Steven D Podcast Episode 19: Rage Inducing Monkeys

In this episode, I play through Awesome Homer, an older, but still very enjoyable title created by Jim Kitchen. Though I originally figured I knew exactly what I was doing, given I’ve played through the game twice already, my confident attitude transitioned to rage and confusion by the end of the game. (Yes, this is one of the rare episodes of the podcast where you get to see me rage at least once, so if that’s entertaining to you you should definitely check this one out!)

view the show notes

Matt the Terrorist Game Engine: Introducing New and Interesting Game Mechanics

Hey guys,
Steve here.
Twelve days ago, I told you all that the first step of Matt the Terrorist, the adventure game, had been completed. It was just a game with the ability to walk, nothing more, really. But apparently, a lot can happen in twelve days, and the following list should clearly point out my reasoning for proclaiming the preceding statement.
Because I got pumped at having started on this game that had been nothing but ideas for months, and was curious as to whether or not coding some of these radical game mechanics I’d been dreaming up could actually be done, I pretty much got carried away. The following is a list of what I managed to achieve, in about 910 lines, and probably 6 or 7 hours of accumulated coding time.
-Platform like structures, building material, and walls, all of which have length and thickness properties.
-leveling. In the current game I’m building with the engine, Matt the Terrorist: Engine Test, levels don’t mean much, as this game has no real objective, it’s just a test of the game engine after all. Still, levels affect things, as you will see below.
-Items that can spawn or be spawned on the map. These could be building materials, stat upgrades, money, etc. The stat upgrades, such as money, increase as you level up.
-A shop. Only two items in there so far, but again there’s not really too much to work with in terms of objects. Prices of all the items increase as your level does.
-Some… uh… I wouldn’t really call them physics, but items can break if dropped too hard, players and items can fall, and walls can actually be kicked in, (that excludes the edges of the map).
-And finally, I’ve been working on a complex system for arms. These really aren’t the “realistic” idea of arms, but they work like this.
You hold down the left or right shift key, to control the respective arm. (Non realistic element coming)… the right arm can only extend to the right side of your character, the left arm only to the left. Both can move up and down (up as high as they can reach, down to the surface you are standing on).
In addition, the arms can be used to “feel” things, if that’s really what you want to call it. If you move your arm over to the edges of the map, you will be told, “border.” If you reach up to a surface, or are standing on one and move your arm down to it, the length and thickness of the surface segment will be announced. If you are standing on a platform, it’s name will be spoken as well.
In addition to the feeling aspect, the arms can do the basic things, such as dropping and throwing items, as well as exchanging them with your inventory.
It’s not a whole lot, but I’ve been slowly creating functions as I go, such as location and collision detectors, that have helped me a lot. I’d say that the hardest part so far is defining the physics for items, as it requires me to type a bunch of unproven code that I am only about 33% sure will work. I guess I’ll let you all know whether or not it does, once I have a chance to fully test it.
As for developing S Quad Racing, that has gone slower, because of course with my new burst of coding energy I’ve been focusing on Matt the Terrorist’s engine, and unfortunately I have a one track mind. Well, I guess one and a quarter, because I worked a little bit on it, — a few bugs I previously didn’t even know about due to me not racing multi lap races were fixed, and crashing was implemented.
I hope to have audio demos of both games I’m working on in my next post. Also, for those curious as to why there haven’t been updates on the S Quad Racing page, I forgot about them when I started my alpha testing folder, that’s why I haven’t posted many of them recently. This does not mean a lack of work on that project for the last couple of months, — the two audio demos I’ve posted since then should prove that.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

A Week of Progress

Hey guys,
Steve here.
I had a wonderful spring break. As my last post was published on Monday, most of you already know that I went to Winter Jam 2015 in Fort Worth, Texas. But that aside, the rest of my week, though not nearly as exciting, was still good. Besides coding on my proverbial racing game, I worked out mostly every day, Spent time with my friends, chilled a little, and did a bit of gaming.
Due to the situation with reality software that I wrote briefly about in a post a few weeks back, I’ve played little to no Death Match: A New Beginning since then. Recently, though, things have calmed down considerably, thus I started to play it again. Last week, Danny took me on a bounty mission which took a good chunk of time to complete but was worth it. I myself do not possess any ship(s) required to do such missions, but am gradually working my way up.
Off the topic of Death Match, more work has been done on my racing project. As per the programming aspect, I’ve slowed down a bit, but progress is still being made and, that being the case, I have some stuff to report.
First of all, as suggested by someone on my forum thread, I’ve added the ability to drive backwards. I will demonstrate this on Wednesday night’s demo.
Also, I’ve put in some more work on the stats system, fixing some nasty bugs and having to rework it a couple times. I designed it so that all player stats are stored in the character folder which is located in the s quad racing program directory, as it currently stands. However, before this is over, I’d like the data to be stored on a remote server, to prevent cheaters and other such pests from having access to easily changeable content.
Anyways, I’ve not yet added anything in the way of upgrades. For that matter, there’s still only one track in the game, but that is soon to be changed. I had quite a busy weekend, so didn’t have much of a chance to code, and I really didn’t code much today as I’ve been taking a little break.
Besides that, there’s not much else to report. I’ll blog you all later.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.

