Isaac's Web Log

Necro me this

2011-03-19T14:24:00.000-04:00

Hiya,

I think I might re organized how my posts are done because most of my posts seem like bantering to me. If I do continue this blog I want to be useful.

For the most I've been busy. I recently realized how much of a rip off it is to go to a private school like Devry, even though I have a year left I'm going to try transfer to UCF. I also don't exactly plan to work for a video game company I rather make my own games and live off that, so a bachelor's degree is worth much less to me now. Speaking of which, there are so many ways to make money on your own, and all it takes is effort and investment. Are you a salesman/telemarketer? if so you can find out whose your supplier, contact them and make money by cutting out the middle man (your boss). I've also been told that passive income is the way to live since you make money with minimal time invested. Passive income can be earned by blogs, candy machines, and well mostly websites. All you have to do is supply a some sort of need or want, and then you're using your tools instead being a tool.

Tip: Arrays in Vectors

2010-06-22T19:08:00.001-04:00

First, let me point out that in C++ arrays are always passed by reference which means its when you put an array as a argument in a function

myFunction(myArray);

The memory address of myArray is passed to myFunction which is pretty basic C++.

Anyways, vectors always has data thats changing memory addresses. For example,
vecData.at(index).myInfo

myInfo can be 0xFFFF at once cycle, but it could be 0xFF35 the next cycle. This is because when using vectors it has to allocate memory to make more room for new stuff.

Why is this helpful? It will save a lot of debugging to remember: To always COPY data stored inside vectors inside of using references or use the vector every time the data is needed.

OK:
int* array;
array = vecData.at(index).myInfo;
array[0] = 5; //is unreliable after a cpu cycle or chance to vecData

Bad:

int* array;

array = vecData.at(index).myInfo;
vecData.push_back(moreData);
array[0] = 5;

Good:
int array[10];
for ()
{
array[i] = vecData.at(index).myInfo[i];
}

100 games in 10 minutes

2010-01-15T22:50:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed this video very much. This could be inspiring for some of you ;)

Linux hell

2010-01-13T15:21:00.001-05:00

UPDATED

I was able to fix all of my errors that gave me an error during the build. However, when I try to debug my program in linux it 'runs' but seems to infinitely loop at SDL_Init(). Another what the heck moment.. I try some of my other programs and the same thing happens! This means this has nothing to do with my code, so its either my IDE, something with libraries or something. Either google gives me nothing and I have no clue at the moment <.<

It works without debugging though...

Speaking of linux. Its one of the least user-friendly OSs. Even though that kind of seems obvious it seems to go out of the way to not be user-friendly. I don't know. Maybe its just my computer. However, it does have a lot of neat features..

update:
I switched to codeblocks and everything worked fine. However, I don't consider this to be the entire solution to the problem because I still have yet to find out why that happened.

Road Blocks

2010-01-10T04:56:00.001-05:00

UPDATED

Well, It's 10 pm and I just woke up... why not continue working on my game right? lol

Anyways, Thats exactly what I did. Almost finished converting my project from SDL to OpenGL, I believe. However, during the build I ran into quite a few undefined reference errors when converting my Guichan (I'm using the source rather than the library) menus to use OpenGl. Which is the weirdest thing ever. Apparently in:

gcn::SDLInput mSDLInput;

the "gcn::SDLInput" is the undefined reference. This means that there is no definition for the class object. Like what the heck? Does this have something to do with the way my includes are written and organized because why would there be a problem with code that worked perfectly fine before?

After that, I tried reverting my menus to what they were before changing them which resulted in the same (similar) errors.

hmm The only thing I can think of is to review the Guichan API... Geez other than that I don't really know what to do at the moment.

Well I did sorta figured something out while writing this. Maybe its because a folder was missing from the project solution (I recently switched IDEs). However, my computer froze again (3rd time while writing this!) and corrupted my make file... <.<

update:

I did figure it out :D. Apparently, I forgot to include the opengl backend source code in the project, so next time I'm going to remember undefined reference = missing source code.

SDL to OpenGL

2010-01-03T23:14:00.004-05:00

I realized that if I continued programming my game in 2D it may get stuck like that. What I mean is, it might be harder to convert later. This hit me when I was daydreaming about the final look of the game (in isometric). I could see a load of problems that weren't there before such as the need for a rotating camera, and alpha transparency, so I decided to deal with this now instead of later. I want to begin my game with a good foundation, start from the bottom then work from the top.

