Andrew Nare's Blog

I have moved!

Sakar — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 01:30:11 +0000

I’ve decided to move my blog to lesakar.tumblr.com

Please update bookmarks and whatnot to the new URL

Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused

Felt Like I Should Update

Sakar — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:26:51 +0000

Not much has been happening lately. School is taking up a great deal of my time, and missing today won’t help things either. Luckily I have been able to do a bit more work with Endo and another idea of mine (no details yet)

For Endo I’ve decided to move it to Game Maker. Why? Well Game Maker makes it MUCH easier to actually make progress than doing this from scratch, and since I’m more worried about actually completing a game for once, Game Maker will work just fine.

As for the other idea, well I just say that it is heavily inspired by the games Love, Minecraft, and Proteus.

Introducing Endo

Sakar — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:29:54 +0000

So I have been messing with a character idea quite a bit lately, and have decided to make a game based off of him. His name is Endo, and here are some sketches I did this week: http://regdarsky.deviantart.com/art/Endo-182638643

The game will be an open-ended platformer. Instead of following sequential levels, you are free to go wherever at any time, though some areas may require a certain item or ability to access them. I will be making this game with C++ and SDL, and it will be my main focus for however long it takes to complete it. More details will be released once I have more planned out.

Because of this new project Gearworks will be put on hold. It is too time consuming and difficult for me right now, but I hope to continue development before the next school year.

Not Much Progress, Sadly

Sakar — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 01:29:49 +0000

As of late I have only had access to my computer on the weekend, forcing me to split my free time amongst family, game development, game playing, and homework.

Because of this, very little progress has been made with Gearworks. For some reason I cannot draw a texture associated with an Entity, but I can draw a texture by itself. Why this is I have no idea. Until I get this sorted out development will be unable to continue, as drawing images to the screen is fundamental. I’m going to move soon, and will have my computer in my room. Hopefully that means I can dedicate a bit more time to this.

In other news I’ve begun work on a larger game project, though it’s still very much in the early planning phase. I’ve also been experimenting with another idea, but Unity is giving me a lot of trouble. For some reason in the standalone player the Camera bobbing speed is extremely fast, but in the editor it works just fine.

I’ve also been considering doing some tutorials, but I don’t know what to do them on. Maybe I’ll do a Let’s Play instead, if I can find a game I haven’t started.

Ludum Dare 18

Sakar — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:10:51 +0000

Tomorrow is Ludum Dare 18, a compo in which indies get together to make a game from scratch in 48 hours based off a theme.

I’m planning on entering the compo, though I’m not sure whether or not I’ll finish. This will be my first of hopefully many.

I’m planning on using the following in the compo:

Language: Java
Libraries: Slick2D
IDE: Eclipse
Sounds Effects: sfxr
Music: musagi (If I have time for music)
Graphics: Paint.NET

This should be fun!

Mass Effect 2, Plants vs Zombies, and an Idea

Sakar — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 01:12:16 +0000

Yes, I know this game came out a while ago (January of this year), but I just recently got it. I played most of the first one, and enjoyed that one quite a bit. From what I’ve played of the second game I must say it is a truly amazing game. The story is very good, the characters are detailed with each having their own personality, and the combat is substantially better than the first game. Unfortunately I won’t be able to play any more of it until I get home this weekend (I’m currently at my grandparents’ house, and my laptop is horrible. Luckily my grandpa has a good gaming rig)

I also just got Plants vs Zombies, and this game is TONS of fun. The visuals are cute and funny while the gameplay is very well paced. I don’t play strategy games often, but this game is too good to pass up.

Yesterday I remembered a strange dream I had (that’s actually quite vague, considering that nearly all my dreams make no sense). In it I was running away from a giant, pink, cartoony cat head.

I then thought about how I might be able to make it a game, and then I remembered Dino Run. I’ve decided that the game (Cat Head of Doom!) will be an 8-bit platformer in which you must attempt to outrun the giant rolling cat head while also dodging various obstacles and collecting items to collect more points.

Since I want to focus more on making it a decent game and less on compilation errors, I’ll be using Construct to make it. For sounds I will use SFXR and Paint.Net for graphics. I will either find the music, make it myself, or find someone of TIGSource who is willing to do it for free.

I will keep you updated on the project, assuming I get anything done this week (Plants vs Zombies works on my laptop, so I’m sure a fair amount of time will be consumed by that)

So There’s This Thing Called Java…

Sakar — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:07:57 +0000

And I’ve been learning it.

I rather like Java. It’s fast, simple, and an absolute joy to work with. I’m using LWJGL for graphics, audio, and input handling. Hopefully I’ll know enough Java to use it in Ludum Dare 18, otherwise I’ll have to use C++.

So far my only complaint about Java is that it seems to be impossible to make my game run outside of Eclipse without having to use the Command Prompt, which is and always has been a PITA.

If I ever get Java to run (preferably in an Applet) then I’ll post it here.

Gearworks Plans

Sakar — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 05:47:30 +0000

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with Gearworks, and I’ve come up with a few notes:

Have two Gearworks engines, Gearworks2D (GW2D) and Gearworks3D (GW3D)
Possibility of it becoming commercial software, might go Open Source though
GW2D will be written in C#, while GW3D will be written in C++
Both will be cross platform (Windows and MacOSX, Linux maybe)

I’ve been attempting to port what I had of GW2D in C++ to C#, but am having problems with getting images to be mapped to a polygon (I’m using actual OpenGL now, not built-in blitting functions). So far the editor works, and Lua is fully integrated along with a script editor (it has syntax highlighting, woo!).

Hopefully I’ll get the image problem sorted out next weekend

ImageManager

Sakar — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 02:50:06 +0000

First, I’d like to say that I have moved from SFML to SDL. Why? I like SDL’s lack of some built-in higher level classes (like Sprites) and it’s just as easy to use as SFML. Plus, there are a few nice libraries which depend on SDL, so I might as well use it.

So I finally got around to implementing an ImageManager for Gearworks. This is a relatively simple class; it keeps an array of Images (containing the name, file path, and image data) and contains a few commands for Creating, Modifying, and Retrieving images. It’s great because it allows all image handling to be done in one place, and prevents the same image from being loaded multiple times, saved video memory.

I also implemented a basic Sprite class. As of now it only holds basic data such as the X and Y coordinates, and a pointer to the image data. It also has functions for setting and retrieving the image coordinates, and Displaying the image.

Here’s my main function thus far:

I’m starting summer school next week, so I’ll only be able to work during weekends. Will try and get input handling and possibly and event system done before the end of the month.

Gearworks

Sakar — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:30:22 +0000

So in my previous post I mentioned that I am working on a game engine called Gearworks. My initial plan was to make a 3D engine, but as that proved to be a pretty large and complicated task, I’ve decided to make a simple 2D engine first.

This engine is being written in C++, and utilizes SFML for window management, input, graphics, and audio. For scripting I will be using Lua (which I just integrated yesterday). I also plan to integrate Box2D for physics and collision detection as well as CEGUI for a GUI system (which will also be used by the editor).

Currently the Lua implementation is fully functional, but as there isn’t much actually in the engine yet, the only command is this:

Init(int width, int height, string title);

The first two parameters specify the width and height of the window, and the third parameter is the title that appears on the top of the window.

I’m having a bit of trouble with displaying images on the screen, but hopefully I’ll have that sorted out before tomorrow.