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?