ...Been trying to learn some simple songs to play and sing along to, you know so when I go camping this summer I have campfire songs. :P Last night it was Mother by Pink Floyd. Listened to it over and over and over to get it in my head then played it and sang it well first go 'round. ...Ohh yeah, and coded!

Progress
So yesterday I said I would accomplish at least 2 sizable things (correcting input control of acceleration/deceleration of the ship, and also addition of camera tracking) in addition to possibly more. Well, the first thing was much more involved than I anticipated. It took a great deal of planning and testing to get the input to differentiate between being held in a certain direction vs. being tapped in a direction. Then I also had to account for the ship facing left or right and how that would effect movement. Plus, as I mentioned before I had to deal with throttling the ship speed to within certain values. PLUS, I had to put several timers in so that as a button was held it wouldn't activate every 1/60th of a second (it being a 60 fps game). PLUS PLUS, I put in several control schemes for the ship based on it's status. If it's docked or turning, certain controls are possible while others aren't. :)
But that's out of the way now! I can accelerate/decelerate by 1% max speed per 10th of a second. I can tap left or right and it will accelerate/decelerate by 20% of max speed. It will stop at 0 speed. It will stop speeding up at 100% max speed. And all this is displayed on the screen. Plus, I can turn the ship around to face the other direction if I go to 0 speed and continue the other direction. Dandy!

Next On The Agenda
Tonight I will try to accomplish the things I was going to do last night but didn't get to. That's 2 things. The tracking of the camera to follow the ship (actually, following in front of the ship). And coding the controls for climbing and diving. Reconsidering, I think the climb/dive code would be more useful to work on first, since it's related to the control scheme coding I did last night. Might as well finish it before moving on, ehh? Camera control and map panning will come after controls.

'Til next time... You'll always be baby to me.

SHOOTS

2009-03-17T15:02:00.002-06:00

SHOOOOTS! Yes, Shoots is the "secret project" title for my current game-in-progress. Every secret project has some cryptic name before it finds a real one, and this one is just mine. Shoots!

I thought I'd mention a quick blurb about what I've done and what my current to-do is... a "progress report" if you will.

Progress
Last night I drew my crappy looking player ship in MS Paint... then I redid it with a transparent BG in GIMP cause that whole transparency thing slipped my mind. :P
Next, I had a problem with my keyboard input because the arrow keys weren't moving my ship like I originally intended. They weren't moving anything. That was actually an easy fix...
With my ship moving, I was now able to change the way the ship moved. My intent is to setup the controls thusly... Left/Right: Decelerate/Accelerate, Up/Down: Dive/Climb. So far the ship just panned around the screen though... My last task for the night was to change the Left/Right being forward/backwards to a speed-based accelerate/decelerate system. In no time, my ship was accelerating right off the screen, no sweat! However, there's a lot of work to go...

Short-Term To-Do
First thing I must do is throttle the acceleration of my ship. I don't want it to speed up undefinitely, I want it to stay within the Max speed of the ship. The speed of the ship will range from 0 to MaxSpeed (yes, the ship will be capable of speedless flight or hovering) to the left or right. I will ultimately have a key to change directions in-flight (from left-to-right and visa versa) so that the player will not have to completely decelerate to 0 to begin accelerating the other direction, but I will address that later. The second part to the acceleration is this: as long as you hold L/R you Accel/Decel gradually, but if you only tap L/R and don't hold it, you will Accel/Decel by a large amount. So, one can ultimately Accel/Decel completely within just a moment if they need to. I will likely make deceleration require less overall taps to completely stop, as immediate deceleration is arguably more important than immediate acceleration. Right now I'm thinking 1% Accel/Decel per half second held, and 20% Accel/50% Decel per tap L/R.

Second goal, I must stop my ship from accelerating off the screen!... This will never be possible in the finished game, because the camera will always be following the ship! The map will be scrolling happily away behind the ship as the camera scrolls. So, the camera must do a few fancy things... move when the ship moves, move ahead of the ship so the player can see where they're headed, and zoom out gradually the faster the ship is moving, so more of the approach is visible. With my current camera system this should be quite simple to accomplish, so we'll see how it goes. :)

If these two goals go well, I will work on restricting ship/camera movement to staying within the borders of the map. I also need to work on the whole dive/climb of the ship and the math involved with that... there will have be some fancy geometry or trig to figure out where the ship is headed when it's angle changes.

More later!! Cheers! Happy St. Patty's Day!

Moon Landing Hoax

2009-03-13T15:13:00.003-06:00

What?! Moon landing? Hoax? ...Has what to do with game design? Don't worry, I don't know either. The metaphor I wanted to use as a title for this posting was the term used by NASA that means: to take advantage of the gravity of a large astral body (planet or moon) to boost the trajectory of a space craft. I think it's called sling-shotting... But anyways, when I was Googling and Wikipedia-ing to find that term all I found was Moon Landing Hoax crap, so I ran with it. :P

Anyways.....

Seems I was busy during the time of my last post, huh? Sick too? Huh. I was thinking just the other day that I couldn't remember the last time I was sick... apparently it was September 15th. :P Also I was neck deep in the code that would lead to my fancy arena-based combat game. Well... times change.

The reason for my post title that I wanted - one that implies a sudden change of trajectory - is just that. I've changed trajectory once again. I feel that this change will not slow down my progress toward my main goal at all. In fact, I think it will be a better means to the End. The intent of my trajectory change was with my original specific goal in mind: I aim to complete a game. I aim to release a game. Now, I aim to gather the experience I need to make a full game start to finish. I will never produce my dream game if I don't. It's just too big, too deep, too involved, and I don't have that kind of time or resource.

