WGD205 Adobe Flash and Rapid Viz

Started next graphics class on the 28th of Feb. I highly recommend the text "Rapid Viz" by Hanks and Belliston (ISBN 9781598632682) for some great techniques. Flash is also amazingly easy to learn, and so many tools to master!

Adobe Illustrator

Wow! Who knew this program could be so versatile! I added a Wacom Bamboo Pen tablet last month and have begun to build my website/design studio presence for the web. Address will be www.mooncrowestudios.com. I will begin by posting my designs as I complete them. I also have a cafepress acct where you can get mugs, mousepads etc with my logo.

Object Based Programming with C++

Starting Monday Oct 25th the Chaos 2 Design saga continues with the next phase in C++. Over the summer I took Assembler and PreCalc, and I am glad they are out of the way.

C++ Yes, it's still in use

Well fans and readers, C++ has come to a close, waiting on final exam results for final grade (went into it with a 93%) It's a bit clunky, and way too fussy bug-wise. But I realize that you need to slog in the bog before you get to run in Golden Gate Park.

Logic,Pseudocode and Booleans! Oh My!

CIS115 Logic and Design is focused on the basic ideas behind modular programming and the basics of logic. I am hanging onto an A in this course by the skin of my teeth. Because I'm having trouble with the pseudocode? Nope. Boolean? Nope.....vocabulary. Who would think that my problem would be in reading the frakking question correctly?  slowing down now.....

GameMaker 8.0

In GSP110 we used GameMaker 8.0 Pro to design some simple games. Get the demo here! Now as I start chewing my way thru Sam's Teach Yourself C++, I see the logic behind this "crawl before you run your butt off" method. GameMaker is actually a preloaded object programming system. You can download numerous resources, be they bitmaps, jpegs even music files, and use them to create games that can actually be kind of fun to play.

The program teaches you to keep your design in mind, teaches you how to link sprites, objects, events and place them in rooms. While a simple level editor, it's interesting to see how the tool box works.

Kid Risk told me most Game Engineers start out working on Tools. So I'm now working on games that use as many events as I can come up with and still keep the interface manageable and on a learning curve that isn't too radical.

Finals next week for first session, going into both classes with high 90th percentiles. March 1st, Logic and Design CIS115 and getting a req bonehead class Computer Applications with lab out of the way.

Over the next week, I'm going to build a simple Dungeon crawler shooter.

When More Is Too Much

This week's assignment is to write a Design Document for the game we wrote the concept document for in week 5. (We're in week 7 of 8 now) Our document should be 5 - 7 pages in length. Halfway through the project, mine was standing firm at 9 pages...WTH?

So I start talking to Kid Risk,(He ain't heavy, he's my Brother) and he says to keep it short and sweet, as noone is going to read a 20+ page doc.

I trimmed it down to 7 pages. But if my design doc is supposed to be the document designers build the game from, how am I supposed condense some hundreds of hours of gameplay into 7 pages?

Harrrumpf!!!!!