Time log for Drew Sikora (Gaiiden)

FRIDAY

[21:51 EST]
Well I'm creating this text log thingy so I'm on the same page as everyone else... I just finished the final touches to my framework so I'm all ready to begin designing the game. Hmm... sheep with construction/destruction... hmmmm well I like destruction (who doesn't??) so maybe something like Godzilla vs. Sheepzoina. Oh wait, Godzilla is copyrighted. damn :P must think some more :)

[22:07 EST]
Okay I got it! Commando Sheep! :P You play the sheep that runs around setting explosives that raze buildings. All the enemies are sheep with machine guns and bazookas and whatnot. There we go. Sheep and Destruction. I like it. You'll get points for blowing up as much as you can without being detected. It'll be a top-down action game with a bit of strategy I guess since you don't wanna be seen for as long as possible. Anyways must design some more...

[23:09 EST]
Blast I can't beleive it took me this long to get the frikin start code up and running. Makes me wish my game framework had an application class - unfortunately that's still down the road just a bit right now. I have just barely enough to make a game with right now, haha :) So yeah that's the report from me for now. posting my start code up on Ludum Dare as required and then getting out the pencil and paper for some sketches and designing. w00t!

[23:22 EST]
Crap I though that construction/destruction meant "either or", and not "and". Uh-oh :P So I still wanna do the whole sheep commando bit but how do I factor in construction? Hmm... I'll have to think of something for construction... ah! Maybe you have to scour the enemy camp in order to find the components to build the bomb that you need to destroy the camp? Definetly a thought.

SATURDAY

[00:34 EST]
Woah it's already past midnight? almost time for my first nap :) I'm still working on my design doc but I'm almost done with it, and then I can start coding it all up. I'll post it up when I'm done...

[01:13 EST]
Well I'm done with the design doc. People may laugh that I even spent time on it but I'm afraid that if I make up things as I go I'll never finish cause I'll keep adding features :) So I think I've limited myself rather well. The game has a pretty large scope for 48 hours but I should be able to get in the basic gameplay and then just enhance it as much as possible before time runs out. And if I don't finish it for the competition then i'll just finish it a bit later. This is really a test run for my game framework, which isn't totally complete and also a way to force myself to finally make a game, which is all good. So again, even if I don't finish in time I'll have started something that I \will\ finish, which is agood all around. So I'm happy :) Anyways I'm going to bang out some artwork and hopefully some code and also hopefully something I can take a screenshot of before I head to bed for a few measly hours :P

[04:24 EST]
Bleh! Things are already starting off on the wrong foot. It took me like frikin two hours to get the darned tiles done so that I could start making maps, and then my tile editor starts fritzing out on me! I swear I built that release and tested it with no problems but suddenly, for instance, the hotspots no longer work, so I can't edit tile properties! Gah! Now I \could\ go and fix it but... I totally redid my framework and I'd have a lot of reorganizing to do in the tile editor code to get it up to date. I'd prob lose 2-4 hours getting it back together. Unfortunately now that I can't edit tile properties it looks like I won't have much choice :(

So I'll have to get that done as quick as possible so I can get back on track. But at least I was able to use the editor enough to build a map I was able to display. If you check out the screen shot (http://ludumdare.com/user/310/screen1.JPG) you'll see the nice desert setting, cause it's a terrorist camp don't forget. There's a building and yes, one of the tiles is off a oixel (BAH!!). You can't see it cause it's a still image (and you still can't see it anyways even in the game unless you look real close) but the grass is actually animated and appears to be blowing in the breeze. Hey, when you can do animated tiles with impunity why the hell not? :P I just wish it were a bit more obvious... I was thinking speed up the animation but I \can't\ since my blasted editor wants to be stupid and won't let me edit tile properties, of which those include the animation properties. \pulls hair out\

And the best part? Despite what you may think after reading all that I'm having a blast :P Since it's almost 5am I'm gonna check the editor code, maybe do some prelim work and then head to bed for like two hours and have my sister wake me up cause she's always up early.

[06:12 EST]
Well it's getting pretty light outside and I'm ready to call it quits for now. :P It's still been a bit frustrating - I lost a sh\\load of data for some reason because my data generator didn't generate it - I have no clue why. Luckily I didn't lose \all\ my data - only about 15-30 mins worth of work. But still, I was hoping to get it all done before break :( crap.

Just for kicks I posted screens of both my data generator in actiona and my tile editor, since I have nothing better to put up right now. That should change once I fix the frikin editor.

Ah well. To bed for a few hours... 4 max. Then I'll be back. See yas then.