I'm switching from SDL to OpenGL for rendering my graphics. Why?

I need all the processing speed I can get
Pandora will have support for OpenGL ES
Many older handheld consoles will not have the power or internet access to run this game

(What is with these awkward spaces..? I'll try to fix it tomorrow; Might be the template)

Now apparently, I had to learn a whole lot about views and OpenGL functions. So far, I found a decent snippet of code in two places Mars' GL Blit Example (which I found at Game Programming wiki) and NEHE's tutorials. I noticed the GL Blit example was more towards what I needed. I'm currently implementing the example code into my game, but I ran into two problems.

1. I needed images to be cropped off the side of my views and
2. I needed to read more OpenGL tutorials and the API of its functions

So, I believe my view problem can be fixed with OpenGL's viewport system thing. There is a tutorial on it here NEHE, and I don't feel like reading lol. However, this is sort of good since I can throw out my own splitscreen code (which took around 42 milliseconds a frame to execute on my laptop). However... I do feel like reading beserk (a manga). Which Imma do right now >:)

Well This is Awkward

2009-12-26T00:38:00.000-05:00

I feel like writing something, but I don't have anything to write about.

hmm

http://xkcd.com/ - awesome computer related comics

Psych - a awesome tv series

bash.org - has some funny chat logs, nothing new though

*)*)&)(&)&... I just checked out super mario war forums. Florian Hufsky (no_skill; as mentioned earlier) has died! Thats some sad news to start the day with....

Motivation = Demotivation

2009-12-23T00:22:00.002-05:00

I started playing a game called dwarf fortress. It is an insanely complex ascii art (you could download tilesets) roguelike sim. Where you control a dwarf fortress and make it grow. This game is so inspiring to my dream game because their are so many similarities in the "sim" part. This also makes want to test real time game play even though I wanted it to be a turn based game. All of this awesomeness, coupled phantasy star zero, has led me to become unproductive in developing all of my other games. Even though I'm expecting to enter a competition I have no idea how I'm going to get it done. Perhaps I'll push myself to get 4 hours done a day.

Todos:
(Nero) (probably change the name)
level editor (30% done)
player object (40%)
menus (65%)
multiplayer
enemies
static images (90%)
customizable controls (80%)
physic particles
Fire particles
earth particles
sand particles
water particles
ice, wind, electricity
grid based event/collision system (depends on how 360 handles it)
one-sided pixel perfect collision (to be replaced by grid based)
bosses

Glider:
survival coop (90% done)
player (60%)
level editor (0% - probably take from nero)
customizable ships
3 to 4 more weapons
enemies (10%)
bosses
World editor
Single player mode
survival vs (easily done, just change settings in coop)
customizable controls (80%)

Dream Game: (not the actual name lol)
Classes reference obj (100%)
customizable controls (40%)
player (10%)
split screen, image culling (95%)
title screen (30%)
menu system (40%)
internal game object manager (80% - change vectors to linked lists)
world manager (80% - needs z - needs optimization) - remember its openended ;)
world/dungeon generator
terrains, plants, trees life
liquid system
AI (oh the AI ><) - remember its a sim
structure-able objects (walls, holes, ramps, bridges, pumps, traps) (recently inspired by dwarf fortress)

random incoherentness:

Sum kid told me how he and his team couldn't complete the torrent game they were working on cause they left the graphics programming to someone who was entirely capable.. I fail to see why that should of stopped them.

Left dishes in my room, but can't clean it up with out waking the dog..

My teacher got his game approved for the 360 last thursday, Snail Shot Torpedo. Looks like a nice game.. I don't want to make judgments until I buy it.

pranked my grandpa with prankdialer.com . Completely funny because he yells so much that he doesn't realize its a machine saying the exact same thing every time it calls him (yes, multiple times).

Gawd, theres so many fleas in my room... need borax.

got a strange feeling to program for the ds. nds game maker doesnt work on linux... hmm going to try out virtual game maker ds

Which reminds me about OPEN PANDORA! Its basically a hand held beast. Can't wait until they finally ship them.. I had mine preordered since May. Also, it seems funny how Evil Dragon dedicated one of his posts to no_skill (author of jvnr(?) tutorials). He continued samuasta-something's work on super mario war. Which is now successed by Two52 I believe. It's been a long time since I was in the super mario war scene. Anyways, He seems like a nice dude. I believe they both got a lot of help for some1 named donny valiskie(?) (something polish/russian), its been a good 6-8 years lol.