So my quest for a game to produce and produce quickly began. I have been thinking intently on this purpose for some time, and I've come to decide that it needs to be simple. It needs to involve a very little effort in coding and still maintain playability, fun, and excitement. I would also like it to involve multiplayer if possible (Okay, so maybe all this crap isn't as simple as simple could be. I'm stupid and stubborn). Ultimately, the genre which came to mind is... a Space Shooter! Wee! Now I'm not the biggest space shooter fan in the world, but I do enjoy them. I like the thrill of dodging incoming bullets (excitement that I mentioned). I think I can easily and quickly make a space shooter above and beyond the norm in various ways:

First, free-flight! I'm sure it's been done before... in fact, one of my first memories of video games involved a flight-based 2D shooter game with what basically boiled down to free-flight. LOOPING! (Great game... HARD game) Also, Defender comes to mind... The one thing that annoys me about the genre is the on-rails approach they almost all take. I understand that it's neat memorizing the patterns of wave after wave of attacks so you can blast through it on your 13th try, but I'm ultimately much more interested in scouting around trying to find areas where you can approach how you want, where you want, and just blow stuff up (the fun that I mentioned above).

Second, growth! You know, this is also something that's been done to death with the genre. You get pickups, you shoot bigger lasers, you get pickups, you get bombs, etc. I'm much more interested in investment... in rewards for efforts made. RPG systems do this excellently, and I don't understand why shooters haven't gone that route sooner. The beauty of RPG systems is, most of the actual growth logic is done statistically - aka adding numbers, boosting stats, earning moneys. It adds infinite depth for very little coding effort (that's the simplicity that I mentioned).

Third, multiplayer! I am unaware of a single space shooter type game where multiplayer is more than just the single player experience with another ship flying around. That's all well and good... actually quite fun, but it boils down to pattern memorization times two. There's no real team work. There's no real accomplishment. It's dated. While this will probably be the most difficult aspect to integrate, and thus probably the last thing I come to, what I'd really like to do is take advantage of the 2D free-roaming mechanics that I setup for the single player game and turn it into a sandbox for all sorts of crazy ship dogfighting. Why not make it 32-player free-for-alls, or team based objective games, or races? HRM? Why indeed? But I'll focus on that later...

For now, just know that things are going well. I've already got the project set up. I've already gotten past several major hurdles, such as an effective input control system, a 2D scene system with parallax scrolling and all that jazz, and a game management system which will allow me to control the game with little effort. This is all stuff I struggled with in past projects, so I'm already making amazing progress here. Stay tuned for more specific ideas, smaller scale goals, pictures, progress, and those such things. WHOOO!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2008-09-15T10:26:00.004-06:00

The good, I've made considerable progress over the weekend! The bad, I've been sick all weekend! ...And the ugly... well, that's probably me, while sick... or the hellacious storms that have rolled through and flooded Northwest Indiana... the Hurricane Ike remnants.

So last week I listed the completion %'s for my 4 tools. Here's an update:
2D Skeleton Creator - 85% done but functional.
SpriteSheet Creator - 99% done and functional.
Sprite Arrangement Tool - 99% done and functional.
Sprite Animation Tool - 60% (the hard part) done. Not yet functional.

So you see, I managed to finish off the 3rd Sprite Arrangement Tool.... unbelievably, I've got screenshots to prove it too. I know, it's totally against what I'm all about, but I had to get some cause the thing was cracking me up. :P

Ohh yeah, and you may have noticed that the 1st tool, the 2D Skeleton Creator, actually lost 5% of completion. When I went back to look at it, I realized that I was mid-enhancement that last go-around. I need to finish what I was working on with it, a Section definition capability, because the Sprite Animation section will rely heavily upon it. So... should be able to get that 1st tool to 99% shortly, then begin on the 4th... then... I... might actually... possibly... be... done?

And now...!

Sprite Assembly Tool - Sample

Sprite Assembly Tool - Rearranged

Sprite Assembly Tool - Showing Skeleton

Is Frighteningly A Word?

2008-09-11T11:02:00.003-06:00

Well, it's been a crazy several weeks since my last post. Craziness is always going on in the background though. Surprisingly, between financial craziness, emotional distress after finding out my cat is sick, and failed attempts at build a new PC, I have been making some pretty decent progress with my AnimatedSpriteMaker toolset.

As stated in the previous post, my overall plan for the game I'd like to develop has scaled drastically down. However, the tools I plan to use to bring the game to fruition have not changed. I still need 2D sprites. I still need them versatile. I still need them animated. Fortunately, the tools I've developed are very dynamic. I believe I could create any type of game involving 2D sprites with this stuff... perhaps in the future I will do just that... or make it available for doing just that... we'll see.

Frighteningly... I think the hard parts are done! An update of the 4 pieces:
2D Skeleton Creator - 90% done but functional. In need of minor enhancement.
SpriteSheet Creator - 99% done and functional, thanks to enhancements put in this week.
Sprite Arrangement Tool - 75% done, mostly functional. Needs enhancement and minor fixes.
Sprite Animation Tool - 60% (the hard part) done. Not yet functional. Needs fixes and testing and then enhancement.

So of those four, all but the second were pretty major undertakings. The third one, which I'm currently focused on, was easily the most intimidating one for me. It seemed like a very challenging task developing the tools that would allow you to arrange images over the skeleton appropriately and realistically... but I've managed to do it. It works. I can maybe get this 3rd part over with this or next week and move on to the last part. It's going to be rough also, but the hard part is done. It'll just be a matter of putting together the pieces and trying it out.

