Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in cheeslord's LiveJournal:

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Friday, December 21st, 2007
4:23 pm	Merry Christmas I hope everyone has a great christmas. Mark. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 30th, 2007
7:09 pm	Omg the Stuff So... what happened to my game, or to me for that matter? I've never been what you would call a natural journal keeper. I usually internalise my feelings. I got the routine to drop chests from dead enemies over the christmas hols, as well as allowing items to be got from the chests. Some of these items even could be used. Then I got back to work; also got addicted to Morrowind, started playing Devil May Cry 3 on the playstayshun, and we're buying a Hosue (as I'm sure Jessica will go into in more detail) .. and have found a local tabletop roleplaying group to go to on Thursdays, so ... computer game writing is having a little rest again right now. When things are more settled I might go back to it. Mark. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006
5:40 pm	The purple hobgoblin it was meant to be a troll, but ended up too small. Anyways, I have made a little purple dude who is a "creep" - like in warcraft III :- a monster who just hangs around waiting for you to kill it to get XP, so you go up Levels. Thats is at the core of Roleplaying; forget making decisions as your character would, interacting with a dynamic game environment , ... its levels everyone wants. Also implemented a rudimentary message box system as well as the XP/levelling system (needs points values tweaking though - at the moment the XP doesent depend highly enough on the relative levels of the units. Technically monsters can level up too - the system is universal based on when a unit dies) Needs more graphics animation when you level up though. The next big thing to do however is Treasure. Mark. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 4th, 2006
1:52 pm	nothin doin Spent this weekend relaxing at my mother in laws (yes, relaxing; mothers-in-law do not have to live up to stereotypes thank goodness). Got home on sunday and didnt really feel like being reative, so apart from a couple of new level tiles, nothing has changed. I plan to create a monstar with a fully animated melee attack next (current monsters with short ranged attacks just shoot rays out, and dont animate properly when doing it; I want something with a big club that swings it at you). This would be the first "creep" - i.e. a monster you can kill for experience and treasure, leading me to implement those systems. Mark. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 1st, 2006
10:55 am	Ghosts OK, i spent half the evening gutting, skinning etc. a couple of pheasants my boss gave me. However, one I had cleaned the giblet-ming off my hands I did manage to implement some small, fairly fast ghosts that the Wraith can summon (I slowed the Wraith itself down, so you always end up fighting the ghosts first). Also fixed a minor animation glitch with the wraiths close combat attack. So now the wraith has 3 spells-ranged attack, close attack and summon. Somehow I still dont find it hard to beat; perhaps with predictive firing and smarter pathfinding it will be more scary. Anyway, the wraith can always be the weakest of your opponents;; theres no harm in having more powerful ones for more skilled players. Something to do in future: give summoned units some kind of flag or aura (I havent looked yet but maybe PB will let me play with the drawing modes to make them different colours) to reveal whose side they are on. Flibble, Mark. PS Happy December; time to put up the decorations. And sing carols loudly all day long. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
12:41 pm	Wraithseseses I havent done much in the evenings this week so far. I have stopped the "stacking" of defensive spells since while its acceptable with a balanced armour spell if I leave the system this way, other "boosting" spells could really break the game (e. g. speed). Mainly though I have started creating the Wraith - a computer controlled opponent to substitute for a human player. It flies, attacks with the Life Drain spell and a close range blast spell. The latter doesn't work properly yet, mainly due to the approximate collision detection. Also the wraith will summon little wraiths (ghosts?) to help it; that also it To Be Implemented along with fixing up the pathfinding a bit so it wont look so stupid in mazes (need to make a maze to test that, too!) Wont get anything done tonight due to reenactment. Will do another screenshot when the terrain doesn't look so bland! Mark. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 27th, 2006
10:44 am	Screenshot OK, I've filled my LJ page with ads so I can afford to upload a screenshot to it. The backdrops look really bland atm; thats something I plan to change soon with a few more level editor tools and tiles. You can see the wizards, fireballs flying, a summoned eyeball monster shooting a blast at one of the players (who is using a shield spell). Mark. (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 26th, 2006