Dream Build Play

2009-12-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

Well Microsoft is hosting a competition for building a XNA Game (http://www.dreambuildplay.com/main/default.aspx). There is a 40K grandprize which I think I might have a chance at winning.

I'm going to be making a game that puts SSMB, Leiro, and Yoshi's story together. I feel its going to be pretty fun. However, I would encourage you to enter. Not just for the grand prize, but because (according to my teacher) they give a free 4 month premium XNA subscription to everyone who enters!

Here are some entries from last year http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/09/dreambuildplay_2009_winners_an.html. Lol. After looking at these games I feel a slight gloom in my soul since I am no where near to being able to make games look that nice ._. But thankfully they shortened the date to submit games. Why thankfully? because major game developers are thrown off. They were all planning to have the latest submission date in September, so now they are no longer prepared. Hence, it gives Indies like me a chance to win xD.

...hmmm we will see what happens. Bleh! Why is there is always someone better the me! haha.

XNA Controls

2009-12-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

   Well, I haven't posted much thanks to my computer going haywire. I think I might try re-flowing the board if I can't get the manufacturer to replace the GPU.

Oh yea. When I decide to program a menu and pause system for my Glider game I noticed that it would take the same key press to get to that menu and use it to also select an option. Which is not good. However, I figured out that instead of getting the keyboard state (or joypad state) at the beginning of each input function, I could have a state variable to represent the keyboard state

public static KeyboardState oldKeystate;
public static KeyboardState newKeystate;

and during the update event I could give it the new keystate:

update (gametime w/e)
{
     oldKeystate = newKeystate;
     newKeystate = Keyboard.GetState();
   switch (gamestate)
1:
     glider.input()
2:
      menu.input()
etc
}

Now, when i need the keystate in a object I can simply get it by:

input()
{
oldKeystate = Game1.oldKeystate;
newkeystate = Game1.newKeystate;
//input crapola here
}

What this does is keep the keystates in all of your classes "in-sync" because one object might still have a key pressed down while in another class it is up.

Inspiration

2009-11-30T22:00:00.000-05:00

I found someone working on a game called srpg (I guess it means strategy rpg). Its basically (going to be) a tactics game engine for xna. I think its awesome that someone is under going this because I love this genre of video games.

Here is a link to his blog: neilreed.blogspot.com

Speaking of strategy games, my 2d/open-ended/strategy/turn-based/rpg/simulation game has been put on hold until I fully develop glider (checkout the below post for screenshot) and submit it to be sold on the xbox 360.

Particles Engine For XNA 3.0

2009-11-28T00:40:00.000-05:00

I developed a particle engine for XNA. Which is mostly a quick throw together kind of engine. Its pretty good except that it can use a lot of optimization. I copied and pasted a lot of code from an ebook. (seriously do you think I'm going to spend 12 hours coding something someone else has already done, and practically almost the same way?) However, I made the draw function vertex based by using primitive points to draw pixels to the screen. Also, I fixed a lot of bugs and incorrect architecture... which I would expect better from a book <.< (either way, 80% of the code is mine).

Anyways, Here is an example of what it can do:

source code: Particle Engine

I will, one day, have to heavily mediate and turn this into a very efficient and mod-able particle architecture, but not now. Perhaps, I will document on how to use this engine at another time because it is late -.-

Static vs Dynamic

2009-11-24T23:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm now at the point where I want to open a menu in my game for actions such as talk, spell, ride vehicle, ect. However, when I started my game and added a GUI system I designed to work dynamically, I created a object that loaded resources "on-the-fly." This wasn't good because it was very slow on my older computer. Hence, I needed to have resources preloaded, and stay loaded until the end of the game.

The solution: The hell if I know. Its almost midnight. Hmm. I could probably make them static variables rather than static pointers... I'm not entirely sure how static variables work. If not, I'll just throw the declarations in some random class that starts and stops with the game and have anything that uses those resources fetch them from that class.

SDL & Rendering

2009-11-22T09:46:00.001-05:00

    Since I could, I decided to do a speed test with my game. So far, everything was smooth because I was using my 1 year old, 2.5 ghz, 6mb cache, 512mb nivida gfx card laptop which was enough to make it run smoothly. However, my laptop decided to have a hardware failure in the ... built-in gfx card <.< (If I can't fix this I'm going to start getting computers with removable components), so now I'm using my much older desktop.

