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Taking the game-prototype challenge

I only recently came across Lost Garden's Game prototype challenge. I've seen the site before but it had been a long time between visits. Inspired by his funky game assets, I decided to give my current project a short rest and spend a few hours seeing how far I could get.

This is about 6-7 hours work so far. Mouse over, adding and removing blocks works with some nice fading animation, and both the clock and the score are functional. The clouds are also animating from left to right. If you look closely you can also see that block shadows are implemented as well.

I've pretty much completed the world-building aspect, so the next 6-7 hours will be required to implement the peas themselves. I have a few good ideas of how to implement their animation and pathing, and expect to have something workable within that timeframe. My goal is to have peas spawn, move, and find a launch point. Bouncing and scoring I expect to take up the 6-7 hour block after that.

I would have the whole thing done by the end of this weekend - but unfortunately I have plans to spend the majority of it jumping out of perfectly serviceable planes instead. Huzzah.

What's in a name?

My Game Studio now has a name, and a website. Granted, there's not a lot to it yet, but it's a concrete start.

I spent a long time before I arrived at this name, hopefully it gets across what I'm trying to build. Not so much straightforward and simple games, instead more complex, tangled, functional, unique creations.

Thats not to say they'll be arcane, cryptic and impossible to access. Instead it's more meant to convey that they are doing a lot more than just moving pixels around on a screen.

Starting a development blog

Hi, if you're reading this post it means you've probably gone through the archive. I'm starting this blog as a personal development diary, to keep track of my thoughts and progress as I develop my first world-simulation engine.

It's a long way from finished, but when it gets there I hope it ends up being something unique. The influences are many and varied, but as a teaser, a short-list would include: Neuromancer, The Matrix, Shadowrun, WH40K/Inquisitor/Necromunda, Syndicate, Deus Ex, Johnny Mnemonic, Ghost in the Shell, and from a completely different direction: Storytron, Decision Theory, Bayesian Probability and The Prince.

You can probably pick the setting, but what is more interesting to me at the moment is what the game engine will be like and how the player will interact with it. More to follow.