Merry Christmas :)

This time I will not write about anything game related (mostly because I don't have any news in this filed ), so.. have a merry Christmas folks:). I hope everyone will have a true family atmosphere and a rich Santa ;).

Next milestones of Dwarfs King

Latest news from my battle front ;). Units have their needs : hunger, rest, happiness. Something ala the sims. Also if unit feels hungry it will automatically seek "dining hall" and proceed to it to replenish its food resources :). Neatly.

Besides today at 9 pm I have flight to my home at Poland and I will return to Denmark in the mid of January :). I'm longing for my TV series :).

Dwarfs King : Idea

In my previous post I told you that I will introduce my new game a bit more. So, here is some info:

Dwarfs King
This is working title of my game. Actually if someone can came up with better name, I would be grateful.

Idea :
The idea is a mix between Evil Genius game(or Dungeon Keeper), Settlers and a bit of Majesty. Basically you are the king of dwarfs, you build your kingdom inside a mountain (Think of Tolkien's Moria), taking care of your subjects. You need to gather resources and maintain economy of your kingdom, while fighting with thieves or demons from the depth.
Your subjects are autonomic just like in Majesty. You can assign them professions but they will decide if it is time to work or to go to eat something (every unit has it's needs : hunger, rest etc).

What's already done :
As I said in previous post, I'm more concentrating on gameplay mechanics then graphics, so all graphics now are placeholders. I already have map of the dungeon displayed on screen. Worker unit which can find automatically it's way from point A to point B in the dungeon. Building of corridors is also implemented. Simple resource system is also there. Right now I'm working on simple unit's needs system. It would be nice someone could instruct me how to make a video from my app and send it to youtube. You would be able to see what I'm talking about now:).

Prototyping with MVC pattern

Recently I had some free time and I happily spent it on developing my new game. As always before coding I spent some time with pen and paper designing the implementation I know that it will be a big project and I know that if I will try to make it with the same "production process" which I used previously, it could easily end up unfinished. I mean, previously when I added a new feature which required graphics, always this graphics was almost at finished state. I didn't use placeholder to just get going with the code. Now with my most recent project I took a different approach. I want this game to be 3D, but I known that going in this direction from the very begging would require much work from me. For example when I would implement units in game, I will probably end up doing animations and modeling stuff instead of polishing gameplay features. To prevent this I decided to write my code in more prototyping way. Right now I have a dungeon on screen, I have units in it, and I have the ability to build building inside the dungeon, but.. the dungeon is just a 2D top down representation made of mono colored titles. Also my unit is just a blue dot. All at I'm focusing right now are game features and gameplay mechanics. This way I will know if my game is actually super playable idea or it will get you bored in few seconds. Also it will makes me more motivated because I will see the results of my work much faster. And at some point I will switch to 3D graphics :), and the best thing is that this time I would be able to post on the forum "I have written a game with placeholder graphics and I'm seeking an art person to make models for it" instead of "I want to write a game and I'm seeking someone to help with graphics", which is a big difference, trust me.
Okay, enough with the introduction part, lets talk about the meat ;). When I read that I'm actually planing at some point to switch from 2D to 3D you probably thought: "What? Isn't it more work when writing for 3D from the beginning?". Well not exactly. You see, I've designed every part of my code with Model View Controller pattern in mind. Sometimes 3D and 2D differ only in presentation of the game world, but model part, I mean how you store your units, dungeon data and so on, are the same either it is for 3D or not. And now I can only switch the view part to have a 3D representation of my game, and use 2D part as a minimap of the area :) (fully functional by the way because you can actually play whole game in the map view;) ).
I didn't write much implementation details, because I don't know if you people are interested in it. If you want me to give more details on this, just left me a note in comments. Oh, and I think that my next post will be about idea of my new game itself, so you will know exactly on what I'm working on. And no it is not an RTS game ;).

Time passes by.. and some sales stats.

You may wonder why I'm not updating my blog lately.. Well, the reason is quite simple : I don't have time as we are approaching our project deadline at the university. All next week I will probably write project documentation and stuff.