   Now, I fire up the game on my super old desktop. So happens that its running 12 frames a second. I did some speed tests and I found out that SDL_Flip(screen) was taking 80+ ms to complete! Apparently my Radeon gfx card in my desktop didn't like SDL so I reverted back to the built-in Intel family chipset, and obtained speeds of 1.5 ms even though its still using a software surface rather than hardware. I change the flags but

(SDL_GetVideoSurface()->flags & SDL_HWSURFACE )

returns 0 which I read somewhere that it means we don't have a hardware surface.

   Anyways, everything is all fine and dandy running on 30 by 30 map. That is.. until I increased the size to 300 by 300 bwahaha. Now, I'm at 8 fps. Before I can elaborate on my solution I need to explain my architecture a bit.

   My rendering works in 3 layers. If a tile is in the same sector, its instance pointer is added to a list that will be executed at the ->draw() stage. After calling draw() the instance checks to see if its on the screen then adds its sprite, location and offset to another list. This list, at the final layer, gets drawn to the surface which is drawn to the screen.

The first layer was taking about 10ms to complete and the second layer 70 ms. Which both are way too big. I quickly realized that even calling the draw() function was too costly for every tile in the sector. So, the now obvious solution is to cull everything outside of the screen, but I wanted a challenge. I decided to improve my code as much as I can first. The main thing I did was shorten access time by using pointers.

instead of:
vecSector[i].tile[j].getsprite();
vecSector[i].tile[j].offset.h;
vecSector[i].tile[j].offset.w;
etc

I did:
sprite* ptrSprite = &vecSector[i]->tile[j]->getsprite();
prtSprite->getSprite();
prtSprite->offset.h;
prtSprite->offset.w;

It was a MAJOR difference with that and a few random other things I cut the time needed in half, but this was just for the second layer. For the first layer, I decided to use a grab bag of unused sprite structures, so the system wouldn't have to create/destroy every sprite it makes. Instead of destroying sprites it would put them in a sprite grab bag for reuse later. This made sense. However, after implementing this I noticed no improvement. Perhaps its because it didn't take much power in the first place... Either way, I'm proud of my feat.

The next improvement I could work on would be using linked lists rather than vectors.

Backup

2009-11-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I spent two days fruitlessly programming because I accidentally deleted my backup and my original code.
Except that I learned five things:

Do not keep backup in the same folder as original
Do not use FAT drives to back up.
Do not save to a computer that never saves anything (Microsoft steady state, deep freeze).
Create some sort of online space to store files (I like 777host.us, but whatever is fine).
Backup Files at least twice a day.

Hard drives crash, ipods break
back-up everything online
for your own sake.

lol, That was corny.

Well, I put on some kind of program that does "raw data" recovery, so tomorrow I'm going to see how that worked out. I probably should of used Backtrack 4 (linux), but I don't feel like looking for it.

On that note, I'm thinking about using Ubuntu instead of Windows XP. Hmmm

Virtual Malfunctions

2009-11-14T23:38:00.001-05:00

Polymorphism... basically it can save you a lot of work. Lets say all objects have an input, logic, and draw function.A programmer could make one parent object with these three functions add itself to an array of pointers where each pointer gets their input, logic, and draw functions called at the proper time (Refer to this post). However, my teacher told me virtual functions can bottle neck the performance on the 360!

Now, I did some research as to why and found this post on virtual functions which shows that virtual functions are slower, but it does not matter to modern day processors. Unless, virtual functions are used for every object and the target platform is a hand-held game console rather than a high-end PC. Thus the reason why I cannot allow this in my game! As for a solution to my problem my teacher recommended "object managers." As for my actual solution... I'm going to have to do some detailed work on my overall game design and find my own reasonable solution. That is.. if I'm going to have myriads of object managers then I'm going to find an alternative solution. Perhaps managers for managers? or perhaps I reverse the current parent-child object hierarchy which, for me, would eliminate virtual functions.

Either way, I just found this article on "High Performance Game Development" which is VERY enlightening on my virtual functions problem.

Hence, (depending on your hardware and goals) virtual functions might not be the way to go. Also, I'm planning to learn more about how an event based hierarchy works... I also need more pictures in my blog... perhaps a better template too <.<

Progress Report

2009-11-11T00:21:00.000-05:00

(this is more like rambling than a post)
So far I'm at the circle when I planned to be at the square.

