Digital Dave

First. If you are going to the conference, do not forget to bring an umbrella. It looks like there is rain in the forecast for, nearly, the entire week — according to www.weather.com.

I’ve got the schedule finalized. Feel free to take a peek.

View my Game Developers Conference Schedule in *.pdf format!

I also got my very first game programming test for an internship at a game company. I was shocked. Then I got to the test and went, “Oh, dear, memory management? Static allocation only? No dynamic!?!? Awww, craaaaaap.” Tricky test. So, it’s not promising, but I’m giving it a go because that is what I do.

Well, I have nearly everything packed. I take off in the morning at about 6:45 and get into San Francisco at 1:45. I’ll begin my picture-taking-madness tomorrow!

Safe travels to those that are heading out and that are already on the way.

I decided to make a texture class that will handle the creation and loading of resources. Right now, I call the texture class to create a background which is created using two display lists so that I can scroll the background. I also call the texture class to build the panel, and a misc object that I just wanted to test out. This is working well so far.  I can now move on to getting objects flying around the screen.

I’m thinking hard about building a level editor right off of the bat. Basically, I want to be able to “Create a new mission”, and within the mission, I want to edit “Level 1″ through “Level 10″. Each level will have it’s own set of creatures, and their corresponding path during the level. Each level will have a certain amount of ‘waves’ and I need to somehow have a data file that regulates the positions. I could do this several ways, but I’m thinking that being able to drop down to this level of customization would be great for me (speed of creation++), and could possibly lead way to user customized add ins. I want to be able to ‘draw’ the paths creatures will take, save it in an XML file, and then load that beast up during game play.

I just donated $50 to the Obama camp.  We seriously need to get this man elected.

This is also my first time ever donating to a political campaign.  There is a first for everything, and this man looks to be a great first to receive it.

I got my pass to the GDC in the mail Friday. Giggidy… Giggidy…

Between helping my girlfriend move last weekend, I also spent some time researching some companies that will be at the GDC this year. I continue to meet people through the myGDC tool that they provide those that register. The majority that I have met are students, but include a few people that are actually in the industry. Obviously, a whole lot of people decline to join myGDC, but there are still a fair amount of profiles.

I head out Saturday morning. *bites nails*

I’m still trying to figure out how I’ll be updating my journal while I am there. I will have a plethora of pictures, I promise you that. I am a photo-taking-freak. I also plan on driving to some of the outlying areas to scout. I need to find a good place to live if I move to this area of California.  I’m not sure living inside the city is a good idea or not.

While the thought of building a really fun and interesting 3D game definitely crossed my mind, and even got me to the point of writing out a few pieces of documentation on it, I just couldn’t commit to it.   So, instead, I decided to drop back into 2D mode while setting the bar pretty high with things that I want to get out of this.  It’s definitely been a slow start due to flopping back and forth on a idea, but I’m moving now.

For this project I will be using C++, OpenGL, SDL, and Adobe Photoshop.   My goal on the art side is to actually find an artist that wants to work on a project for fun. I also have somebody that will be helping me create audio for it.  And I have somebody open to improve the design, if needed.  There’s networking in action for you.

So this is a vertical scrolling shooter game.  My inspiration for this project are recent titles released by Big Fish Games: Star Defender 4, Alien Stars, and others.  I played several games, wrote several ideas, and added bits and pieces to the design that I thought were missing.

My approach to game design is rather simple.  I have 4 principles that guide me through this process.  In fact, you may have seen my prior logo (Made a few years ago; used to be on my GD.NET journal):

Blue: Fun
Yellow: Rewarding
Teal: Immersion
Red: Challenge

Once I have solidified a genre, I start thinking about how this game is going to reward the player, while being above all else, fun.   I love rewards, and I see their effects every time I watch my girlfriend play a game, or my nephew.  Players want candy, and they are more than willing to accept it.   I don’t want subtle rewards, I want to see my rewards!  So right off of the bat, I will be introducing a Ranking system, similar to the Military’s ranking.  I’ve designed 10 different ranks that will take the player from the Enlisted side, and over to the Officer side.

What will being a higher rank achieve?  Better, unique, weapons.  A Captain will have special weapons that he/she starts the new mission with that a Private would not get.  These include “Helper” ships that will flank the player, and as you progress, they will become stronger.  This also leads to more advanced bombs (guided, and others) and shields.

The promotion system will be based off of several factors.  The players kill to death ratio, time in rank, bonuses, and special kills.

