We Dared to Be Brilliant!

Brilliantly satirical, that is!

I'm speaking of my comrades Kyle and Khoa, who, along with myself, attempted to game the idea of the theme of Ludum Dare 28.  The theme was You Only Get One. With that, we embarked on creating a game in which You can Only Get One new game a year. So you pick one game, play it for an imaginary year, and then the next year, you can get something new!  You can read more on the idea and was accomplished before our magnificent project swan dived to a post compo/jam finish at  Kyle's Ludum Dare Blog Posts.

Here's my screenshot for the Fighter component of the game.

And here is a link if you want to try out the madness yourself:

I'll be back sometime this week with end of semester updates!

TGIBT (Thank God It's Break Time)

?It is day what?

Alrightey then.
November has been a weird month with a topsy turvy schedule. Since I was with you last, I've finished contributions to the Alpha Build of Project Bala with the implementation of 2 enemy types and a few enemy enemy behaviors; started up a remake of Battle Zone with a movable tank and have begun setting up the project framework through my quick lessons from most honorable leader Kyle Bolton; created an ugly, but functioning (enough) trombone; and made a few strides with Round The Block when other matters weren't pressing my brain to mush.

By the end of the year, I'll be done with Round the Block by virtue of not spending forever to release something.  I just need to add in power ups that change the ball speed, sounds, and slight design touch ups. The trombone is in a phase of interface modification and fixing the screen layout for Android.

I'll try to come back again for a good semester wrap up post within the next two weeks.

Happy Holidays!

WORKING, Working, working

Ok, so this week's post is pretty much a quick rundown of the ideas, ventures I'm currently undertaking:

> Round the Block has reached a few quick milestones this week following my take-over of library computers as my own work station. With the quick implementation of 3 of my proposed 7 or so power ups for the game, I feel I'm making steady progress amid the myriad of other responsibilities I have going on. Stay tuned for this one. It began as a small stepping stone, and with all the experience I'm gaining through this and by working with Kyle Bolton on Bala, I think I'll be able to make this a bit better than my original scope intended.. but then there's the RELEASE SOMETHING stigma that is constantly haunting and drumming through my mind! D:

> This week began with the goal of making the Fire Demon for Project Bala. The character is one of the various enemy types for the games and generally works as a living, angry fireball. Pour water on it, it dies; blow air on it, it grows! The creation and testing of this character has been pretty fun so far. For the coming week, I'll be refining and tweaking the Fire Demon ever closer to perfection and also implement the menacing Tu Spooky.

> Tennessee State University now has a game club simply titled "TSU Game Programming Club". I'm about the only senior level student participating as faculty and club adviser Dr. Erdemir has taken to establish it with mostly freshmen to promote longevity, involvement and commitment to the group. Since I am more experienced, I'm taking a leadership role with the Game Club by being lead developer in the A level group. Our game for the semester is a recreation of Battlezone in the Unity3D game engine. I'll be posting more updates with that as time goes on. After meeting up to discuss our first milestones and project set up, I'm setting up the Framework that our codebase for the game will follow by learning and working from Kyle's example.

> I've been in conversation with some guys about how to go about developing a "shmup" (SHoot eM UP - Space Invaders - Galaga - etc.) game. The idea was thrown around for using Unity, C#, or C++.  I really want to get the experience and knowledge of getting closer to fully programming a game without a pre-built engine so this small game, might be something that is doable in C++ with a two man team. We'd have a bit of learning and prep to do, so we'll see where this pipedream goes...

> Employment! How do you even do that??
I've been looking for Developer/Programmer, QA, general tech support jobs in the greater area of Nashville, TN.  I've been sort of freaking out from the anxiety of the real world and finding employment, so I've been searching and casting my net... So far, no bites or catches or whatever fisherman analogy fits here. This article, however, lifted my spirits slightly if most of my competition are incompetent non-programmers. This search of monetary gain and self preservation has also landed me on a few freelancer websites and the wealth of jobs that I could do (given the time, because if you're reading this, you clearly see I have TONS of time lying around. I'M STILL A COLLEGE STUDENT).
So, I'll definitely at least be a freelance developer! I still have street performing sax player as a fall back and cardboard house artist as a fall back to that.

To wrap up this post, I bid you good readers to ponder this question that's inspired from the esteemed artist, Big Boi:
Do you have a #BackUpPlanToTheBackUpPlanToBackUpTheBackUpPlan ?

Back to Reality...

Last week was #TSUHC2K13 or Tennessee State University Homecoming Week of 2013 for the hashtag impaired. Now that the madness has ended, I have to catch up on a bit of uneducational and pointless student duties that may have gone undone in the calamity.

In the realm, of the accomplished, I contributed to the enemy firing mechanic in Project Bala. You can follow that blog here for all the latest with that project from all team members (eventually). This is latest post more or less covers what the game is and where it will be for this first quarter target build.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled news, I've got a background working for the levels. Need to lower the opacity or overlay it with some layer that fades it... Advice is ALWAYS welcome.

I have goal points to get to, but I haven't been accurate in estimating times for hitting these.:

• PowerUps - Detailed/Unimplemented
• Main Levels - Detailed/Drawn Out/Unimplemented (Waiting to make everything function for Level so I can just duplicate and rearrange level layouts. Should be a quick step!)
• Sounds - Haven't thought to much about
• Finalized Designs - Still waiting till everything else is done.

Deadlines.. How do they work???
I'll update the playable build once I fix the background (and implement at least one of the powerups) by Wednesday night.

Random Tech Link of the Post: This post right here explained Genetic Algorithms way more than a certain professor did... Check out UK Developer Lee Jacobson. Follow his Twitter. and follow mine!

I'm Outy 5000!

