I won't stop believin'!

I love today's song of the day...it's a good version.  I still absolutely love the original Journey song though...Journey was amazing.  Anyway, I have some organizational road blocks that I've got to figure out.  Fortunately I can wait a bit before actually needing to worry about them.  I'm focusing on getting the GUI to work, along with a series of test states that are changed based on GUI buttons, check boxes, and what have you...

I'm really trying to get this to work, I'd like to get an options menu that changes the preferred width/height of the screen, as well as adjusts full screen.  And then based on whether you cancel or apply/accept, it will change the screen.  :-)  Once I get that down, I'll need to be able to switch to the main game mode and load up the main level.

So, once I get the high level GUI objects working and the state switching, I'll start working on mid level to high level object design.  I already have the diagram of all the scene object classes drawn up, just need to implement them and their methods.  I have some kind of organization to this, which is nice, and I'm sure that once everything's written down, it'll be a bit easier to know what to do, and how to do it.  Anyway, that's it for now, later!

5 Days later...@_@

Alright, so a bit late on the update but, there's really nothing new to say...the program is still in development, and is currently organized better now, and it seems to be fairly efficient.  I'm sure it's got its flaws here and there, but it works for now.

I got the GUI parser working, along with interactive GUI objects.  I need to make their children, like buttons, and various other things...Thinking about making slide bars, should be interesting...using a slide bar for things like volume for instance is rather convenient.  I would also like to make some drop down menus later, but i'm sure that will be a lot more complicated...

Anyway, I'm working on developing the GUI parser some more.  Once I get that working, I can get a start menu made.  Will be awesomely epic.  ^_^  Once I can get the program to switch states, I can set up the player and a few other things as well.  I think if I can get the game to switch states correctly, and display all the images needed, that will give me a good idea if this organization is working, because that requires a lot of inter-code dependencies between several managers and the main.  This will help me understand a bit more of how I could improve the game and expose less in code.

As for parsers, I still have a few more to do...I know I need the level parser, and I want to update that to allow for multiple files, not just one, like the GUI Parser is set up now.  This would help me out by organizing the level info a bit better.  I also (later once the game is all awesomified) need to make a save game/load game parser as well.  That's fairly simple, plenty of resources out there on how to create .sav files in XNA.  I also need to work on a background parser, which gets the info for all the background images, and various other things that are never interacted with.

Good news!

Alright, so the good news is...I finally have a direction with my program!  It's very exciting for me, and looks to be a very unique idea.  A steampunk platformer RPG with custom weapon creation!  :-D  Very very very very distant from the original idea, but I want to use this as my final project, so it will need to be different.  And I think that as Eric noted before, it would probably be best if we lived nearby to actually get a game rolling...we just don't have the right type of communication online for a group project, and we get easily distracted with video games.

Either way, I've been working on the project documents, got a few class diagrams done, and a decent GDD.  If you don't have the link you're SOL, cause I'm not posting it on a very public area.  Thhbbbbbbbt!  Now...as for any updates on the program...It's still alive and mostly kicking.  Currently just sitting there staring at the user and drooling, but alive.  Comatose perhaps, but alive.  I just have to add on some flesh, and perhaps a few organs here and there.  I don't want it to reproduce though, so it will be immediately neutered, boy or girl...Yes this may stunt its growth and give it a fairly high pitched voice, but it'll do the function it's supposed to do dammit!

Crossroads

Oh the interesting qualities of programming...o_O  I've decided to scrap my XNA project and remake it, because the organization is so bad on the old one.  It would be best to have something more organized first.  Fortunately I have a better idea of what I want to do now, and I have been working on some documentation now, instead of just going all over the place, and having no set idea of what i want for the program.

Now, to be honest, I'm at a bit of a cross roads between making an RPG or making a platformer...the RPG would be a bit less mathematically challenging...and I would use a fairly simple system for the program, think old school FF style system.  Probably with the visual qualities of FF1, and potentially a system like 6...although that's still up in the air.

However, something like that requires a lot more organization, and far less spaghetti code...>.>  I've been known to have small sections of spaghetti code.  My main problem is that I don't want to go back and forth between program ideas, and organizations, because I don't want to get stuck with 50 unfinished projects.  Any advice from my few readers out there?

Latest update.

Alright!  I have good and bad news for the day.  I set up a basic raycasting system for my XNA engine project.  It works, however I'm getting a lot of errors with it.  -_-  So, I'm mostly back to square one, but I have a working system up that I just need to figure out what's wrong...essentially.  I'm guessing it has a few other problems going on right now, but I'm working on it.

The problem I'm having is that I can't visualize the segments very well.  I can visually mark the vertices, however I can't make the edges.  For now, vertices work though.

The Player object is also animating well...I have a series of sprites that are very basic, but work fine for now.  The animation also has different beginning and end sections as well, so the animation will run to a specific point, and then when it's done there, it starts back up at a specific point.  It runs from left to right, then back to left on a new row, once it's exhausted that first row.  So you can't have little sections of animation, like a square in the corner dedicated to running, a square in the corner dedicated to jogging, and a square between dedicated to something else...essentially.  Here, I'll draw a diagram, hope it helps, cause it took me a while to make.

