Have You Been Round the Block?

My small game is now available for play on Android through Google Play and on the Windows Phone Store!

For those of you without Android, but you have a computer, check it out here on the blog.

All social media accounts (sans G+) can be found with the username @TSU_TheBlock
Twitter
Instagram

This has been an exciting and eventful morning for me. I burnt my bacon (resulted in greasy pork rinds essentially... kinda yum but not that great to ingest).  I hastily went to all my media platforms to share the news of the release of the game, and so far, it's all been positive vibes! Unfortunately, I don't have any stats on downloads or reviews yet... but soon... soon...

Now, I think I'll try to update my social media for about the next couple of weeks, but I think I might be able to transfer this project onto some of the Game Club members to run as an ongoing and evolving project that continues to hold the essence of TSU and its students. : D

My new game focus is going to be on Project Dreamer, so stay tuned!

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!

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);

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!