It's Been a Busy Month

To explain a recent lack of updates: In the past month or so I've moved, gotten a job, went to New Jersey and had people visit me here in VA. There's been a lot going on and I haven't had a chance to keep things up to date on here. So let's catch up, shall we?

Tridel Games has contacted me asking for my assistance in a total conversion mod they're doing for UT3, and so I've been working with them on that. OddMods has been more active, but there's been little by way of progress on projects, and most of my personal projects have been neglected for a while. Hopefully things will start slowing down and I'll have a chance to get back to work on things soon.

OddMods Return

I checked the OddMods Forum the other day, not really expecting to find anything new as it had been dead for quite a while, and to my surprise I see a post in the Schedule/Management section. Turns out Sean attempted to rally the team again so we could get back to work, and it appears to be working. I am quite excited, as I was already learning the new UnrealScript to possibly work on a Total Conversion with Tridel Games LLC (I was asked to join them in an email I recieved last week). It looks like I will end up doing work on Unreal Tournament 3 after all.

Havok

I found out a little while ago that the Havok Physics Engine is available for free download and use for non-commercial games. Which is excellent, so I downloaded a copy for myself and was starting reading the included documentation. I'll tell you, it's impressive. So, expect some updates about me working with it.

As for Asteroids, my progress has been halted by a baffling inability to get the SDL addons to work, namely SDL Mixer and SDL TTF. I must be doing something wrong with the installation, but I can't tell what. I am going to seek some help with it, and hopefully I will get it down soon and be able to finish it up. I added a particle system for explosion effects when the asteroids or the player is destroyed, and the high score table is fully functional. The only thing I really need now is sound and on-screen text.

Asteroids Clone Progress

I've made a good deal of progress on my C++ and SDL based clone of Asteroids. A friend of mine, Mike Sovey, saw the prototype I had online and sent me a copy of the game with graphics he made already implemented, and when I opened it I was very "wowed" for quite a bit. Since then I've been working on finishing it up, and presently I have a high score table working in code (no display) and momentum, as well as a series of other tweaks and add-ons to the original. Click somewhere in this sentence to download the latest build. Please tell me what you think of it, I'm anxious to get some feedback. Finished game should be done by Wednesday, so keep an eye out for it.

Asteroids Clone & Other Progress

I woke up yesterday with a single thought in my mind: start and finish a new project. As I continued thinking about it, I decided on Asteroids, the lovable 2D space shooter from 1979, in native C++ with SDL. Sure enough, I sat down at 10:00 am and began work, and by 7:00 pm I had the game coded and horribly in need of debugging. After spending almost the entire day working out the kinks in my LinkedList (first one I wrote in C++) and getting the game flow under control, I am left with a working model of Asteroids, which you may try out by clicking these words. The graphics are all simple circles made in MS Paint and the direction the player is facing isn't yet apparent, but those are simply aesthetics. The gameplay works fine, possibly in need of a bit of fine-tuning, and to that end I've finished my first game in C++ in 2 days. I'm very happy with it so far, and I hope to add sound and better graphics, possibly a high-score table of sorts and the like into the game, but those are all details. As I said, I'm quite happy I was able to accomplish this in only one weekend.

Aside from that, our meetings to finish Breakout were rescheduled for various reasons, and probably won't take place until this upcoming weekend at the soonest. With any luck we will be able to sit down on Saturday and finish the game up though.

I've also made some progress on my site, everything from changing a few of the aesthetic details to adding a PHP form for sending me emails, and one for updating my Projects Page (which needs a password, of course). The only thing I absolutely need to finish at this point is the Portfolio Page, which is both challenging in concept and code. I have a draft of what the portfolio will look like, but nothing finalized yet. Hopefully I'll be able to finish it soon and more on to learning the AJAX necessary to get the page to work the way I have it planned. Keep checking the site for frequent updates, because I still haven't decided what to do with the main page either.

Website & BreakoutClone

I have been continuing work on my site, and I think it's coming along fairly well. I've had some trouble getting a variety of feedback though, so if you would like to check it out and comment here about what you think, the site is at DorthuGames.com. At present the Projects page and the About page resemble what they will upon completion, but both require more content to be truly finished. Mostly I'd like to know what you think of the style sheet and the general appearance of the site. I do appreciate and take into consideration all feedback, so please don't be shy.

In addition, tomorrow I am meeting with Mike Sovey, Steve Louridas and Richard Bell to finish the BreakoutClone game we began in C++ a few weeks ago. I believe that we should have no trouble completing it, so expect to see it online soon. Finishing a project is always exciting, especially this time since none of us have ever compiled all of the source code all at once. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

PHP, CSS and XML

A good friend of mine and excellent programmer, Scott Lowe, gave me a crash course in modern web development, so I am finally redoing my site using modern techniques and kicking the old IFrame (which was the cutting edge back when I first learned HTML). After his instruction I had no problem understanding how PHP and CSS work, so progress is coming quickly. Hopefully the site will be finished before too long and I can get on with my other projects. My new site, however, will have an extensive portfolio section in addition to a projects section, the portfolio section will be geared towards industry professionals looking to hire me where as the projects page will be a list of downloads for games I've made. Anyway, keep an eye out for it.