This is AWESOME mostly because, when I started it... in fact, up until the last couple weeks here, this whole toolset has been entirely theoretical. In my head it seemed like the right way to go about accomplishing the goals, but there was no proof. Even during my research on 2D sprite animation, I never saw anything like what this does... which would normally be enough to turn me in another direction. But the ideas seemed feasible, and as it turns out... in all likelihood they will be successful. Only time will tell for sure. I'll keep you posted to let you know. In the mean time, I hope to get an image of my sample sprite up here when the 3rd part is done... soon.

Mastery Devolution

2008-08-01T14:14:00.002-06:00

Devolution noun: retrograde evolution

Howdy, and welcome back! The theoretical world of Mastery that I've been plotting and scheming over for the past... year? Buh?! Wow... err, anyways... the world is changing once again. In light of my last post I have been debating the ins and outs of this game world that I've conceived fairly thoroughly when possible. What I've determined is that my scope, admittedly ridiculous in size, is too large for me to realistically accomplish. I can't manage a persistent MMO world. I don't have the artistic ability to generate a whole world's worth of art assets. I don't have the time to develop the ability... I don't have the resources to even begin thinking of running such a venture. SO... we must adapt in order to proceed. We must cut some of the goals so that those left can flourish. We must focus and tune and advance. The result will be all the better for it... and maybe there actually will be a result in the end. :) (You know typing this I just realized that they've done this exact same thing with Warhammer Online only weeks ago, so I don't feel too bad)

As stated in previous post(s), there are several goals I wish for for my ideal game.
1. Deep engaging combat system
2. Exploration and mystery
3. Scope
4. Intensity

Due to this new focus on my resources and skills and availability, I have decided to focus on the first and last goals with hopes that should it all prove entertaining and attractive and fun. Also, that in the future I can build upon their foundation and achieve the others, in this game or another.

Thinking about it, I think the ideal way to immerse in an intense, well-tuned, combat heavy game is an arena brawler game. You thought I was going to say a fighting game, didn't ya?! ...but those are too common, I have to do something different here. :P I suppose in essence it will be just that, but with a very fancy package. I would like to incorporate several RPG elements which will lift it above the likes of every normal fighting game (yes, I'm confident enough that I can say this despite being in love with Soul Calibur IV which just came out). Perhaps your interest and/or imagination is piqued with the thought, or maybe I'm on my own here, but I will try and elaborate in the near future as to specific details.

Thanks for reading!

Lifting The Iron Curtain

2008-06-11T13:12:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I read a discussion on the XNA forums between the big wigs of XNA... at least according to anyone who might frequent the forums like me. The discussion, entitled I want to protect my valuable game ideas, but I also need help with implementation. What can I do? was quite thought provoking, especially me being an idea Nazi when it comes to my own ideas for my own ideal game. It made sense. I've seen many keen ideas perusing the XNA and other design forums but I have largely ignored them... honed in completely on my own dream game. I also believe it to be true that the major companies are largely too busy putting out clone games to make money to bother with interesting concepts and ideas. So I think I ought to raise the iron curtain, go into a little specific detail about what I'm going for here...

But first, an update might be warranted. It's been 2 months since my last post... sorry. Well, unfortunately I've been quite busy since then and haven't gotten a whole lot of work done. But, I HAVE made some progress. I was stuck on matters of animation storage and utilization last time I dug in, but I developed an animation manager that makes quick work of it now... providing rapid lookup and reference for skeletal animation. Niftay!

So what is it that makes this game (temporarily entitled Mastery) so interesting that it warrants it's own blog? Why should you care? Well, if you're another designer you shouldn't care (at least according to the logic of the aforementioned XNA discussion). If you're interested in games just so much that you enjoy playing them, perhaps you'll find it interesting what I propose. Perhaps you could even provide me some feedback about my ideas... yeah I know, that's asking a lot.

There are 3 main foundations for the game system I want to do (yes, my ideas are more gameplay focused than story specific... any number of great stories could be told within a solid framework). First, a good fun solid combat system. I would enjoy playing this and it would keep me coming back. Second, exploration/mystery/hidden secrets. Love it. Third, scope. It's been popular in recent games, and while playing them may have influenced my ideas a tad, the great majority of what I'd like to accomplish was established in my head well before I encountered the games, so... I have a unique perspective I hope.

I'll go into details how I will integrate this foundation in the following days. Thanks fer readin'!

The World Is A Magic Place

2008-04-08T09:49:00.004-06:00

Here I am signing in this morning anticipating the need to type up an explanation of how I've veered drastically from my original intent again... but hey! I did that last time! Alright! :D

My progress is slow due to real life hecticity (that's my new fancy word), but it's coming along. I've decided to forego Inverse Kinematics, just as I neared completion of it. It was taking too long and I was to the point where the framework was down and it was in need of some serious fine tuning. Well, that's time consuming work, and time is one thing that is in short supply around here. Besides, it's silly to work on an enhancement to animation, when you don't even have animation... no? NO??? Yeah, exactly.

Anyways, I mentioned last time that I had some new goals:

1. Skeleton creation (Status: Mostly done, in need of fine tuning and enhancement (IK))
2. SpriteSheet definition (Status: As of last night - done. Woo!)
3. Sprite creation (Basic framework done. Still in need of slight conceptual work then doing)
4. Animation definition (Basic framework done. In need of concept work then doing)

Things seem to be going well, no? I think so! Heh. At least for this one little tool it seems the end is in sight. The question is, how much will it help the overall whole of the game? I think quite a bit, but we'll see. It's somewhat depressing to think that all this tons of work is going into such a small fraction of the whole... but those things add up. And it's not like it's not interesting work. And fruitful... almost... soon... hopefully.