[run ][----][----][----][----][----]
[/run][jog-][----][----][----][/jog]
[fall][jump][----][----][----][----]

That diagram would work.  The last 4 tiles in the lower right hand corner can be whatever the fuck you want, idc...but, you can actually make one frame specific to one thing, and it will "animate", essentially.

Run will last until /run, same with jog, fall and jump are individual single frames for the action.  Eric should understand this pretty well...Anyway, there's no limit on size, so far as I know, but it's best to keep it small and simple I would imagine.

As for things that won't work, here's a good example.

[run][run][run][jog][jog][jog]
[run][run][run][jog][jog][jog]

This will not work, because it runs sequentially through this process from left to right in a row, then down a row back to the left, like I said.  :-)

Anyway, enough said, I will be back in a few days with a new update!  :-D

Game Engine finally done...but not for Impulse Strike 2. :-(

Alright, just finalized my GSP420 class, and that included making a demo with a game engine we developed as a team.  The team included everyone in the GSP 420 class, which is awesome.  I would say I wrote my own game engine, but that would be a complete and utter lie, sadly.  I just wrote the configuration xml parser, and a variety of small code sections.

Oh I have found my next new love...XML.  Apparently C# has a decent XML parser class, which is pretty badass.  I utilized that parser to create levels from an XML document.  I'll be working on creating a nifty level editor with it, so I can update and adjust the level document outside of the class.  :-D  Will be epic.

As for IS2, there's really no updates, this engine class has taken over most of my mornings, and my nights are filled with watching anime lately...>.>  And Monk...I love that show.  I've also been watching South Park every so often.  It's a very unique show...not as bad as Drawn Together, but still killing off brain cells slowly...

Anyway, gonna go find my song of the day, post that, and see you all later.  Take care.

AGH! No posts lately! The horrors!

:-O  I haven't posted in ages.  Of course, I haven't made any updates in ages either.  I can blame Eric for that :-P  He got me started on SC2 again...check out my facebook if you want to see some pics of our crazy adventures on there.  We were playing a Terran survival match with only marines...was quite entertaining to say the least.  Lots of blood gore and "You want a piece of me, boy?" :-P

Oh fun times...anyway, as far as updates go, I haven't gotten anything new lately, it's been rather boring on that front.  I've been very busy with finishing up a game engine for class, I'll post that once we're all finished up with it, and people can fiddle around with it as they see fit.  It's really simple (very...very...very...simple.) and probably has more memory leaks and unused code than I'd like to admit, but that's just because it was a team effort where people couldn't agree on how things would work.  And a few people on the AI team seemed to be very green at programming C++.

Of course, I'm still pretty green myself.  I can made the XML Parser in C++ using TinyXML2, which is fairly simple and easy to use.  However, that was basically my introduction to advanced C++ programming...after 5 years of programming in various other languages like Java, C#, and Visual Basic.  I've grown very fond of C# though...and XNA.  Once I got the O'Reilly book about XNA, I'm so happy to see I can do a lot with it.  I just need to learn more math and physics.  I feel like despite nearing my Bachelors degree, I still have yet to touch on a full understanding of the mathematical functions I use.  I just use them, and if they work great, if they don't, I beat it with a stick and do everything I can to understand why it's not working.  And if all else fails, I continue the beatings, and then give up.

So yeah, no new updates, just me babbling about stuff going on.  :-)  Take care.

Hello my readers of awesome...Sorry for the 6 day delay between updates...I've been quite busy trying not to die on Diablo 3.  Finally made it to Inferno and I went from being somewhat squishy to super squishy...-_-  Even with 56% damage decrease in defense, I take like...40k damage from really annoying rares, or champions, and bosses.  I was one shotted by a mob, and yet I could take down Diablo on Hell in one go...how the fuck does that happen?  When did Diablo's minions become more powerful than him...o.o

Anyway, enough with my rant on Diablo 3...I'm looking forward to the next couple of days.  Eric and I have redirected our game idea a little bit.  I'd rather not get into that too much, but it's still a platformer.  Personally, I've been a big fan of platformers since I played the original Spyro game.  I'm quite happy with the direction we're going, I would just like to get some work done on it.  We're definitely sticking with Torque for the new direction as well, so hopefully we can get something simple out soon on the website.

The reason behind the redirection/change was primarily because of art assets.  Eric's artwork is good, but he's pretty busy with school and work, and various other life...things...anyway, he's busy, so he can't work on the program if he's doing art all the time, and Impulse Strike has always had very complicated artwork associated with it.  If we can get the art pumped out of the way, we'll be fine...Was the original idea behind asking Summer to help, however that has gone nowhere so far.  -_-  Very disappointed with that, but I didn't expect it to go very far originally, was just hoping she would want to have a side project or something she could add to her portfolio.

Almost ready for an update...almost as in maybe 3 days?

Alright, so I'm starting a little bit of work with the engine.  I have control over the player, at least a little bit.  Nothing super fantastic and useful with it.  I'm just glad to see how easy it was to do it, with minimal syntax pains.  I don't really want to talk about the new engine we're using yet, I'll talk with Eric, see if I can post about it yet, but it's actually quite powerful and useful.  I'm just not 100% sure yet about how it will work with other aspects of the game.