Few weeks earlier I was making a "research" about game ideas which I would want to make. I have written all pros and cons for few different games among which was Project GAWIN, tactical game like UFO:Enemy Unknown, and few others. I've picked one, cool enough to make me wanted to play it when I was designing this game. Also I have sent some of this ideas to few people and they also have chosen the same game idea:). So, now I have a nice idea to work on, but I don't have time to do it.. Oh, one more thing, this time the game will be not for mobile, so if anyone of you wait for my next mobile game...sorry, not this time folks.

If you ask why I'm not so eager to work on next mobile game, or why I'm not making next version of Sigmore Mines (ok this one maybe I will make in the future)?

Here are sales stats from my site for 1 Dec 2007 :
Sigmore Mines total sales : 38 (plimus) + 5 (paypal)
Treasure Digger total sales : 5 + 3(paypal)
Block Logic : 0

I started selling SM from January in 2006, so as you can see it's not much. Ok I admit I made this games for my joy and portfolio. Money never was something what I was counting for, but still it's nice to get some cash from your hobby. So if this is for my enjoyment then I want to make something what I would like to make, and that means PC game ;). Besides if I would make it properly I could price it at 20$ instead of 5$ :P.

My small app :)

This time I want to write about something different from games. A week ago I have written a small application what was supposed to help me learn new English words. No I have about 150 English words in it and I have to admit that this small app really helps. :) Soon I will put it on my website (as a freeware I think) and I will start begging for donations then;):D. Anyway meanwhile I will update my site with a new "product", you as my royal blog reader can have exclusively sneak peek at this little app : Link. Please tell me what do you think about it. :)

Sigmore Mines 2 or Sigmore Mines Upgrade

Lately I was thinking about something. Is it better to write Sigmore Mines 2, from scratch or maybe I should concentrate on upgrading Sigmore Mines? With SM I already have graphics, working gameplay, and I could only concentrate on improvements. With SM2 I could implement new gameplay ideas (I don't know if they will be better or not), but I will need to make new sprites, new everything.. Also the difference is that with SM1 I could implement new feature and upload it instantly so people can enjoy it. With SM2 you will have to wait until I would release final version. So I'm asking myself (and you SM1 players) what I want.. Do I want to work on a new but very similar game, or I would rather expand existing one?

Sigmore Mines 2 - 8 Nov 07

I was playing a bit with Sigmore Mines 2. I've made a few low level engine changes, mostly not noticeable to players, but I have managed to implement a different color for each line in my textPanel class. This have resulted in a new update for SM1, now if monster hits you the info about it will be shown in red, if you or monster miss the info will be yellow, and if you hit the monster, info about it will be in green.

Recently "Uthar" is giving me much support when it comes to new ideas, bug fixes and comments about gameplay. He has made few sprites for SM1, and in particular the way how Sigmore Mines 2 will look is mostly because of his ideas and propositions. So big thanks for him for that.

Block Logic released

I have just uploaded Block Logic to getjar. I also have updated my webpage. Finally I've decided to release it with 25 levels, if it will be not enough I will make some more, but right now I want to start working on Sigmore Mines 2 (in my free time between university projects).

Block Logic - the look

Hi all,
I've got 20 levels in Block Logic right now. Ideally I would like to have 50, and start making SM2... Making levels is a long process. It's even longer when all your ideas are eaten by the few beginning levels..

Any way are are some screens from level two and three. BTW What do you think of this kind of isometric view for SM2?

Block Logic - almost finished

I have almost finished my game :), what is left is the part responsible for playing sounds and..making few more levels (right now I have ten). I don't want to write about when I hope to have finished version, but.. ok I assume that I will finish within a week or two and after that I'm going to slowly work on Sigmore Mines 2 :) (in fact I can't wait to work on it, but I have sworn to myself that I will finish Block Logic first).

