Sword Fantasy! Maybe Sticks First.

I've once again decided to begin work on developing a game engine for Sword Fantasy. I've decided to start with Haaf's Game Engine, and hopefully I'll have some rudimentary version of the game engine running. The goal is to finish the game engine before moving on to Sword Fantasy. My goals:

1. Implement a working collision detection engine, either by using an existing one or writing my own.

2. Work on loading screens, menus, narration, message boxes, inventory screens and so on.

3. Obviously, implement some text file parser into the engine for maps, scripts, AI behaviour and savegames.

4. Implement a savegame system. (This will probably more of a between areas kind of thing since I intend for Sword Fantasy to be linear in fashion. I'm not fond of backtracking through a game.) This aims to eventually have a flag system so that if you want to backtrack, you can, although the game will have a mission selector.

5. Implement a physics engine. This is the tricky one. I know there are good ones out there - I am currently looking at Box2D and Chipmunk. I think I lack the skill to implement one - and since it's unimportant or more of a luxury, I'll probably skip this goal if it means I'll actually finish the engine. I know that having one of these will eventually afford me fun puzzles, great graphics and awesome tools with which to build fun levels. However, if it will cost me too much time and effort to implement one, I'll stick with lame math. :P

6. Make a rudimentary game. Obviously, making the engine doesn't equal making a game - and since I don't have the confidence to pull Sword Fantasy off yet, I'll be making a simpler similar game to test and demo my final completed merged engine.

As for development timeline:

End of September 2008: Swords + Sticks with rudimentary menu, loading process and exactly one level.

End of December 2008: Swords + Sticks with menus and options (hopefully with gamepad support - since it is meant for gamepads, although the control scheme will work well with keyboards - mice support will come eventually and hopefully the game will scale well to more than one resolution, so some rudimentary error prone option will be around I guess) that save OR inventory, save game system and (hopefully) a repertoire of five levels

I don't expect to finish anything.

Looking Back A Year to 2007

1. At the beginning of the year, I still thought Guitar Hero was an average game with a peripheral. There was little doubt in my mind I wasn't going to get into it. Forward to today and Rock Band - you can guess where that thought went. To think it would be triggered by a friend + bongos + DDR. The randomness of my brain and my life is beyond understanding. 2. I made a resolution to study harder than I did in 2006. That obviously didn't go very far - and the degenerating process is still occuring this year. My results seem doomed to enter the land of awful this semester.

3. Surprisingly, I'm following even fewer shows this year than last year. I think a good reason is that there are fewer shows to follow due to the WGA strike and the lot. The effect is somehow spilling over to anime as well, so I'm guessing I'm just not in the mood for watching shows this year. Studying and gaming must be taking some sort of priority I guess.

Why You Should Consider Buying New Cables for Your Old Consoles

This is something for which the effect you don't really see on Wii for some reason, and maybe I'm biased. I use a TV Box to convert all these video inputs into monitor friendly output, and boy was I shocked when I switched from a PS2 composite cable to a PS2 component cable. No, this is not 480p, no funny tricks of any sort. It is just the plain awesomeness from a simple cable change.

Just a simple cable change for an aging console which outputs in 480i produces a dramatic improvement in picture quality. So if you've got a brand spanking new TV with component inputs - don't skimp. Buy those new component cables for your PS2. It'll put your Wii's 480p output to shame. Maybe. (At least through a TV Box. :P)

Just goes to show new cables can indeed breathe life into old consoles.

Shows I'm Following Now

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu - Nogizaka Haruka is awesome. Or at least, the first 4 episodes are. I can't find any words to describe it besides being some kind sinful indulgence. =P Code Geass R2 - I didn't watch any Code Geass until during the holidays, when I raided kl's disc library - and then I got hooked instantly. High school kid with aspirations for power gaining the ability to make anyone follow his first set of commands - awesome setup. Coupled with a few crazy revelations here and there, the show becomes a joy to watch - and I have yet to want to watch another episode of anime this much before.

Special A - The show is still ongoing, so I'm obviously still following it religiously. The speed at which Hikari and Kei's relationship is growing is still painfully slow, but hopefully they'll make up for it soon enough. The show is amusing, but now I'm following more out of the fact I've watched most of it, rather than it being good.

I also caught up on Hidamari Sketch, and while I'd have to say the first one or two episodes were pretty bad, the show does eventually do away with the attention breaking randomness and form a more cohesive story after that. It does make a good show overall, but those first few episodes could be dealbreaking for many (being in anachronic order does give the show a better pace than otherwise).

Webcomic - How I Spent my 31st of July

Yes, I've played through Soul Calibur IV. I've unlocked every prefabricated character except Starkiller - mostly due to my laziness to learn how to play Yoda well enough to pass Arcade mode. I can't say I love the game, since I'm easily bored by fighting games, but it is still Soul Calibur IV. It feels harder to combo now, although I think that's probably a matter of practising and memorising the move lists as compared to my button mashing of the X and Y buttons.

If you like fighting games or just the Soul Calibur series, this will not disappoint and is most certainly a must-buy for anyone with a console who can play it. Just maybe, not now - and later when it hits budget price status, since I don't really value it at 60 dollars. Not the worst 60 dollars you could spend mind you considering the oh-so-vast number of games for XBox 360 this year.

I was severely disappointed by the Too Human demo but the Tales of Vesperia demo was a pleasant surprise.

Now addicted to:

Waga Routashi Aku no Hana by ALI PROJECT Die, All Right! by The Hives