Podcast fixed, first official audio game tutorial released, and life update

Hey you guys,
Steve again.

As you probably know, I released my first podcast Sunday night. Unfortunately, only users of windows can open ZIP folders, plus the one with the podcast was corrupt or invalid. Thus, I have uploaded the mp3 file on the podcasts page, and included the show notes at the bottom of the podcast description. Now, you can either download the mp3 file, or listen to it in the imbedded player on the site. Now how cool is that?
Also, I have released my first audio game tutorial. It’s about 15 minutes long, and is completely detailed and gets to all the main points. You can obtain your copy by downloading the tutorial, or listen to it in its little web player at the audio game reviews and demoes page

Now, let me tell you about my life the passed few days.
On Saturday, my mom had a gladiator run, and she had to run and army craw through a whole bunch of mud. I still think she did great, though she was a muddy drenched bundle of joy after the race. After that run, we had the rize adventure thingy which wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be, because we only were there for about an hour.
Though sunday was just a relaxed chill mothers’ day (my mom enjoyed it), Monday was back to school. It was normal (school, spin class, and homework), and so was today. I’m still glad about the podcast thing, and that I released the first river raders tutorial (based on my research).

So, hope you enjoy the audio I posted, and have a great day!

Thanks for reading,
type you later,
steve.

gamebook in the making (day 6)

Hello you guys, I’ve been creating a hard and time-consuming project. In this one, you must escape a lab where the owner donates your organs to a hospital. In order to get out of here, you will pick up keys and hammers, go threw doors, have to find stuff, and even get a heeling potion. I have been creating this gamebook for 7 days now, and here is how it’s going.
27 sections (that means paths)
the first hallway is finished.
the main room of the second part is finished.
I predict to finish this game with in the next week or so, and will keep you updated

how my day went

Today, I got up and went to school like normal. Then, my mom, my sister, and I went over to my aunts house to get the girls’ hair cut and see the kittens. I hung out with my cousin Thomas until we left. When we did that, I came home and monitured the weather, played on the computer, ate dinner, then put up my clothes. Then, I played on the computer some more and with the cat. Then, I showered and listened to my audio book until I got on the blog. BTW, just as I was typing about 3 sentences back, the kitty jumped on the bed beside me. He wanted me to tell you, “meow meow meow meow purhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhr!!!”

how my day went

Today, I woke up early. I was thursty, and had woken up listening to my audio book. After I got a drink, I played on the computer, listened to my book, then fell asleep until about 8:15. Then, I ate and listened to my audio book. Then, I played on the computer, and listened to my book again until lunch. After lunch, I went back up, listened to my book, played on my eye pad, then went outside. Then, I came in and got on the computer. After that, I listened to my book, until 4 when I got a snack. Then, I went back up and listened to the book until dinner. After dinner, I just sang while doing my chores. Then, I listened to my book, showered, then got on the blog. That is all I did today.

have you ever wanted to upload audio to your free wordpress blog but can’t? here is how

Hello, this is severestormsteve. I will tell you the steps on uploading audio to your free wordpress blog. Are you tired of those advertisments and 30 or so day limits that some file hosts give you? Well,is the solution.

Steps:
1. sign up for an account.
2. in your dashboard, click upload
3. click the button to select your files.
4. when you have the files, click the upload button.
5. A properties dialog will pop up. In the text box, you will see your img tags. In there, there is a url like http://www.fileden.com/files/8177039289/3/10/samplefile.mp3.
6. copy only the url, and nothing else. None of the img tags, only the thing between them.
7. click ok.
8. go and log into your wordpress account.
9. Add or edit a post or page, then add the code in between perenthesies below.

<a href=”link url” title=”link title”></a>
()
note: as you know, you must paist your url where I put “file url” and your link title where I put “the link title”
10. publish! you are all done, now people can download your audio!!!
Note: you can also do this with other non-permitted filetypes on wordpress.com