And now, because the mass(es) are clamoring for imagery! I must appease! Finally!!

Animated Sprite Maker - Welcome Screen

Animated Sprite Maker - Skeleton Editor

Animated Sprite Maker - SpriteSheet Editor
(Happy Gandhi sprite is in no way, shape, or form indicative of final result)

I Have An Awful Sense Of Time

2008-03-03T16:27:00.002-06:00

Remember that post I made a while ago (post before last) where I said I was done with Phase 1 of my AnimatedSpriteMaker project? Yeah, well I lied... but I suppose that's kind of the way it goes in any development lifecycle. You plan and plan and try to plan ahead, but then as you progress you find flaws, you go back to fix those flaws, and you improve upon what's already there. The goal warps a little bit, there's a lot of work involved, but the end result is that much better.

As it turns out I've returned to touch up a few things in that "Phase 1", the Skeleton creation mode that I had mentioned. I had to return to take care of a couple things, such as serialization of the skeleton, to save it, and apply restraints... I need to set it up so that bones can't extend beyond their intended length, and so that joints don't bend out of whack. Of course this all relates to the penultimate goal of Phase 1 - the Inverse Kinematics that I typed about last time.

After I completely complete Phase 1, in the next few nights, I will be focusing on a new Phase 2 - the definition of SpriteSheet layouts (a necessary evil for sprite creation), a Phase 3 where those sprite sheets are overlayed on the skeleton, and a Phase 4 where animations are created. It's going to be a lot of fun... for the most part... and I'm looking forward to it... but at this point I'm probably more looking forward to getting it done so that I can move on to bigger and better and more entertaining (for you and for me) things! More in a few days!

The Dawning Revelation of New Peril: Inverse Kinematics

2008-02-13T12:38:00.003-06:00

You know, it seems the more my project here proceeds the more daunting it becomes. Seriously!! In the beginning there was boldness and pride and fearlessness and excitement, and it was good!

Several hurdles later (holidays, birthdays, funerals, parties, moving, and more than a reasonable share of hardware and software failure, etc.) here I am staring at more hurdles, and the productive tasks at hand are multiplying faster than I can check them off. It's kind of like counting the fingers on both hands, where every other finger you hit someone adds a hand to count, some of which are in mittens... they look like a single finger, but once the mitten is peeled away there's another full hand to go! Alright, that's a weird analogy... but it makes sense in a mitteny kind of way.

As I continue to struggle to get my computer operational (as in not blue screening every time I try to accomplish something worth accomplishing) I continue to think and plot and scheme, and my newest revelation (striking me only moments ago) is that in order to do ohhh... 50% of the action-packed goodness I want to accomplish, I must have Inverse Kinematics...

Inverse Kinematics, for you non-animators, is the means by which a finger, for example, is placed out in front of the body to point forward and each joint connected to the finger is naturally moved and bent and arranged to represent it. Yes, the finger, the wrist, the elbow, and the shoulder. It allows one to specify the "end result" of the animation rather than each of the parts to get to that end result (which would be Forward Kinematics, which is what I'm doing now). It also allows reactionary animation. It allows characters to climb stairs (among other things). It allows characters to dodge. It allows characters to reach out and touch other characters. I MUST HAVE IT!

Details will follow once the latest malarkey is resolved.

Animated Sprite Maker - Phase 1 Complete

2008-01-21T11:16:00.000-06:00

It actually seemed like a long time and a lot of work to get the first of 3 parts of my new Animated Sprite Maker tool working... by the looks of my last update it only took a week. Huh! That's pretty good, I gots to say! Gives me some positivity to the next two stages of development. The bulk of it will be in the 2nd phase, there's not a whole lot to the 3rd, at least I think, but we'll see I suppose.

The Animated Sprite Maker is broken up very similar to the Tile-Based Map Editor MapTastic I was working on before. Stage 1 consisted of creating Tiles to be used in creating whole Maps in Stage 2. Here, Stage 1 consists of creating a Skeleton to be used in creating Sprites and Animations in Stage 2. Stage 3 in both will consist of a Test/Debug mode where you can make sure things are working as needed (most probably by allowing user control as if it were really in the game).

I said I would post a movie of Skeleton creation when I finished the first stage, and I will, but I do have some very minor changes to make before it, just cause I'm a stickler for details. I should get it up there tonight. I'm very excited to see what I can do with this. It should work very well with a crude MoCap system and so me and Pat will probably attempt to take advantage of that as soon as the technical junk is ironed out. I was cackling with glee when my first skeleton came to be and I was moving it around. Good things are too come, just wait and see!

A New Day, A New Focus

2008-01-14T12:10:00.000-06:00

2008!? Hooo... ray... wooo... ehh... yeah, whatever. It's a new year, the holidays are past. I've never been one to really dwell on the prospects a whole new year might bring. I'm a little more narrow-sighted I suppose... it's a new day TODAY and that means all kinds of short term possibilities. Maybe that outlook (or lack thereof) has something to do with the fact that my development has shifted once again.

Yes, I've shied away from the input command tree that I was raving about in that last post and shifted my focus to other things... far more fascinating for the time being, but also incredibly productive and ought to cycle back around to the input stuff I'm neglecting when I finish anyways. That input stuff is fun and all, but it pales in comparison to 2D Skeletal Animation!! WOOOO!!

My immediate goals are using a mouse and keyboard to supply bones and joints to a 2D skeleton. The body parts will of course be attached to the individual bones. What this means, is I will be able to supply a great deal of very fluid animation in the game without drawing thousands and thousands and thousands of frames of animation. I love cartooning, but I'm not that sadistic... It also means ANY sprite can act and contort any number of ways. This will help avoid thousands and thousands more drawings. It ALSO will aid with attaching weapons and armors and whatnot to characters, AND I will be able to provide animation far more advanced than normal. Especially considering my budgetary restraints (the likes of which Houdini wouldn't even be able to loose).

