Google is weird...

I like Google. Most of the time they make great stuff! Sometimes they confuse me a bit. Like now. I have a page over at google sites.
And I have this blog.
I want these blogposts to show up over there. Strangely, that's not really possible... I can add a blog there, and I can add blogs here. But I can't make this blog appear in a widget over there! I want to do that... So I started a blog over there now. You can read it at the link above.

This blog will not be deleted. I might return to it, in the future. If not, it's always nice to keep the old posts...


See you over there, if you want.

Yay!

I have been tinkering a lot with the ship controls. I started out by using a click-and-go-there style of navigation. I even provided a little window with a little list in it, with objects you could click on and the ship would go there.
I then rewrote it to a more you-really-are-at-the-controls-(tryandnotfuckitup!kthnxbye) style, and it felt great. But I think that most people would prefer the former, so I rewrote it all again. I'm aiming for a bit more casual style, and clicking on things to make it happen fits in that category.

Sadly, this means that I have to do much more coding! Like make the ships avoid asteroids and stuff! And thats hard!
I had a pretty good algorithm worked out, and I gave it a shot. It didn't work out as I planned. I still think the algorithm is sound, but I don't feel like wasting energy on it right now. I don't want it to be the issue that kills my motivation. So I ignored it, for now. If you want to fly around something, either click on another object and fly towards it until your real destination is in view, or do what I do... Click on where you want to go, and then you go and make a cup of tea while the spaceship bangs its nosecone into the asteroids until it accidentally gets by it.

Tomorrow, I will start hacking on the mining part. After that it's time to add battle.

Up And At'em!

I'm hammering my hands at the keyboard and stuff happens on the screen. There might be a game at the end of this! It's a space game. You fly a spaceship. And you can shoot the laser at astroids. You will later be able to mine them on resources, and shoot that laser at enemy ships. And there will be trading. Hopefully, the star systems and planets will be procedurally generated and other cool stuff like that. Saves me a lot of work, anyway! ;)

Back to coding... The code won't write itself. Yet.

Time well spent?

Still playing minecraft. :P
Day/night cycle was recently added, and it made things way more interesting!

I'm taking a rest it seems. I want to make a new game, and fix the bugs in the old ones, but I can't get arsed! My energy is depleted, or something. Not the first time it has happend. Hopefully I can get some motivation to start, and finish, a project soon. Until then, you'll find me in the deepest mine below the mountain, fighting off skeletons and zombies with a pickaxe and a bowl of mushroom soup. (Or you will, once minecraft get multiplayer support in indev!)

"Downtime"

I bought Minecraft. And in retrospect it wasn't a wise move since I have been very busy building stuff and fighting off evil skeletons and spiders and, creepers? They explode if you get too close and is therefore very dangerous.

So... I'm experiencing some "downtime" at the moment. Building a sweet fort and mining diamonds. Going to build some sweet diamond tools soon. And a green house so pigs and sheep doesn't destroy my crops.

My web page is now updated!

I did some work on my web page today. It's now slightly more informative, and not just a collection of links.

Well, it's still links, but with more text and pictures! So go there and click around a bit if you like.

Ta-Daaa!

I skipped the music. I ran out of time and was eager to get it released. It will hopefully be added in a later version of the game.

You can all go HERE and play it. Enjoy.

And I also wrote a Post Mortem blog entry on my blog over there. That's right. I have two blogs now! Not that I will stop writing in this one. It's just that I got that one when I registered and, you know, why not? Go read it if it tickles your fancy.

I HAVE DONE IT!

It's done. I think. Time is running out, and I don't have any big points on the almighty TODO list left to do.
Except for the music. I need music. I have, with some luck, a tune coming in tonight but there are no guarantees for it... The game would work without music. It's not the end of the world. I can always update the game later on, I think, when I have some music, but it would be great to have it from the start. But oh, well. I made the game in under a week! It's a bit crazy how much I got done in that little time! :)

I will wait a few more hours for the music, but then I really have to upload the game and hope for the best. I don't think I'll win the competition, but I want to see what others think of my game. Whatever it might be. I make games because I think it is fun, not to win cash or prizes. Even if it is nice if I do. ;)

Wheeee

Been coding like mad, since I decided to enter the Game Jolt competition. The theme is Rogue, so I made a game where you stand on a building with a hook shot and must steal stuff from people who walks underneath. But then when I finally started to do some animations, unity and blender decided they didn't like each other anymore and everything went belly up. At least when it comes to motivation. With only a week left I didn't want to waste a lot of time on something silly like that, so I did the only reasonable thing one could do. I started a new game! :P

The new game is isometric, and is only using 2 colours. You run around a map and mug people. Basically. I got the map done, and is working on ironing out the A* bugs (they sometimes get lost :P). Then I shall add randomly walking NPC's, and NPC's that follows a route, like cops, and then the mugging bit. Mugging someone makes the cops come running so one must run and hide the loot. For every X mugged people, a new cop will be added. Or something like that. I have zero planning so it will be interesting to see how it turns out...