Block Logic

I'm in the middle of making my logic game for cell phones. Hm, ok not middle,it's more like 70% of already made game. Animations of player, graphics, game logic - all of this is already made and working. I need to create some levels and I'm also thinking of random level generator. Hm do you think that sound is important in mobile games? Because until now, every game what I have made for cellphones was without sounds.. Should I work on some sounds for Block Logic or is it "not necessary luxury"?

Status quo

Ok, so.. I stopped developing GAWIN. It's not abandoned and threw to trash, but for now I have switched back to mobile games development.

I think I will work on it (Project GAWIN) again in some future, but I don't think that it will be in the same form -> probably I will switch to top down 2D view, but how knows - it's a distant future isn't it?

Right now I'm making quite fun logic game for mobile phones - it's using isometric title engine which later I want to use for my next roquelike project. This new roguelike will not be direct continuation of Sigmore Mines, but as I gained an experience (and some user feedback also) by developing SM, I want to create new game from scratch. This time I hope it will be bigger, better and more addictive. In parallel I will develop the same game for PC platform (I hope). If you have ideas for this new roguelike rpg, just write about it on my forum.

After that I will go back to GAWIN.

The GUI stuff

I have made a menu system for planet. I also made a menu system for buying and selling things on the marked. I just don't have implemented any things to buy or sell, also I don't know (yet) how to implement what kind of goods could be bought on which planets..

From other things, I tested GAWIN on macbook (G4) and it worked flawlessly out of the box :)

Internet acces

Sorry for not posting much lately. Here where I live I don't have Internet access in my flat. Now I'm writing from the local library. As for GAWIN stuff, I'm working on the guis mostly. I've implemented flying to planets, then planet screen is showing up and right now I'm trying to implement trading screen. Stay tuned ;)

Denmark on the horizon

On 29 of August at 7:30 am, I will be on a plane to Copenhagen in Denmark. For five months I will be studding at Aalborg University Copenhagen at faculty of Medialogy. Here in Poland I would start my semester in October, but in Denmark they are starting earlier - in September, so they have stolen one month of my holydays.. I will not stop working on my game. In fact now I will be working on laptop, so I could program during lectures ;). By the way, I'm really happy of my game engine, it turned to be easy to use and quite powerful. I'm definitely going to use it for my next games. I like the way how I implemented scenegraph. My previous implementations were based on the idea that every type of object had it's own scene node, for example MeshSceneNode, LightSceneNode, etc.. this time I have only one generic scene node which contains SceneObject. SceneObject can implement interfaces such as IDrawable, ISelectable, IUpdateable and so on :). For now I think that this is the best scenegraph implementation I come so far.

Camera improvement and new GUI stuff

Today I have finished adding new functionality to my camera. I'm really proud of this new feature :). When I select a planet from list or by directly clicking on it, the camera rotates around ship to show selected planet in center of screen :). Speaking of list.. I have fully working list view :). Selecting a planet also displays it's data in the information area, as you can see on screen :). In the upper left corner you can see "fly to planet" button. This is my next task to do.

Some GUI stuff

I've created some simple, but powerful gui system. Right now I have text buttons, buttons with images and text area what automatically warps text to new line and supports scrolling. Oh did I mention that I have my own cursor too?;) . GUI is implemented using Molly Rocket's Immediate GUI technique.

Drop down of FPS is because of not frustum culled planets - easy to fix in future :)

Randomness.

I'm losing my momentum of adding new features to my game.. Since a day or two (or three) I haven't added anything significant to the project. I'm striving to make myself working on some code, as a result GAWIN has gained random names generator for purposes such as naming celestial bodies. Tracking camera as I call it, is also implemented. It's centered on spaceship (a sphere right now) and you can rotate your view anyway you like. No zooming, though, I will implement it later. I have also some design plans for gui stuff. Right now I'm working on random generation of solar systems. It just generates random sized planets, but I want it to take also into account how far a planet is from the sun (to generate it's size and type of surface). After that I will probably work on gui.

