PayPal experiment

I've just added a PayPal's "Buy Now" button on my site. I'm curious which method people will prefer : via PayPal or via Plimus (I provide them both now). The difference is that with PayPal I need to manually send registration codes to my buyers, because PayPal just sends sales confirmation to my email. Although I check my email often, still there is a small delay (especially when there is a big difference in timezones).

About old project, about new project and about Windows Vista

I really have problems with inventing meaningful titles for my posts... anyway I want to tell you about few things.

First one may looks like advertisement and believe me, I also never imagined that I could say it, but... I really like Windows Vista. It came preinstalled on my new laptop. At first I was a bit worried because producer don't provide drivers for Windows XP and I was prejudiced that Vista is a big, slow, buggy cow.. Now it's almost a month since I'm working with Vista and to be honest, I don't feel like going back to XP again. Of course first thing I did was restoring classic start menu and disabling Aero and sidebar (not that Aero and sidebar killed performance, but I read somewhere that battery life is longer without them). As for performance, the fact is that start up time of Netbeans and also compiling times are much faster compared to my previous hardware, thus making me a happier man;). Also things such as a new way to navigate around folders makes me more productive:). I should also mention that first service pack is almost knocking at our doors (release candidate is ready for download now). This service pack should enhance stability and performance as MS says. Future will show :-)

Second and most important thing which may make happy some of my readers (are there any?). After getting another mail from fan of Sigmore Mines game I decided to "again" start working on Sigmore Mines 2. Yeah I see you people rejoice ;-). Keep in mind that I'm not forgetting my Dwarfs King game. I plan to work on them both in parallel. I mean, an hour a day devoted to developing each game is not impossible for me. I'm more concerned that I woudn't stop after this one hour... Anyway... I want to officially announce that Sigmore Mines 2 is being developed. Also I want to officially ask fans of Sigmore Mines for your motivating support (hint hint -> start commenting my posts;-) ).

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.

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 ;)

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 :)
   

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:

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.