Greetings and salutations all!
Well, we're already a good ways into the competition and I realized I had yet to create a thread for my entry. As I stated earlier, my plan was to redo some older games… starting from the first game I ever attempted here - a BreakOut style clone. As has happened with a couple other people this go round, I started a little late. I was waiting to see if Liru popped back up. She had wanted to do a collaboration with me, and I had initially said I wanted to pursue my own project. Anyways, I ended up waiting a couple days into the competition to hear from her, which I never did. Fortunately during that time I was working on a new 'framework' that is supposed to be reusable across different games and projects that would increase work flow, follow a standardized design, and make things easier to update and expand in the future.
So, now here we are in the last three weeks of the competition, with just a little over halfway completed and I can't say I have a whole lot to show for my effort. That doesn't mean I don't have anything, just not a whole lot in the visual category. As it turns out, the framework that I was working on, and the objects themselves, have went through a kind of evolution. As I implemented things and began testing them out, I had to make some adjustment and add new objects. Just the normal progression of programming really. On a good note, the framework has turned out to work in the basic manner I had anticipated, and with the few adjustments I made turns out to work really well. So, there has been a good amount of work completed, but most of it is behind the scenes type stuff.
The exciting part of all of this, if there is one, is that the code and framework driving things is now much better, more organized, and very close to what I think would come from a 'professional'. It is literally light years ahead of the chunky hacked together mess I first produced for the original game. I've learned a ton with RBWhitaker's help and have high hopes for the future and other game competitions.
As an added side effect, thanks to RBWhitaker, the code framework and structures I've developed in these competitions and collabs can easily be adapted to 3D. I was thinking it was going to be a bit longer before I was ready to start tackling 3D but now I'm thinking 2016 is the year. Later on, sometime in 2016 I plan to do a 'DOOM'-style clone. It will be the basic FPS in a maze, with billboarded enemies and weapons much like the original. But that's for another time.
Anywho's, just thoughts as we move into the second half of this competition. I'll be putting up a video shortly of the new BreakOut clone, although like I said, it will pretty much look like the older version…
Take care and good luck all on your projects!
-PiscesMike
"May the mercy of His Divine Shadow fall upon you." - Stanley H. Tweedle, Security Guard class IV, The League of 20,000 planets