Project GAWIN : 5 August

I have implemented TextSceneNode class, now I can have descriptions of planets or spaceships floating near them on the screen. I'm thinking what to do next.. should I go for gui system, random solar system generator stuff, or maybe should I implement some basic functionality of spaceships?

Recently I have discovered a blog of someone who is just like me creating the same type of game, using the same technology - Java. Well he is even in my age :P. Hmm, a friendly competition? Cooperation? All I know that he has working gui stuff, so I have better get back to work ;) Here is a link to his work : Solariad

Project GAWIN : 3 August

This day is sponsored by :
- billboards : you can see one which represents "selection" of planet
- skybox

Meanwhile my friend is working on frustum culling. Oh, yes I'm not doing this alone anymore. Remember when I said that my friend wanted to participate in development? Well, she is participating :) (yes SHE ;) ). She have implemented materials and lights already.

GAWIN : New update

This is the latest version of my game. My engine's new features are selection via OpenGL's selection buffer and support for materials. Hmm maybe I will open-source my engine someday :). What do you think? Is anyone interested in another java based game engine?

Project GAWIN - First screen

Ok, this is the game I'm working on now. Inspiration for this game comes from such titles as Elite/Frontier, Privater. Google is your friend if you don't know this games ;). As a short description I can tell you that action of this games (and my also) is located in space, you are the owner of spaceship and you can travel to different solar systems, trading, exploring, fighting pirates etc. I want the same to be in my game plus some more ;), one thing what will be different is view. In my game you won't sit in your ship's cockpit, to simplify my work a bit I want to make a view like in homeworld. As for name.. GAWIN is acronym - Game Without Any Interesting Name, I've just switched A with W, so it sounds better. When I will come up with some story then maybe this GAWIN will mean something. Anyway here is first screen :


The dwarf and text are just 2D gui test stuff (yes this is still my own furion engine written in java), what you can see is star (the biggest sphere in the center) and two planets, one planet (this bigger one) has one moon. Engine has it's own scenegraph implemented so planets are revolving around star and moon is revolving around it's planet and around star.

My inactivity on blog

Sorry for my inactivity on blog lately. I'm wondering if anyone is reading this blog anyway.. Hey people - if you read my words give me a sign ;) I have made a pool, but nobody participated, at last now, when I'm writing this words..

As for my new game - it's slowly, but steadily advancing. I will post some screens in near future.

And I have problems with giving titles to my posts..

I have internet again :)

The movement is finished, my (better) internet connection is working again :)

Regarding my job as a game developer, I'm still waiting for their response... Well, if they don't answer I will have more time for my own game projects. I have told a friend about my new game idea, her reaction was enthusiastic and she want to take a part in this project ;). If I only had time..

6 July - I'm still alive :)

The move is almost at the end, I think that it will be finished on next Saturday. As for my Internet connection at the new home, all installation will be made next Friday(13 - my lucky day).

Also in July I have practices in some software development company, from 9 am to 5 pm I'm developing web portal for newspaper called "Echo Miasta" (Echo of City). I'm mainly creating components for Joomle! (PHP + MySQL).

And there is also one nice thing. Recently I have been contacted by company who offered me a job as a game developer :). If they take me I will be creating mobile games in java for them. First I will be given some project testing my knowledge and abilities and if they like it then I will be professional game developer ;) .

I would like also to thanks people for buying my games :). It's nice to read all this sales confirmations :).

New place

Within few days I will be moving to my new home. The same city, just new address. The only downside of this is that there is no Internet connection and installing one will take some time. I don't want to be cut off from the world, but I can't do anything to speed it up.. all I can is just wait this couple of days trying to survive without net ;).

My new game idea :)

I have a new idea for my game. It's so nice that I'm wondering why I didn't came to it earlier.. Anyway here are features of it :

• It's not hard to make (but also not so easy)
• It has high-score
• It could be for cellular phones and for PC
• It addictive if done good
• It don't need complicated graphic

I will not tell what it is, until I have some playable version to show, okay? I will work first on mobile version.

Plastus - testing main character

This is test of my new method of making graphics for my games. This is Plastus or rather early version of him. He is main character of my future game :).

