A day late

...is too late!

I promised an update, yet I failed to deliver.  Well, some good news and some bad news...
Good news: I managed to work on the game a bit today.
Bad news: I didn't get very far, and just got assigned a huge paper. I doubt I'll get much done on anything in the next few days...!

Yeah there's no real context for this..

What little did I manage to get done on the game today?
Nothing huge, just some level-frameworking so that when David and I finally add some enemy variety all we have to do is write some .txt files and slap some things into place.  I hope all the work is worth it... I don't like this kind of coding, its too dry and I feel like I'm not getting anything done really.  For the most part the phase implementation works, I can type out a quick set of enemies to appear in a certain order/formation relatively quickly and it works mostly without any breaks in the code, so I guess today was a success, it all depends on how you define success though.

Todays level of Win: Moderate to meh

That being said I don't think I'll have a huge amount of time with which to do anything else this week... I have to get on that paper, and then get on that finals studying. Fantastic.

And there's a few other things I have to be doing on the side as well, which aren't relevant to the blog here so I won't bother mentioning them.  I think it's what, 18 days left of me in Chicago?  It's going to blaze by, but not before dragging on with my last darn paper.  Worth 30% of my grade. Who thought THAT was a good idea?

This is how I do math

Dr. Krazo gives his toddler a remote-control bear: Best, or Worst Dad Ever?

- Kev

I promise an update tomorrow...

A real one, not another picture-filled extravaganza: I'm close to implementing a level system, just know that much.  For real, I will actually get something done tomorrow...

I hate papers

Doodles, Unite!

So here are some doodles.
No big words, no big breakthrough.
You are welcome.

- Kev

Too much school

Which means no time for "frivolous game-making"

Which makes me sad

That, on top of the fact that I went home last weekend is the reason for the significant lack of updates to the blog.  I've just been hit with a butt-load of reading and another paper due in less than a week.  Doesn't leave a lot of room to do anything fun.  I tried this afternoon to re-integrate updates to my SpriteObject class (which manages all my images) to the game (I was working on an outside "side project" to fiddle with the images without hurting what I already had in place) but I forgot a key piece of code, so basically I just spent the afternoon searching for that one key piece.  It was a really simple fix, but it took me at least an hour to sift through the code I've already gotten.

This is how dumb I feel right now

So my day is shot and I didn't even do anything with it.  I finished up my second to last programming assignment and my math so my weekend should be free to just write the darn paper and read a lot for all of my classes... yeah.  I don't know how much time I'll have to work on the game, unfortunately.

Not to mention as soon as this paper is turned in I will most likely be assigned my final 8-10 page paper.

Tonight, aside from reading and reading and beginning note-taking for my paper, I hope to get a little bit farther on the game in terms of implementing levels and phases.  It should be pretty simple stuff, now that I've pretty much nailed down enemy movement like I wanted too (And even though it's how I want it, it will still need a healthy dose of much tweaking)

Hopefully that is productive, and I can still get to bed on time tonight.
Priorities, man.

Like using the restroom BEFORE putting on all that armor

- Kev

"Seymore was just not cut out foir Mad Scientist College"

Holy California, Batman!

As I’m writing this on my computer I’m some-thousand-odd feet above the ground, hopefully flying into Chicago sometime soon.  (As opposed to some other random city, which I would not be okay with)

Kind of like finding a fish in your ham sandwich

There haven’t been any updates because I haven’t worked on the game all weekend, in fact, I haven’t done anything all weekend and it was awesome.  Friday morning at 5:00 (not so bad… until you think it was 5:00 AM) I woke up, threw a few things in a bag and took off to midway airport to fly home for the weekend.   Why?  A few very good friends of mine were testing for their black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and they were there for my test, I wanted to be there for theirs.  I even got to help out on the outside conditioning aspect of the test!   It was really good to catch up with all of my friends at the studio, I miss all of my friends back home and it was good to see as many as I could!  I can safely say that for me it was a blast, I know the candidates had a rough time with conditioning, but they looked excellent when they got back inside the studio for the formal part of the test!  I have no regrets about the money or time spent to go back home, it was well worth every penny, every second and every ounce of non-cafeteria-food consumed.  (There was a lot of that, let me tell you!)

But now I’m flying back into Chicago, with no homework done and no sleep, wishing it could just be summer already and to be out and be free, and be home!  Four more weeks, just have to make it four more weeks..!

My kind of forecast.

Pilot just said Chicago was 44 degrees.  Fantastic, I left in shorts, and I’m coming back needing a parka!

