There is an early version of the DeVlog (pronounced De Vlog of course) on the site, but I shamefully spelled it with a lower case ‘v’ and I’m rectifying the problem.
This new and improved DeVlog will be a combination blog post and short YouTube video for your reading and viewing pleasure. Exciting stuffs to come
Programming is the Bees Knees
For the record, I believe bees do have knees, but you can probably find conflicting views online. It’s a hot debate and you should chime in. Do bees have knees?
Anyway… here is the video in case you want to watch me ramble on with an impressive shine beaming from my bald dome. Otherwise, read on and get all the juicy details.
My plans for the year have changed quite a bit and I’ve jumped from one multi-platform-targetting language (read Haxe) to another: Java. For some strange reason I got this craving for hardware accelerated graphics and super powerfullness. Enter LibGDX which uses LWJGL, a wrapper for OpenGL.
Don’t worry, I realize those are dumb reasons to just change languages, but what are you gonna do?
Moving forward in development of Chuter was a lot of fun because I was learning something new and making a game that people seemed to enjoy for at least a couple minutes.
While I was working on my first #1GAM game I started laying out my plans for the coming months. February was going to be a game where I would toy around with sound and sight as a game mechanic, March would have me working on a sort of tower defense game with traps instead of turrets, and I had gotten all the way through May with my game ideas… then it hit me.
This Idea Is Like a Virus Stuck In My Brain
Assassin8-31; a game thought up for May 2013 of One Game a Month that would finally allow me to make a stealth game. I projected the May start date so that I’d have a bit more experience under my belt because I wanted this game to kick ass. It would be my first commercial game!
Leave it to an assassin to kill all my plans before they even got off the ground.
Over the two weeks that followed the planting of the assassin seed, my head wouldn’t let me fall asleep or get much work done because I was (and still am) pumped to make this game. As a side note, I rarely get this excited for much of anything. It’s a pretty cool feeling.
Eventually I gave in and abandoned Chuter, abandoned Haxe (for now), and started learning LibGDX. I’m officially working on what is now called Time Assassin and it is FREAKIN’ AWESOME!
Here’s The Deal…
Going to school is tough, making games is tough, taking care of a family is tough, and trying to do all the cool stuff I want to do is all tough, but doing something great is never easy. All of these thing mean the world to me (most of all my family), and I couldn’t be happier cramming them all into the same 24 hours every day.
So, I’ve said most of what I planned on saying tonight and I want to leave you with a few things to look forward to.
Time Assassin will be the sole game I work on everyday for the foreseeable future (aside from possibly a few game jams) and I can’t wait to show you something as awesome as what is flying around my skull, but I’ve gotta get working and get something worth showing first.
LibGDX is completely new to me and I’ve already learned a lot so expect to see me hashing out my mistakes and tips for anyone who is interested. Also, as always, I want to stay the course with keeping most of my advice and tutorials as general as possible in order to let you guys exercise those brain cells and do the learnings yourself.
Next up, this website. It will be around for a long time, so I want to put in a good foundation early. The front page will probably change very slightly with the removal of the Indie Snapshot icon (sorry guys, I just can’t spend the time editing videos right now) and the addition of a ‘Hire Me‘ button should anyone want me to work with them (hey it’s possible!).
The DeVlog hasn’t quite started yet, but it will be the front runner on the main page because it will keep me motivated and excited for making games and sharing with you fine looking folks.
Come Back For More
Ideally, I’ll start out with one video and one post per week, both coming out around the same time on Friday, but when school is out I might be able to bump that up to twice or three times per week; we’ll see. STICK AROUND, there will be much better stuff to read next week.
Don’t forget to be awesome, and as always, you stay classy interwebs, catchya later.