I'll be working on updating the program some more over the next few days, but no promises on posting an update yet.  Another quality of this engine is the size of the file went up considerably...so I have to start considering my space on the Google site now, hehehe.  Also, tonight's song of the day is just fucking epic...listen to it when you get the chance!  I have loved The good, the bad, and the ugly since I was a kid, and this song is just...fantastic.

No updates yet. :-O

Looks like we're still in the development phase.  I've been reading up on tutorials for the new engine, to see if I can figure it out, and it seems simple enough, despite all of its complexities.  We've got a decent idea of how the game's going to work, we just need to flesh it out, see what happens, and adjust the program from there.  :-)

I'll try to get something worked on by Wednesday, but no promises right now.  I still need to convert the old image files over to the new engine.

Also, because I've been playing Diablo 3 so much lately, I found a decent way to contain the files.  ^_^  I'm going to use my soulstone USB drive to contain all the files I need for development.  Gotta love collectors edition games with USB drives, right?  I just hope it'll fit my laptop while I'm using my lapdesk.  Hehehe.!

After a long couple of days, I still have yet to make any good progress on the game.  Been too distracted with Diablo 3, and my new keyboard.  Once I get some more things updated, I will post it here, however I'm not sure when that will happen.

On a happier note, I finally got to Hell on Diablo 3...unfortunately I need to grind 3 levels before I can get into it.  Apparently it's level locked for lvl 50 players only.  Sooooo....I have another long couple of days ahead of grinding and being generally awesome until I hit 50...then I will be super Lord Squishy...Oh yeah, that's my other self proclaimed nickname, Lord Squishy.  Ramen was given to me by an old friend of mine a while back. :-)

Anyway, I still need to get an inventory screen loaded on the player. I'm hoping that it won't be too difficult to set up at least a basic information screen.  Eric's got an epic idea of what to do with the game story, and some really excellent additions to the game.  I'm rather excited to hear more about it on Monday when we meet up.  I'll update my song of the day (kinda night now...but still) soon.  Peace.

Alright, so I'm just about to get around to updating the program.  I created the website for Impulse Strike 2 downloads...It's at the following website:  https://sites.google.com/site/impulsestrike2/.  The program may or may not pop up as malicious software (I know Avast doesn't particularly like it), but it's quite legit.  If you have any concerns about it please leave a comment, or email me.  Thanks.

Anyway, as for the update tonight, I have no clue what I'll be doing.  I know I need to generic the grenades, so we can have multiple types of grenades, not just one.  The white box in the UI needs to be changed over to the current grenade selection.  I would need to make generics of both grenades, and the extra stuff that's dropped, that's a fairly simple process with Game Maker, but will still take some time to change.  I also need to set the player up to work with the stats object and grab the grenade that's currently in use.  Although, I think I could put that in the player...not sure which would be more complicated.  o_O

I need to consider xp as well, probably just like...100 xp per level, and the mobs gain 1 or 2 xp per level.  I would need to do graphs for figuring that out though.  @_@  Fucking graphs...We shall see how it works out.

In other news...I finally beat D3!  Had the help of my buddy Eric, but somehow or another we skipped the ending...-_-  So I have to go beat Diablo again tomorrow just so I can see the ending again.

Today's song of the day:  Moves like Jagger, by Maroon Five (feat. Christina Aguilera).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRsxpoAc5w&feature=g-vrec
(That one doesn't have crazy dancing ladies with their very occasional boob shot...gotta be non-adult content here, excluding language.)

As for tutorials, I think I'll be starting with simple Game Maker Tutorials...If I do any of them, I will post on here about it first thing.

Alright, so it doesn't look like I updated much on the program, but trust me...from what it was, I fixed it up pretty well.  Programmatically speaking of course...Anyway, I added a continue button, which starts you off where the last auto save was.  Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure how to save games on Game Maker without using the game_save function...which essentially saves a screenshot of where you're at.  So, I'll have to work something out with that...

Also, I'm working on the physics some more in the game.  It's very simple pseudo physics, but it looks like I need to update the player, and the mob physics.  I also need to find a good way of dropping items as well, when the mobs drop them (they always drop shotgun ammo for testing), they tend to fly everywhere, so I need to work on finding some middle ground where it doesn't just drop, and where it doesn't fly across the room.

Looks like I have to make a link to download the files, I'll be working on making a simple Google site for that I think.  Then I'll update you guys with the latest and greatest.

As a side not, the reason I haven't worked out the kinks yet today, is that I've been playing Diablo 3...I'm finally on my way through Act 3 on normal.  As for my opinion on the subject of D3, I love the game.  Yes, the first few days were awful, but what do you expect from Blizzard...plus it's partly a ploy to make us want to play more once it comes back online.  I played a few hours on opening day myself...was fun.  Just glad to be playing it.  So to all you flamers out there, and people who are just generally obnoxious when it comes to video games, suck it up, and deal with the internet connection.  It's not as bad as you make it out to be.