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If Rape had a Critter……………..

Thought I would take a break from my Game Design documentation session and just type out a pointless blog post. The last few days I have been extremely busy and basically haven’t moved from my bedroom about from the short trip to the toilet and that short drive to tescos. I got back to Derby on Wednesday night and decided to have an early night as the next few days are going to kill me.

On Thursday my good northern friend Liam came over to help me with my maths, this is one of the modules that I am worrying about quite alot, not going to deny it, I could have done alot more to prepare for the exams but I had to make do. Alot of people in CGP at the moment are having troubles with other modules purely from the fact that our Game Design Modules took 90% of our time during the semester. But never less, this is why we are at UNI, to get drunk and try do our best at our work.

My Critter work is done! Just got to type up the testing for it, have no idea how I will approach this but I am sure I will be working on it next week in the early hours of the morning. I finally named my critter, yes its the title of my blog post and here is the proof!

Rape.......

My C++ work has also made a swift move forward which is good news. Next week I have a busy week with exams and assignment deadlines, can see alot of early nights and ‘attempted’ sleeping sessions. My Game Design power point and documentation is in for Tuesday. My Algorithms and Data Structures exam is on Wednesday along with my Game Design presentation. On Friday my Critter and C++ programs are in and the week after that I have a maths exam.

Hopefully I do better than last semester, I feel like I have worked alot harder this semester then last semester but thats understandable. Okay well I am now going to get a can monster from the fridge (currently living off them) and get on with some Game Design.

My next post will probably be thursday where I will post my Game Design document so people can have a glance if they wish to.

Thanks for reading

Sun…. but work…… SUCKS

Okay, so my orignal plan was not to go home over easter and stay in Derby and finish work. Well I was given the opportunity to house sit for a relative that doesn’t live to far from home. Decided to go with it as the weather will be immense and she has a nice garden, just drag my laptop to do some work and hopefully get some chill time in.

Here is a picture of my ‘Garden Set Up’ as I was pretty bored and was trying to avoid doing some work.

Set Up

I got quite abit of work to get on with, main reason why I am even writing a blog post is to avoid doing any, currently trying to fix some bugs in my Application Development assignment, the assignment is also a game, well kinda. The easiest way someone explained it to me was a non programmer and she said its like robot wars, you make your robot and fight it against others. She is pretty much dead on, we make these ‘critters’ then they get placed into a arena and made to fight.

Another assignment I got to finish is my c++ Algorithms and data structures assignment, well the second part of it. We are to use the program we made in our first assignment and adjust some functions and crap init. I haven’t really looked at it from the fact that I am quite scared I will panic and probably just die.

I have also got my Game Design presentation, i got to make a power point and complete all my documentation, I am not that worried about this and its quite a relaxing thing to do as I quite enjoy it. I haven’t done any of the documentation and really don’t know what I got to do, but I am sure after some digging around I will be fine and will work it out.

Couple exams in may as well that I got to revise for, I took my resist for Computer Architecture Wednesday just gone so.

Thats pretty much the plan for the next couple of days, work work work and meet some old mates and of course, chill out in the sun

Thanks for reading…. I guess lol

SpaceDroids The Game

My last blog post was me ranting about my final game for my Game Design module at University. I finally handed it in last Wednesday! A lot of bloodshed and tears went into that game, not from a coding point of view as I didn’t find the programming a massive challenge unlike my Application Development assignment which I am currently working on now. There was a lot of issues on the way, especially towards the end of the development. Mostly to do with transferring my game over to the Xbox. As I mentioned before our games have to be deployed on the Xbox, the final part of this module is a 8 minute presentation to my course module lecturers, where I talk about the game development and design stages I went through. Enough University talk, let’s get on with finally showing you the finished game.

The Assignment

The assignment was to make a XNA Game that is playable on the Xbox, it was to be made for a persona that I had written up in the early days of the module. The persona had to be an older male (30+) and wasn’t a gamer. I choose my mum’s partner for this. We had to make the game co-op where there is a role for the gamer (me) and the non gamer (my persona). We had to record any design notes and go through proper design stages like QA. The game will be handed in on a Xbox and a 8 minute presentation, like i mentioned earlier. PS –  The game is called SpaceDroids.

The Game

The game is a side scrollor shooter, well sorta, there are enemies on the game but they don’t shoot back, instead they use their epic powers of collisions to kill you. You are a space ship traveling through space (no shit Sherlock) and you have come across some sort of asteroid field. Lots of rocks and boulders heading your way, lucky for the player as the ship comes with dual cannons and a space bot (played by the gamer) which will help you through your journey.

The space bots mission is to keep the non gamer alive, the bot can pick up power ups that appear on the screen and also heal the ship if needed. The power ups you can choose from are:

• Slow Enemies – This power up will slow down the game, all enemies will be slow down, this will last 15 seconds.
• Extreme Bullets – Awesome bullets that kill multi able enemies, they continue through them like a laser.
• Full Health – A pretty lazy power up, it brings your health back up to 100%.

