Talking about Direction

Reading this post and the question posed by Chewxy was rather intriguing to me then, and still intriguing to me now. A few months ago, I posed my friends this simple yet profound question - where do you see all of us 5 years from now and 10 years from now. When I was 15, I joined and qualified for the finals of a national youth programming competition, the DGX DCC 2001. It's no longer being held now, sadly. I obviously didn't win, but it was somewhat interesting what most people who were 1 year or 2 years older than us had for ideas to submit for their finals. I'd argue what I submitted was particularly childish now and probably the most incomplete, but I think it's more than likely all of us thought similarly.

Now, six years later, I'm doing actuarial science - something I didn't even remotely know about then. I'm still no closer to completing Sword Fantasy than I was five years ago. I'm not using anything I learned in school in daily classes besides my mathematics and even whatever use of that is reduced to what I would consider a negligible amount.

My programming never really took off until two years ago. In the span of two years, I've learned more than six programming and scripting languages (C, C++, Java, R, MATLAB and Lua - I don't consider Warcraft 3's JASS to count, neither do I count PHP or C#), gotten familiar with all 3 major operating systems (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), finished more games than I have in the two years before that, and made a Warcraft 3 custom map (which I chose not to release because of a similar item already out). And I'm not in any computer programming class, software engineering class. The one class I did attend was for fun and for a free high distinction - as well as reassurance that I would probably be bored if I tried to go the programming way for a degree.

My brain is still trying to recover from the two years of stagnation at HELP. I have still been unable to access it completely - I'm hoping the course will get harder and switch my brain back on. My memorization functions are still greatly limited (as evidenced by my poor performance in Corporate Finance). I certainly hope that it will recover by next year. It feels funny knowing that you are capable of more, but your brain refuses to go that extra mile.

The Coming Year of 2008

First, let's look at what happened last year. I took a trip to Cairns with a few friends - two old ones and a new one. I was supposed to start on Sword Fantasy's basic game framework, but ended up coming short. Despite this, I've gotten a lot further with learning the programming required, although my game research has slowed down - owing to books being so costly in Australia. I did somewhat rewrite the first chapter of the story into a more cohesive more readable form. What do I plan to do this year then?

1. Finish a game engine. - Yep, the most ambitious goal yet. Complete a game engine. How ambitious is this project? I intend to build an engine, complete with graphics and sound - with fully scriptable maps. (I intend to implement fully scriptable AI at some point, but we'll see - highly dependent on how far my virtual machine coding has come.) Broken down, this makes it into several tasks: Get a virtual machine running (the most daunting, in my opinion). Get graphics running and reading data from scripts. Get sounds running and reading data from scripts. Learn how to execute scripts the multithreaded way.

2. Get a job. - Yes, I know goals 1 and 2 conflict. I'm not sure if my goal is to get a job for next year, or a part-time job, or just setting up myself a job. What I mean is actually getting into a tighter routine. I think getting into a routine where time is slightly tighter than it is now will make me more hardworking.

3. Cook more. - Time to save myself some money and learn a few more culinary skills. In addition, cooking actually gives me more time for programming. So go figure.

4. Program something for PSP. - Yep, thought I should give it a try. Chances are it'll be a Luaplayer program since I don't want to spend too much time working on the PSP when I should be working on getting stuff working in Windows. It might not even do anything.

This year, I think I won't expand the story any further, owing to spending more time on everything else. I think to me, the most important thing to do this year is expand my software portfolio while studying. I believe that it's time I go back to fullforce computer programming instead of lazing around researching games and RPG systems. It's time to finally build the engine the game is going to run on for real.

My Favourite Five Games of 2007

1. Favourite puzzle gamePortal

(Copyright of Valve, I think.)

I think this is a no contest and no brainer. Portal is the best puzzle game for 2007. It may not have been long, the puzzles may not have been difficult - but it was fun. Crush for PSP was probably second.

2. Favourite RPG .hack//G.U. Series

(Images from dothack.wikia.com. Copyrights belong to Namco Bandai, of course.)

Yes, I know the Japanese games all finished the previous year, but the last two of the series didn't show up in English until this year. I don't care if you think it's repetitive, all the dungeons look the same, or there's too much grinding - it was fun for me. And being in several volumes means that the storyline is waaay better than that last game that started with 2Fs (and Persona 3 is even more repetitive). A close second for me would have to be Eternal Sonata (known to some people with another title - Trusty Bell).