Bryce 5.5 for free

In case you didn't know, you can now download Bryce 5.5 for free from here.

Bryce is a 3D landscape modeling, animation, and rendering software.

Have fun :)

Input system

Handling inputs from keyboard and mouse are ready. At this point I could use my little engine for some 2d game. And I will use it ;), but right now I have exams at my university so I can't spend much time on programming.

Animation of sprites

Today I have implemented sprites animation. I can read an animation sequence from file and display it on screen. I also have implemented mouse input and tomorrow I will work on keyboard. When this is done I will have a basic 2d engine ready (it's based on opengl so adding 3d in the future will not be a problem) and I will be able to start working on my next game :) .

Sprites

I have implemented displaying sprites on screen, sprite can be any size. The sprite on the test image has nothing do to with the game I'm inventing, it's just for testing purposes. Next step will be animated sprite with frame sequences.

As you can see on this screen, my next game will be called "Plastus".

Loading of textures

Not much to write today. Because of wedding in my family, I have only managed to add support for texture loading, my next step will be adding functionality of displaying sprites on screen.

State Manager

Today I have added support for game states such as gameState, menuState etc. Actually there are two classes:

• StateManager which is singleton and has such functions as pushState, popState, changeState
• State which is abstract class with abstract functions : onEnter, onExit, onUpdate, onDraw, onInput

StateManager is holding stack of states and is calling states from bottom to top, this way I can have gameState to draw it's state and then pauseState or inGameMenuState to draw its content.

Initialization of game window

I've done part responsible for initialization of game window and game loop. I have to admit that this time I have borrowed some ideas from JMonkey engine.

I wanted to paste here UML diagram but blogger don't want to upload my images and I don't know why* :(

Anyway I have AbstractGame class, which has abstract functions such as start, render, update, initialize, and VariableTimestepGame which implements this functions.



Before the window is created, application shows dialog with options regarding screen res, depth buffer, screen frequency and fullscreen/windowed mode.


*it's working now so I will upload some images

Parts of Engine

A Game engine is a bunch of code what works from behind the scene and responds to commands from the game code. For example game tells engine to create a game window, to draw an image on the screen, to play some sounds. The game engine is some kind of helper library for the game.

When creating such engine first problem is how to organize it's internals into logical subsystems. We need rendering subsystem, input subsystem, sound subsystem, sometimes physics subsystem and something responsible for the game loop. When I will create my engine I will probably start with subsystem responsible for creating game window and game loop, then I will concentrate on rendering and inputs. Last stage will be creating functionality to play sounds.

Game Engine

Ok before writing a game, first I need to make an engine (framework?) for it. I want something simple to begin with, so first I will create 2D engine with gui support. I also want it to be portable "out of the box", so I will write it using Java + LWJGL. This blog will be some kind of dev diary of my engine and later of game made with this engine. I will try to write posts at daily basis, but we will see how this ends up.

A catchy game

I was thinking what makes game catchy. I come to conclusion that addictive game should have something from these :

• Some high-score system, so players can compete with them selfs. This system doesn't have to be made using points, for example in Diablo such high-score system was in form of player's character level. The higher level character was equivalent of higher score. Anyway, addictive game should have some kind of ranking.
• User customizable content. It would be nice if players could make maps for their favorite game or create their own units, in game logos, avatars, or weapons.
• The game should have some elements which make player "involved". Such element could be hero which player controls and can identify with or something what player creates like city (in sim city) or town, base, organization (in any tycoon style games).
• Humor - This is always good, I remember playing Fallout games because of this.
• Rewards - it's good if game rewards player for his efforts. It's connected with high-score system, but this is not the same. I mean, if you play long, your character is stronger, more powerful. Your empire is more significant.

Now the problem is to invent such game ;)

Game ideas

I'm thinking of what to do next. I want to make a game for PC that's for sure.

