Wow, 24 days since my last post. How incredibly snail like my progress has been. That may be an insult to snails, but I'll have to let them decide!

Well, not much has happened in those lost three plus weeks. My computer died again… maybe died twice, it's getting hard to keep track. The first time it was down for several days if not close to a week. The second time I actually knew what it was so it was out for only two days. Those excuses aside, work has been crazy and my schedule is changing. That brings a slight bit of good news though actually. I have been on a rather unusual schedule that's basically three night shifts followed by two days shifts. It's been quite difficult trying to get things done, as I'm on a night schedule for half the week, then immediately switch to a day schedule which, quite honestly, wears me the heck out. (Basically no sleep on the night to morning shift, so I drag all day that day, and normally pass out as soon as I get home.) It had been keeping me pretty worn out for most of the week, and on my days off, I once again seem to sleep most of my first day off away. Recently though, two of our employees either quit or were dismissed. That's created an opening on my two day shift days for someone at night. With a little bit of wrangling my manager I was able to apparently slip myself into those night shifts. Kind of odd how it happened though, I had just mentioned to him the schedule was killing me, and them BAM! stuff out of all of our control happens and it looks like I might get my wish. Not that I wish to work zombie shifts again my whole life, but having more stability in my scheduling will allow me to function better and be more productive when I do have time off. So, that's the long and short, mostly long, of things. I might not have the standard 9 to 5 I was hoping for when I first got this job, but I am more of a night person, and these changes hold promise.

All of that aside, I decided to chunk the last version of the breakout game I was working on and start anew. I hate that happens, and hopefully this time I'll take the lesson to heart and actually spend time doing design before hand. I keep seeming to stumble on that and it's getting a little annoying, as I should have learned from past experiences. So, I started again, got a much better code based laid out and working, and am now just a tiny bit further along that I was at the time of the last video posting. I've actually got the star field in the credits screen working, and have been tinkering around with some text effects for the names that will go scrolling across the screen. Kind of mindless and numbing work at the moment since I should be concentrating on actual game play - something I hope to work out this weekend (My weekends being Wed and Thur).

Anyways, just wanted to drop a quick line since I've been mostly absent from these proceedings, but fear not! I am snailing around in the background.

Good work on everyone who has gotten stuff done, and I look forward to seeing where everything goes.

Venti white chocolate mocha in hand, I'm off!

-PiscesMike

Just a quick note to let everyone know where I stand. I've been able to slip a half hour in here and there over the last couple days, doing at least something every day. I'm not doing a video today because although there is some good progress, I want to try and at least get the basic credits screen done. I'm pretty sure I'll have that sometime tomorrow after work, so there will be a new video come Monday morning.

So, what I did get done over the last little bit is to add an 'Options' screen when you select it. The screen scrolls over to your options selections, which consist of 'Campaign' and 'Time Trial'. 'Campaign' Mode, is of course just playing the game through the set of levels. 'Time Trial' is a game mode where you try to destroy as many bricks as you can in a set time. New bricks will drop in each time you destroy a horizontal or vertical line.

Other than that, you can now select 'Credits' and the screen will fade to black. I plan to have a field of stars flying around in the background that randomly changes directions. Both the direction and the individual intensity of the stars will be random so things will change each time you view the credits. If things work out right, this will reflect the background in the actual game play mode, but we'll just have to see how things work out. I may want planets and other such stuff when you're actually playing the game.

Take care all, and good look on your projects!

Can't wait to see the first game take shape.
BTW…is that this title screen for just the BreakOut game, or for the entire collection?

Sorry to hear about your computer troubles. I never would have thought of posting CDs on Ebay which is a really unique idea.

Polishing 5 games by the end of the competition seems like a pretty steep goal though.

Good luck all!

For this competition I will be doing, or redoing as the case may be, some of the games from previous competitions with the end goal of having 5 complete, sell able games finished by the end of the 100 days. The idea is to actually sell a CD on ebay of the games once I've finished the competition.

So, the first game I'll be redoing is Breakout… something nice and simple to start with. I'll also be doing Asteroids, SRSG (Some Random Space Game from graphics I found at opengameart.org), Empires of the Black Sun (A role playing version of Space Invaders where you have to mine for resources and work on upgrades), and one other, as yet undecided filler game. My plan is to knock out some of the simpler games as quickly as possible… spending about 10 days on each one, and then spend the most of the competition time upgrading and finishing off the Empires of the Black Sun game.

Anyways, those are my plans. Good luck everyone and see you around!