Sakar's Box of Wonders

Quick Update

I’m not dead, I just haven’t really been doing much.

• Gearworks is up on BitBucket, though I have no docs or anything for it
• I’ve started on a new exploration-based project in Unity
• That’s about it

I hope to update more frequently soon, but we’ll see if that actually happens.

Gearworks

For quite a while now I’ve wanted to make my own game engine/framework. Last week I finally started working on one, and it is called Gearworks.

It is a 2D game framework written in C++, and takes a considerable amount of inspiration from Chevy Ray’s FlashPunk. I plan to release an early version by the end of the month, and it will be open source. I already have a decent amount done, and will hopefully have completed enough to use it for Ludum Dare next week. 

What I currently have:

• AABB collision detection
• Sprite loading and transformation
• Input support (only keyboard right now)
• Object creation and deletion

My to-do list before LD:

• Framerate independent game logic (Biggest concern)
• Text drawing
• Basic audio playback
• Mouse input support

yay~

I’ve begun working on a game with @BlueSweatshirt. I can’t really say anything about the project yet, but hopefully soon!

Also, I don’t know if anyone remembers this old thing, but after I coming across it again I figured that it would merge well with a couple other things I made before. So this weekend I’ll work on merging those few projects together with one I’ve been wanting to make all month (I haven’t been able to make it due to lack of my desktop). 

And I’ll put up that Unfinished Things page this weekend too.

Felt Like Posting Schtuff

I feel like I should update this blog more, but I never have anything interesting to post. Maybe I’ll start posting random-ish stuff, because very few people read this blog (even that might be a stretch), so why the hell not?

After browsing TIGSource I came across a project named Sky Fortress (that’s me posting in the topic, I just recently remembered the game). I decided that I’d try my hand at making something similar. I started making it in Game Maker, but soon realized that I want to share it with people, and unless it was at least close to done and interesting, few people would try it. Thus I decided to switch over to FlashPunk. 

The transition was very easy, partly due to me having experience with FlashPunk before, and partly due to me having almost nothing actually done in the Game Maker version :P. I planned to work on it more, but yesterday I only added the ability to shoot and kill enemies, and today I didn’t even open FlashDevelop to work on it. This will probably become yet another unfinished project, but if it does I’ll have it kick-off a new page, an unfinished project page *woo*. 

The page will just be a simple page containing links and pics of unfinished projects, provided it gets far enough to warrant doing so. This way I can feel like they aren’t just being wasted, and I hope that they may inspire someone who comes across them to continue one of those projects.

Welp, I guess that’s it. I’ll just leave this here: Airship (protip: use the mouse and z)

Update

C++ and SDL failed. So did C++ and SFML.

The problem with using C++ for me is that I find myself spending too much time setting up basic things like loading images, managing objects, etc. I want to make a game, not make frameworks or engines.

After becoming frustrated with C++, I decided to try Love2D. It is quite easy, and generally pleasing to work with. Lua can be a pain without any native OOP support, but using tables it is very easy to emulate it (someone made a basic class system with inheritance support in 32 lines of code!). The problem I had was collision detection code. I was attempting to make very basic platformer-style movement, but I always got weird results.

After giving up on that, I convinced my dad to get me Game Maker Pro. Game Maker is one of my favorite 2D engines, simply because it’s so easy to work with while still offering a lot of power and flexibility. The problem I had for a long time was that features I needed, like surfaces and rotating sprites, required the paid version. While it is cheap, it was never very high on my list because other solutions worked just fine, so I never bothered to buy it.

But now I have it, and in an evening got a basic game-type-thingamajig setup. I used Grandma Engine for the platformer code (highly recommend it). In it I have enemies that can be killed, a bow that requires the player to pull it back to fire, a basic sword, knockback when getting hit, and temporary invincibility after getting hit (for ~1 second). This isn’t really like my original idea, so I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with it. I thought about prototyping a different idea I had, though I’m not sure if I should do it in Game Maker or FlashPunk (which I also highly recommend)

Anyway, since my initial idea kinda failed, I’m not sure if I’ll have anything by the end of the month. I’ll still try though, because I really want to see something through to completion. I just need to find something within my ability that I really want to make, and stick with it.

July

This Saturday I will be going to Arizona for 1 month. Since my desktop is way too big to take on a plane, I’ll have to try and get a laptop from my grandpa. If I succeed in doing so, I will try and get something playable of a new game idea during my time out there. This will be a good time to do so as my internet will be limited, meaning little to no time sinks on YouTube. The laptop I get will also undoubtedly be too weak to play anything more than Minecraft (which I’ve gotten bored of in singleplayer, luckily).

My idea is to make something similar to Fableous, the demake of Fable. “But that game is really big and complicated and ambitious and stuff!” Yep, that game is. Mine will be much smaller and simpler (at least initially). My goals for it are outlined below:

• Player movement - Left/Right, Jump, Slopes (not platformer-like movement)
• Basic inventory - Pickup/drop/use items
• Multiple maps - Self explanatory
• Combat - Player can die and kill things. Something like Fableous, but simpler

That’s it for the month. My main concern is having something playable. Preferably 1 or 2 levels w/ all those features.

This game will be made in C++ with SDL (and other libraries as needed). It will be harder to make it this way, but also much more rewarding. Hopefully I can stick with this.

*headdesk headdesk headdesk*

I’m out of ideas. I can’t come up with anything that I actually want to make. Most “ideas” I have are nothing more than how the game would look. Basically I never have actual game ideas, nothing for gameplay or actually doing something.

I’m tired of trying to make clones of other projects for the sake of getting something done. It doesn’t work, and what little interest I may have in making said game is usually lost within a day. 

I feel like I should probably take a break, but the problem is I don’t know what else to do. The only thing that has really interested me the past few years has been making and playing games. However I’m not making any progress making games and I’ve run out of games to play or even replay. 

So tired of this cycle. I need to find a way to break out of it…

Secret

First off, yes I know I said I’d finish Linear Dungeon Crawl, but I just don’t enjoy working on it or playing it. So now I’m working with a friend on a different game.

I can’t say much about it yet, but I will say this:

Hats