I have these ideas :

1) Space station manager - I have written about it previously.
2) Space trading/exploration game - you have one space ship and some cash, you may travel across universe, be a pirate or fight with ones
3) Something like Sigmore Mines but for PC..
4) A game where you flight an old aeroplanes (yes I've watched recently "Flyboys" ;) )
5) Platformer
6) other ideas?

Simore Mines Gold version

Recently I've been thinking what to create next. Writing new game means creating new graphics which I'm not so good at. So I come to conclusion that the best solution is to continue upgrading Sigmore Mines and make the gold version (to which people who bought from me can upgrade freely). I want to change how magic works, add resistances to magic elements like fire, cold etc. Also I want to add new quests and few more things ;)

XNA Shaders

I've just putted on my page source code to some shaders in XNA. You can find them in University projects.

What's in package :
- Phong Lighting (per vertex and per pixel) : Key 1 and 2
- Bump-maping : Key 3
- Paralax-maping : Key 4
- Miror like material : Key 5
- Glass like material : Key 6
- Glass like material with light spliting : Key 7
- Glass like material with light spliting : Key 8
- 2D Post processing - Negate : Key 9

What's happening.

Long time no update, so looks like it's time to tell you what's going on lately on my yard.

First thing. When I wrote Sigmore Mines (version 1.0) I played it few times.. I thought that I have a final version. I uploaded it on getjar (this was at the beginning of February) and I were happy of feeling that I have done something to the end. Now, just few minutes earlier before I started typing this post, I uploaded to getjar SM version 1.05.. Looks like some people enjoy my game and actually play it - which is good, while they play they find bugs - which is good and bad... Good because I can fix bugs and make my game more enjoyable, bad because my game shouldn't have any bugs.. No I don't claim that I'm some super human who creates bugs free code, but some bugs where so stupid that they shouldn't ever be in first place. For example bug which makes that monsters at any dungeon depth where just rats or orks.. The pseudo code for this looks something like this: if player.getDungeonDepth > 4 then do something, bugfix to this was: if player.getDungeonDepth <> or vice versa, but you know my point : don't write code after midnight ;)

And my plans for games? Writing bug fixes of Sigmore Mines (if any left). I'm in the middle of creating new game for mobiles, nothing RPG,this time I wanted something easy, casual and what I will be able to develop fast. I'm also planning new RPG for mobiles, at the beginning I was thinking about continuation of Sigmour Mines (I've created design doc), but I added so many things/ideas/gameplay changes that I can't call it Sigmore Mines 2 :)

At university I'm still torturing XNA, this time shaders come to play, you can expect demo with per pixel phong lighting with attenuation, bump-mapping, paralax-mapping, reflection and reflaction.

I also want to learn Ruby language, master Ruby on Rails, and if I like Ruby maybe I will contribute to it in form of 2d game engine for RPG games (Ok there are such engines but this time it will be mine), time will show ;)

New news

I have few news to share :

1. Alias to my page (www.kamilt.go.pl) is not working since a week now.. I've created new one on different host : www.kamilt.1k.pl . Or you can use direct link : http://zb.net.lodz.pl/~kamil/ ..
2. I have signed partnership with Hovr.com. Now you can download Sigmore Mines and Treasure Digger from them for free :) (but you will see adds while starting the game)
3. I'm working on new RPG for mobile. Right now I have design doc done. I want it to be in 3D. Stay tuned :)
   

Raytracer : next iteration.

As you can see new thing added are reflections :).

I'm also happy because today Sigmore Mines has been bought by fourth(yes 4th) person. Now I can buy new Porsche ;). Btw if you have any suggestions regarding how to make SM better, feel free to post about it.

XNA Pacman (or PackMan in this case ;) )

Ok, you wanted it, you get it. Here is link to source code : PackMan. Nothing fancy really, but you may be interested at switchable behaviors ghosts have (chase stance and run away stance). The sprite of player is animated.

What I'm doing now

I've done Pacman in XNA for my Uni project, but it looks crude.. Well it works, and behave like original pacman game, but graphics looks like programmers art.. Nothing to show off really.