11:23 pm	Freaky eyeball thing I made a freaky kind of eyeball with legs this weekend. The main aim being to develop some crude AI and creature handling. Creature handling isnt exactly the problem as creatures and wizards share the same routines. Driving the creature about with a simple AI is more work. I am using the routine I have used in a few other games now, where each creature will cycle through the creature list at 1 unit/frame and compare distances, always attacking the closest enemy. As a refinement, units in this game will follow their creator around if the nearest enemy is too far away. Hence wizards can assemble a "party". Pathfinding is pretty basic ATM, with creatures just turning left or right at random and travelling a random distance to try and get round obstacles. Something to look at in the future perhaps, although I can think of a way to improve it a bit now. Anyway the little eyeball things follow you around and attack enemies if they get too near (friendly fire is currently active so often they shoot each other). I am limiting each wizard to just 3 summons at once for now (there will be other ways to get helpers though... I will just tap my nose for now). Also I made a spell so you can summon the eyes, and implemented a routine in the level editor to define player starts, rather than me just creating the players "manually". And I made creatures "solid" so they can block each other from moving. For my next trick I plan to make some AI opponents. I dont pretend to have the skill to make a computer controlled wizard that can do as well as a human, but will probably makle some kind of uber-monster for you to fight which has all sorts of advanages. I generally like playing the games I make, and once I have a computer opponent I can intersperse writing the game with playing it. I will post a screenshot tomorrow. Mark. (Comment on this)
Friday, November 24th, 2006
11:55 am	Being tired Well, I thought I'd get more done than I did last night. I blame the sun being turned down too low by the government to save money in winter. Implemented the "charge up" casting system - each wizard will know up to 3 spells; lesser, Jouyneyman and Greater. Selection is by holding down the fire button (as I want to try and have 2 players sharing 1 keyboard I am determined to have no more than 5 keys each tops). Ultimately I plan to have a single "inventory" slot that can be accessed by holding down the fire button even longer. Made 2 new spells - a rather boring purple fireball that ricochets randomly when it hits walls, and a Shield spell which is classed as a tier 2 spell, so that I could test the charge-up system. Due to the way I've implemented it, you can "stack" defensive spells to gain massive protection. I could change this, but for now I will leave it in. In practice it seems that due to high casting cost and limited duration of the spell, its not an overpowered strategy. Subject to future playtesting of course, but if a strategy isn't unfair then always leave it in as it adds to the strategies you can use. Thats got to be a good thing. Busy weekend this weekend - Horror LARP saturday night, car boot sale sunday. Christmas shopping and preparing for above events in any remaining time so not sure what I might achieve. Mark. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006
7:50 am	Spell #2 It was reenactment last night, meaning no programming, except for 10 minutes I managed to sneak in, and only then because the computer was on anyway runing the Climate Simulation Experiment that Jessica is determined to get to 100% Anyway I finished the second spell, a pair of green claws that arc out from the wizard and drain life from whatever they hit, healing the caster. Should get a chance to get down to some programming tonight; I will try to get more level tiles done and maybe implement a tier 2 or 3 spell, so I can implement the "charge up" spellcasting (hold down fire longer to cast a higher level spell). Mark. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
12:29 pm	What I have done so far... OK, so to get up to where I am at with the game; Progress over the first week: - first things first; make the level editor (at least crudely) so you can create the game world. Did that in 2 evenings, mainly because PB handles tilemaps automatically (this put me off buying it for a while, as I like to have control over the map myself but it has so far turned out OK). I only have made a few tiles (need to get a proper art program; I am currently using Paint) and the editor has very limited functionality. One thing it does support though is a 2 layer world map, with the ground/floor you walk on on one layer, and raised objects such as walls, trees, chairs etc. on another. this gives a lot more layout options than just a single layer so I can make more interesting worlds to play in. Over the weekend - one of the few weekends where I actually have free time to spend programming - created the creature handler. My last programming language was DIV, and I really miss its emulated parallel approach where you had lots of sub-programs, one assosciated with each sprite, which could each contain their own loops and behaved as if they all ran in parallel, although they did have a turn order which you could control. It was very handy for just creating an odd sprite with atypical behaviour with very little effort, since the rest of the program didnt have to worry about what that sprite was doing. PB is more like a classical language with a line-at-a-time program flow, meaning the main game loop must explicitly call routines to handle every sprite every frame. In practice it means I have to be a bit more careful with variables local to a sprite (later I found out PB does support limited Sprite Local Variables, but I prefer to have my own list of variables appertaining to a game object including the handle of the sprite representing it; I am just using the Sprite Local to contain the reciprocal handle back to the objects entry in my list). To save on unnecessary