Timelog
timelog -1:30 Communications with the outside world have been lost. I still have power - for now - but there's no telling how long it'll last. More urgently, though, food supplies are running low. Sooner or later I'll have to make a break for it or starve.
...I can hear them outside...
I can think of nothing but that help will only come too late. My only chance is the comms room at MVB, a mile away. I might have to abandon my station here and relocate, but it could mean giving up on the project and I don't know what shape the stores are in there.
It's no good. I can't move yet... I'd never make it. I'll have to wait until daybreak. In the meantime, I'm going to get some sleep, restore my fractured conciousness. It'll eat into the op window, but there's nothing I can do with the system down but wait for it to repair itself.
timelog -1:05 Insomnia has its uses. I was lying awake, staring at the darkened ceiling, when the system clicked back online a few minutes ago. I didn't notice it at first, but then - a faint, irregular flashing, softly illuminating the room that is now both my prison and safe harbour.
I'm now prepared, once again, to begin the project on schedule. I'll try to sleep once it's started, so I can start the main phases with a clear head.
timelog 00:00 It has begun. Command insists the project is to be about infection - "make a game involving the spread of something. A virus, coffee shops, etc...". Excellent. ...um.
timelog 00:10 ...I have a plan. It involves communists. Fight the spread of communism throughout a populace; eliminate the reds before they convert civilians to their cause by rational argument!
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, COMMUNISM BELIEVES IN YOU.
timelog 02:05 Limited and satisfactory progress.
I'll have to rein in my enthusiasm, though. While I could happily continue for several more hours, it is important work that should not be taken lightly. Given this, I need to at least nap.
Supplies are low, but should last out the weekend. I'm convinced that help will come; it's inconceivable that they'd just ditch an outpost like this at the first time of trouble. Still, I may have to consider making a foraging run early in the day tomorrow. I don't know if it's safe, but Jackson was always convinced they couldn't stand the light. Of course, that may have been what undid him...
I think I can sleep more easily now. I'll be back soon enough.
timelog 07:13 ...I'm back. Sleep was brief but restful. I'll get to work in a bit.
timelog 09:00 hee.
Progress is good. I probably have enough art to get started, though the levels will be bland and green. heh... scenery will come later, I guess.
timelog 11:04 Coding is not going all that fast, but I'm investing more time in building up a framework to handle input and so on than usual. I think it'll be worthwhile, seeing as I hit problems due to my failure to do this with Joust.
I have a fairly robust system for dealing with keyboard and mouse input. I'm currently working on my entity manager and suchlike.
timelog 12:26 I have a little guy moving about. Heh. He's cute.
I need to work on... hm... AIs, both hostile and neutral... and shooting with gun. Commies that shoot back would be half the game done already.
timelog 15:10 Commies!
That shoot back!
timelog 20:40 All's going well. People talk to each other and reproduce; the communists talk to people and convert them gladly to their cause; and they all die when they face my wrath. Bwahaha.
Next up: fonts... and commiedar.
timelog 21:26 Text display is coming along nicely. Came across a bug in GLFont2 again - it doesn't support spaces (...wha?). My previous workaround didn't work this time, so I hacked fixed-width space support into the code instead. I'm really starting to lose respect for this lib.
timelog 24:30 Just passed the halfway point. The commiedar and HUD are in place now, as is simple game logic - lives, levels, score, that sort of thing. It's all good, or at least sufficient. Yet there still seems to be something missing...
However, I do have a bona fide complete game at this point. I've got all tomorrow to fix it up, as well, so we'll just have to see how it ends up. 'Night again for now.
timelog 32:10 Back. wegh... gimme a sec to get me head straight...
timelog 32:24 aight, back in action. I've got a few things on my todo list - keyboard input, wave adjustment... then a menu screen would be nice, I think.
timelog 34:10 I need to get to level 6-1 in order to test the banner code properly. If I don't, then getting to level 6-1 might make it crash.
I can't get to level 6-1.
I tried putting on infinite lives. It doesn't help. My civilian count reached 80, then communism spread through them like wildfire. ARGH.
timelog 36:10 The menu's complete. As is the soviet campaign. :p
Three quarters of the way there... and damn. I'm running out of things to put in. I'll have to start on something big, like new scenery or music + sound effects...
The menu:
commies3.jpg
The game:
commies4.jpg
timelog 36:30 The soviet campaign is possibly the biggest, most horrible hack I've ever done. Ah well. I'll clean it up if I need to.
timelog 37:30 The guy does cute little dances! Civilian population is limited to 50. And finally, people no longer flash when they're created at the start of a scene, just when they're spawned during. A number of fixes for minor issues, and a lot of playtesting. :)
Now to add sound...
timelog 40:20 Sound has been... entertaining so far. I'm doing retro style raw synth sounds, bursts of white noise and pitchshifting square waves, because that's all I have access to - no mic (d'oh!). It's going surprisingly well. The little guy jumping up and down to the applause of the crowd... so cute!
timelog 43:45 High score table is complete. Bwa.
I'm starting to worry. I'm not under any time pressure at all, and I'm running out of things to add to the game to make it better - save for overhauling the maps, which would take a lot longer than 4 hours. :p
I'm going to add some new background textures and mess about in Storm. I need to pull together some menu music.
timelog 46:42 Coming up to the end now. The menu music is in fine, and I've made a few tweaks and fixes and suchlike. Improved the high score table, as well, so everything's equally badass. :)
All I honestly need to do is write a readme, create a page for this project, put the source in another directory and bam, I'm done. And then playtest until deadline. It's the little things.
timelog 47:21 I've reorganised the code, created a readme... I think everything's done. I'm going to upload it and then sit around playing the thing until the deadline 40m from now, then after that spend maybe half an hour on creating a webpage for this thing. And then it'll be all done - a nice, slick, practically complete game in 48 hours. :)
Signing off,
-randomnine-
Source: bits.bris.ac.uk archive