Space Blast (Source)
I finally got around to zipping the Space Blast source up ready for download. And here it is, I haven't run it since January 2005 when it was due, and I haven't used Blitz Basic since then, so I don't know if it can just be run, an old version of Blitz may be required.
The picture to the right is unrelated, I just wanted something to brighten up this short entry.
Download Source: Space Blast (Version 1.0.0)Escape From ASDA (Source)
The quests can now be authored more in Lua. There are conditionals for whether the quest is active, and whether the quest is complete.
I'm tempted to make the entire game in Lua, and just use the application as an intermediate for calling functions and rendering. Then I could just execute functions within rooms / npcs for the relevant dictionary word.
There are still some flaws in the text output, like it doesn't split up words onto new lines if they are longer than the line width.
Next on the list is 8x8 Board Games, get rid of that horrible green.
Download Source: Escape From ASDA v2.1.0 (MacOSX)
Download Source: Escape From ASDA v2.1.0 (Win32)
Escape From ASDA (Update)
This weekend I've been going through files I've been meaning to upload to my website for some time now.
I've got all the World of Warcraft addons finished, so I began on the C++ games I made at university.
Escape from ASDA is one of them, I was gonna upload it as it was but after noticing a few memory leaks.
As I started to clean up the code, and then got a little carried away and practically rewrote most of it.
Originally it used a custom text file format for data, that was % deliminated, now it uses Lua which makes it at lot easier to understand when editting.
I also modified the title screen to use a bit of ASCII art, and made the commands more flexible.
Unfortunately unlike v1.0.0, it does not support mouse input for navigation. And since you can't seem to change the console caret in MacOSX, I've had to make a custom console buffer that I use to render to before outputting.
There are a few more changes I plan to do to make the game script more flexible before I upload the source, but for now where is the binaries for Win32 and MacOSX.
Making it compile on WIN32 again was a pain, much more than it should have been, maybe its just the Microsoft implementation of STL...
Download Binary: Escape From ASDA v2.0.0 (MacOSX)
Download Binary: Escape From ASDA v2.0.0 (Win32)
Maya: Totus Village
With my work on getting even better frame rates in my engine, I've began instancing objects, z-ordering, scenegraphing, etc. And to make the most of this, I've begun to learn to use Maya with some helpful tips from the artists and work. So I've started to improve the quality of my original Totus Village model I made using Milkshape3D.
As you can see I've added doorways now, and well as roofs (although some are still not quite complete roofs yet). There is a new terrain being work on, that will hopefully be better for area Totus village is in (between two mountain ranges, with a forest to the south and plains to the north).
I'm currently decided what to do with the walls, its hard to tell from the original SNES graphics what they were trying to do with the walls. On the one hand they appear to be supported by beams, on the other those shadows on the beams could just the be the wall on the upper half. I've began working on a tool that takes the COLLADA file and converts it to my geometry format, as well as some geometry optimisations through Tootle.
iPhone Developer
I awoke this morning to find an email in my inbox from Apple, reminding me that I hadn't finished enrolling for becoming an iPhone Developer yet. Surprised since they hadn't told me I could finish yet, I just assumed that it must have been filtered by my spam filter (must remember to fix that thing).
So since there was an hour to go before work, I quickly followed the instructions, paid for my membership and got an emailing saying that within 24 hours they will get back to me with instructions of how to setup my iPhone to allow development. However upon getting back from work, I was greeted by an email telling me it had all been setup and that I was now able to develop and publish applications for the iPhone.
The setup process was a little annoying, the tutorials aren't fully specific, but I managed, and sometimes it was my fault for not reading them correctly, but they do come with pictures depicting how things should look when it is done correctly, which is very helpful. Finally, I setup one of my iPhone examples to compile and run, and bobs your uncle (which he is quite ironically) it worked. So next weekend I'll start work on porting my chuck norris game as a starter to get use to developing for it.
There are so many things that can be done with an accelerometer that I hadn't thought of, I even found an example on the internet that uses the accelerometer in a MacBook Pro so you can move water about on your screen. Usually its just used to move the needle off the hard drive when there is a suddenly change of gravity. It can also be used to detect seismic movements, or used in conjuction with Expose so you can tap the side of your laptop and shift screens, I probably won't use this, I'm already afraid of smashing the glass screen.
The Truth about Chuck Norris
After getting back from work today I decided to port some applications I made many years ago to Mac OS X, and that is when I came across this gemstone.
I didn't realise how impossible I had made it, but once you get to the end, its almost impossible to kill Chuck Norris (the villain of the story).
I completely forgot I made this, and the stupid story I made up to go along with it. As well as the stupid comments I put in the background of the map. I can't remember why I didn't made the railgun charges animate though, there was a good reason, but for the life of me I can't remember.
During the fight, I wish missiles did -10 damage instead of -5, the amount of health I gave him was ridiculous. Probably did it because of the whole Chuck Norris quotes I had been reading that night.
It was originally wrote in SDL for use on the PS2 Linux Kit, but my first and only side shooter I've made, as you can tell from the graphics, I made them in paint. I had some issues with XCode, still can't go from an empty project to something I can use like I can with Visual Studio yet, but I'm getting there.
I keep accidentally making it so that it compiles for the iPhone (my key hasn't arrived yet so I keep getting codesign errors since I'm not using the simulator).
I'll probably give it a clean up, maybe some nicer graphics, and better spawn algorithms and upload it since I now have it compile for Win32, PS2 Linux and Mac OSX.
Some nicer music would be good to, I might talk to my friend Dave to see if he can whip up some awesome battle music, he did some nice town music for my RPG (The Legend of Bob and the Phantom Sandwich).
It certainly did give me a good chuckle trying to kill Chuck Norris with all my might, only to be destroyed by his vast spawned army of UFOs and Asteroids.
I eventually found a bug with invincibility that allowed me to be invincible long enough to suicide bomb him enough to take out his health.