Video log #3

No fancy post names. It is what it is: a new video log!

Well it does look like I missed the Wednesday upload date but now it’s here. I’m kind of lazy these days and don’t work that much. Who knows why. I’m probably in some creative block state or in super lazy mode. I’ll try to change that as soon as possible.

I just show the projects I have been working on these days. The game is almost finished. I implemented the instructions screen while the video was uploading which leaves just the levels. I’ll try to make the game at least 20-30 levels long so that it has some play time (more than 10 minutes). The OpenGL demo might seam silly for some, but I never really got into true 3D with perspectives, triangles only, no orthos and some silly lighting. Also as I said don’t expect 3D games.

Now that the game is almost finished and I’ll start writing the documentation. I hope that won’t kill me because I hate writing it. I’ll also start recording new videos for the course so that I can get it public in a month or so.

And that is all for this post.

Holidays over

And I am back. If you haven’t noticed I was kind of away last week. We had holidays and I totally took that time to take a break. Even if I planned other things.

A quick week

The week passed really quickly. I planned to finish the project during the holidays and maybe start on something else but it turned out I took a full vacation from everything. I also wasn’t home a few days so that makes even less time to work. So let’s just say that nothing was done that week even though I have learned some new OpenGL things but that doesn’t really count.

It’s Wednesday again and it seams that a new log will come out today. They more or less look like a weekly thing (being released every Wednesday) and if I am fine if I will keep it that way.

So that’s all the update for this post. Expect a new video soon.

Another week another video

And it has been a somewhat busy one.

The project: SM

The game is nearing completion. The level editor and the actual game is complete. The only thing missing is the menu, which should not be a big problem, an end game and saving the players progress. I also have to add some sound effects and some background music. And then it’s done. So that is all together about 1 or 2 days of work, few hours each.

As I said in the video I had to revamp some things I used from my framework. As I told before I’m not using my whole framework for this project only some small functions. The cause is because I would need to document then everything and that is something I don’t want to do. I fixed the font rendering system because it was working really slow. That’s because I was using texture fonts. Now that I switched to pixmap fonts it works much much faster.

I will add the changes to the framework when this game is done. I will probably add the animation system I’m currently using. But I don’t want to work on the framework currently so that will only be a small fix.

I have holidays next week and I hope that I will find the time to create videos for the course I’m working too. Now that this project is nearing completion I want to focus on the next one.

So here is a song for next week:

Have a nice day.

Video log #1

Not a really interesting post title but I'll let it be because it’s the first video log I created.

I had a sports “accident” on Saturday so I wasn’t really able to go anywhere which would have been a perfect opportunity for game development but I just suckered in and played Resident Evil 4 on my Wii again. Oh well.

But the “School Madness” project is going nicely. I added platforming and all with double jump. There is still lots of work but I’m getting there.

While recording the video I noticed that the player didn’t jump as high as normal. The game did run at 10-20 fps but I’m using delta time for everything so that should not happen. It works fine at higher fps but there are some weird anomalies at low fps. Don’t know what it could be I will have a look at it but I don’t really worry about it.

At the start of the video I do some explaining for those who are not following my blog but the rest is just showing the game.

I would appreciate some comments about the video

Week update – School Madness

Well not real madness, but the name of the project is “School Madness".

The project

I haven’t really talked about the school project I’m working on. To complete my school we have to take certain tests at the end of the year. But we also have to create a “product” that has to do with our education. Since I’m learning for a computer technician (translated) and we are doing different programming things in school I decided to create a game. It’s something I’m best at and it suits me. I probably have one of the most ambitious projects in our class. The standard also isn’t very high and so creating a simple game out of pure C++ using many different libraries (SDL, OpenGL, Freetype, FTGL, irrKlang) is way (waaaaaaaay) above it. So I’m not concerned by the fact that the game is really simple platformer. But I’m still trying to do my best.

The projects is really organized with much emphasis on OOP (Object Oriented Programming) and using the languages more complex features everywhere. I’m also writing short comments everywhere on my mentors request and so that if I will need to discuss the code I will immediately know what is where.

 

(A screen of the current project running)

Edit the level editor

Currently most of the work is going into the level editor. I’m making it user friendly and easy to use. I’m planning on making it the bigger thing in the game promoting creating your own levels. And I think it will be more fun than the simple platforming game. It’s clearly the best level editor I made so far with easy to create levels, test them, and saving/loading works from in-game.

Here you can see the editor menu opened up. By clicking Save/Load Level a “menu” pops up where you input the name of the level. It works really well and it’s the first time I done text input in a game.The red boxes around the objects are collision boxes. It adds a fancy/technical look to the editor.