And of course when I finally arrive back DePaul doesn't have the heat on.  Comon' guys, it's cold in here..!  This weather is absolutely nuts.

Anyway, so the game.  I did actually do some more work on the flight this afternoon, but I was so tired and phasing in-and-out of consciousness that it didn't result in a whole lot of visible differences.

Basically I worked on overhauling the movement of the Sprite Object class.  Instead of giving sprite objects a single velocity, I split the velocity into a direction (a vector pointing in any direction with a total magnitude (length) of one, and then a speed that will be multiplied to the  direction to give us a velocity to adjust the SpriteObject position by.

Picture Unrelated

But why would I want to do this?

One pretty important reason.  I realized that with just a velocity it's completely possible to have a zero-velocity, and if I tried to adjust an image's rotation to the radian-measurement of a non-existent velocity ... (hint: there IS no radian measurment!) then things in the game world start getting really, really jenky.

It also helps with seeing what the previous speed and direction of the SpriteObject are, and gives me more precise control of movement, things I couldn't do with just a velocity that changed every step.  The velocity now can be calculated on the fly, and my sprite object will ALWAYS have a direction, even if it isn't moving (if the speed is 0)

This is how I feel after completing a programming task.

That coincidentally made some other aspects of image movement/manipulation easier too.  Yay, right?

Yeah.  I also made some outside adjustments to how I load resources to make image loading easier.  I'll implement those changes tomorrow.

He's gathering "volunteers"

So, yeah, that's it for today.  Nothing too interesting or in-depth, probably because I have slept less than 15 hours in the past 72 hours.  Man, I can't wait for summer.

- Kev

Gosh Dang it.

This is how I feel when it comes to math.  I can't stand the stuff sometimes.  I was, admittedly, incredibly blessed to have my mom basically re-learn math in order to teach it to me, so I understand the fundamentals and can pass most math classes with flying colors.

But in applying it I take the bum-rush-it-head-on approach which never, ever, ever works, and it means I spend more time sitting here at my computer staring at code than I ever see results.

Shoot me in the face

That is never ever, ever, ever a good approach to math and/or programming (basically any kind of logic thinking) but I never seem to learn my #&@% lesson.  And I've been through this more times than I can count.  Basically right now I'm doing something that is, AGAIN NEARLY COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO THE OVERALL FUNCTIONING OF THE GAME!

Why? I don't know!  Its a feature I wish to implement, but it's not critical!  Basically I'm just trying to, when I have a velocity in a given direction, just simply rotate that velocity by a given number of radians.  Yes, yes, trigonometry has come back to haunt you.

I do this by reversing the process of building a triangle.  I start with a given number of radians and I do the following:

I add the number of radians that we are called to rotate

I make sure that our new radian degree doesn't exceed the bounds of 2 Pi, or is lower than 0 and assign it to a temporary variable known as Quadrant
(remember you unit circles, everybody?  If not, Google it!  You may learn something!)

I further find the specific radian degree within the boundaries of 0 to Pi / 2 (or 90 degrees) and then take the Sine and Cosine of that radian value (which gives me an X length (Cosine) and a Y length (Sine) with which to build a new triangle)

I then check which quadrant my variable Quadrant is a part of (Is this original radian in Quadrant I, II, III or IV of a regular graph?)

THEN it should be as simple as making my X length an Y length positive or negative depending which Quadrant the original radian value was in.
(Quadrant one has positive X and positive Y values only, Quadrant two has negative X and positive Y values only, etc.)

BUT for some reason it only gets my enemies to start turning in the correct direction when they are pointing to an object in Quadrant I or Quadrant IV (4)

No, apparently I got that brain. Poop.

Sooooo... now I'm stuck, and frustrated, and it's past my bedtime yet again.  And I have reading due for tomorrow.  It's just unbelivably frustrating how I can spend my whole day programming and end at an impasse.  It's like going to bed angry at your spouse, or when they make you sleep on the couch.  This stupid little thing is going to bother me long into the night.  And the crappy thing: It's been done 100x before in all manner of games!
I'm just too stubborn or afraid or proud to look it up on the internet.

AOHPOIWOEIHGAPOIHGOPIH!

Yes, I know what you are all thinking of me right now: A hopeless basket-case of a nerd.  Yeah, well, girls and having a life are overrated.

Not that I would know, or anything..

Now I shall sleep fitfully and frustrated.
Fantastic.

-Kev

GENERIC F-BOMB JOKE

We're gonna need a bigger-