Author: Simon Jensen

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Dangit.. noted for prosperity.

So a quick twiddle with the new goblin sprite for January

basicGoblin

Gave me a neat mockup of what the January game will look like 🙂

And I was happy.

janScreenshot

Then I added a shadow behind the goblin.

And that looked funny.

So I moved it up 1/8 of a tile and drew a flat plane below it to give a little bit of an isometric feel.

mock1

Well… THAT looked pretty neat.  But now the difference between the floor and the wall looks odd.  How about a little gradient to imply depth and ambient occlusion.

mock2

NOW we’re talking!   But now I’ve got to run those shadows all around.  And Indicate Terrain types.. and calculate all the possible corner scenarios.   (Which I know EXACTLY how complicated it was for ONE terrain type,  Here I’ll be having inside & outside (and possibly other) types as well.

febMockup

But man..  It really gives everything the look and feel of what I want.   Kind of an ‘anthill’ meets Dungeon Keeper feel.  

So here’s the part where I make myself sad.

 It’s not gonna be January.  Absolutely no way.

.. Maybe February (depending on the release of Spine) or March.  April at the latest, because I intend to be adding digging at that point and the map rendering needs to be pretty gelled by then.

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Day 5 – Progress Update – MAP!

Drakkheim-Iconlogo

Well It’s been a good week for progress 🙂  I’ve got the html based web based level editor, saving to the database and shooting JSON encoded levels to the game proper.

The game loads screens and their assets based off of manifest files that are easy to update and maintain.  The ‘loading’ level shows a progress bar and fetches the needed assets for the next screen and makes screen transitions clean, simple and easy.

I’ve knocked out a basic Logo and Title Text  (seen above) and the core tileset is mostly there for the features I need in January’s Game.  As indicated above, the January game’s subtitle is ‘Invasion’ .  Focusing entirely on building and defending your dragon’s egg from the invading heroes.   I hope to have 4 levels to choose from by the end of the month. (and hopefully make it so you can play your own level from the editor)

Day5-SummaryThe game runs at a nice 5,450 FPS when not vsync’d on my desktop and a nice smooth 60fps  even on my POS T-Mobile myTouch phone.  (not sure how to unlock vsynch on android :-/  so i don’t know how much leeway I have)

Right click drags the map about on PC and a two finger drag on Android.   Overall I should be able to manage fairly massive levels without much overhead as it’s never looping the entire array just the elements to be displayed.  But the biggest bottleneck is probably going to be pathfinding…. shit I hate A*..

Which brings me to the next week’s goal..  Monsters and pathfinding.  (no animation this month)   Buy a goblin and tell him to go to a spot.   Maybe basic combat/collisions.

 

http://www.onegameamonth.com


 

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Aaand we’re off.. Day1


 month1day1

And away we go.  Looks like 2,600 devs have signed up on www.onegameamonth.com now.  Which is pretty cool.

Jan editor

So I got the basic website up and running over at Drakkheim.com and a rudimentary level editor is up and running and saving and loading from the database. https://drakkheim.com/jan/  Here’s a screenshot.

Yeah.. ok so not real exciting.

Ok I was working ahead over the holidays 🙂

Made some progress on the basic tileset, however I’m keeping January’s game very simple and more of a focus on getting the basic framework set up.

On the graphics front, it looks like a couple guys are developing an animation tool called Spine.

It’s very cool.   And it will support LibGDX right out of the box.  Which is perfect since that’s what I’m using.   I backed Brashmonkey’s Spriter spriter animation tool and hoped to use it.. however they’re running behind schedule and there’s no real progress on a java implementation and frankly I don’t want to write one.

goblin_spine

So  Spine.. as soon as they launch their kickstarter and whatnot I intend to start using that for the character graphics.  In fact here’s a screenshot of a simple goblin figure I’m working with.

So hopefully that’ll be the big update in march 🙂

Other than that I’ve got the basic Game app working, a good start on getting an asset loader implemented and a loading screen that caches the assets and handles the scene transition.  And last but not least, I’ve got it pulling in a level by shortcode in as a JSON object.

Ok now I’ve earned an hour of FarCry3..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Preparations for the new year

Preparation

14 days to go before start of the http://www.onegameamonth.com/ challenge. (just shy of 1200 peeps now!)   And it’s time to get my head back in the game making state of mind.  So, as I usually do..  I’ve been making lists.   There was a nice discussion on reddit/gamedev about prep work and I’ve gone ahead and created a new user and made sure it’s got access to the tools I’ll need (and hopefully fewer of the distractions).   So here’s a few lists of tools I need etc.

Tools:

  • Photoshop
  • Illustrator
  • Audition
  • Eclipse
  • LibGDX nightlies
  • GIT
  • Magix Music Maker 2013
  • GWT and various browsers.

So having that all squared away it’s time to look at the big picture.  My overall goal, the 10,000′ view, the grand plan, the whole burrito etc etc..