I still have to add a camera to the editor and some more objects like the player spawn and exit. I will make the rooms a fixed size so that level creators can’t go crazy with it. After that is done I will focus on the actual platforming part of the game. I still think I have to add some kind of power to the player so that is adds some challenge to the game. I think that a double jump will do which the player will then use to do some of the more tricky moves. That way the game won’t be too boring because I’m not planning on adding enemies or moving (deadly) objects.

And that is all about the project for this post.

I have been sick in the last few days and wasn’t really able to do much. I have been learning some 3D modeling with Blender and it’s really interesting. Maybe in the future you will see some low poly models on this blog. But don’t expect any 3D games  

I also thought about starting to make video logs. Nothing complicated just a 1-5 minute video where I show you what I’m currently working on. For example on this post: I would show the code a little and how it’s structured, then I would run the game and show some of the features of the level editor and maybe run the player animation. Really simple. I think it would make a really nice addition and it wouldn’t take me much time to make them since I would make them totally spontaneously with no real goal. Fellow YouTube subscribers might appreciate new videos. Please give me some opinions about this idea in the comments. 

If you don’t know what I’m talking about here is a video log from Chevy Ray Johnston (An awesome indie game programmer/designer). If you can’t see the video click on the empty space and it should pop out.

Hollow's Deep - Ledge Grab & Tile Stitching from Chevy Ray Johnston on Vimeo.

Thanks for reading.

My workspace

Everyone has a workspace, and it’s time that I show mine.

A room to work in

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll just stick with that.

Not really high quality (I took the picture with my phone) but it should do. As you can see I use a “dual” monitor screen setup. I’m using my laptop (HP ProBook 4530s) all the time and have an external 21’ LG monitor hooked up to it. I use the big monitor for developing/programming and the small one for things like browsing, music and messaging. The laptop is not really a beast but it’s really good for any kind of development and it still runs most of the games. It’s really practical that I’m all the time one the laptop so that I can simply unplug it and go to school with it and continue there. My other computer (the gaming beast) is currently using my younger brother. I sometimes miss the power but as I said my laptop is good enough for me. I use a classic English layout HP keyboard and the Logitech G700 mouse. I usually listen music on my over 6 years old speakers.

My software setup is Windows 7 64x OS. I’m not using Linux, because it has really bad support for the ATI graphics card and Windows gives more battery power. I miss many Linux tools (I use a Virtual Machine when I really need them) but I really got confortable with Windows. Mainly because of his wide support for different developing environments and better software support. I can use Visual Studio for my IDE again and FlashDevelop for AS3 development. Windows also has Graphics Gale, the best pixel art graphics program. Other software I mostly use: Qt Creator (For C++ GUI development), Eclipse (Java Android development), Aptana Studio 3 (HTML, JS, CSS, PHP development), Inkscape (Vector art), GIMP (Raster graphics / free Photoshop clone), Windows Live Writer (Blog posting), Winamp (Music listening), Pidgin, Skype, Steam (You can find me as "#include<luka>" add me for a round of TF2), etc. There are more but I think this is enough.

As you can see I have a big whiteboard in the middle of the room. It has some “secret” things written on it but you won’t be able to read of it because of the high quality image. I just got the board yesterday so I still don’t have colored pens and it’s not as full and colorful as it will be.

In the bottom you can see my high tech TV with my Wii hooked up to it. My brother can’t understand how I can enjoy playing games on that TV size but I love it that way.

And that is mainly it. Nothing special really just my room where I made all the things you can find on my blog. Other interesting things on the picture: a Pokemon cup, fancy lamp, full trash bin and a copy of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

And that fellow readers was my room.

‘Me and my shadow’ v0.2

Whoa! A new post the same week as the last one. Well yea, I said that I will post more regularly. This post is about an old game of mine.

A better game

If you have been following my blog, you may have noticed that last February I posted about giving the source code of ‘Me and my shadow’ to a small team of developers. As it turns out the team is really passionate about the project and has brought the game to a completely new state. They revamped almost everything and added many great things. The game also has many new levels and a much better level editor. A completely new game but with the heart of the old one. I’m really happy and a little flattered that they took my game and made so much more out of it.

So what are you waiting for. If you liked the original or if you like platforming/puzzle games then you should really try it out. You can get the game from Sourceforge or from their site. There are also very open to anyone who would like to contribute to the project. Just check out the forums and ask where they need help. You can make new graphics, levels, sounds, music and if you are a programmer you can help them make the game even better.

I wish the guys good luck with the project and I hope that next year, I will be able to make a new post about an even better ‘Me and my shadow’