Above the Sea and Fog But Still Perpetually Obscured.

Well, while I wait in the blistering 36 degree heat for a bus, I thought I would write a very short update.

Today in my couple of hours I had free, I managed to write in room movement, full random enemy generation, player stat resets after each battle and a way to keep count of how many battles an creatures a player has fought.

Doesn’t seem like much but I’m pretty proud of. I didn’t post the game on Tuesday because basically I hadn’t worked on it since my original post but if my workload isn’t too big this weekend, I may be able to post a version that can keep you entertained for more than a minute!

Well, I have been writing stuff and my 1st official project is well under way.

The features I’ve done so far are:
Class selection.
Name entry.
Attack algorithms (although these will be improved soon)
Enemy type and amount randomisation
Enemy attacks: Randomisation, error buffers
Death

Doesn’t sound like much, but I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to remember how to do certain things.

Features that will be added soon:
Room generation.
An actual story.

Yep. That’s all for now!

You may have gathered from the title of this post, something is stirring in the guise of GameDevGo!. I actually am writing a game. I started yesterday and should hopefully (very hopeful) that I could get it done before Tuesday!

Clearly, it won’t be much, just a simple text RPG, but there are going to be some interesting algorithms for combat. Of course, as I (think) mentioned earlier, it will be in Java. Thus, no-one will have to miss out on this most likely terrible experience.

Well, I’m excited, if not a little nervous and scared.

After this first week of uni I’ve decided that instead of throwing GameDevGo! to the probably-permanent back-burner, I want to keep going. Granted I have many, many hours of uni a week (not to mention study time), the actual hours I could put in are very limited but I think I’ll just add to it over time. Maybe publish some idea and concepts here or possibly start a new blog specifically for it.

Of course this time I’m gonna start out right at the bottom i.e. text adventures and random generated pixel-hunts. I do have a few concepts for much bigger games but that is clearly out of my range for now. Maybe I should start a journal just for them, for my eyes only.

Well, hopefully expect a slightly more clear version of what I’ll be doing on Monday.

Well, today’s marks the start of O’Week. As such, it is one week until Uni goes back. I have an idea for a feature on here which will help with my study and possibly entertain you readers.
Yeah, probably not entertain.

Basically, at the end if each week I willl do a summary of what I have learned during that week. This will ensure I keep posting as well as helping me take notes and do ALL my work.

So, for the past few years I’ve been a devoted Firefox man. Really. Like many people, on every new computer (or any computer I got my hands on) I would put Firefox on it for one main reason, default browsers are terrible. Ever since Mac OS 9.5, I’ve deviated from the default browser. But then again, who really hasn’t?

But since 2004, I’ve been using Firefox with several forays into Opera. But even though Opera is great, I’ve always gone back to Firefox. When Google’s Chrome was first released, I used that for about 30 minutes before I couldn’t stand it and once again, went back to Firefox.

The question remains as to why?

Well, I guess it all came down to reliability. That coupled with extensions. NoScript, AdBlock, Ubiquity and XMarks for the past couple of years have been crucial and must-haves for me. But, several months ago, Ubiquity started screwing up a bit. It failed to load commands, it froze either the tab or the whole process and sometimes it would just drop-down but I couldn’t enter any text. Fine, I could live without Ubiquity but it would mean I would have to do things the long way. Then XMarks started sync with bookmarks I had deleted and I started to get lots of duplicates occurring. After a little bit of time, I could sort through that mess and I did. But after that, Firefox just refused to play nice. Period.

I would have to wait about 25-30 seconds for it to start and then once it opened, I would have to wait another 10 seconds before I could click anything or type anything. When I would close or minimise the window, the last bookmarks bar link I clicked on would remain on the screen at which I point I would have to re-open Firefox to get rid of. A few other minor problems got in my way at which point I had to find an alternative.

Opera was first on my list but remembering the amount of times I had gone to it and stopped using it shortly after. Also, its kinda limited customisation abilities and it’s horrid download manager.
Next on the list was Google Chrome. I’ve been using Chromium on my netbook for several months and love it. Super speedy, very few errors and a minimalist design. The last time I had used Chrome on Windows was before extensions was a feature. So, I had a brief look through the extensions and found XMarks and AdBlock. Win. Very big win.

To put it simply, I installed Chrome, synced my bookmarks and I was settled.
But what about a Ubiquity replacement? Well, sadly, there is still not a Chrome equivalent but with the Wikipedia toolbar extension, about half my Ubiquity needs are met. That was that. I made Chrome my default browser and haven’t looked back.

I was a Fox hunter but now I’m a Chrome nut.

Bioshock 2 was released today and so this morning I picked up my collector’s edition. I must say that the CE was totally worth the extra money if just for the vinyl and 164 page art-book. But I’m not here to prattle on, again, about awesome extras.

After only playing for roughly an hour after the tedious install process, I am mightily impressed. Even with my ridiculously high expectations. There have been a few things that have annoyed me but they barely impact on my experience…so far.

The main thing this time around is playing as a Big Daddy. You know, those things that were a pain to kill in the first Bioshock. Makes for a very different playing mechanic and of course, a very different story.

As I’ve barely played it, I’ll not write much, just my immediate thoughts.

Opening Cutscene: Wow, what a way to pull you in. Really, rather moving a disturbing.
Dual-wielding: Having both plasmids and weapons at the same time makes it a much more brutal experience. Currently going through the shock-n-shoot routine.
Distance hacking: I do miss the old pipe system but where they’ve taken the hacking makes it a bit more challenging. Basically, its pressing a button at the right time but the game doesn’t pause. Try hacking a security camera while having multiple Splicers attacking. Makes it rather challenging.
Story: Well, so far the story is rather different. Well, almost entirely different. Seems to be exploring a rather different dynamic. Can’t wait to get further.
Graphics: Much better than the first but still has room for improvement. The cutscenes look kinda shoddy and there are a lot of clipping problems.

See, not much! Back to it for me!

Under the cut there are pictures of all the CE stuff except for the posters because I was too lazy to unwrap them.  A couple of screens as well.
Enjoy!

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Well, sorry about the extreme lack of posting recently, just been kind of lazy.  BUT!… I have a whole host of things coming up.  Reviews mainly.  Three album reviews and one or two game reviews!  There may be some extra posts to do with GameDevGo! and the other things I’ve been doing recently. But hopefully, within the next week, posts shall be abundant.

Can you guess where I am in terms of story?

Click for larger!

Yep!

Well, I haven’t posted in a few days. Hell, almost a week!
Quick update: Started and finished Mass Effect purely so I could have a save (that is my own) to transfer onto Mass Effect 2 this thursday.
Since finishing ME1, I’ve gone back to Dragon Age: Origins with my dwarf. Got a long way to go.

Really, I wanna see how many games I can finish before going back to Uni. Yes, this includes all my programming as well.