In short I want to walk away with components that I can use in ‘Drakkheim‘ the big dream game that’s been percolating for a couple years and have mastered LibGDX.  So Ideally I can break each of the 12 games down into just using a teeny tiny subset of all the features that I anticipate needing in the long run.

Which, of course, necessitated another list…

Features to Use:

  • Scalable & Draggable Massive Tile Map
  • Spriter / Spine Characters
  • Tile sidescroller pathfinding
  • AI
  • Economic Model
    • food. availability vs taste vs risk + individual’s taste
  • Effects
  • Parallaxing Backgrounds
  • Tile or blend based lighting
  • Line of sight
  • Dialogs
  • Multiplayer?
  • particles
  • multiple scale UI
  • dynamic / generated character profiles and lifespan.
  • music
  • mods / community content
  • extensible data formatting
  • save /load games
  • world generation
  • server/account auth
  • self updating / version check

Whoo.. the more I think.. the more things I come up with.   But that’s a good start.

So now I’m getting a concise picture in my head of what tools I have to work with, which I find make it easier to narrow down something to make into a game.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

It’s either that or analysis paralysis setting in.

Maybe I’ll sleep on it.. or just sit here and wonder just what I’ve gotten myself into.

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Pre New Year Ramping Up

gearingUpFor1gam

 

Next year.  Damnit.. Next year I’m going to MAKE something happen.

Luckily I’ll have (as of now) ~700 other people in the same boat.  http://www.onegameamonth.com/ is a really neat idea and promises to be an interesting time.  The basic premise is.. It’s easy to start a game.. But it’s really rare for indies to actually FINISH something.     So hopefully this will be a great learning experience on several fronts.  a) Finishing something into a playable state  b) Rapidly developing and reusing code blocks  c) Judging Scope… yeah… that one’s gonna need some work.

So I’ve got 2 weeks or so to build a clean development profile and get all my tools laid out and possibly start making plans.

 

Overall.. excitement level is crancked up to 11 right about now.

More details Soon!

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Reboots & Shuffles

Been an exciting time here for the last couple months.
The biggest news is the dayjob has changed so now things are looking like the available time for development work is paying off in spades.

I plan on wrapping up 2 projects within the next month.
1- proofSite – a super simple photography solution for photogrphers to present their proofs to clients without a massive complicated web backend and infrastructure. Details on that should be coming shortly, it’s being rolled out real soon to the first couple photographers to beta test.

2- ultraShow – still keeping a few things under wraps about this, but it will be, easy, powerful, and non flash based so it’ll work everywhere. Still not sure on the pricing model for it.

Oh yeah… and More mobile web and android news coming soon.

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Texas in August… yup still hotter n hell.

There’s something to be said for being slowly roasted alive every time you step outside… usually something along the lines of ‘you idiot get back inside, are you crazy???!?’

It also has the tendency to bake the willpower to do extra projects out of you.

So, in short, it’s been real slow going.  Consulting work is in full swing, however.  Lots of new and fun small projects.    Which got me thinking..

And then I had to grab a cold drink…

then I thought some more.

Small projects.  Bite size things.  Sexy, whiz bang, fun things.

So I’m making a list.  Checking it twice. Scratching out things that can’t be done in a week’s worth of the two hours of time I have after the tiny terrible terrific tot of terror passes out in his bed.

First up.  Project Ultrashow.   But as usual, paying work comes first.. so next Thursday looks to be the first day of available freetime.

 

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Summer Heat

It’s over 100F outside again.

There’s just something about the summer here in Texas that just completely sucks the drive out of you. Even if you spend the day indoors in an office, just walking to the car and driving home, by the time 8pm rolls around any desire or motivation you’ve got left is a shriveled little mass of ambition that’s trying desperately to get into the shade and take a nap.

However, you’ve just gotta work through it, right?  Right??

So in the fine tradition of starting more projects…

There’s 2 new things in the works.

1 – Some really cool web/app/mobile/ fun in a techy sort of way.

That currently looks something like this:

2 – Something to get me away from the computer more and let myself switch gears completely.

That currently looks something like this:

Finally:

You’ll notice a new look for the site.. a slight decrease in the emphasis on games, and a bit more on development and consulting work.

Oh and a quick update on the Barnyard Bonanza Development,  It’s been real slow due to the really cool bit of consulting work that’s eaten every spare waking hour for the last 40 days.  However it looks like the launch has been pushed back from Jul 28 to some time in Feb.. So  I’m taking a deep breath and re-introducing myself to the codebase.. It appears that there’s been a significant couple of updates to LibGDX in the meanwhile so I may decide to tackle that, but seeing as I’m using large chunks of the Scene2D api that’s been completely rewritten.. I may just cross my fingers and skip em for the initial release of BB.

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Happy July!

Whew, it’s Texas summer again.

Had a great 4th, blew stuff up and relaxed with family.

