The Art of Sticking to the Plan

So I ran into a lot of trouble with Flash yesterday. Seems that compiling from the Flex SDK (mxmlc.exe) produces different results from most compilations in any sort of framework. Great example;

variableA = 1/3;

variableB = 1.0/3.0;

In MXMLC, VariableA is equal to 0 and B is 0.3333. In IDEs (Flash, FlashStudio, etc.), the framework is smart(?) enough to evaluate both to a decimal value.

It is producing all kinds of headaches. Yesterday I swore off Flash and decided to not making games anymore. After a few beers this afternoon I was able to reconcile my differences and produce my first compilation.

I'll be honest here: That is nearly line-for-line written from a "How-to" tutorial and is just some cheap vectoring and nothing physics based. I ran with this code and made myself a nice start and finish line, and fiddled with some input commands.

Then I realized everything I was doing was a horrible idea. My end product will have physics in it - and tacking that on later in development, especially for a newbie like me, will likely result in me swearing off game development again.

I scrapped all my starter code and grabbed the latest Box2DAS3 set. This is an excellent collection of physics tools you can use in any flash application. A few quick mods, and learning from my previous mistakes, I was able to make a gravitational objects demo. Again, primarily me just compiling some pre-made code with minor edits here and there (it took me all of an hour to do), but it has helped me prove I can setup this dev environment properly.

It also served as a cautionary tale. I had so much fun playing the latest demo I spent a further hour tweaking it to be even more fun. The change ended up being relatively minor: removing friction from the ball surfaces. An hour. And this isn't even the direction my game is going.

I decided to blog about it, post a link, and scrap the code. I could spend 5 years chasing neat idea after neat idea... But for better or worse, I have a design in mind, and a time frame to adhere to. I can't waste time chasing these now. Maybe Game #2 will use these mechanics... But for now, I have to focus.

GDC Inspiration: Space Squid

I have survived GDC.

I suppose the best thing to come out of GDC is that I've decided to make a prototype for my game, "Space Squid." I've given myself a deadline of May 1st for the release. That gives me just over a month to:

• Learn OOP. I've got a pretty good handle on it already, and most of my non-OOP code has several OOP properties, so it shouldn't be too difficult.
• Learn AS3. I'm a wiz at PHP and have dabbled in several other languages; I can pick up on syntax fairly easily.
• Learn Flash. Flash's asset management confuses me and I'm not sure how I'd go about playing with flash-generated content. I do know how to draw rectangles and circles in AS3 though, so I'll stick with that for now.
• Learn how to setup the coding environment. Knowing the difference between Flex and Flash and AS3 and Flex Builder and AS2 and what exactly compiles what things is getting to be a pain in the ass. I'll figure it out though.

I'm a coder that likes to "do things right" the first time, which means I'm way too ambitious on my projects and I'll spend 5 years on the framework before I get the game out the door. On the plane ride home from GDC I wrote out some very specific features I'd have by May 1st. I am going to stick to these and code really crappily to get it done on time. I WILL.

GDC Week

I'm in San Francisco for the Game Developer's Conference this week. Handed out a lot of business cards already and it hasn't even started yet...

Apple Products Rule

Here I was thinking to myself, "Man, I'd really like a laptop where - if I am listening to iTunes via USB headphones, and I unplug the headphones, iTunes would just close and bring my system to it's knees because it's still running in the background somewhere."

And I got exactly that!

Thanks, STEVE

Doin' it Well

4 days of working and 52 hours currently logged. That's pretty hot considering one of those days I spent getting a bit too drunk and one of the other days I was incredibly hung over.

It's a good thing I actually love programming.

Yesterday I had a bit of a magical moment. I took half the features I "needed" to implement and moved them all over to a "will do in a future version" list. The project got quite a bit less daunting and I'm closer to finishing than I thought.

Contracted to the Impossible

A big project I proposed to one of my clients was just approved for funding. The only catch is, it was approved quite late and the deadline remains the same.

Can I write reams of code in just 10 days?

Will I make it? Will I burn out? Will I shower?

Tune in next week!

Some Progress!

One of the things I'm hoping to do while living in a tropical locale, is to work. I'm hoping it will be something like what I'm doing now - Community Management for Fantastic Contraption. It's an all-day chore that does soak up a lot of my time, but it's a lot of fun and it comes naturally for me. 

Best of all, it's a service that's hard to come by in the gaming world.

To that end, I went and ordered myself a batch of business cards yesterday. They should be ready by Friday. I will be taking those business cards with my to the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco, the 3rd week of March. I've already mapped out my schedule for attending the conferences there and it looks like it'll be a real fun time.

Last week marked the launch of the Fantastic Contest - giving away 10 iPods! A bunch of site changes came along with the package and they didn't behave exactly as planned on the test server...  frustrating to say the least. Things are a bit stressful but we're working out all the kinks.