I've had problem with sleeping since I was kicked out from job, but I think it's something that happens when you don't have to get up early. Now I'm going to sleep at 2-3:00. It's beginning to look like I'm able to work at night, while back some time I was too tired to do anything but stay awake.
I'm going to start game testing of Teemu by going through each level theme and see if I can survive them. I guess I need to forget about really big adjustments to the game engine, just to get the actual game released before 2010. That's what I'm planning anyway.
It begins to look like the backlight bleed problem of my Fujitsu laptop is a part of bigger conspiracy (yeah, a real one!) of leds causing it all and they just sell that shit to people. It's my typical luck to get my first laptop just when they started to manufacture led backlight screens. Of course the bullshitting must come to an end, but before that a lot of people have lost their money and will never get it back.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Saturday, 28 November 2009
The short adventure
Good thing first. I have programmed Teemu and it's getting all the extra things I wanted, but there is still work to do before release of v1.1.
Bad thing is that I got fucked by Fujitsu. Only thing I could do is write this article.
Bad thing is that I got fucked by Fujitsu. Only thing I could do is write this article.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
New keyboard
I had a Labtec Ultra Flat keyboard, but I couldn't get used to the narrow keyboard layout. I guess I spent too many years with good old Key Tronic keyboards. My new board is Microsoft Wired 500. I think it's good, if not great. It's old school, it doesn't even have USB plug, just PS/2. I feel almost relieved. With Labtec I made a lot of typing errors, but now when I'm writing this text with Wired 500 my fingers just hit the right keys.
The keyboard layout of Wired 500 is kind of modern and old school mixed. Home/End/etc. keys are arranged in two columns which makes the keyboard nicely narrow and it's only an inch or so wider than Ultra Flat. Arrow keys take minimum amount of space, but they still have small gap around them so you can bash them good and not worry if you are hitting any other keys.
Sorry guys @ Microsoft. I removed the tag. It should be in mouse if anywhere, because mouse is the thing that causes forearm problems like tennis elbow. (I had that from 3D modelling)
I was actually waiting for Roccat Arvo, which is like uberkeyboard of all time. But they didn't manage to release it soon enough so I got Wired 500. Maybe I'll get Arvo some day, when birds sing and cockatoos fly over the rainbow.
The keyboard layout of Wired 500 is kind of modern and old school mixed. Home/End/etc. keys are arranged in two columns which makes the keyboard nicely narrow and it's only an inch or so wider than Ultra Flat. Arrow keys take minimum amount of space, but they still have small gap around them so you can bash them good and not worry if you are hitting any other keys.
Sorry guys @ Microsoft. I removed the tag. It should be in mouse if anywhere, because mouse is the thing that causes forearm problems like tennis elbow. (I had that from 3D modelling)
I was actually waiting for Roccat Arvo, which is like uberkeyboard of all time. But they didn't manage to release it soon enough so I got Wired 500. Maybe I'll get Arvo some day, when birds sing and cockatoos fly over the rainbow.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
New laptop
Got a Fujitsu Amilo Pi3560 today. It's my first personal laptop so it's exciting thing for me. I'm going to use it mainly as 3D rendering machine and for some writing I guess. Maybe for playing games. Windows 7 was "less bad than I expected", but I really need to learn how to use it! I did the usual maintenance operations: installed Firefox & Adblock, removed anything that had Norton in it and removed Windows search service. The computer has already one problem, I guess it wants to create a backup disk of some kind. Maybe I'll let it do that to get rid of that stupid flag.
There are couple of bad things, not surprisingly. The screen has a bad case of backlight bleeding, in fact I contacted the tech support (and they asked me to send the serial number so I did that and now waiting for reply) to find out is it a real flaw or a feature. Maybe I'm used to no backlight bleed, because my monitor LG Flatron L227WT has only barely visible strip of light at bottom of the screen, it basically has no bleed at all. Second thing is that I don't like a glossy screen and I realized that now. It's reflecting stuff which is not ideal.
There are couple of bad things, not surprisingly. The screen has a bad case of backlight bleeding, in fact I contacted the tech support (and they asked me to send the serial number so I did that and now waiting for reply) to find out is it a real flaw or a feature. Maybe I'm used to no backlight bleed, because my monitor LG Flatron L227WT has only barely visible strip of light at bottom of the screen, it basically has no bleed at all. Second thing is that I don't like a glossy screen and I realized that now. It's reflecting stuff which is not ideal.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
New cave theme
Re-designed the cave theme. It's now much cleaner with new cavern carving routine mixed with occasional rectangular rooms and small rooms that are attached to free places after the main generation is done. Here is a result:
The nice thing about rooms is that I can later add room themes randomly, something like treasure rooms or rooms full of monsters.
The nice thing about rooms is that I can later add room themes randomly, something like treasure rooms or rooms full of monsters.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Bugs
I've found five bugs from Teemu since release of v1.0. Four of them are fixed. Here is the one I have to fix:
Some of the areas are not connected and some items and monsters are created in them. I made sure that stairs are always generated in the origin point of room so it's pretty much the center of it and those points are always connected in other points with corridors so stairs never get created in detached pieces, but I should still fix them. It should be easy.
Some of the areas are not connected and some items and monsters are created in them. I made sure that stairs are always generated in the origin point of room so it's pretty much the center of it and those points are always connected in other points with corridors so stairs never get created in detached pieces, but I should still fix them. It should be easy.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Tweaking the engine
I've got the plan for Teemu v1.1 pretty much figured out. There may be some extra things that I want to add, but they are not important for the main "plot" of the game. I'm actually quite optimistic this time, because I have done some changes to the engine that makes it more data-driven. It's very similar to the way I'm refactoring Kaduria.
Besides now I have a testing tool that re-generates the level when I press [r]. I didn't have a working one in v1.0 which made the testing of level generation quite challenging. I had to exit the game and restart it to try it again. Now I can make quick changes and test it really good to see if there is any problems.
It's obvious that even a small and relatively simple game is easier to maintain with data-driven approach, even if it's just some parts of the source code that actually are data-driven.
Besides now I have a testing tool that re-generates the level when I press [r]. I didn't have a working one in v1.0 which made the testing of level generation quite challenging. I had to exit the game and restart it to try it again. Now I can make quick changes and test it really good to see if there is any problems.
It's obvious that even a small and relatively simple game is easier to maintain with data-driven approach, even if it's just some parts of the source code that actually are data-driven.
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