1/26/98I know, I'm a day late on my weekly update.. So fire me already... Its been a very busy weekend..
First of all, TLOT update.. Near the beginning of the week I worked on the code base a little bit. I did some more cleaning up and such and did a lot of playing around. I put stuff back pretty much like it was to start off with (put the menu back on the right side)... I also fixed a few bugs that I had introduced into the code with all my shifting around. Other than that, I haven't done much at all..
Secondly, RPG news updates. Lets see, earlier this week a new Sceptre of Shalimar beta was released. SoS has been moving extremely slowly, but atleast its showing movement. Also, after huge span of neglect, the Indigo Games website has been not only updated but completely revamped. You'll notice that their games have as well. They've decided to go for that 3D chrono trigger style game... I've also heard word that Miura Warrior's latest demo is drawing a LOT of attention. The battle engine is in and functional and there is a somewhat lengthy dungeon to play through in the latest build.. Very good stuff here.
Ok, now excuses for my lazy behavior. First of all, last week was the first week of school. Getting settled in is always a pain. Calc 2 is going to kick my butt. School shock should wear off after a few weeks. I can't wait for Spring Break...
My second and more important excuse deals with this week's image. Mike Wilson left Ion Storm recently to form his own company called Gathering of Developers. As I usually do when a new game related company starts up, I sent in a copy of my resume. Much to my surprise, Mike wrote me back. He informed me that there was currently a place holder site up for Gathering of Developers. He wanted to see what I could do with the site and then go from there.
I currently don't have a job with Gathering, but it appears as though I am seriously being considered. My head is still spinning thus it would likely be a good idea to keep my mouth shut about what I know so far, but things could change in my life over the next few months. I spent a total of 12 hours this weekend pounding away on a new Gathering website. The image up this week is just a quick screen shot of the site cropped down and scaled down.
Things could change.... but then again.. things could just stay the same... What does all this mean for TLOT? Well, I will finish TLOT. In fact, if I were to get a job with Gathering it could likely give me more free time than with my current job. However, TLOT may move slowly for the next week to a month depending on what happens. I could find out today that they don't like my work and be back where I am... or I could find out that they love my work and I could become very busy. I really don't know. But regardless of what happens, the passion and desire for TLOT is to strong not to push through.. TLOT will continue.
Well, I'm off to sew up more loose ends.. I've got a lot of very old e-mail to catch up on... laters...
1/18/98Ok, let see what we've got going on this week. First of all, the screen shot. I wrote a bit of shadow casting code this week. It looks kick ass in certain areas, but I already dumped the code as it looked pathetic in 60% of the game. I had started off just by drawing small dark shardows below each character to anchor them down to the map. This didn't work out very well but it gave me an idea for some shadow casting code. Even before I implemented it I knew it wouldn't work in most of the game. When I actually saw it, particularly in the cave, I thought it really added to the game. This is definately something to play with in the next engine.
Also, you'll notice that the menu is on the left in this screen shot. I thought I'd give that a try and see how it looked. Actually, I put a lot of thought into it. For example, look at this web page, the static menu is on the left and the frequently updated frame is on the right. This just feels natural. I've seen web pages with this same design but with the menu on the right... to me, those felt akward. Some of my favorite games such as Warcraft2 put the view window on the right and the menu on the left. Unfortunately, when I altered my code so that the menu was on the left I didn't like it. At first I was thinking it was because I've played it sooo much with the menu on the right, but the more I played the more I was sure I didn't like it. Thus, the menu will probably remain on the right.
Well, thats two things that I spent time on that didn't work out. One of the many things you have to accept when making games is that not all of your ideas are going to work out. Speaking of lessons about making games, I've got some links everyone might like. My girlfriend was considering writing a paper on video game design so I found some good web resources on it. I thought perhaps many of my readers might be interested in the same links so I'll list em here.
I'm still working on porting code over to a final loop. I'm still also trying to go slowly as to do it as right as I can. Maybe in another week or so and I'll be back up to the same level I was before I started moving code around. I've been able to add some new stuff along the way. For example, when you enter a house instead all three party members entering at the same time (as it was before) they each enter one at a time. It looks a bit funny seeing someone exit a house with the door closed, but overall I really like the feature and it will stay. Thats one of the cool things about an RPG, not everything has to be perfect. (that sounded like a cop out)
Ok, now some news and links and stuff. First, Aphrodite is at it again... she's got a new song up for her midi contest. Check that out.
There's another web page that I've some how neglected in the past although I knew it was out there.. Perhaps because so much of its content relates to commercial games. Oscar's Computer Role Playing Games Page not only has lots of info but seems to be fairly well up to date most of the time. A feature many such pages seem to lack.
Ok, how many of you people have heard of Septerra Core? The web page looks as though it is another underground non-commercial developer but the game's screen shots will make you mess in your pants. If you don't want to dig for the screen shots then go here.
It was also nice to see that the Joyous Rebel 2 page was updated and somewhat overhauled. Now if they can just get away from GeoCities.