Break!? What Break?!?

This is a long post.
BE
PRE
PARED!!!

Late News on RtB Progress for the Week

Level designs and implementation on Round the Block is a key concern for this week!
Made progress in setting out how the first level will look. Changed the size of the bricks, paddle and ball.

It looks nice, just need to change the physics on how the ball moves... It was a simple bouncing and adding velocity movement that I learned to implement from HowToMakeMobileGames but I'm not happy with that ball motion for this game because it's a bit too simple and it doesn't have even a pseudo realistic feel to it.
 

The RtB page will be updated with this latest build when I can get back to my room but I just sorted out the look of the RtB page, which was wonky because of the style block that was in the Unity default html (Yay learning!)

Another thing on the to-do list is to design the powerups (things that fall from the blocks to change the current gameplay) and implement them in the game...
Other than that, it's just the same old grind.


Peace! ImOut(myMind);

The Dreamer Concept Posters

As previously stated, one of my game ideas, "The Dreamer" is slowly taking form. So I decided to use a poster assignment this morning in Graphic Design to work on generating thoughts on the visual look of the game.

Click Below for the Designs

New Blog Page for Round The Block!

Alrighty, then!

So, over the weekend, I got to a point where the basics of Completing a Level, Losing a Level, Rudimentary Menu Layout & Function, Block color editing, ball, and paddle movement all work!

It's still ugly and the gameplay is NOWHERE near completion! Need to tweak brick, ball and paddle size, ball speed, add in power up items and design the layouts for the blocks for each level.

The delay, and my fail, of this post all hinged on the fact that I didn't know how to use the build files from Unity and the links that I had found before TSU's internet went to the ICU were from older versions of Unity that put out a slightly different version of the HTML file. However thanks to the good folks of BIG (Blacks In Gaming) Facebook page, the visual walkthrough I had been looking for helped me over the hurdle. The line where the link to the hosted .unity3d file change from being after an "if statement" to being in the initialization of a UnityObjectURL.

But, now that that's all solved, I now have a page, that you should see in a tab above to my latest build of Round the Block!

Think I'll try to sketch out the images I want the blocks to make on each level and hopefully post an update with sketches and description of the overall goal with the final image in the next couple of days.

Stay tuned for more!

Ok...

So I'm trying to figure out to properly embed my progress on Round the Block on the blog. HTML is not a strength of mine so I'm trying to see if I can find a Youtube walkthrough that I can follow in between these IT work orders.

Til then,

Peace & chicken grease!

Back For The First Time

First regular blog post of my final year of Undergrad. This time around, posts will flow more frequently (1-2 week updates). Posts will mostly center around the development of my Senior Game Projects, but other commentary on relevant scholastic or tech news happening will likely happen too!

Alright, now for the juice! (This was supposed to drop by Saturday, but life happened)

I'm working on the design document for two games. 

One is a smaller project which is like a remake of Arkanoid with an aesthetic to match Tennessee State University that I believe will be called "Round The Block" (RTB). Trying to crunch out the ideas and hammer it out ASAP! Homecoming is Oct 20-26, and I feel that could be an ideal release with finished designs and hopefully postponing any competitive (Time trials, score challenges) additions to come later....

I submitted an application for the ESA Loft Video Game Fellowship (took me about 100 takes to get a good 40 second clip). My idea for that would be to design a puzzle platformer that I've tentatively titled "The Dreamer". Here's a lil snippet of the idea behind it:

A puzzle platformer for consoles & PC that addresses the achievement gap and counters the historic misportrayals of black people in the US.

Game levels generally take place in the imagination of a boy daydreaming during his school classes and the gameplay mechanic revolves around moving the player character through game world in platform style movement and using up to 3 kinds of Skills (Communications, Technological, or Artistry) to solve puzzles that increase the Character’s Knowledge and allows you to progress through the game

I've been meaning to actually code a game based on the Project Prisma prototype that I made a few years ago with my friends Hank and Kyle (they've gone on to grow the game through their senior project). As it stands, this Fellowship has helped me branch out my ideas to grow beyond being a modified clone of an old project, so that it can (and WILL!) take on a life of its own!

Working on completes some design docs for both of these and finish learning the mechanics I'll use on RTB (pretty much just adding in Power Ups, figuring out Menus and game settings, and designing/putting in the backgrounds).

PS. Panera is my home for working now!

PPS. Even though they're trying to freeze me out of here >_>

Artificial Intelligence and Other News (Weekly Update)

Currently working on my A.I. midterm which involves moving from several different nodes via A* algorithm search. I believe I've worked out the navigating the path itself, but I'm working on finally getting through some XNA (yes, I know it's dead on support) tutorials by CodingMadeEasy to add in the GUI interface and gamification to make it extra awesome!
I also think I'll be cutting down hour loads... Heavy amounts of unwanted classes lead to low enthusiasm, energy and GPA. I've had Senioritis since I was a senior in High School...
Hate Schools, Love Education!

In other news, I'm the president of ACM and working with Tennessee State University's College of Engineering Student Alliance (ESA). I've started up tutoring sessions to be held weekly in McCord Hall to get our students back on track and to have a competitive edge that has unfortunately been lacking. : /  ESA has also been resurrected from the ashes of the past by Engineering Alumni looking to bring our department some unification and to also get student performance back to an acceptable level.
This is exciting but going to be a lot of work... Hopefully this will launch off successfully!

// I find it more engaging to be apart of something social AND meaningful. These classes however bore me
// to death..

// Also, How do you plan a picnic??

Working out with Insanity week 2 day 2! Supposed to be done with this round on April 27! Energy levels have increased already! Hope to continue progressing even further as time goes on!!!

//The end
// Catch you sometime next week for anything new!