A post in time..w00t!

There's one thing I completely forgot to mention yesterday - I've finished most of my tiling engine. Its almost complete and I've implemented everything including collision detection. Only one part remains, the map maker.

However, I've decided to take a break and start doing something more interesting for a while. Enter the Pong clone. I've just started it, and it should hopefully be done in a week or so, maybe more since I have my final exams going on at the moment.

I've also discovered a nice way to learn more on game programming. All I need to do is take a trip to SourceForge and look at some 2D games. Most of them are written in C++, and some of them use SDL, so they'll probably be a great help in my quest to become a great game programmer.

I've been playing around with other programming languages like Ruby. Its seems nice and simple to use. I could probably make good use of it for AI purposes later on, from what I've heard about scripting languages.

To be honest, I've really got too many projects right now. I plan write my Pong clone, then I'll write the map maker, after which I'll try a nibbles clone, then I'll try a 2D RPG, and I haven't even started GUI programming yet. Considering how complicated WinAPI is, I'll probably be better off trying something like Qt for GUIs.

So that's this week's randomness.

Internet TV is nice

I've been using this great video podcast downloader and player called Miro for a long while now. Its pretty nice, and I can get all my favorite video podcasts automatically downloaded and ready to watch, which is great. The interface is also nice and iTunes-like.

However, Miro is far from perfect. It has more bugs than you can shake a stick at, and often downloads one video multiple times. Videos frequently disappear for some podcasts and have to be re-downloaded, which is very annoying. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any similar software that can do a similar job, let alone do it better.

Then again, I can get my weekly Zero Punctuation and TED videos for watching simply by leaving Miro open and let it automatically download whatever I want.

Its a great piece of software, but I really hope they fix the bugs soon. Although I'm not sure that's going to happen, because I found the newly released Miro 2.0 buggier than the previous one.

Frustration...

Lets just ignore my lateness from now on.

I've got my hands of a few nice books to read, one of them being Are You Good Enough - 15 Ways To Build A Confident Mindset by some authors whose name I don't remember. Its a short read, but an interesting and thought-provoking one.

I got myself a nice desktop RSS reader. FeedDemon seems to fit my purposes well. Beats having to login to Google several times a day.

As for my progress into the world of game programming, its been a frustrating fortnight, to say the least. I've been going at this damned tiling thing for a very long time now. It just keeps going on forever. I've pretty much finished the rendering and loading parts. Only the collision detection and map maker remain, but they're the hardest part.

So that's all for today.

I'm late again

Okay, I've missed the deadline for posting again, but I had some tests this week so I have an excuse this time (although that didn't stop me from playing Prey).

In any case, I've just picked an interesting book to read - A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Physics was never this interesting. I've also been considering reading some fiction some time in the recent future, its been forever since I've read any.

I've also gone through a fairly frustrating experience recently. After following several tutorials on Tiling with SDL, I came to the realization that the best way to learn anything was to attempt to make a tiling engine myself, using my own ideas rather than using someone's ideas in my code. It helps me learn faster, and helps me unleash my creativity to its full potential.

I've also become a regular reader of Calvin and Hobbes. For some extremely strange reason however, by brain keeps perceiving 'Calvin and Hobbes' as 'Calvin and Hobbles', much to my annoyance.

Anyway, that's some randomness right there for you.

Its been a while..

Its been a long while since I've last posted, so long that I've even considered giving up on this blog. Anyways, I've decided to go on... for now. I'll try to post at least twice a week from now on.

As for whats been going on with my life... lots of stuff. I've finished playing the entire Half-Life 2 series (except for Lost Coast). I've "completed" my Arkanoid clone. Completed as in I've written all the code to make levels for the game, but I haven't written the code for the levels themselves. And, it looks ugly. I also started work on a Porojectile Motion Simulator, which I finished yesterday. Again, I haven't bothered to fix any of the more perplexing problems in the code and I still haven't added all the features required for the project to be officially finished.

Today I've been messing with animation using SDL and I've got a nice little test program up and running, with scrolling and all.

I should also mention that I've just begun to learn touch typing so that I can type faster.

Oh and I've just started reading a rather interesting book, "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman". Be sure to check it out, its really interesting.

And did I mention I'm in the process of playing Prey. Really nice game.

Thats all for today's post folks. Lets all hope I can be a little more regular from now on.