But there is one thing I can show you. On subject called Photo-realistical graphics, we are making raytracer (each one it's own). Here is picture from latest version of mine :


There are two spheres and a plane. Scene contains also 3 light sources.

What next?

Well I don't have much time now to write my own games, but on one of my subjects on university we are learning XNA framework. One of tasks on this subject is to make a packman game using XNA framework. I don't know if it will have any professional look, but I when it's done, I will release it for free. So looks like my next game will be packman :)

Buy button.

Well I couldn't resist.. PayPal's buy button is on my home page and new version is uploaded to getjar. :) Have fun :)

Tonsillitis..

Well full version is laying on my hard drive, and I'm laying in my bed because of tonsillitis.. When I get better I will update getjar version with final one, make paypal account and update my homepage with buy button.. But for now.. I'm going back to bed..

Final Version of Sigmore Mines

Few minutes ago I've compiled final version of SM. Saving and loading is there, registration screen is there.. Well I could still be adding new features to it, but I guess I have to end at some point. If people will like it I may start to work on it again, but right now new semester begins on my university and I have not much time now to do anything other then my university projects :(. Unless I encounter a critical bug, new updates will be rather rare from now on. So game is ready, now I need to create an account on paypal and figure out a price for it (5 euro is ok? what do you think?) before I put it on getjar.

Graphics and Weapon Slots

I've just completed switching to new graphics as well as adding new enemies and one cool feature. So now there is whole new title set, I hope you will like it. New enemies are : small dragon and dragon . Ork archer now has it's own graphic with bow . There is also new feature : weapon slots. If you often switch between distance weapon and melee weapon, you could put each weapon in a slot and activate it with just one press of the button (seven or nine on the phone keyboard). Oh and quests are working, right now only type of quests is to kill x number of y kind of monsters.

Here are some screens :

Back to reality again

I'm back, legs and arms not broken ;). Time to back to reality and start working on SM again. My task for next few days is adding new graphics and quests.

I also want to say that after a month of running this blog I've got my first comments from people what are not my real live friends. Thanks :) especially to Marcell Gál, for such a great comment on getjar.

Last update before a skiing trip

This is my last update before my one week holidays at mountains. I'm changing graphics to a bigger version, now it looks a lot cooler. There was an issue with walls as they have covered some parts of titles above them, sometimes hiding whole person or item. So I have implemented mechanism which draws only half of the wall to prevent player from disappearing behind a wall.

Here you can see a new graphics and hiding mechanism in action:

Which Superhero are you?

You are Green Lantern

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...


Ha ha, nice isn't it?

I'm going to the mountains for skiing for a week so there will be a brake in my working on SM. I'm adding quests to it.. slowly. I'm also thinking about making titles bigger a bit. Here is my new hero sprite : What do you think of it?

Another milestone

I've updated version on getjar. Now player can choose form warrior, mage and archer. My next big milestone would be adding small quests and final boss, as well as some minor enhancements. Stay tuned :).

Update for getjar almost ready

One more thing awaits to be implemented before I update version on getjar. That thing is bonuses from actual character class. I want something what works like when you put many points to magic you became a mage, if you favour melee you will become a warrior.

Updates from previous version :

• Magic! ( with spells like fireball, frozen blast, identify, show enemy stats, etc.)
  
• Icons what shows what kind of weapon are you using ( melee or distance )
• Ability to buy and equip item at the same time in blacksmith menu
• Now magical knife will not add to archery attribute and magical distance weapon will not add to melee

And here is screenshot from the latest version :

Updates, updates and updates

Ok I apologize, it's impossible to work on two games at the same time, so now I'm only working on Sigmore Mines. I'm trying to devote one hour every day to work on SM. This resulted in small updates almost every day :). My actual version has :

• Healing shrines
• Some form of gambling : you can buy unidentified items

My next milestone will be adding magic system, I postponed this as much as I could, but now I think that this is something what will add new playability to game.