I'll keep you updated, and when I have something visible to show I'll post a clip of it. I'm just shy of the "something to show for all the work" phase, so maybe within the week. Here's hoping!

Input Trees Budding New Leaves

2007-12-20T10:52:00.000-06:00

Ooh check that out! 9 days and we've already got a new posting. Crazy! Developmentally I've had on days and off days this past 1.3 weeks. Seems the holiday fervor is quickly starting to culminate. Soon it will all be over though, thank goodness. Tonight I probably won't get a whole lot done, I'm going to a local piano bar for my sister's 21st (Happy Birthday Erica!)... and tomorrow my girlfriends dreaded COOKIE BLITZ begins so I don't know that I will be able to concentrate for an extended period of time. But Hey! An update's an update, right?!

A few days ago I was hemming and hawwing and hooing and hurling... in the figurative sense... over thoughts of how to tackle the ever mysterious input tree. I've been aware of input trees since ehhh... Killer Instinct II (which seriously needs a sequel) I think? As I recall, the training mode in that game displayed your mash of button presses along the top of the screen as you went to town. I think that was when the understanding clicked in my head that "Hey, that's how they decide that quarter-circle A is a fireball!"

I knew all along that the input tree would be a major factor in any game with any sort of fighting game mechanics (such as mine)... possibly even any game in general. And I had a feeling it would be a fairly trivial task, but when I sat down to do it it crushed my face. With no clue how to approach it, and a really difficult time finding any reference online for it I had to retreat a day or two. When it did click, however, it was pretty amazing. In fact, the whole input tree creation was embarrassingly easy (if you're curious, look up Binary Search Trees (BST), as they can easily be adapted).

So my input trees are in full bloom in the middle of winter... how's about that? I can grow them or wither them at will, which will really aid my goal in the long run. Now, I just need to focus on how to get the inputs to control what's going on in the game. The trifecta here is input, state, and animation, and I'm wrapping up the input stage. Hopefully next week (or sooner) I'll be able to let you know how easily the state stage was eliminated.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! (all you PC hippies, use your imagination here)

Delay of Game...

2007-12-11T16:19:00.000-06:00

Much apologies to my THRONGS of faithful readers. I know you've been frothing with anticipation, I honestly can't blame you, but you really should have better things to do than watch me do nothing.

Anyways... my... delay has been inevitable I suppose. Ever since the summer all those years ago when I first truly hunkered down and played Halo multiplayer. It was inevitable. I would lose myself in the splendour of Halo 3 for these past months... I've finally loosened the grip a tad (ironically, I say so on the very day the first downloadable map content is released), I've got a respectable Colonel and skill rating of 41. I can shift my focus back to what I set off to do all those months ago (see previous posts).

I've got good news! I've managed to get beyond the ever-looming milestone... for real this time! (see previous posts) My physics are working as intended... they're in need of a bit of tweaking, but I've got my MapTastic map editor creating landscapes, and I've got my full game allowing the player to interact with those landscapes. There's a LOT of work left to go into it, but with this hurdle past, the hard part is really past me. That hurdle was the one that has done me in so many times before and now it's so long gone it's not even remembered... not even a footnote.

Please be patient while I tweak those physics settings, add a few more animations for my crappy test model (see previous posts), and I will be posting a movie demo of my crappy test player in my crappy test environment, with crappy test animation and crappy test interaction for you to crap to. Ohh it will be crappy!

The Pieces Are Set

2007-09-11T10:49:00.000-06:00

Maybe I spoke too soon. My milestone isn't quite past. I misunderstood my accomplishment, tackling the issues of matrix transformation. That was good at all, but working last night I just realized that I've come 180 degrees back to where I left off before...

A month ago, I diverged from my main game-in-progress to work on MapTastic - my small test bed turned tile-based map editor. My goal all along was to explore and learn more about how to arrange the physical objects (landscape, player, items, etc.) in a manner that they would behave realistically on the 2D plane and interact as intended. The map editor functionality was just a bonus side-effect that would help me out later on. Well, for the past month I've worked on the functionality aspects of my little editor only to come to the very same juncture I left one month ago... a whole mess off physics interaction.

You see, the real challenge here is that the physics stuff is more or less transparent. It's running behind the scenes in it's own more-or-less isolated little world as it should. The physics engine doesn't need to know that all the images and logic even exist, really, it just needs to know that some rectangle is bumping into these edges and how to react. The difficulty is attempting to monitor these tens or hundreds of points and edges that are transparent to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to. You can attempt to draw dots and lines over it, or images over a rectangle, but can you be certain that they're being drawn accurately? They should, but can you be absolute certain? There's a lot of guess work going on there, and your guess is as good as mine! :D

Honestly it's got a pretty positive outlook to it. My game was over complicating the task. I couldn't possibly have sifted through it in that environment. My current test bed is much more streamlined. I've got much more tools at my disposal to track what's going on and present it in an intelligible fashion. I've learned a LOT in the past month in my work such as serialization, GUI management and population, lots more about game state management, among other things. The game is set. The pieces are in place. I'm raring to go and I've got my strategies in line. Next time expect to see something working here... in motion... yar!!