Gosh, I always feel like I'm leaving stuff out of my update that I really wanted to mention. There was so much going on this week that I couldn't really keep up with it all. Ohh.. after some serious thought I've decided that I want TLOT to be finished this summer. I've spent too much time with it already. Look at my updates. Its a simple game I've worked on since 1996! When the game is done its going to have some serious issues considering its my first full RPG. Its already way behind in technology. I start school again this week and that will slow me down, but I should be able to get about the same amount done this semester that I've gotten done in the past. Thus, I should be in a position to start wrapping things up sometime this summer. I really need to finish because I need to brush up on my C/C++ for fall semester of classes. I hate making deadlines but this is a very vague one. (Anyone remember me saying that I was going to finish last summer? Boy that was a joke.)
Anyway, thats this week's update... I'm outta here...
1/11/98Gosh, didn't I just make a weekly update? Anyway, the image this week is of the windows wallpaper I made last night. I also made a batch of custom icons and sound effects. I'm considering putting them online later. Anyway, I went ahead and made the wallpaper available. You can click the image to get the full 800x600 image as a .gif (then you can use your browser to set it as the wallpaper) or you can download the bmp version ziped up.
I jumped into the code this week. Actually, I'm taking it rather slow. As I mentioned before, I've needed to move all my temporary code over to a final main loop... well, I've started that. The build on my machine right now lacks most of the features that were in the last demo as I started the main loop over. When I'm done, hopefully all the code will be fairly clean and effecient. I don't think this will take more than another week or so.
I've also sent out a beta test package to see if the larger view window will be fast enough. I did some calculations and the new larger window actually runs faster than the small window previous to the last demo I sent out (demos 1 through 3). I won't go into detail about it. Anyway, I'm shooting for a playable game on a 486. TLOT should run on a 286 but I doubt it will be any fun.
My friend Nathan over at Natronix surprised me the other day. While I was busy feeling sorry for myself I got a CD in the mail. No notes and no title. Just a CD. I put it in my machine having no idea what was going to happen.. then all the sudden this kick ass music started pouring out of my speakers.. It was some of ELC's tunes recorded onto CD! It was a great pick me up and it made me feel a whole lot better... Thanx Nathan..
I also had another big pick me up near the end of this week when I visited the Red Dragon Review and found that I made headlines there a second time. Perhaps Pendragon read how down I was and gave me the coverage just to chear me up... If thats the case, it worked =)
A bit of RPG news, Miura Warrior demo 5.1 is out and its pretty damn cool. Also, another old project seems to have sprung back to life for a bit. World of Arcadia released a new demo. I haven't had a chance to see it but the old one looked pretty promising.
Gosh, there were so many things I wanted to mention in this update and I can't recall any of them. Oh.. couple of things I'm currently working on. First, I've started reworking the Zaskoda Soft web site. Its nothing right now, just some goofy graphics and bad HTML. I need to get something up there though. Also, as you may have noticed, I put up a button for the Shobek Lan Party. I stuck it at the top of the weekly update page cause it just didn't fit in anywhere else. Anyway, if you are into playing LAN games and you live near north Texas you might want to check that out. BTW- If you folks could put that button and link on your web sites I'd really apreciate it.
I finally got to see Titanic. Fantastic movie....
1/4/98Ever feel like tossing your arms up in the air and saying, "to hell with it all!" This is one of those days. This has been a very upsetting as well as depressing weekend. I'll try to get over it and get back to work on Talibah as soon as I can. Over all the past week has been very slow. While the weekend was shot because of my pathetic life and its depressing events, my excuse for not getting anything done during the week is slightly different. I was sick... pretty damn sick. (I'm not totally over it yet).. On new years eve I went to a rather enjoyable party but that night I started running a fever. I guess it was my own fault, I was sick but I drank anyway. Oh well, happy new year to everyone else... don't let me drag you down.
The screen shot up this week was the result of more playing with the battle scenes. I've got some ideas but I'm still not sure how I am going to execute them. Its still a long way off.. I tried to get some coding done this week. I got a few things fixed, but nothing major. I think I may go 100% with the full window and drop the smaller view screen all together. I still need to get a demo out to the beta testers and take a look at performace hits to know for sure, but there is a really good chance that the smaller view is gone forever. I also took some time to improve the "walking through trees" code that cuts the character in half to make him look as if he's really in the trees. The way I am doing it now will allow me to use the effect in other places such as shallow water. (Woah.. that was cool.. right after I typed "shallow water" some girl said it on the radio...)
Anyway, I think I'm going to go sulk for a few hours then try to get my head together. I've gotten to a point in the coding where I need to do something that I really don't wanna do.... so I've got to sit down and make myself do it. =( I've also got to update all my web pages to reflect a lot of changes (such as the fact that Bob has been published). I need to get a new version of my resume created. I've got to start from scratch because I've lost every damn file I had in a directory called "documents" the other day. I had every letter I've ever typed, every school paper I'd ever done and every random document I'd ever created stored under that directory and now they are all gone. I just love Windows95.
I also changed the midi on the web site (if you noticed) to something that fit my mood.
Anyone seen Titanic yet?....... I haven't.......
bye