3. Favourite first person shooter (FPS): Bioshock (Heh, 2K Games.)

While it wasn't entirely FPS, and definitely wasn't an RPG - it was fun. Crysis and CoD4 are no challenge for its gameplay, UT3 is a multiplayer game, Halo 3 has just finally reached the stage of a good FPS (compared to the previous two instalments) and HL2 Episode 2 is too short for comparison to this behemoth (same goes for Resistance).

4. Favourite portable game: Gyakuten Saiban 3/Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (Heh, Capcom.)

No surprise here. Nothing beats this for sucking up my time even when I'm at home doing nothing else. Gyakuten Saiban 3 DS kicks ass.

5. Favourite music game: Guitar Hero 3

(Now Activision, right?)

3 words: Wireless Guitar Controller. Ok, so there's more to say. I love the controller. I love the song list. I love the difficulty and challenge. Way to go, Neversoft. Why no Rock Band? I don't have Rock Band. I happen to live in the PAL side of the world. You know how us poor PAL people get snubbed come holiday time when it comes to something as important to release at Christmas as Rock Band. (I will never forgive Harmonix and MTV Games - unless they give us more songs. XD)

There are other things to say about 2007.

Despite me liking the PS3 better as a device, I play more games on the XBox 360. I would've sold off my Wii a long time ago if not for the GameCube support. Believe it. Since computer system requirements are climbing at ridiculous rates, I haven't played much in the way of new PC games - for the most part, there aren't many good ones that came out this year, and those good ones came out on the XBox 360 or PS3 anyway. I like my consoles very much - and I believe they are the way to go when it comes to gaming. Having both the XBox 360 and the PS3 eventually land you more ability to play good games as they come than having an up-to-date gaming PC.

If you notice, I didn't put a favourite RTS there, but it most certainly is C&C3. It's just not as liked to the magnitude of the other 5 games. Supreme Commander is just way too slow for me, and the 'At War' series is well, not quite as fun as C&C3 is for me.

Assassin's Creed deserves an honourable mention here, since it was really fun, but unfortunately, repetitive and leaves much to be desired. But still fun.

As for a per console breakdown,

I think the best game to come out for PC was C&C3. (Portal was too short, Bioshock still feels very console-like to me) A close second would have to be Unreal Tournament 3.

The best game to come out for PS2, I'd still choose the .hack//G.U. series. No second place to speak of. Unless you want to count Guitar Hero 3.

The best game for PS3? I'd say Unreal Tournament 3. Heh. Folklore comes a close second for me.

As for the XBox 360, I think the best game would be Bioshock - with Assassin's Creed a close second.

As for the Wii, I think all the games are mediocre or average at best, so I'd have to go with Super Paper Mario - with Super Mario Galaxy a close second.

For the PSP, I liked Disgaea PSP a lot. Even for a remake of a game I have already played an identical version of, it was still fun. FFTactics was a HUGE disappointment. Crush would come second.

For the DS, I suppose nothing beats Gyakuten Saiban 3. Second? I'd have to say probably Brain Age 2.

My favourite developer is Blizzard (oddly enough the one that didn't release anything). Demos of Starcraft 2 are still playing in my head nonstop. I WANT THAT GAME.

(Note that there looks to be conflicts on my list, but in truth, there aren't. My favourite games aren't necessarily the best games on the console. They aren't synonymous to me.)

A Few Mishaps

There was a mishap while I was updating the site to Wordpress 2.3.2. I accidentally corrupted my database, and guess what - my last usable backup was from 1st of December. As of such, I've lost all posts made this month. I don't even recall what I wrote in whatever few posts I did make, but I know that I did have a photo to show off, and here it is:

As for everything else I think it's not important enough to test. And oh yeah, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is actually playable to me. Considering the fact that I considered the past 3 numbered games unplayable - that's some huge improvement.

Departing Back for Malaysia and Following Hiatus

I'm departing back for Malaysia on Tuesday (27th November). After which, I'll be pretty busy and will be unable to blog for the better part of December (probably the whole month, in fact). In fact, depending on how things go, I could easily be busy for the next few months too. The blog will most certainly continue - but it's possible that you might not be looking at an update until February or March - due to overall unavailability, as opposed to the usual writer's block.