I got about 3 days left now. This will be a mad rush for the finish line! :)

I'm everywhere!

I was working on a Zombi remake a couple of days ago. Now I'm working on a game inspired by a board game we have. I should be working on my puzzle game, but there's a bunch more wips in my "Projects" folder than screams for attention. :P

But the board game clone is coming along nicely. Randomly generated maze and lighting effects and all that stuff. Wife is helping out with this one too. I ask stuff and she does her best to answer. :)

Merry Christmas and stuff

Busy like everyone else. Parents visited us and we celebrated christmas together. It was nice. My wife gave me a DSi and Zelda, Phantom Hourglass. :)

No programming have been done for a long time now. My puzzle game still lacks ideas to make it fun, and I don't have any better ideas, yet. Things are calming down now so I will soon start hacking away on a game or two,

Bleh!

Still no progress being made! But I have been very busy too. And it sucks.

Thinking of putting the project on hold for a while to gather ideas and energy.

Also this

I have read a couple of articles online about publishing indie games. What's the difference between indie and, let's say, "bed room coder"? What is the definition of indie? Am I an indie? Is my game it? I'm not going to sell the game, it will be free for everyone, but that shouldn't matter, right? Since it's not backed up by a publisher I will assume it's indie. Not that I care much, really. Just a bit curious.

The only reason I'm thinking in these lines is that for the first time I might get payed for releasing a game. Not directly, but through ads. But not ads inside the game, so you should not have to worry. I'm going to upload the games to some portals that share the ads money they get. I don't think I'm going to get rich, but some tea money would not hurt.

One article said I should have a homepage, so I guess I should look around. I don't feel like paying for one so I guess my options is a bit limited. I'm horrible when it comes to remember to update a homepage. But I'm also horrible when it comes to remember to update a blog. But I have improved a lot in the latter, so maybe it's time to get a page again. At least I will have a place to upload the game to once it's done.

Not so much progress

I have made very little progress during the last couple of days. Working weekends now and my free time have been occupied by other important real life stuff.
Got a lot of work in the comming days too, but I think I should be able to squeeze in a few hours here and there.

The main issue now is that my game design is not good enough. I knew this from the start, but hoped ideas would come during the development. They usually do, but not so much this time. I'm unsure where to go from here with the idea and have asked some relatives for help and suggestions. We'll see what they can come up with.

HTC hero awesomeness

blogging from my new and shiny (well, brown actually) Android phone. all typos and gramatical errors is a result of my fingers are too wide for the touchscreen. and because the wordlist is in Swedish and doesn't help much when i write in English.

progress

I have made some progress with my puzzle game. did a major gameplay redesign and fiddled with the looks. I think its going to be sweet!

And google Chrome beta for osx is installed. Love it! except that unity Webplayer doesn't work in it. yet.

Going indie?

Will i jump on to the indie train? Got a little something in the making. Nothing big, more kind of an experiment.

Retro!

I'm working on a FPS shooter as well. Designed to look like some VR thing from the 80's. A bit of Tron here, and a bit of Dactyl Nightmare there...

Currently working with the enemy AI. I want them to chase you when they see you, and go where they last saw you if you're gone, etc. It works, kind of, but I'm having some problems here and there as well. I really enjoy working with Unity since it makes things a lot easier, but I wish they had IronRuby or something in there as well, together with some nice docs. For the moment I'm using some kind of Javascript thingy. I miss ruby.

RR November game: Fireworks

On the Retro Remakes forum, it is declared that November is the month of games featuring fireworks!
(Or pictures featuring fireworks... or just about anything, as long as it is about fireworks.)

Am I mad enough to create a game about fireworks? It's only 6 days left of November...

... I think I am! :D
And I will use Unity3D for it, because it will most likely save me a lot of time, something I don't have a lot of!

Minigames

Thinking of making a game with a lot of small minigames in it. Everything (probably) will take place in a small town, and the player picks a minigame to play in that town. The graphics will be very cartoony and the games easy and aimed for kids.

Sort of. Something like that. We'll see how it goes. Maybe it could turn up as something I could sell?