demicode

Project: Raindeer

micke — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:20:20 +0000

About a year ago, I got fed up with just sitting around at home thinking of all the programming I could be doing, instead of watching TV-series. Triggered by a tweet someone in my feed retweeted, I decided to start with the project. The tweet was something like Make a game, not an engine, which made me realize that I had made two or three more or less working engines, but never actually used them. I decided to start fresh.

Inspired by a dream I had one night, I made up some game mechanics and a basic theme. This was the list of goals I had when starting the project.

Release the game, even if it’s not perfect.
Be platform agnostic. Use SDL, but try to abstract away the SDL dependency.
Don’t obsess over details. Even if code is not optimal, it will do fine as long as it’s bug free.
Try out new techniques I haven’t used yet.
Have fun. It’s fun to code, so code! Don’t ponder on the best way to solve things.
Learn from mistakes for future projects.

The first thing I did was to install a trac, and write down the project goal, basic game design and a project plan. And then I started to produce code.

At least that’s what was supposed to happen. Instead after creating the initial file structure and a skeleton project with some glue code, it took a halt. The two main reasons; I almost immediately forgot was I was set out to do. I started to think about the best way to do things. Even reading keyboard input, which in this case was really simple since SDL provides the hard part, felt like a major obstacle.

My first milestone – drawing a box on screen and moving it around the the arrow keys – was supposed to be done in the first week. Today, 10 months later there still is no box on screen. The input is working though, but when it comes to rendering, I have decided to add an abstraction layer on top of the rendering API (OpenGL in this case).

I just picked up the project again a few weeks ago, and I hope to get up to speed this time, and I think blogging about it might help.

An update will come soon, I hope.

Changes ahead

micke — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:15:39 +0000

Since demicode have been more or less dormant for the last couple of years, due to me having a day job to pay my rent , this site will change. From not being used at all my intention is now to use this blog as a outlet for all my programming related blogging. I realized that incorporating such blog posts in my more personal blog, that I’ve had since the beginning of the previous decade, was not really what my handful of readers would appreciate.

So, this will now be the place where I blog about my programming, and in contrast to my personal blog, this one will be entirely in english.

So, what can you expect? Probably not that many posts, but when I do post the topics might be everything from hacking Z80 assembly for my SEGA Master System to web development or creating games for personal computer and consoles. And everything else tech related.

Lets see where this will lead.

New project started

micke — Sat, 08 May 2010 13:13:41 +0000

Last weekend I had a meeting with my game designer friend at antroia where we decided what our next game should be. This time we could actually test the game play in analog form without the need of a prototype, and we both agreed that this game have the potential to be really good.

Since this game is more about thought and less about brainless poking the screen, I can cut the production time quite a bit. There is no need for scripting, no need for an advanced game engine and no need for OpenGL. The most important thing in this game will be your brain.

One more thing – this game will support the iPad.

Time flies

micke — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:54:27 +0000

The plan was to update this page and have it at a near-final state when the games was released, but time as it seems, flies.
None of the sites I’ve made have ever had a final state anyway, so this site will probably be it constant change, just like the web is supposed to be.

Row Chaser released!

micke — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:31:40 +0000

My first game is now available in the AppStore! Only in Australia for now, but within a day it will be available in an AppStore near you.

A new beginning

micke — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:33:59 +0000

After realizing that using drupal would be to aim a bit too high, I decided to use a more fitting system for this site. Due to laziness and recent work with other things, the game I’ve been working on has been postponed for quite some time now. We now aim to release it some time in the coming month, that is some time in January 2010, depending on how long it takes for apple to approve it.