Special kills are also a new addition.  Consider this a bounty.  On your screen you will have an image of who you need to seek and destroy.  These are special creatures/ships and they will not go down easily.

I also plan to introduce quests to the game that will trigger between missions.  These will involve capturing, instead of killing, specific creatures/ships…  Destroying specific landmarks…  Among other things. They won’t be hard, just something to add to the game that will give the player another option and a way to tie the player into the story.

And I have more that I will wait to share until I start making headway into this.

So, the programming started a few days ago.  I haven’t devoted a lot of time to it, but that will begin to change.  I had to spend some time re-developing how I do things since I’ll be using OpenGL for my graphics, and I’m still trying to piece that together.

I have a scrolling background and the game windows main panel.  This is programmer art at its best.

I am running into some issues, already.  The scrolling background scrolls without the panel, but with it, it doesn’t.  The reason is because I am using display lists for the background, and simply drawing the panel.  Well, to get the display list to scroll, I translate it’s position each tick.   Well, when you translate, you’re translating the entire screen… I don’t want to do that… I also don’t want to burden the game by redrawing the polys each cycle.  I seen on NeonHelium something regarding creating different ‘viewports.’  I’m sure this could be one way to fix this, but I really don’t want to go that way, yet.  I’ll tinker with it some more.

Here is the first screen shot.

Game Window : Right Click, View Image for a Larger Size

In an effort to improve this as a portfolio website for myself, I am beginning to add source code sample documents. These documents are here to provide the curious about my coding style and thought processes; if it’s your desire to dig that deep. I wanted to release everything I’ve done open source, and I am still considering it. But for now, I will hold off on that. So far I’ve made up two documents. Luckily, I document my code, so it didn’t take a whole lot of time to make them. Feel free to preview them:

Ascending Order Source Documentation

Breakout Returns Source Documentation

God. I hope everybody to the east of Kansas are doing alright tonight. There have been an incredible amount of storm activity in the region. Some places were reporting being hit by tornadoes, THREE separate times. And at one time, CNN reported that there were 30,000 strikes of lightening within just one hour.

How about this battle between Clinton and Obama? Hopefully Obama can get some more traction to get this train moving a little more aggressively.

Progress is moving along with the shooter game and my graphic development course. I’ll be writing about both when I get things moving a little more.

Searching for internships are quite a mammoth of a task.  There are very few companies that actually offer internships. Or at least publicly. Leh-sigh…

Watch This

This if you’d like…

Vote

So I’m trying to piece together a schedule for the game developers conference and I can’t say it’s fun at all.  There are so many things to do, and so many of those things occur at the same time.   I’m also trying to make the best of it by not sticking purely to just one, specific, track.  Not to mention, many of the programming events are pretty high level.  But I am going to attend something in Game Design, Production, Management, and Visual Arts.

Summit

• Independent Games

Some of the lectures I’m thinking about:

Game Design

• Storytelling in BIOSHOCK: Empowering Players to Care about Your Stupid Story
• Rules of engagement: Blizzard’s Approach to Multiplayer Game Design
• Structure VS. Style

Programming

• SQL Considered Harmful: Databases for MMORPGs 
• The Art and Science of Lighting
• Beyond Printf: Debugging Graphics Through Tools [conflict a]
  
• Chills and Thrills: Undefined Behavior in C++
• Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games (Day 3)

Visual Arts

• The Art and Technology Behind Bioshock’s Special Effects

Business and Management

• Entrepreneurship: From Zero to Pandemic
  

Production

• Production: Basics and Beyond [conflict a]

Anyway. I’m still trying to iron some things out.

As far as my new project goes.  I’ve decided to code this project in C++ utilizing SDL and OpenGL for the graphics.  So, that pretty much means that I’m rewriting things and getting up to speed with how OpenGL works on the graphics level.  SDL is managed by the software side of the house, while OpenGL is managed on the hardware side.  This means that you’ve definitely got to understand some theory behind what you are doing and I’ll need to get up to speed quick on it.

So. What is the project.

I really want to write about it, but I’ll save it when I get some progress going. ;|

Well, kind of.  I really wish I would have got into playing the piano a lot sooner than, oh, a few months ago.  But hey, it is what it is.

I thought I’d share my latest playing.  The product of, about, 30 minutes.  It’s not perfect by any means.  I’m not a musician by any means. I sit down and just play around until I find something that strikes my ears.  I don’t know music theory, or that I should be playing music that should be inspired by something (Can you believe somebody criticized me for that? Even knowing I was new…).  Enjoy.

Click To Listen (*.mp3)