Also a Quick Note...

Also, for more info, check out http://www.chrismweb.com to see my webpage and tutorials on basic game and web development.

I have been working a bit again in javascript, and have made some interactive applications. I need to find a way to program in a object oriented method like in actionscript, c++, java, ect. I can create objects, but the methodological method of programming can get messy fast. I am going to be learning more jqeuery on the side when I can, since it has a lot of functionality already built in, and tested, as well as a host of plug-ins.

I have two main projects right now- web development mainly for clients, and game programming for myself. Hope to get some done for both in the coming weeks!

Project planning for next game

I've spent the last month or two trying to look into project planning ideas/methods/techniques, and in the process learning about design.

Have found mostly general tips, nothing too great aside from a professional project outline in my "The art of game design: A book of lenses" by Jesse Schell. Overall a great book on things to think about during the design process, and can be applied to projects out of the scope of game design. From this, I was able to put together several documents detailing the game I am working on, and giving a decent outline.

But still, I am trying to find a good way to plan out all the classes I would probably need, what kind of properties they would have and share, the order in which they should be built to create a meaningful design.

I would also like to layout all the graphical assets I would need (and later sound, music and video), so as to follow along with the programming portion of the project.

The main reason for my focus on project planning is lack of time/too much wasted time due to poor planning. With my diablo like flash game, a lot of the time was spent going back and changing core classes when I realized there were better, quicker and more efficient ways to do things, and started adding more classes I hadn't originally planned on because of adding more features that are needed, but were not planned beforehand.

One good piece of advice I picked up out of a game development book that was released the end of last year is milestones.

By creating milestones, and striving for usable prototypes, I can more or less flesh out the features of the game. By starting with the bare minimum to have some kind of interaction, to adding more interactions and core game features, I can separate tasks by level of completion. That way I can see the major milestones I need to accomplish to be able to reach my end goal, and can concentrate on planning out each phase of each milestone, so I know what to focus on first, and instead of trying to plan out the entire scope of the game, which is a daunting task, I can plan out smaller "games" that build into the final prototype.


I would really like to submit my game for the intel game competition 2010 (level up), but the project might take longer than I have to finish in time. My RPG took about 8months to get all the core features programmed and working, along with a level, dialogue, and quest editor partially built. A lot of the time was spent re-programming things as new features came about, as well as a lot of research into getting an isometric Diablo 2 like game working with the graphics/scrolling and interface system.

But my new idea will require a good amount of research as well- I need to incorporate box2d, or emulate some of it's functions for one of the core game mechanics. Aside from that, I also have to be able to create professional level art, and art takes me more time to create than programming, since I am not well skilled in it yet, and have to spend a long time revising things.

So for now, I think I will finish converting my diablo game into my game engine, and make sure all the features are working properly again, and use that as my primary submission to the contest. Since it was near completion for the main game, I should hopefully be able to finish it up relatively quickly, and might be able to get enough time to create a level in my new game for a secondary submission.

I would also like to get started on Android development, but need to find a better way to learn it. The books mainly seem to cover building an application using the built in GUI elements from the android OS, without focusing on creating original programs, and secondary showing "how many android widgets you can cram in your app". I would like to be able to make a couple small programs for my own use, as well as release it on the android store, which would help me later convert my 2d games to use on the android.

I'll have to look more into project planning, and hopefully figure out the best way to pre-plan, and save time during development.

Migrated from FTP on my server

Blogger changed, so now you can't post to ftp directly anymore. I had it push my posts onto my websites homepage (http://www.chrismweb.com), and parsed the file using php to display only the content :D

Took awhile to get it working, and it stinks that it is no longer a valid option, btu I guess I'll start posting more directly on here.

I've been working a lot, and mostly on flash/actionscript.

I've bought a few flash books recently that I can highly recommend for serious game programmers, or really any actionscript programmers. "Actionscript for multiplayer games and virtual worlds", and "real world flash game development".

Both are very good books, and the second would have saved me months of work if I had known about it sooner.