Unfortunately, I didn't plan on not being able to here out my right ear, doctors appointments, and my computer crashing thus forcing me to redo my homework. However, as you can see, I left blank spots which would be makeup days.. even though I don't think I'm going to meet my deadline <.<

In addition, I spent all day creating a "glider" game for class. In this game you're a glider and you need to dodge objects flying at you. This was done in XNA. I just added support for xbox controllers too (I can't test it though, thanks to RROD). You gain a point every time an enemy passes by you. Enemies are nicely generated occupying 1 to 3 of 6 slots. Never the same slot twice in one generation. The 6 slots would be the screen height / 6 * slot. Also, added multiplayer each with their own scores, and when one dies the player gets a gameover where their score should be like some arcade games :D. Either way, I spent the whole day programming it only to have my computer graphics card crash (wth?). Then I spent another 1/2 getting my computer to work correctly again (it magically fixed itself). And Then, I realize I'm running microsoft steadystate... which means nothing saves! Yup... the horror.. I shed a single tear then I spent 4 hours doing what I did in 10 hours (plus more :D). Which leads me to forget the reason I'm posting this <.< aw well screenshot!

The Brown square is the player, the white squares are enemies... yea our graphics designer hasn't sent me anything yet ><

The game was still enjoyable though. Here it is so far: (This game needs XNA dependencies!)
GliderBin.zip
I won't release the source code until the Friday after next. When I'm finished.

More Mistakes :D

2009-11-09T23:40:00.015-05:00

Well, Apparently the debugger that I have with codeblocks doesn't like that I have vectors inside vectors (Don't worry; I will change them arrays later). I spent 2 or more hours trying to get the debugger to return this line correctly:

vecSectors[sector]->at(i)-at(j)->objects->at(counter-1)->object

There was a LOT of weird stuff. It was telling me that it had pointers to 0x0 in it and all this other stuff. Soon, I noticed that if I had a problem with this then my other code should have problems too... which they didn't so I created bob:

Apparently bob was able to return the correct value to the debugger, so there was nothing wrong with my vectors! I still got a segfault whenever I ran the program. However, if you look at the line where counter is initialized, you can see I used back() instead of at(). ><. That's what I get for copying and pasting so much!

Problems I ran into.

2009-11-05T23:52:00.000-05:00

Well one of the problems from eariler that I can remember was that I spent at least an hour trying to find out why one of my boolean varibles was marked true when there wasn't one line of code that marked it true! that is, until I found this

if (destroy = true)
{
     endgame();
}

which should of been
if (destroy == true)
{
    endgame();
}

yea, I know I'm never going to forget that again.

Also, I was working on my game today. Which I probably should elebrate more on what I'm making. It's going to be a 2d/open-ended/strategy/turn-based/rpg/simulation. Yup, I'm pretty sure that explains it (lol). Anyways, I have 3 objects which control the majority of the objects in the game. They are the
Input object
Logic object
and Draw object

These three objects are parents of (lets assume) every object. Each object with one (or all) of these as parents will put its pointer into an vector(array). That way I can do this to the main loop:
init();
while ()
{
     for (int i = 0; i < inputArray.size(); i++)
     {
           inputArray[i]->handleInput();
     }
     for (int i = 0; i < logicArray.size(); i++)
     {
           logicArray[i]->logic();

     }
     for (int i = 0; i < drawArray.size(); i++)
     {
           drawArray[i]->draw();

     }

}
return 0;

Now the draw function isn't exactly what you think it is because there is some code im not showing you, but don't worry this is just to get the idea. Any problems I ran into with is was just because I never used vectors before and didn't understand how they work. However, I did run into another problem. My game is openended and simulation, so if I want trees to grow and spread out the game would have to do all the logic for the trees every frame! I solved this today by adding something I'm going to call passive logic. I added code so each object can be "deactivated" (when not on screen). When a object is deactivated it removes itself from the all the arrays and is placed in a "buffer" array. The draw and input functions for the "buffer" arrays are not executed. However, The logic's buffer array is executed, but only parts of it are executed. Hence, instead of doing 2000 trees a frame we are doing 66 trees a frame which is the user is complete oblivious of because 1) its not drawn to the screen and 2) the tree's logic events are random anyways, the delay just adds more to the randomness.

