Had to withdraw.

Due to some personal issues in my life, I had to withdraw from the 2009 PGD Annual. I have to attend to these problems I have first, and it will take quite some time.

I do hope that with the next PGD Annual I'll be able to compete without boundries.

Level Parser on the roll.

Finally got the first most important bit of the level parser done. Now it's full steam ahead with assigning functions to the characters.

Stuff that stole my time...

Recently I've been busy getting stuff ready to apply at UNISA for studies next year, and finally the application is in... Hope they approve it, otherwise it's back to the drawing board.

But I haven't forgotten about my PGD entry... I did a little content creation, but it looks and sounds kinda crappy at the moment, Mmm... needs some fine tuning.

Now it's full time grafting on my PGD entry to get it ready before the deadline, meaning I have to manage my time properly (Code first, MMORPG later)

LinuxGD.net - Community for Linux Game Developers

I've seem to have wandered off the PGD Annual path a little and spent my time starting a community site for Linux game developers, called LinuxGD.net. In it's current state the site seriously needs some content, which I'm working on as I get time.

But now its back to my PGD Annual entry... or I'll never get it finished!

Less than a month left

Okay, so there's less than a month left 'till the closing date and I still have a lot to do. So now it's time to start blazing at the code, as well as content. This also means that a few features might have to be dropped, haven't decided what yet. The level editor already died off, I wasted precious time on it and just frustrated myself. So now the levels will be made with a normal text editor, which will be parsed by the game to show a level.

Ooohhh... A level editor.

I've got the level editor to a working state. It's just a simple editor making use of tiles. The current version only allows for base tiles and ladders, so not very useful yet. The next step is to implement backgrounds, paralaxes and identifiers for player, enemy and other entity positions. The ladders might become part of the identifier system.

Progress going slow...

I've been fiddling with the level editor for a while now, but it's reaching completion real soon. I've been sidetracked with other stuff lately and the project got slowed down a bit. Development will now go full steam ahead.

Level Editor

I've started developing the level editor for the game. The basic structure is laid out and full frontal coding can begin. The level editor is crucial for this game to move forward.

Oops... Forgot something...

Oh yeah, about the previous post. I forgot to add a little bit more info.

The Keys (For Now):
ESC - Quit
F3 - Insert Coin

Thats it...

More Coming Soon

See it for yourself.

I've uploaded the first part of the game to my server. Currently its just the frontend, with my own little font engine. And the FPS is limited to 125. Nothing fancy yet, but it'll become better soon...

Get it at http://www.pjpdev.co.za/xtremists/pgdannual/2009/intelspooks.zip and tell me what you think of it :-D

A few Screenshots...

Finally got some screenies to show. Big things happened here... First off, I totally rewritten everything in SDL and left Andorra behind. Secondly was getting my own little font engine to work, I made a few stupid mistakes with it. But now it works perfectly and I'm happy.

Screenshots not too far away...

Well, I've been coding like hell and true screenshots are on the horizon. So far all I had to show was concept art. But its turning into something playable. I'm also gonna setup a SVN soon for the source, still deciding between using my own server or a service like SF.net, it depends on how I feel when the time comes for setting up an SVN server.

I gotta get crackin this weekend...

A look at what the splash screen (might) look like

Got a basic idea for the splash screen, I worked the whole evening on this one and it still needs some fine tuning. Coding took the slow road, but hopefully I'll have something to show before the end of the week.

Lazy Night...

Damn I'm lazy tonight, don't feel much like coding... or anything for that matter. Worked a little bit on the project and found myself watching TV later on. Hehe...

Main Character Design

Just did a little design sketch for the main character. This is just some rough work and will look something like this in the game...

Doesn't look too bad...

A quick logo design sketch.

Quickly wasted a few minutes drawing this ugly little character on a piece of note paper. I'm no artist, but it looks alright and will propably change a few times. So, what do you think?

Busy with basic framework.

Currently I'm busy with the basic framework. This should've been done, but I've been tired lately... Work sucks, seriously! So all the basic stuff has to be set up the way I planned on - Initialize, main loop, events, lists, etc.... Blah blah blah... After that I can move on to the more interesting stuff... Yay...

2009 PGD Annual: Arcadia

I entered the 2009 PGD Annual game developers compo, Stage 1 is already complete and its now time for the heavy development of my entry. Here is some info about the game entered:

Title: Intel Spooks
Style: Platformer
Graphics: 2D
API: Andorra2D
Description:
You're a spy that has to gather intel from computer workstations around the levels, but it won't be that simple. There are cunning enemies and nasty booby-traps scattered throughout.