A few Sigmore Mines updates

As now I have a beta tester, the quality of Sigmore Mines is going to enhance:). Right now I have a new version laying on my hard drive with such changes as :

• Portals and stairs are asking you if you really want to use them
  
• When distributing level up points to attributes, "go back" will only automatically gain focus when there is no more points left
  
• Magical items in inventory are now marked with "!" sign
  
• Fixed bug in key handling function what prevented using targeting on some phones
  
• Fixed some minor inconsistency in menus
• Tuned up difficulty level because the game was a bit to hard
• Sometimes you need a key to go down to next dungeon
• Main screen shows now what weapon are you using, if your hit-points goes to low,they will change color to red.
• In character screen there is info about how deep in dungeon you are.
  

I will update version on http://www.getjar.com/ when I will make more things, right now I my "to do" list looks like this :

• add ability to load and save game, this feature will probably be the only difference between demo and commercial version
  
• maybe add a bit more variety in titles
  
• add healing shrines
  
• looked doors with keys on enemies
  
• quest : kill enemy X and take his weapon or something
  
• some form of gambling either cash gambling or buying unidentified items like in diablo
  
• this one is quite fun : go to my website, watch an add or something and get a code for free gold in game :D
  
• quest : find/rescue a person guarded by a mini boss
  
• ability to view enemy stats (this could be as a magic spell)
  
• and of course I need to add magic attacks

Sigmore Mines and few more things.

First of all I want to thanks for all the feedback I've got about Sigmore Mines. Some people have even asked how to buy full version:). Looks like my work on Simore Mines is not going to end so easily ;). My priority now is to add ability to save game state. Then I will look at magic, but I think that magic should be more as something what give bonuses for example "for next 20 turns you have +2 defense".. well it's something I need to think about. Any ideas are welcome :).

As for my next PC game, I'm going to work on it in parallel with Sigmore Mines, so don't worry nothing will be abandoned. Only one thing has changed. In previous posts I was talking about Space Station Manager.. Well I still think it would be a great game, and I always wanted to make some kind of manager game, but lately I have bought a card game called "Dungeoneer". It's tactical-fantasy game with cards, dices and such, really cool :). So cool that my next PC game will be some kind of tactical fantasy :) (but I still want to write this Space Station Manager, it will still happen, but in far future). When I have spoken about it with my friends they said, that if done well, it could be even better then this "manager thing".

My vision of Space Station Manager

In regards to Space Station Manager:
If everything goes as planned, Space Station Manager will put you in a role of captain and manager of station orbiting around a planet. The planet could be hi-tech,medium economic or mainly mining colony. Type of planet determines how much and what kind of traffic is coming from and to planet. For example mining colony will mostly export minerals, while hi-tech planet will generate manufactured products. As for the gameplay I'm planing right now two modes, first mode will be free play (sandbox) where you do what you want, second would be scenarios where you must do some scenario given tasks as for example earn 1.000.000$ in 1 month.

As for Sigmore Mines, I need to prepare release version and put it on my site and on www.getjar.com. If this game will draw attention and somehow people will begin to ask me for more polished version, then I may start working on it again.

Sigmore Mines for free?

Sigmore Mines is roguelike mobile game I've been developing as my next project after completion of Treasure Digger. The development time of this game has been extended quite a lot by my studies and now I'm at the point where I begin to think that it is time to let Sigmore Mines go as a free game (and a bit uncompleted comparing to my original idea of how it should looks). If you like it you can think of buying Treasure Digger as a form of donation :).

As for my next project I'm thinking about going back to creating PC games. There are few ideas floating around, but right now the idea of space station manager has the best changes to be picked.

Treasure Digger for Your mobile

This is my first commercial game for mobile phones. It's quite good and I'm proud of it :). Here is description from my web page :

Logic game, You are a dwarf, which picks gold. Watch out for falling rocks which may kill you or cut your way out.

Game Features:
- ability to save your progress at any time
- ability to turn on/off sounds
- next levels unlocks as you pass through
- 20 mind challenging levels

Here you can download it ==> My games web page :)
I hope you like it.