I should post an example of what just explained...

hmm this will be just something quick and ruff

obj parent class

this class is mostily for other stuff

logic class

virtual void logic()
virtual void deLogic() // logic the object uses when deactivated

character class (inherts from logic, input, draw and objparent class)

input
logic
delogic
draw

CLogic//constructor
{
     adds this to a global array of object pointers for the logic event
}
~CLogic//deconstuctor
{
    removes self from the global array
}

logic()
delogic()//empty functions to be filled in by child objects

CCharacter
{
   int x, y, power, kills, w/e;
}
input()
{
   press up set direction and speed, ect
}
logic()
{
   go in direction with set speed
}
delogic() //this is the one and only thing that is done when the character is offscreen
{
   rest and recover;
}
draw()
{
   draw(self, x, y, tilesetoffset)
}

This is the main loop:
init();

while ()
{
     for (int i = 0; i < inputArray.size(); i++)
     {
           inputArray[i]->handleInput();

     }
     for (int i = 0; i < logicArray.size(); i++)
     {
           logicArray[i]->logic();

     }

    counter = 66;
    while (counter !=0)
    {
           logicArray[position]->logic();
   position++;//this is saved globally so it doesn't erase
           if (position > logicArray.size())
               position = 0;

           counter--;

     }

     for (int i = 0; i < drawArray.size(); i++)
     {
           drawArray[i]->draw();

     }

}
return 0;

If anyone understands what I'm saying have alternative methods then feel free to leave a comment ;)

My Game: Part 1

2009-11-04T23:43:00.000-05:00

Wow. For some reason I feel like writing a lot today...

Well anyways, if you have an intermediate background with gamemaker and want to do more "real" stuff. I'd suggest to take a look at Lazy Foo's SDL Tutorials. It is awesome place to get started in making games in c++.

Yup, thats where I started. In fact, I haven't stopped. The game I'm making now was originally one of the tutorials from lazy foo. First, I thought "Let me attempt to separate this code into multiple files with multiple headers." Which led me to start building a 2D engine for my game. My ambition is what brought me to my first problem. I had little to no experience with C++! Classes, inheritance, polymorphism was a mystery to me! So, this is why I'm going to stress that you practice and become familiar with the examples form this C++ Tutorial. One of the best way to do that is to get their examples running and adding your own variation to it.

As you can see my brain likes to start from the beginning even though I barely remember anything (><). I promise the next post is going to be about the present rather than the past.

Starting out in making video games.

2009-11-04T23:24:00.001-05:00

When starting out in game development you have a few ways to go with many programs such as:

Game Maker: by far the best way to get started. There are thousands of tutorials, resources, and plently of support from their forums. Game Maker will give you a nice jump start on understanding object oriented programming. I would recommend duplicating most of your favorite games features in this program.

Flash: which also offers a sort of object oriented stucture. Flash is usually for people who want to animations, facebook apps, mini-games. If this is what your aiming to do you might as well start here. I barely use flash, but game design and architecture (basically, methods on creating a game) can apply to variarity of platforms which definitly include flash.

When looking for a "game maker" to start with, try to find something that provides A) lots of support, B) easy to learn, and C) limited functionality. Now, you're thinking "why would I want to start off with something with limited functionality?" This is basically to exercise your mind. When being new to games you need to learn how the gears in games work, and also how to exploit functions to get a desired output. Basically, you want to learn how to get a T.V. remote without getting up. Another point to add, is that when programming (in any form) don't stick to what you know. Try to accomplish goals where you don't even know where to get started (besides google lol). I'm going to post a lot of links to various website based on game development during my extra time. Which interested people should check out if they don't know where to start.

lists of programs to look at: (from the top of my head)

Gamemaker
Flash
Java
Torque 2d game engine (I wouldn't pay for it though*cough*)
Modding software for your favorite game (aka Oblivion; Half-life 2)
Rpg Maker (VX, 2003, w/e)

Actually, I'll be doing most posts from the top of my head. Don't be critical because I'm learning too. Infact, developers should be looking for mistakes that I'm making and what ways they would do it better.

In the beginning

2009-11-04T22:31:00.000-05:00

Oh yea I forgot there is no beginning...

Well enough of my cryptic messages. This is my first post so I guess it would be polite to inform potential readers as to my intentions. Right now, I'm currently working on a game and a comment from my teacher inspired me to write down my successes and failures, so others can learn. However, I've gotten pretty far with my game which sucks because I can't start from the beginning! But I will look over my code and make a few points on what I was thinking and what already went wrong.

Hopefully I will also improve my writing skills and help whoever else is learning game programming. Haha.