variables I have seperate variable lists and handling routines for creatures, projectiles and explosions. Since each type also has to have its dynamic allocation routine (I could have gone for assigned sprites for particular functions but I've kind of got used to dynamic allocation now) I am going to try and avoid making too many more types by using explosion type with specially set variables to generate other sprite-based special effects. I think for my next project I will try something more efficient like only having one type of synamically allocated object with more provision for flexibility. Its a learning experience; never expect your first program in a new language to be ideally structured. OK, to cut to the chase, I have implemented 2 wizards, keyboard controls (currently fixed but should be easy to make redefinable; I intend to have mouse control options too in case the keyboard "locks out" too many keys for 2 players). Collision detection with the world map (heres a minor annoyance; PB supports automatic sliding collision with maps. However, if I use this I cant define which map tiles register for collision, only one "transparent tile" which doesnt. This means that in order to have different tiles blocking different units (in this case chasms and water block land based units, walls block everything) I need to make extra maps for each different set of collision rules. Niot too big a hardship really though. On sunday I implemented a basic spell which showers fireballs around the screen. Part of my idea for the game dynamic is that to cast spells you will have to stand still for a while. This is based on my experience writing a much simplified version of this game in DIV, which got abandoned as it turned out not to play well (if you had 1 hitpoint more than the enemy wizard it was too easy to just chase them down, ignoring the rest of the game). Other things I implemented over the weekend and Monday (to cut things short): Health and Mana gauges for the wizards. Split screen mode for 2 players. Collision detection (using shape mode as there are dire warning against using Pixel mode in PB since collision is done using vectors, so apparently to detect collisions between pixels PB has to turn them to vectors. Its a shame a fast pixel mode doesn't exist, since it seems to be a staple of most 2D languages). This essentially takes you up to date where I am at at the moment. The core game is playable (the wizards can shoot each other, lose health and die); I will try and find a place to host screenshots at some point. Sorry for this entry length; the next ones will be smaller. Mark. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006
5:36 pm	Programming in Playbasic - The Beginning OK, I have 10 minutes now to discuss my getting started on my first game for ... a while. Playbasic (PB cos I'm lazy) is designed for 2D games programming; it has a few 3D commands but nothing that could really make DOOM 3 or anything. thats suits me pretty well, since I dont have any great ideas that have to be 3D, and also 3D graphics isnt a "mature" technology:- specs are in a constant state of flux as graphical performance is improved, while 2D performance essentially is the same as it has been for quite a few years, since nobody is bothered about having more sprites, faster blitting etc. any more. That means a 2D game is in a way more "future proof" that 3D; its already in the shallow portion of the exponential obsolescence curve and doesent pretend otherwise. Anyway, the concept of my first game: Anyone remember Feud, in the days of the 8-bit computers? A game where you control a wizard going about getting spell ingredients to make spells to destroy his rival. the main idea was for a 2 player game, although the C64 version was so dire I cant even remember if it had 2-player options. Anyway, I like the idea of this sort of game, spiced up with a few more strategical elements taken partly from Lords of Chaos and Heroes of Might and Magic III(as well as casting spells, the wizards summon allies and capture "cities" or Monster Spawn Points, which will then spawn monsters on the side of that wizard). Hopefully if I get far enough, there will be items to collect by defeating certain monsters (like Warcraft 3), maybe even a "levelling" process, though I would rather avoid any "rpg" assosciations because I disapprove of the term "rpg" for any game where you can't make valid roleplaying choices. Hmmm time to go. thats the idea anyway. More specifics and what I have accomplished so far to follow. Mark. (Comment on this)
2:27 pm	Computer Games Its fairly obvious now that I am not suited in temprament to keeping a record of my doings on livejournal. I only feel inclined to talk about work, and I am not supposed to say too much about that as I might give away "company secrets" etc... Anyway, something I do feel able to write about is writing computer games. I've always liked doing this, ever since the days of Activision's Game Maker for the commodore 64. I've never had the perseverance to get the hang of a proffesional programming language (also why can nobody define for me what a "class" is in a way I understand?). I havent done much amateur programming since DIV became obsolete (not XP compatible), but have finally got a new language to play with, Playbasic ( www.playbasic.com ). Its XP designed, and most importantly still supported by the maker, so it might get upgraded to Vista compatible when somebody figures out how to do that. So I am getting to grips with a new language, and starting a new game project. I will try using LJ as a programming diary and see how it goes. I have already spent a few evenings and most of a weekend on it, so first to fill you in on the starting bits I have already done ... but wait, lunchtime is long past and I feel the need to do work. later. Mark. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006