I was very happy to find the multiplayer flash game book, and although it uses proprietary software to allow you to setup the multiplayer Java based server, I think it still does the subject justice. I'll be mainly focusing on that for the next few weeks, as my diablo clone in flash will need that information.

The author was also so kind as to explain a system of creating isometric tiles and house to convert the mouse coordinates to screen coordinates! And it appears the a* algorithm as well.

That had taken me some time to figure out before, mostly going off of peoples posts for c++ for A* (and the AI book I have), and putting together old posts from gamedev.com.

I have a game concept for the intel game competition, but it's due in August, and that is rapidly approaching. I want to have the prototype finished in actionscript soon, and re-create in in c++ after I get all the logic setup.

I need to also practice some art work, since for now I am a one man team :/

I can program the game without a problem, and can base a lot of the code of my previous 2d scroller, and the 2d engine I had mostly gotten finished, but there's some new things to learn such as box2d (with scrolling), and methods of creating realistic based fighting and combo attacks.

This week I haven't gotten much done on personal stuff, but I hope to have the basic interface for the game done this weekend, but will mostly try to finish the project plan/ timeline/ list of goals tonight, and try to get started piece by piece this weekend.

It would also be nice to finish up the diablo game to a point where it is playable again (converted it to my engine, which allowed it to have much less redundant code, but hadn't finished porting all the features over yet).

If there are any good artists out there looking for a programmer to work on a game project with, send me an email(from my website) or leave a comment!

Working on flash game engine

I've converted my latest side scrolling flash game into an engine over the last couple weeks. I'm making it to simplify a lot of the "loops" that need to be run through when creating a new game.

For instance all the listeners that need to be setup to load xml/images becomes just a bunch of bloated code. I've specialized the loader classes to take care of that, so all you need to do is load an image- and check when it's ready. Since you have a main loop, needing listeners seems to be just an extra step.

The engine will be setup to provide a good foundation for all 2d genre games.

Levels are seperated into "screens" so that I can patch existing screens together, and may be able to even re-use screens with separate graphics.

I was able to integrate box2d as the physics engine, but have an issue with it simulating everything, rather than just what is on screen (for a scrolling game). I might have to take it apart and customize it for what I need. For instance my RPG game has an enormous amount of tiles, and if a similar game needed physics, it should never be done on more than 4 screens at a time (assuming you stop in the middle of all four).

I have posted the side scroller created without the engine on facebook, but will finish it up with final graphics and with better transitions using the engine. After that, I will redo my asteroids game, and start on an arcade game like bejeled/tetris/connect4!

Added more graphics to the game

I found some added some tree models to the game. I've been tweaking the grass, but still don't have it looking right. Need to add more good looking variation, add a real building in, ect. Hopefully have it looking good soon!

Good progress on game editors

I've been working a lot on the map, and dialogue editors for the game. Still need to work on the quest editor, but that should be easiest.

I've also been developing a decent set of UI components in both of the editors that I can style differently and use in the game. Things like a 2d scrollable window, a class to handle, position, and handle children of those windows, and much more.

Right now I am again back to focusing on graphics. Worked a lot on trying to make realistic cartoon grass, but I think the details on top of the grass will be what makes the world more "3d" . So now that I have some decent looking roads and base grass tiles done, I'm going to be modeling and rendering out the other objects in the game.

Need to add:

-Trees
-Shrubs
-Grasses
-ditches/holes in the earth
-buildings (1 and 2 story along with round ones)

After that, I'll clean up the characters a bit- fully model the faces, correct the anatomy, and creat new monsters that generate better silhouettes than the wolf.

Finished main game of flash rpg, working on the map editor!

I've been working on the flash mmo RPG as much as possible on my offtime, but finally have the dialogue and quest system working properly.

I've gotten to the point of needing to start making many levels and quests/stories, so I am working on a map editor, quest editor, and dialogue editor.

The map editor screenshot is from 3 days of after work work. it's going to be a bit more involved than I originally planned, but I should be able to create maps very quickly this way.

If anyone wants to sign up for the alpha when it is ready send me an email or post on the message board!