Call Me Edward Hicks

2007-08-31T09:59:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I guess no one really wants to admit they're naive (though maybe it has it's qualities). Naivety in retrospect can make you feel regretful of your decisions or your lack of fore sight. I have to admit that my belief that I would make quick and decisive thrusts into the foray of 2D game design were naive at best, now that I am knee deep in it and looking back. Ya know... Perhaps game design isn't quite as simple and manageable as I thought it was. Yep, I can hear all the experienced developers laughing hysterically as they read this... but I guess that realization has to sink in to everybody sooner or later.

My development is going a lot slower than I planned. Painfully slow, actually. Though I have managed to surpass my milestone. That one brick wall that I kept coming up to time and time and time again that just frustrated me to no end turned out to be transformational matrices. Hoo boy! I've come to learn that it's one of those integral parts to almost every game out there that I was blissfully ignorant of all this time. It surprises me to think of all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes of the most simple of games that most people would find overwhelmingly complex. Well, like I said, I was naive to the complexity, but I've been put in my place. I've been doing a lot of learning, and I intend to come out on top.

Well my Confined/Mastery project turned out to be too broad a canvas to learn about the little nuances of the game engine I'm making, such as matrix transformation, so I ended up taking a step back and trying to work with a more manageable platform. This started out borrowing my camera and scene code from the game and making a small test bed. It has quickly evolved into a Map Editor-to-be.

My current project is MapTastic, my tile-based map editor-in-progress, that has allowed me to over come my transformation hurdles and remain productive for my final goal. I'm slowly coming to realize all the research and learning and understanding I'm having to accomplish, or will in the near future. The matrix math, events and delegate function logic, game state engineering, file management, XML cataloging, in-game events and scripting, shaders and all that fancy stuff... the list goes on and on. I truly do have my work cut out for me. There's not a ton of material to read out there, but thankfully there's enough that with a -little- bit of time and mind-numbing trial and error I might actually possibly hopefully be able to pull it all together in time... I cannot fathom how this stuff gets done with deadlines.

And if I might before I go... it blows my mind that people are able to generate fairly complex games in the matter of a day, or a few days, or a week, or whatever those crazy competitions are. I dunno if they're basement dwelling keyboard-dependent freaks of nature that just live and breathe code, or if they're just that freakin' good, but man... I'm jealous. :P Wish I could be a freak of nature. :P

The Milestone

2007-08-09T09:36:00.000-06:00

Ahh you thought you'd seen the last of me... You can't get rid of me that easily!? Bwahahaha!! Yeah ehh, it's been a looooong few months since April (ouch!) with little to show for it. I apologize. First, my video card pooped and it's replacements were not DirectX 9 compatible, meaning... No XNA for May and June. Then, I hunkered down and bought a nice little house out in the corn fields... woo!! So, no XNA in July either. Suddenly, August has rolled ohh so slowly around, my computer is cooperating, and I've settled in to my home, and now... I trudge on. My blather may not be so exceptional as a result of all that, but still, at least I will have stuff to communicate. :)

The Milestone!! Oooooooh! To me, the milestone of my gaming designing endeavors is the point I get to every time I try to develop something, where I surpass my previous efforts. Over the years that milestone has stepped up ever so slightly... maybe at this rate I'll have a full game by 2150... you know when ehh... I'm almost 200... yeah... No! I need to break the trend I've set myself to of peetering out and starting anew. It's good that I do actually exceed myself each time, but it's not good that I don't really leave myself in the dust, you know?

Not anymore! My milestone has arrived. I've been somewhat busy with Confined since I moved and got my computer working, and it's gotten me to that milestone. My last game creation attempt ended at the point where I got the player drawn, the cursor moving, the input flowing, and the camera working how I liked it (I'm a real sucker for smooth scrolling/zooming)... then it was on to physics and... that was it. It did me in... I lost interest. Blasphemous, I know. Gah! It's kind of frustrating looking back at it... but it was a learning experience. Here I am once again at that very same crossroads... I've got a better platform to work with, I've got renewed vigor and passion for accomplishment, I've got the tools and more know-how, I've managed to corrupt friends into joining the Game Design Cause (sorry Matt) which has in turn regaled me, and I'm going to grab that milestone and run with it! WHO'S WITH ME??!!!

...Ehh sorry, I can be excitable when it comes to this stuff. :) So yeah, I'm set and focused... or something like that. I'm to the point where I was last time. I'm going to best that and I'm not going to stop any time soon. I'm going to forget about the excrutiating physics that seems to best me every time I try this temporarily. My current task is overhauling my SceneNode class to use a Body of one or more BodyParts instead of just a single AnimatedSprite. This will allow me to layer sprites better, make people with separate head, torso, arms, legs, yet whole bodies, and do who knows what to them. Since I see your mind is straying the gutter now (you should be ashamed!) I'm going to stop. Seeya next time!

A Swift Kick in the Pants

2007-04-23T11:31:00.000-06:00

Woo! I finally get to chime in again. My apologies for the lack of attention. This marks the end of the second week now that I've been swamped with preparations for a nice work trip to Jacksonville this past weekend... I made it out intact, but have one mean sinus infection to show for it. It was a pretty nice trip except for the work obligations and the sinusitis, but I'm back now, rejuvenated, and plan to get back on track quickly.

On my trip I read an article in this month's EGM that my girlfriend got me, the subject of which was "The Future of Videogames". While most of it covered areas such as thought-sensing, photo-realistic graphics, and full-immersion technology, one of the things that was mentioned as being prime future territory was user-created content. Also mentioned was that a new genre, completely unpredictable at this point, would be the next big thing, of course, but what caught my eye was the foresight that one of the next big things would be a blending of old genres in ways that has never been seen. This fact, combined with the user-created angle (XNA was noted in the article) really piqued my interest, because this game that I'm intent on making is just that... a blending of old and current genres put together in new ways. In doing so, you can take the best aspects that each genre has - customization, connection, exploration, control, competition, accomplishment, etc. - and mold them into a single overwhelming whole.