[09:57 EST]
Got me a nice huge cup of OJ and I'm ready to go again! :) I gave myself about 4 hours of sleep, which is usually enough to hold me over if I do nothing but sit and program :P My dad hit the golf course since he figured he wasn't going to get much yardwork out of me this weekend, lol. And the rest of the family is out too. Ahhh peace and quiet.

\cracks fingers\

Time to get to work, I need to finish generating that data!!

[11:54 EST]
Well it almost took me two full hours just do generate the data I needed to make the tile editor (it's got a butt-load og images, buttons, etc). The only upside is that if I didn't have my data generator app it prob would have taken twice as long to do by hand. Ouch. Even still, there were some bugs that set me back - like the one that completely erases my data files :( That sucked just a \teeny\ bit :P But I fixed it so I had to \redo\ 4 out of the 5 data files, and that took an extra hour. Bah. But I'm done with that so now I can just make the editor compatible with the latest framework build and I'm good to go... I would say a hour foe that, 2 tops.

Must get started then...

[16:38 EST]
\cough\ remind me never to be conservative about time estimates okay? actually it wasn't that... when I said 2 hours max I was saying that based on my previous experience in converting other parts of my framework from <list> to <map>. Unfortunately, none of the other parts of my game framewaork are 3454 lines long :P Okay cut a 1/4 off that to account for white space and comments since MSVC counts those but still.. that was a hell of a lot of code to go through basically line-by-line. The Find and Replace tool came in handy of course, but it couldn't do everything.

After I got it compiled error-free I still had to work out some bugs in my data generator app so that the buttons and everything would load correctly. Finally everything did load and I'm happy. I just hope it all works the way it's supposed to :P

But I'll find out later. For now I'm going to take a break. Hopefully when I get back I can actually start working on the game! Whoa what a concept! \mumbles under breath\

See in a few...

[18:41 EST]
Well I'm back after a bit of rest, a little TV, some dinner... \pats stomach\ My task right now is to get the editor working 100% so I can start on the game code. I just have a few bugs left to fix and then I should be ready to go. I'll check back in once the editor is fully operational again.

[21:42 EST]
Well I fonally finished debugging the map editor and the sourrounding framework. Wahooo! There were some times I was ready to just give it up but I managed to press on and uncover all them nasty little bugs. Now that thy're squashed and I can once again create maps - I can begin work on the game itself! However the competition is already half over so whether I will finish is another question. But we'll see. So! Time's ticking by and I need to be getting busy!

I also uploaded a screen of teh map editor. It now runs in fullscreen mode cause I can't do hardware surfaces in windowed mode... I'll have to ask some ppl about that.

[22:49 EST]
Got the splash screen working. it's very simple. The splash loads in a frameless window while the game data loads in the background. 5 seconds later the splash goes away and is replaced with a normal window.

SUNDAY

[01:55 EST]
Eewww yuck I can't beleive it's Sunday already. Bah! But progress is being made - albeit slowly. But i'm getting the hang of it - this will be my first completed game after all you know. Some of these otehr guys have made a few in the past.

Anyways just uploaded a screenshot - http://ludumdare.com/user/310/sheep1.jpg - of the player character. I can move him up and down and once I implement the mouse look he'll be going all over the place. I know there's no background but that's the easy part thx to the tile editor. I also have to work on the wolves. egads. Well, back to it...

[04:11 EST]
Well I managed to get a good deal done. I polished up the player class so now he can move around and whatnot using the arrow keys. As you can see in the latest screenshot - http://ludumdare.com/user/310/sheep2.jpg - I also have a map file open for the player to move around in. The collision detection \sorta\ works. I pulled a routine from an old test app to use here but this routine doesn't take into account the fact that player moves by vectors. For example when the Up key is pressed the routine looks ahead at the top of the sprite, but in all liklihood the sprite could actually be heading \down\ :P So I'll have to fix that up.

Anyways I've pretty much accepted the fact that this isn't getting done in time, but I should be able to (hopefully) add the wolves and some simple gameplay before the deadline. We'll see.

I'm going to head to bed now for 4-5 hours so later.

[19:49]
Well that's that. I woke up late, had to work for two hours and my brain seems to have completely shut down. Okay that last part is a lame excuse but at least the first two are true :) Anyways the game isn't even near half complete (even in the sense of bare-bones gameplay) so I'm going to have to drop from the competition. But I still plan on working on Sheep Commando. If I don't see it through it'll just be the start of a bad trend after all :P

I just want to make it clear that I'm not bitter or dissapointed or anything like that - okay well maybe a little dissapointed but this was, after all, to be my first game so I really didn't expect to get too far in 48 hours :) I learned a lot tho and hopefully next time around it will be easier for me. I also need some music-editing apps. I was way shortchanged in that department. Heck the frikin mic jack on my comp doesn't even work, lol.

Anyways it was fun. Good luck to everyone - see you next time.