Stoic Week 2013!

So, apart from me being so absent and all, here something very different:
From a reddit post I have heard of "Live like a stoic for a week - 2013" and for me being excited about new things like that, I am totally in!

If you don't know how a stoic lives, then we're in the same boat!
I've just started thinking about it, but we all should probably check this link out:

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/stoic-week-2013/

It has a full blown handbook (kinda tl;dr-ish) with instructions for each day next week. They also want you to participate in surveys before and after the stoic week.
So that's that.

For my gaming development stuff: It's been extremely slow, because I am working on other projects and working hard for school right now, so I am delaying the next game, mercy please! At least I am not lazy, right?

Triforce Puzzle: MAYbe delayed; Travelling!

May game not finished in May, but will be done; Germany, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, France, Denmark, Sweden - Travel blog;


This has probably been one of the craziest months I had ... so far in my life - in a very positive way of course.

But #GameDev News first:

As you can tell from the title, because of the crazy circumstances, I will not be able to publish my May Game in May. Not even in the OneGameAMonth deadline ending in June 4th (maybe a prototype?).
But, as I have promised, this project is not grounded at all. I will finish it in June, hopefully very quickly, so I can work on my June/July game in C++ again (@Koutyboy, I'll need your help!).

So why the hack is this month's game delayed again?

Yeah I know, it's the second game in a row that I couldn't finish within a month. That doesn't mean I'm not trying!
In April it was mainly because I first had to learn C++, and then programming a game in C++ and I am still lacking a lot of programming skills! I even bought a "C++ GameDev" book!

May was different, though. In the middle of my second semester I was travelling around, coming to a crazy total of 7 countries I have visited or at least travelled through.
As you may know from my previous post, @MeganPraz was visiting in May, and after the exploration of some parts of Germany I was tagging along to Amsterdam and Paris for a week.

And if this wasn't enough of travelling and missing a lot of school, I am currently far up north in Sweden with my Mum after a crazy road trip of roughly 2,5k km (1,5k miles) checking out the outback!
The most confusing thing here really is, that currently in the summer the sun never goes down completely and it's always light out.. it's midnight right now and I am not used to this at all!
Anyway, I should go to sleep, because tomorrow we are going to drive the whole way from Skelleftea back to Heilbronn and it's going to be extremely stressful on my body and mind, I could use some more sleep!

Here are some expressions of the Sweden trip so far:

This was taken o the ferry from Germany to Denmark at 6am-ish

One of the many many many lakes up here in Lappland. This one is right in front of our hotel!

The traditional houses of the natives of Lappland. And they are still in use!http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/7716/screen041ef.png

Alright guys!
Have a wonderful day, and stay tuned for progress on my game! Starting Monday, the crazy travel days have ended, and it's just some more crazy university learning and #GameDev-ing going on!

The minimalistic May Challenge

People keep asking me: "What about your next game?".
Amazing, right? Although I don't have anything to show yet about my new game, this is making me very happy! People are actually expecting me to make new games, and want to find out more about it!
Seriously, this kind of feels like a little baby-step towards my dream to be a cool Game Developer, yeah!

Oh, but have you heard about my new game? Nope! I am a little lazy about my game lately, but don't worry!!! I am extremely eager to finish this game this month.
It's a fairly simple game, a puzzle game inspired by Pokemon Puzzle League (highfive to the fans of this game o/), and again I will try to not focus on the appearances. That way I should be able to release at least a minimalistic game this month.


So, like I said I am quite busy this month! There's a lot of Real Life going on lately, that's why I havn't been in the webs these days. Let me introduce you to my American friend @MeganPraz, she's an awesome animator and is visiting me in my humble Trier right now!
You should definitely check out her website if you want to see some cool stuff, plus she even made a little videogame, yeah!

The last two days we've spent a lot of time in trains, exploring Heidelberg and the Black Forest part of Baden-Baden. Here are some expressions of the trip:

 

 

AAAAANNNYYYYWAAAAYYYSSSSSSS
Yes, I am working on my game, but doing little to no progress :/ As soon as I am doing progress though, I will let you know, yes? Just look out for some twitter posts, I promise, I will finish this game!

Don't forget to check out Megan's Twitter and website!
Happy weekend, everybody!

April game cancelled... FOR NOW!

Thats the headline for today, yes. I will delay my beloved C++ project with @tobiaseriksson, unfortunately. I am not being all pessimistic, but I just started learning C++ (in class we havn't even talked about pointers or classes yet) so it's really no good to try and make a game with it.
Nevertheless, this has just made me want to learn C++ even more, and I am eagerly attending the C/C++ class.

Thanks to @Koutyboy (aka Moonkis in #1GAM IRC channel) I am now part of #TeamC++ and that makes me super excited about learning and studying C++ really.
So as soon the time has come, I will get on to the C++GameDev train again to finish what I have started with @tobiaseriksson!

So, whats next then?

I am already planning for my next game, yeah! I will make it in Haxe again, since I prefer that over Java. I want to use the HaxePunk Engine again, and I already know my Theme too..

Triforce Seekers!

To all the German folks, if you're interested, go and look into www.triforceseekers.de, it's my little Zelda Community I have built up with my friend @keatonkafei and it's all about the Zelda universe and their flaws (aka Bugs, Glitches and so on).
And as a tribute to this community I want to make a game with it's name as a theme. I have no idea yet what kind of game I want to make. A puzzle game? Adventure? Maybe a textadventure or a point and click adventure? Something weirdly new?
I have asked my community for help, so maybe I can come up with something fun in May!

I am looking forward to this project! Although May will be very stressful and busy for me, I don't have to learn Haxe from srcatch (like in March) and maybe it will work out :)

Today's trivia:
Now I will attend my first ever pen&paper game yes! We're playing Call of Cthulu, it sounds like a real fun, and creepy experience! Have a nice day everyone~

SO CLOSE, SO DAMN CLOSE

Wait. Have a look at my new header! This whole blog is still super prototypy, but I will add some more colors and fun on the left and right side, so check every now and then, mkay?

So today, I have probably made one of the last bit of finetuning on my game.

As I said in the last post, I balanced the rupees again. The golden one being worth 50 rupees, going down to the green one which is worth 1.

The black ones are now worth -3, so it actually is worth it to avoid them.

But way more interesting is the following thing I have implemented. So I was thinking about, how I would be able to make it more interesting for the player to take more risks, in that I mean, trying to reach the very top in a very small amount of time. So I have implemented a new highscore system, where you receive other points by bringing those rupees to your wife AS FAST AS YOU FROGGIN CAN!

//Highscore Berechnung!

highscore += (long) ((timerBar.getWidth()/1) * frog.getRupeeaInBag());

It's basically: Time that is left * Rupees you collected.

Whereas the time is a number between 1 and 100. I tested it a little bit, and it is reaallyy worth it to take the whole course to the other side and then bring it up to yo wife.

Here's what the score page looks like now:

Yeah its kind of not aligned but whatever.

Especially when you did a bad job! Okay! I think I am done for today (5am in the morning...).

I hope I am going to release a browser capable game soon, hang in there!