Here's a brief run-down of what genres I've enjoyed and what aspects I think would compliment a larger design.
PLATFORMING - The genre that started it all... for me anyways. While the original Mario really perfected it and took it to new levels, it was probably Jumpman that did it for me. That was an intense experience back in the day. That game didn't really deal much in exploration, but in maneuverability. Exploration and maneuvering is what must be taken, honed, and incorporated, because the platforming integrates well with 2D, and 2D must be used for...
FIGHTING - The genre that I always enjoyed, but never really delved into until recently has a lot to offer: intensity and control. But developers have tried to expand on the formula mostly unsuccessfully. Soul Calibur 3 came out and I was itching to get at the character development aspects. They were cool, sure, but the focus on that did little for the rest of the game... in fact it seemed that the important factors, the gameplay, and all the characters we knew and loved, got less attention because of the increased focus on customization. It's a shame, but I can see how it can be a very difficult thing to do. Taking advantage of fighting control, the exploration and maneuverability of platforming, you can find your customization and connection with your character in...
RPG - The genre that once I encountered it, I never looked back. As I said before this really started with Pool of Radience on C64, but has expanded to pretty much every RPG on Super Nintendo, and countless others on PSX, PS2, PC, and everything else since. A community-based environment where you can create your own character from scratch, develop him or her, control them in many different ways (to find your style and perfect your style), maneuver them (in varying and expanding ways, to explore more and more), and break out of the mold of being cornered into a cookie-cutter RPG experience... that's where the real enjoyment can be... where the real enjoyment will be.

I apologize for the lack of coherence, I am still medicated... didn't make it into work today cause my head is still on fire. But hopefully I've provided enough of a glance to pique the curiosity once again. I suppose writing from home could be a good thing afterall though, cause now I can post some content from what I've worked on. Here's a picture of Happy Gandhi, as I called him, the little test sprite I'm using as a player model temporarily. Enjoy!

Happy, huh?

The Content

2007-04-07T10:06:00.000-06:00

When it comes to any game, the content really says a lot about it. It's the content that determines a lot of the style of the game - not how cool it is, but how it feels, its mood. There are no set rules to follow, and really the only limitation to content is the limit of imagination and the ability to convey it. How many games can you think of that are cool, that are weird, that are scary? I was playing Metal Slug Anthology last night and loving (almost) every minute (at 2:30 AM the 18,523rd wave of helicopters or mummies is like Chinese water torture). Those games combined crazy wicked relentless violence with very amusing and humorous comedy to retain an action-packed cartoony style. Each aspect was planned very carefully, very intentionally. In every game design, content planning has to be a big chunk of the puzzle, after all it's what you and your players will be immersed in every time you step into that world...

For this game there are a bevy of things I would like to see... little nuances that would set it apart from other content while giving it a little niche of mood and feel of its own. Here's a list of different aspects that should lend to that goal...

Somewhat ambiguous factional lines. It's too easy in some games (where enemies are denoted by giant red words over their head) to know who you need to be on the look out for or not. With racial factions, class factions, social factions, and possibly religious or financial factions, there would be no telling how far you can trust. Friends are made when you're backed into a corner with no way out, and enemies are made when people stop hiding in the gray areas. That's the kind of drama games need, not politics.
Aggressive aggro. In most games aggressive enemies will run at you with sword/guns a-blazing as soon as you approach within a certain range, or walk through a certain doorway, but what's the fun in that? There aren't enough games out there where the hunter (player) becomes the hunted. Sure, PvP games lend to that a lot, but I want giant daunting scary predators that can and will sneak up on you and prey upon you. I want areas of notoriety where few survive long enough to know what's beyond the first horizon because the super diabolical monster is out on a player-hunt today.
Rare phenomena. I'm big on random. I'm bigger on extremely random. I want experiences of various rareness to permeate this game. Natural disasters are a good example. So what would you do if you were running through the same old ho-hum field you've been through a hundred or a thousand times but for some reason today a massive black tornado has sprouted up, and if you don't get away fast enough you will be sucked up and thrown to your death? Run? But what if, by chance, this rare coincidence happened to unearth some long hidden treasure from within a smashed tree? Only one person is going to be lucky enough to find out, and that's going to make that person's day.
Changing landscape... everywhere. For some reason the chapter Scouring of the Shire is probably my favorite in the LotR series... just because of the change, the unfamiliarity, and the over coming of the adversities.
Scope and how it's dealt with. Sure, games these days are making you feel dwarfed more often than not. But that's a good thing. However, I dislike feeling like I'm going to win because I've stabbed my giant foe 9 thousand times in his big toe or his heel.

I guess I'll leave it at that cause it's getting long again. I could go on, but well, no. :P I suppose at this point I have enough ground work to have conveyed the gist enough and I can start posting on progress. Like I said it may be slow at times, but WoW wasn't built in a day...

The Mechanics

2007-04-05T10:25:00.000-06:00

Ahh yes, the Mechanics. No, I'm not talking about the Megadeth song sounding eerily familiar for some reason... *ponder*... but rather the mechanics of this fancy game and/or demo I've been ranting about the last couple of days.

You can make the most visually unappealing game ever, but if the game mechanics are quality enough you can never stop playing it. Why does this game where you move a 6-pixel frog through traffic still sell over Xbox Live Arcade in 2007? It's fun. The mechanics are very suiting for the game and it breeds enjoyment.