Part of the assignment is to record a screen capture of the game being played, this is handy as I wanted to do a screen capture for my blog.

Game Development

Considering I am a beginner programmer with little programming knowledge when I started my university course, the challenge in this game wasn’t great. Yes I did hit some problems but nothing that a little help couldn’t fix. Main problems where:

• Lists – Instead of using arrays for my enemies and bullets I decided to use lists, I had a problem with removing bullets from my list, this wasn’t a major issue for the PC (Game was pretty much developed on the PC) but when deployed onto the Xbox it would cause major performance issues, with a little bit of testing I found out that if you play the game for about 90 seconds and you was shooting quite a lot, each bullet list (dual guns) would have a total count of about 600 EACH. I belive this was causing the Xbox to lag, I did the usual procedure by making sure the bullets didn’t move/draw when they left the screen but there was still some issues. After I got around this problem there was no performance issues. I got around the issue by removing the bullets from the list when they were dead, yes it sounds pretty simple but the usual foreach or for loops just wouldn’t work. After a little research I eventually got a reverse for loop to work.
• Another problem I had was again with the Xbox, the Title Safe Zone thingy, this messed with a lot of people, when you played your game on a different Xbox/Tv it would be messed up. Sometimes only showing a bit of the screen or non of the screen. We wasn’t told about the possibility of this at the start of the development but I did do some research before making my game. I had the impression if I made my resolution a 1280 x 720 I will be fine in most cases, however this wasn’t the case. In the end I tried my best to make it compatible but ended up handing in the game with some of the screen (just around the edges) off-screen.

Apart from those issues, the development of my game was pretty smooth and of course enjoyable. Over summer I am planning to work a lot more on this and maybe get it onto the Indie market store located on Xbox Live. I got to re-do the art work as some of it was taken from open sources on the internet and other resources will have to be re-done (like my epic power up commands).  I will also have to have a look at the list of doom and make sure my game will be fine through the testing they will do, I can see a lot of work ahead of me to be honest.

The Future

Well now University is finished, I will be working on my final assignments and revising for some exams that take place in May. I will probably take a month off to chill, catch up on some gaming and of course take a holiday. Over the summer I got plans for my XNA game, but I will also want to make sure that my head stays in the game (pfft it never really was to be honest) and start going over the stuff for the second year. I will have a look at the Unreal Engine as I been told many times I really want a head start with that.

Well thanks for reading this massive post, if you made it that far. To be honest, the only people I am expecting to get this far is my Mum and Girlfriend, but if you’re not either one of them then kudos to you! Please contact me if you got any suggestions or re-marks, I am totally open to anything, good or bad so don’t be a coward! Contact details are located in the ‘Contact Me’ tab. Thanks

Games…. Games…. and more Games…….

Wish my title was related to the amount of games I have been playing recently but that’s total bull shit as it is related to the amount of games I have had to ‘try’ and make in XNA. It has got to the point on where I open XNA I automatically get depressed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a challenge and I am learning something new which is why I pay for UNI in the first place but it’s getting depressing! But never less we have been given our last XNA task of this semester, our final game for our game design module.

We have been tasked to make a game for a persona that we made during the early weeks of the module, the persona had to be based on a non gamer, either a young female or an older male. My persona is based on my mum’s partner who is an older male and has little knowledge of hardcore gaming. The task was to make a co-op game that you would play with your persona and to see if you can get them into gaming. No problem I guess, but we had to go through the whole design concept of making games.

A lot of people had troubles with this as we signed up to the course for the programming aspects, not the creative side, if I wanted to do Game Design I would have gone to a crap university and done it there but never less we got on with it. My game is making some progress, the idea is similar to other games and this is where I will probably lose marks on my final grade as I wasn’t ‘creative’ enough on my programming course. Firstly here is a screenshot of my game, I will explain what is on the screen then I have recorded a small clip using FRAPS but to be honest, its nothing special!

My Game - click to enlarge!

Ok, so here is a screenshot of the main game level, very basic. As you can already tell my game will be a side scroller shooter. The art work is not final and there are some bugs in the game, this is nowhere near finished! The space ship will be the non gamer, their role is to shoot the incoming enemies (orange blocks), they can move up and down, also they can shoot their dual cannons (see video). The red block (top left hand corner) is going to be the gamer, they will have the power to keep the non gamer going, their main job is to collect power ups and heal the main ship.

The green/red block in the middle is a power up, from the video you can see that this slows down the enemies making them a lot easier to hit, the red block was meant to be a separate power up but I am having some random number issues which is what my plan for today is, to have all the power ups working! At the top you can see the health and score, health is a max of 100, the second player can heal the space ship just but hovering of it. The power Time is how long you got left until the power has run out. The white text is just for testing, will not be in the game.