Personal Game Development is looking to have some time to ramp up on Barnyard Bonanza again towards the end of July, just after I finish wrapping up the current slate of consulting work that’s eaten the last 2 months. (a very enjoyable and challenging project, but I’m itching to get back to some of my projects)

Of course I’d be happy if I got more projects as well.  Consulting comes first after all 🙂

Other things in the pipeline:

  • Mobile App development,  HTML5 etc.. interesting stuff, can’t wait to do  more of it.
  • Several pet project websites need refreshes / more content (http://eatingsparrows.com/ http://slick2d.com/)
  • Irismel & BSDDoD! need some more love
  • and SuperSecret project needs a lot of datamodeling and wireframing so we can get started.

 

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Hear that? That was Mayjune.. whoosh.

Wooosh... another month gone.

Where does the time go?

Current development progress… in a nutshell… nonexistant.

On the other hand, paying client work… is through the roof, and it’s actually been a good bit of fun.  Lots of high pressure API wrangling, tight deadlines and awesome cool front end WhizBang UI work and some pretty serious SalesForce.com and Convio Luminate integration into a custom data structure.

Good times, and it’ll pay off the new beast of a work PC 🙂

So, Other than that here’s where things stand.

  • Irismel – Still running on TGB.  basic core is getting there.  A little in limbo as I try and tweak the basic mechanic and find out what’s missing
  • Barnyard Bonanza – LibGDX android app.. is really close.  I just need to implement the bonus games and some animation stuff.  However my G2 Fried itself early may… then 4 days after getting a replacement it did the same thing (screen signal breaks.. probably due to that crazy hinge design) Now I’m using a myTouch   that seems to work but I havent gotten it to behave with Eclipse and the dev tools…
  • However as mentioned above, paying work comes first, and it’s been a really good month for it.  I wish I had more time to do more of it.  (maybe.. some possibilities exist)
  • So in the time I do have, I’ve been working through an anatomy course fromhttp://www.alienthink.com/  And it’s reaaaaally good.  and Reeeaaaaally long.. so far I’m at lesson 39..  I’m keeping a gallery of progress here: https://plus.google.com/.…
  • Slick2d.com – basic site is up but progress is limited to lunch break sized tweaks.
  • Oh and as you can tell… swiftthought.com is Sloooowly getting a much needed update.  However the move away from comicpress means that every old article needs to be manually updated… *yuk*

That’s it for now.

Fun things are coming in July/August I think.

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Goodbye April!

What a month!

Failing motherboards, hard drives, bad ram.  And an attempt at repairing the ol PC wound up eating most of the month.  Then when it turns out that the fixed PC isn’t stable I went ahead and just said screw it and bought a Dell.   It’s a monster of a system and hopefully My PC woes and troubles are finished for the next 3 years.

Then my phone / development test device died.

Yeah .. great.  Luckily T-Mobile’s warrenty replacement covered it.. and they shipped me a refurb replacement in short order.

It lasted until this Saturday when it died in the middle of sending a text.

In the middle of all that I did manage to get a single week’s worth of productive coding.  The odds got tweaked, the individual reels now run independently so they spin in a more convincing manner and two of the four power-ups are in there and working.

The powerup price increases every time you buy them so that balances them out a bit from overpowering everything.

The new template for the site is now active and It seems ok  I did loose the all the splash images for each of the posts though.. not happy about that.   Maybe I can find a way to get them inserted in their proper posts.

 

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Happy Easter – Week end update

Busy busy week.. all freelance debugging and we development..

So not much progress on the game.

  • Money rounding..  yeah.. lots of refactoring code.
  • Moving some more UI elements into groups so they render in the proper order and can be switched on and off.

Anyway here’s another beta.. # 7 now.

https://drakkheim.com/temp/BarnyardBonanza007beta.apk

Download Barnyard Bonanza beta #7
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Barnyard Bonanza – Week End Update

 

Woo good Week!

New Beta 6!

  • Better Odds manager (you can see it by clicking the puzzle piece on the Main Menu)
  • Reworked tons of the Odds and Money manager backside so money should be handled better.
  • Implemented adMob ads 🙂
  • Got a good start on painting the home screen .. then did it again as photoshop crashed. (FML)
  • Made the loading screen handle screen changes and stuff magically.
  • Reels are generated a bit more realistically and auto re-factor every 100 pulls
  • Started getting sound fx implemented .. not working on desktop .. sometimes on android.. :-/

Here’s Some screenshots, a link, and a QR to the apk

Download the latest beta (006) here https://drakkheim.com/temp/BarnyardBonanza006beta.apk

Next up:

  • Turning sound on/off :-/
  • Get the Powerup Buying working
  • Maybe a mini game!
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Midweek update!

Man are we on a roll this week!

Another beta,  new features behind the scenes..

  • Asset manager implemented
  • Loading screens.
  •  The beginning of the Powerup Shop
  • Better animation
  • Various internal re-shuffling
  • New UI Buttons

Here’s a screenshot and a link and a QR code for the beta

Barnyard Bonanza beta 5 Screenshot

If you have an Android device you can play with the Beta here:

https://drakkheim.com/temp/BarnyardBonanza005beta.apk