Thursday, November 27, 2008

Modern Adventure posted

The final episode (well, the final game in the series to be finished since technically speaking there are two episodes after this one but those were posted quite a while ago) has been posted. Next month I will be posting a map and then a walk-through of the game. I will also be giving you a sneak preview of my plans for 2009. This post a short one, but there is a lot happening that I hope to be telling you about next month! And for the Americans reading this, Happy Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Ultimate Retro Finished

I just posted the source code for Ultimate Retro Project episode 58: Modern Adventure to the repository. Those of you who want to play it early and who know how to download from a repository and compile the java source code can play it early now if you wish. Those who don't want to be bothered can just wait until it is posted on Friday (late Thursday evening in B.C.). While this is probably cutting it a bit close, the game was in a playable state last weekend so today's work was simply finishing touches, bug fixing, and fine tuning. That said, there was a lot more I would have loved to do with the game had I more time to work on it. I suppose the reality is that there will always be more that can be done so having hard release dates does make sense. The question is how often should those be. More hours per game with fewer releases? I'll be making that decision in a little over a week when I officially close the poll on the Blazing Games site.

I do want to release a hint guide for modern adventure on this blog even though I don't really think the game is that difficult. I don't think next week is the right time to do so, but do watch for that shortly after the game is released. I haven't decided if I will create a good map for the walkthrough or just scan in my hand-made map. Perhaps the hand made map would give some insight to the design process, but if not it would be much faster to just scan that in. Besides, that sounds like a good excuse.

Now all the games in the Ultimate Retro Project have been completed so technically the series is done. I do still plan on doing a 3D version of Dungeon Romp so look for that next year.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Toronto?

With today's release of One of those Weeks episode 45, there is only one more episode left in the series. I am planning on finally finishing One of those Weeks next month, though it will be a while before all the episodes are released as open source and all the chapters from the making of book are released. As those of you who filled out the poll on BlazingGames.com already know, I am considering writing a proper novel based on the game. When you consider that the game is based on an outline I wrote for a novel that I was considering writing, this would be an appropriate end to the series. If I do decide to do this, I would probably not release anything until the novel was completely done and then release the novel under a creative commons license. The time spent on the novel would be separate from the hours I am allocating to the site so don't worry about it taking away from the site because it wont.

This episode is actually rather interesting as it is the texturing version of my ray caster ported to Flash. This could be thought of as a proof of concept that I could get Coffee Quest 5 working in Flash, but now that Flash 10 is out and has some built in 3D support this is probably a moot point as using the built in Flash 3D primitives will probably prove to be faster than doing the ray casting. When I have time this will be something that I will be looking into.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Really late update

Sorry for being so late in posting Dozen Days of Dice Episode 11:Everest to Blazing Games. I ended up getting sidetracked with other things and almost forgot that it was Thursday and that I should probably post the site so it is ready for Friday. As it is 8AM Friday using GMT, I am later than usual. It is almost midnight my time as I write this so I am going to call it a night. Sorry for the short post. I guess that 13 may in fact be an unlucky number.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

November preview

I have a bit of a confession to make. Most of November's content, 3/4's of it to be precise, was not ready before November. Regular readers know that I finished Dozen Days of Dice on November 1st, but One of those Weeks episode 45 and Ultimate Retro Project episode 58 were still not done. This weekend went a long way towards rectifying this situation, but I am still not in the clear. Of course, the contents for this month are Chapter 27 of Making of One of those Weeks, Dozen Days of Dice episode 11: Everest, One of those Weeks episode 45:Toronto and Ultimate Retro Project episode 58: Modern Adventure.

Chapter 27 has already been released so there is not much need to talk about it here. Episode 45 of One of those Weeks, however, has not been released. The screen shot probably should give the players an idea of where they have ended up. Those of you who are familiar with Canada may notice that the skyline does resemble the city that the episode is named after. I do wonder if I am about to annoy eastern Canadians, but know that western Canadians will understand the humour of the episode. Of course, that assumes that people actually share my sense of humour which may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Dozen Days of Dice episode 11 has been mentioned before, but it is an interesting game. The goal is to flag all the locations on the mountain first. Flags are earned by combining dice meaning that both luck and strategy play a part in this game. I do wish now that I would have spent the three hours I had remaining fine tuning the game, but with everything that is going on at the moment with me I am finding that I am getting exhausted after only spending 12 hours on the challenge (only 10 of which was work). I really do hope that the majority of people who care about the Dozen Days series want me to spread the hours out as it will result in better games while still retaining most of the spirit of the series.

The bulk of the artwork for the final Ultimate Retro Project episode has been finished by Mary Caton so I just have to do the coding and by the end of the month I should have the series complete. The Modern Adventure episode is the same story as the classic episode but with a graphical user interface. I should point out that episodes 59 and 60 were released quite a while ago and were done out of sequence because that was the game I really wanted to develop. I do still plan on creating a 3D version of Dungeon Romp, but that will not be showing up until next year at the earliest. Also likely to be postponed until next year is the Christmas special that I had to postpone last year. I will not know for sure until the beginning of December, but the odds of me having the time to finish it before this Christmas is very low.

Last, but most important, there is a four question poll that is going to be available until the end of the month. This is to get feedback on the direction the site should take next year. While the final decision for what I am going to do in 2009 is mine alone, the results of the poll will certainly help me make my decisions so it is in your best interest to let me know what you think.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

November Scheduled

The Blazing Games release for this week, Making of One of those Weeks Chapter 27, has been released. Likewise, the open source version of One of those Weeks episode 27 has been posted. Finally, the important poll that will determine the direction I take Blazing Games in 2009 has been posted. As it is the first post of the month, the schedule for the month has been posted. I would go over the schedule in more details, but posting took longer than I anticipated and I still have a bunch of other stuff to do so I will save the explanation for another entry which I will make when I have more time.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Dozen Day 11 finished

Yesterday I spent 12 hours (10 hours of coding, 2 hours of breaks) putting together episode 11 of Dozen Days of Dice. The game I chose to do was Everest. I am trying to decide if I will have an early release of the development journal for readers of this blog or not. Quite frankly, next Friday's post (which I do Thursday evenings PST) is already quite a huge post as I have the Month's schedule, Chapter 27 of Making One of those Weeks, the open source release of One of those Weeks 27, and a 4 question poll that concerns the future of Blazing Games to post. I suppose it will come down to how energetic I am feeling this Thursday.