EPTIt's time for a new update on my game making progress with lots of screenshots
!!!Leave some feedback or a question about my game.
Previous blogs about game making
(From newest to oldest)
- Game Making progress -part 11- 2012-03-30
- Game making progress -part 10-2012-02-18
- Game making progress -part 9- 2012-02-13
- Game making progress, almost done 2012-02-07
- Game making progress 2012-02-04
- Game making progress, school 2012-02-02
- School & game making progress 2012-01-31
- Math genius needed for game making 2012-01-11
- Making a game, progress 2012-01-06
- What makes a game interesting? 2012-01-03
- A new beginning 2011-12-31
Contents of blog:
- Stick to the plan!
- The grinding of game programming
- The fun side of game programming
- Implementations done since last blog
- Screenshot gallery
- Summary
- Index
Stick to the plan!
This section is for the aspiring game programmers among us that haven't made their first step yet into making their first game.
Every time something is not going to how you want something done then you're going to want to fix this. Stick to the plan (or your design document)! For the first time I've wanted to change some implementations which was not in line with my design document.
The design document is a good tool to have a structure and planning of your game making progress. You can divide tasks easier if you have team members in the future and/or if you are unable to complete a task then someone else can replace you and just look at the design document and complete what is asked from there on.
After a day of trying to implement/improve the new implementation I realized that the design document was there for a reason and I shouldn't have wasted a day on the new implementation. I can keep on trying to improve an implementation but then the game would never be done since I would constantly be trying to improve and I need to be focussed on the task at hand that is written by me. So again, stick to the plan! Don't have doubts unless you have a better implementation as in the code can be cleaner or the code will increase the game performance. If it isn't this then stick to the plan.
The grinding of game programming
Sometimes when you have bugs and you debug but it doesn't tell you a lot then you get frustrated really quickly. It becomes boring and when people get bored with a hobby they tend to leave it as is. I don't have this as I always just bite myself through it and this past week was no exception.
I spent about 10 hours banging my head to the wall what my bug[1] was and after figuring it out I moved on. Another obstacle I managed to overcome and learn a "new" thing lol.
The fun side of game programming
Not everything is boring about game programming. For me the most fun part is when I actually complete something the way I exactly envisioned it and specified this.
I managed to have a complete flow of talking to an NPC and have a conversation (see screenshot gallery for some fun placeholders I used
) and (almost implemented) accepting a quest.When these things happen you feel like you're on top of the world only to realize you're standing in your room screaming of joy...
Nonetheless no one can take these moments of you when you achieve something you desire.
Implementations done since last blog
I've succesfully managed to have a conversation with any NPC with images and all that jazz and accept a quest after talking to an NPC.
Have a battle statistics page after a battle telling you the stats like the total damage or healing done but also the amount of loot and gold you have received.
Faking depth in game. You will now see that a character is behind another obstacle and make it look like there is depth (there are still some errors with this but it's more due to the pictures I'm using).
Screenshot gallery
Here are the screenshots of the implementations I've done since past week.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Dm8CW.jpg)
First try.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/k8onB.jpg)
Second try without implementation of the auto RNG looting
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OgQaw.jpg)
Third try but using some stubbed text instead of the RNG looting
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RSO7j.jpg)
Finally managed to get the RNG looting on the 4th try (what a shame! I didn't loot anything
)Oh and as fun I wanted to have the text say: "It's over 9000" when the loot was over 9000 but I don't know if it's actually appropriate to do such things
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oR0Ao.jpg)
First try with Itachi talking????? (No it's just fake text I used at this implementation try)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/R4aUP.jpg)
I see some glitches :X This is due to the image not actually being png lol
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/n1hXs.jpg)
I'm a ninja, I can sneak behind people.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/j4Gn2.jpg)
OH MY GAWD! The great Uchiha Itachi needs your help! (Second try with conversation text loaded this time).
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fCJ2J.jpg)
Changed the text (3rd try)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IP1P8.jpg)
LOL Sasuke has to help Itachi? (Conversation from the 3rd try of implementation)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OPwlG.jpg)
Still the 3rd try of implementation and this was the conversation I made (2 lines or so from Itachi and a line from Sasuke.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YT1fz.jpg)
The quest template of accepting a quest after having a conversation with an NPC.
Almost implemented as I haven't put text on the box yet and haven't positioned the boxes of accepting/declining a quest request. (1st try of implementation).
Summary
Done a lot of stuff and banged my head equally as much as I screamed in joy about completing stuff for my game.
Don't surrender easily when you get to the first obstacle. Many people give up and the rewards is really satisfying (in whatever you do, I know it's such a cliché).
Index
[1] The bug was that at runtime my object would not recognize the method that was being called on the object even though the class implementation has the method publicly listed.
Turns out that whenever I returned an object of this class it was of type id and thus at runtime it would not recognize the method since the object wasn't of the class I was trying to instantiate from. (Found this page and easily solved the problem).
