I just found my blog that I haven't seen in 12 years!

 Howdy, just thought I'd say hi. There's a non-zero chance that I start blogging here again.

From reading my old posts from back in the day, it seems like it was quite therapeutic.

Thanks 

Mike

Weekly update #5 14/08/2011 (I know I missed a week but please forgive me)

Hello All

I know it's been way too long, a week too long to be precise, but I have some updates in any case.

I've been working hard this weekend on my game engine, it doesn't have a quirky codename or anything yet, but I guess you have to prioritise!

The past few weekends I've been laying down the foundations for the engine, I implemented a pretty solid state transition system 2 weeks ago, and also a static factory class that builds any state you like, the whole idea was to take the thought out of making states (levels, menu screens etc) and letting the programmer (i.e. just me for now) get on with making the games (which I'm about to come to)

This weekend I have managed to wrap the Sprite and Window classes of SFML to make them fit comfortably in my engine design, with these classes in place, I was able advance to the next stage, actually making a test game!

So, what game did I make do you ask? nothing special here, as a brief dance with nostalgia, I decided to code up (in about an hour), a tile matching game... A bit like the one I made all those years back (Dig into the YouTube archives and here you will find at the end of the video, a demo of match up version 1, it hasn't moved on all that much, but the difference is that I could make this one a lot better)

So that pretty much sums up my weekends work, I have plenty of footage recorded from a couple of weeks back, and plenty of whiteboard shots of this weekends work, I can't wait to find the time to site down, edit and post what I've been doing the last few weeks, it's been really fun and I'm hoping to do a lot more in the future.

Thank you for reading

Mike

Partially Belated Weekly Update #4 30/7/11

Hi all

I've got lots to report this weekend, it's been a bit of a turning point if I'm being honest.

So I've started working on a game, a modest one ,but I'm building a solid engine which I can use to make larger projects, I've written no code yet, but I've got a solid design down for the event and state transition system, and I've recorded a lot of footage I need to edit and upload to YouTube.

So what have I been doing ?

- recorded a video introducing concept and game mechanics

- designed class diagrams demonstrating design of event and state system

- recorded video demonstrating process of invoking and making use of engine, including using a

sequence diagram to demonstrate and add a dimension to the concepts

- did a screen recording demonstrating the Event/State system design through UML

Overall, today has been very productive, and I hope to solidify what has happened today by waking up early, refining the design and building a test harness and writing some code to get the ball rolling.

Closing thoughts:

- still need to edit the video and make it palatable for a YouTube audience (not too long, gets to the point better)

- Today has been an exciting experience and I hope to emulate the success of today

Cheers

Mike

Weekly update #3 19/7/2011

Hi All

So I thought I would check in as I keep saying I will, I have to keep some sort of consistency if I want to get any projects off the ground, so this is a list of what I've been doing to further my personal projects.

I've been working on the following:

- I've been writing the content for my game studio website, and working on some styling, I've

also got a practical plan for deploying the projects without much trouble (I can test locally, and deploy to the web quite easily, took a bit of figuring out)

- I've also been playing around with figuring out how best it might be to try and develop better game code, faster, I've been designing, or at least prototyping various class designs , designed a state transitioning system, which I've started to partially implement, I also wrote a few other pieces of code to test some other theories out, I'll try my best to write some code I can make some test harnesses out of, so I can show I'm making some progress, even if work time is tight and I have other stuff going on.

I know there wasn't much there, but an update is an update

Thanks for reading

Mike

Weekly update #2 11/7/11

So I guess this is a little late if we were to call this a 'weekly' update, but what the heck, better late than never.

So what have I been up to this week?

I've made a lot of progress in developing a brand for my game studio, I've got a catchy name which I've registered a domain for (it's a full .com), I'm now developing a site to represent the brand and showcase the work that will hopefully be up there at some point.

R&D is another area that I have made lots of progress on, I've been trying out a few APIs I might consider using for my upcoming titles, I installed GLUT and messed around with OpenGL, while an OpenGL-based C++ game or game engine isn't in my short term strategy, I feel it's important to look to the future and start learning something a little more hardcore, which I will use in the future if I manage to get some simpler titles to market.

I think something has to be addressed, I am aware that I'm using a lot more business terminology, referring to my games as products or brands, I do this for a reason, and not the one you might think.

When you refer to something as a product or as a brand, you expect it to carry a price, this is not entirely the case in my situation, while I would like to become a successful independent game developer, who is able to earn at least a windfall from the occasional game, that is only a secondary goal, my primary goal is to improve my skillset and create some games for everyone to play.

The point I'm trying to get across is that while I would like to make a living from game programming, my initial goal is not to make millions of pounds, but a more humble goal of getting a game 'out there' and testing the water, by applying the rigour of business, I'm able to motivate myself better, as I work as if I am working to order, as opposed to freelance without a clear direction.

Anyway, enough of that, I just wanted to explain what I do and why I do it, I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts of the day.

Mike

It's time to get serious 3rd Jul 2011

Today I've decided to start to formalise my development process by documenting what I'm doing [relating to game development or my other projects] on any given day, therefore I'm going to be posting a lot of blogs from now on. the posts will mainly be check lists of tasks I hope to achieve on that given day, or at least partially work on, I've decided to get serious because I want to set something up with some longevity and make some great titles for the platforms I'm choosing to develop for.

Here is my first list (drafted at 1:30am last night :P)

- Need name for Game Studio (Therefore will consider some options today)

- Need to decide flagship/target platforms (can't program anything till I know what I'm programming for)

-Need to do some R&D, into 3D Graphics, 3D Math, User Interface design and Web Design

- Decide genre/general game mechanics/concept of debut game

- Finish Portfolio Page

- Begin designing pages relating to my game projects

- Look back a past uni work relating to business/ project management.

I'm hoping if I keep this up, I can measure my goals and hopefully come out with something worth playing, thanks for reading.

Mike

UPDATE!

What I got done

-- came up with a few names for the company

-- came up with a draft strategy for how I'm going to roll out various games out on different platforms (therefore I decided my flagship platforms)

-- looked at some OpenGL/GLUT tutorials, once I get my windows 7 machine up and running, I'll start practicing, but read a few guides today and archived them.

So I have a few more things to do, but hope to finish them on the nights after work.

Getting things clear in my head: Game Design

Today I decided to do some design work, I find one of my biggest problems is getting a complex design clear in my head, and usually this leads to ambiguity, thus poor implementation, this kinda annoys me, because my ability to design must be far greater (or at least equal to) my programming skills if I want to advance to bigger projects.

So I sat down and asked myself "what is a game?", the following is a UML diagram that I wrote out, some of the notation might be a little wrong, but you'll probably understand where I'm coming from. (Hopefully the image will be enlargeable)

The above diagram is what I consider to be a game, I'm going to keep adding to this model, and eventually I may be able to build an engine out of it, one of my flaws is definitely design, sometimes I can't see wood from the trees!

Let's see what you make of it.