So this is what the final game will look like, its in for next week, I was working on it a lot but my c++ work kinda stopped me doing my game, but this week and weekend is all about XNA so prepare for a raged Chris!

Thanks for reading, please comment with any suggestions or improvements, pretty much anything!

Update and STRESS!

Haven’t typed out a post for ages so I thought I would use some spare lab time and wack a quick one out. (Empty Room :O ) On a serious note we been given some assignment work from some of our modules like Game Design and algorithms + Data Structures.

Last weekend I went back to London to see family and celebrate my sisters 19th birthday, it was nice being home and just chilling but I am also quite glad to be back in Derby, for one to see my mates and the other is to crack down on some serious work and Fifa time. Our Game Design module is to make a game on XNA that is for our persona, it has to be co-op and run on a XBOX 360, the personas we was asked to make where no gamers so the game as to introduce someone into playing games and keep them there.

Another assignment is some stupid one for our A+D, gosh its sooo annoying! It’s quite difficult as the assignment itself don’t make much sense, we got to make a program in C++ that acts like a database (simple terms).

Also of people recently have been saying they might drop from the course as the work is getting too much, I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago but now I have cleared the 6 XNA games I am quite happy, I am behind in all the other modules apart from Game Design and I got to re-take my Computer Architecture module near easter.

So as you can see, my current UNI lifestyle is going up shit creek with no paddle, but I am sure I will get to the top eventually

Bass Cannon………..

For our last ‘week game’ in XNA, we have been given the theme of ‘Speed’. I wasn’t really happy about this as we had alot more interesting themes to choose from, but as a class we decided speed would be our best choice. I have gone for a Collision based side scroller, so basically dodge the shit that comes your way!

I need to add a ‘speed’ element to my game, so I have decided to add a …. music element, the game speeds up as the song drops. I love this idea as it combines my course with music as I got to edit alot of songs. Instead of leaving it last-minute, I have already started it and I have a fully working toy that people can play. The three songs that I have chosen for my game are:

• Chase and Status – Fool Yourself

• Flux Pavilion - Bass Cannon (What the game is actually called)

• Modestep – Bite the hand

The game is called Bass Cannon, me being lucky with two CGMA students in my house, Aran Anderson decided to put a splash page out for me, Thanks man

Bass Cannon

That’s pretty much all I got on my game development, hopefully by tomorrow I will have a fully working version of the game.

Grades………….

Ok, so last time I posted I was doing that ‘blogging for 30 days’ thingy that everyone seemed to do. I just didn’t have the time to do it or the memory as I totally forgot about it. I been really busy since then with UNI work and going out. Today I finally got given my grades for last semster and I am quite disappointed.

• Basic Mathematical Techniques = B+ Overall
  • Coursework 1 (tests) = A+
  • Coursework 2 (Jan Test) = D-
• Programming Principles =  B+ Overall
  • Coursework = B+
• Ludology =  C Overall
  • Coursework = C+
  • Exam = D+
• Computer Architecture = FM Overall
  • Essay = B-
  • Exam = F

As you can see, I have failed my Computer Architecture module from last semester, this is a bummer as I wasn’t worried about this result as I thought I did quite well in the exam. As I got a F in the exam I will have to resit at some point this semester, I think. I actually don’t really know the procedures for failing a module.

I am extremely happy about my maths grade as that is the one I was worrying about the most, Yes I didn’t do to well in the final exam and pretty much scrapped past but maths is a major weak point for me and I am happy with my grades.

Overall I am disappointed with my grades and I think I need to learn a lesson, I am going to step up the game even more!

Day 05- A picture of somewhere you love

After spending xmas at home, I have realised my favourite place in the world at this moment of time has to be my bedroom in Derby. Quite simply, spend most of my time in this room, it has everything I wanted and I had the best nights sleep init last night for AGES! Took 4 pictures from each corner.

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have

Need to catch up on these, been a hectic last few days with going back to Derby and revising for exams that I will fail. So a habit that I wish I didn’t have? Well I know people are reading this and shouting at the screen BITING YOUR NAILS! As that is one of my major bad habits that I been doing for such a long time, but that isn’t what I am going to write about.

The habit I wish I didn’t have, which to be honest I have only recently discovered myself as people kept on telling me I had it. I am tooo nice, I know it’s a weird one but let me explain. Apparently I let people take advantage of my kindness, I am not entirely sure but I have had sooo many close friends tell me that I should learn to just let people ‘be sad’, it’s a confusing matter but its weird. I am a secret worrier and I sometimes worry about people who I shouldn’t. So I am always thinking ‘is this person alrite’ or something along those lines. If someone has a problem I tend to try to sort it for them which can be an issue as maybe that person doesn’t deserve my help what so ever.

It’s a weird subject, so maybe I should have talked about my nails, anywho thanks for reading.