One of my favorite games of my childhood, the one responsible for countless lapses into imaginary adventure land, was Pool of Radiance for Commodore 64. Aww yeah! With 5 minute load times every 5 minutes that game was a trial in patience - possibly the sole reason I'm such a patient person today (Thank you SSI!). But I have played through many times through out the years and if I were to hook up the C64 that I still have this afternoon it would be the first disk that I would grab. Holy moly, in a game as out-to-get-ya as that, it was a battle of mechanics manipulation around every corner and you can't help but love every minute. Every game should have incredible mechanics, but sadly so few actually shine in that department. This will not be the case here...

One thing I anticipate is a very robust combat engine. I developed a combat system from scratch on a MUSH that I developed with friends several years back and it was incredible. 20+ bare-handed fighting techniques each unique, 20+ sword techniques each unique, and 10+ polearm fighting techniques each unique. The system allowed for a million unique configurations and kept it simple enough that anyone could use it, but with enough strategy that no two fights were the same. Good stuff, especially for a game that only saw 10 - 20 players. Hehe. My goal is to hone the combat system of this game to such levels or beyond while maintaining flexibility that it doesn't dominate the game as a whole.

Ehh... I was planning on pasting the game summary I'd written up a year ago into here to explain it all. It is a good explanation, but it's... verbose. Nasty habit of mine... So I will just leave a brief list of functionality I expect instead.

2D side-scrolling platform MMORPG (demo will probably just be a dungeon crawler brawler)
Combat featuring "Street Fighter" style move sets, grappling, and timing-based attacks
8 - 10 races and 12 unique classes
A great deal of PvP player-driven conflict
Dynamic areas of control
Group system where leverage has a great effect on the outcome of battle
Ideally, an intelligent tutorial system that can ease anyone in... yes, even your grandma
17 types of weapons so far
Real-time archery/throwing system... none of that point, click, and snore junk!
Lighting will play a big role in exploration and there will be many scary dark places

The Ideal

2007-04-04T11:28:00.000-06:00

Hooray for snow in April! You know that 72 degree day we had.. yesterday.. really made snow look like a thing of the past. Little did we know. Anyways, today I will talk about the ideal for the game. Why I want to make the game I want to make. What the goals are. In short, I just want a game that's fun as all hell to play, and a playground that will allow you to get in crazy intense situations and out again if you're lucky.

The game I intend to make doesn't have a name yet. Actually, it doesn't even have a game yet. I'm going to begin by creating a "demo" for lack of a better word. A playground to test limitations and see how far I can flex the creative and technical muscle. I'm calling it Confined so far (intending for it to be small and limited), but I think I may change it to Mastery and this is why: I'm a big proponent of games featuring two things - intensity and skill. Admittedly many games where time spent > skill are among my all-time favorites (FF3, Ogre Battle, and Chrono Trigger among dozens of others), but the games where skill > time really get the heart racing. Skill depends on quick-thinking and reflex, and those two aspects spawn intensity. Intense games are the greatest game in many peoples opinions, as they're capable of spawning the greatest moments... those "holy crap" and "wow" moments. Those tend to stick with you in more than just a deep nostalgic sense. For example, a few games I hold in high esteem due to the intense factor are Halo, Soul Calibur (1 or 2. 3 is drivel), and Midnight Club II... I don't really know why that last one, but something about repeatedly avoiding crashing into 8,000 vehicles within a hair's-width really got me going.

Since I could go on and on and on about the content and systems of the game, I will avoid that for now. That's something to tackle tomorrow. I have several dozen pages of stuff typed out. The initial demo of the game will only contain a fraction of all that, but will touch upon most of the meat of the full features enough so that I can play it thoroughly and determine if they all gel well in one cohesive package. Maybe one day, with a full completed demo, I can present it to some financiers for the backing to create the full beast... until then I have to think small. Unfortunately, small for me is still pretty ambitiously massive.

Formalities... yay!

2007-04-03T15:44:00.000-06:00

Heyas! My name is Lee and this here is my blog. I have done the unspeakable... and you're looking at it. I swore I would never do such a thing, but here I am - I blame a lack of sleep. Bleh.

I went to school for programming and got a fancy degree that has gotten me no where incredibly fancy. I chose it on a whim when confronted with the ultimate choice of WHAT TO DO WITH JOOR LIFE! Man, what a crock... While I enjoy it (I have the ability to be content no matter the situation) I often think I would be better served as a helicopter pilot, a cartoonist, or a culinary genius.

Anyways... this here blog is going to serve a purpose. It will fuel my motivation to code and design. In short, I have made a couple sweet, but fruitless attempts now at game design driven by a life-long passion for the art. Each time has fizzled out in a blaze of not-so-glorious glory. Part of the problem may be the fact that my game idea(s) are... well... they've been described as ambitious. ...And that they are. I'm a pretty modest person, but I am confident that if I can get it together I could and would make one of the most enjoyable games to play around. But that's a sentiment shared by about 8 million people, I know. Anyways, my ideas are better... :D I'm working using XNA and C# Express Edition. I dig it alot. Moreso than my past game dev environments. I'll go into that later...

I will be posting fairly frequently to keep the ball rolling. The posts will likely contain stuff related to the game as I make it. It will likely start out dull because despite working on it pretty regularly the past couple of weeks I have little to show for it. I keep finding myself working on the behind-the-scenes aspects - the stuff that will ultimately make the work 10x easier but for now is tedious and without reward - so I will only have theory and updates to show at first, but at least it's something. At least it may provide some insight into the birth of something nice. With this backing me I will keep at the tasks at hand and progress, though I'll tell ya right now it might be kind of slow going... Having a full time job, full time girl friend, house-shopping, and battling a mean WoW addiction (Liege on Emerald Dream, look me up!)

Until next time...
Cheers!