6:25 pm	Deadlines Not very much interesting to report here, I'm just trying to keep posting on LJ till it becomes a habit, otherwise I will forget about it. I have 3 days to get a prototype piece of kit ready to go for on-line testing, and its Daves wedding on Saturday. And kevin is around. Hooray, but we've had virtually no time at home over the lst few weeks due to Stuff (holodays, festivals, conferences, business trips etc...) so the house is a tip. Well, its getting better, but we need a few days of good old 8 till 6 work with nothing to do at the weekend, just to settle down a bit. Mark. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 25th, 2006
8:53 am	Going to infest We're off to Infest today! -Just need to get work under control and figure out where the accomodation is. Many thanks to the university of Bradford for concealing the location of Wardley house (where I think we are staying). Mark. (Comment on this)
Monday, June 5th, 2006
6:20 pm	things that are happening things that are happening: Jessica has her viva this week. We have discovered a way to make EMATs work BETTAR. Its Maelstrom next weekend. So hooray really. And we're having a party to celebrate Jessicas job and viva (I'm confident she will pass it with Flying Colours... and maybe Minor Corrections); get in touch with me if you want to know the details of the party. And I will try to make more live journle posts cos its Bad not to use it. Mark. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
5:50 pm	Boring I must be pretty boring. I dont ever seem to have anything exciting to put in Live Journal. Most of the important things happening in my life you can find out from ScaryJ s live journal. Anyway, Jessica had a job interview today. It will be really good if she gets it since she would have a 3 year post doc at Warwick = TEH WIN!!!111. I had a job scrounge today as well; I wont mind the wasted effort if she gets this one, but I find it best just to consider searching and applying for jobs as part of the weekly routine until you have a definite offer. Theres so little out there for physicists that it makes me sad. Why do schools teach physics, chemistry and biology in roughly equal quantities when the demand for them is: Biology jobs >> Chemistry jobs >>>>>>>>>>>> Physics job(s) ? Time to go; I have to wait till 6 because the department apparently cannot afford to send international faxes in the daytime. Mark. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 6th, 2006
1:49 pm	While the boss is away... ..I have to work extra hard cos theres stuff that needs done and no-one else who I can in good conscience offload it onto. Have to negotiate a contract and sort out EMC testing, as well as doing some research we have been paid in advance for. All three tasks are encountering problems but at least the university seem like they will give me my P45 in time, so I can hopefully get paid without problems this month. My car is being serviced today. After dropping it off and bussing to work, I got phoned up and given a long list of problems which are all expensive to fix. I can only afford to fix about half of them, so the car may still fall apart and I'm a lot poorer. Never been to this garage before so I dont know if they're trying it on or just more thorough than others, though 40 pounds to fix the tracking is steeper than most places (to be fair the new tyres were reasonably priced). 1.3 weeks to go till the end of Lent. Must not get too drunk and be sick in the tent (has happened before. Very embarassing.) Mark. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 27th, 2006
10:24 am	My Birthday It was my birthday this weekend. I went up to see my parents (it being Mothers Day and all too). The bad news is that my cat, Flomas, is dying. I dont expect to see him again, but I think he was pleased to see me, and has had a good life. He used to sit on my desk when I was doing my A-levels, which is a while ago now since I'm 31, i.e. definitely middle aged now. My parents and Bien and Krishna got me a remote controlled plane. Its an advanced model designed for experienced pilots and on no account should be flown by inexperienced NOOBS. I smashed the tail and lacerated my wife on the Saturday, while failing to achieve more than 6 seconds of flight. We bandaged, glued and splinted things back together overnight though, and on Sunday I managed to get it flying and even landed safely (note for future; the trim settings out-of-the-box are NOT always right). So that counts as a victory to me; many thanks to my dad for discovering how to launch it without lacerating your hands. It was a good birthday. I love Flomas and hope he doesent suffer much longer. Mark. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
5:25 pm	And then there were more... I heard from my sister last night: Apparently she is going to reproduce. I. E. She is prengant! Thats good news; it means that there will be children and stuff, and more people for the next generation, even if they're Chatrapodi rather than Potters. Anyyway I'm pleased for them both (Bean* is happily married and as secure as anyone can be these days so in a good position to be having children). And I will be an uncle, so I will be officially old, since everyone knows uncles are old. Hooray! Mark. (Comment on this)