Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’ve become addicted to an old game. And when I say old, I mean before I was born, old. So old that even though it’s a video game, most of you don’t even know about it I’m sure. the game is Quake. But of course, I don’t play the video version – some one made a modified version for the blind.
The thing I like about Quake, well Audio Quake anyway, is that the weapons and tactics used surpass those on modern audio fps games such as The Road to Rage and Swamp. With actual bombs, rocket launchers, grenades, projectiles, poison, and much more, I have to say that Audio Quake is a unique gaming experience for me.
Well anyways, even though I’ve only been playing for two days, I’ve really been owning Danny, the awesome friend who got me hooked on this game. I’ll give him credit, he’s thrown me a lot of good ones, but I’ve only played for two days and I’m already getting good. Needless to say, thiss is going to be the demonstration game for this week’s podcast, and I really can’t wait to record this one.
Moving on, I managed to squeeze in a bit of programming as well. The new coding venture I mentioned in the title of this post is a set of Pure Basic scripts designed to help audio game developers code audio games quicker and easier.
This has been an idea of mine for a couple of months, but there were a few reasons I didn’t so much as blog about this:
1. There is already a scripting language that is specially designed for easy audio game creation, so why make another?
2. I had no working idea of how to go about coding this.
However, despite the reasons outlined above, I ended up starting on it last week, and so far the project is going quite well. I’ve coded a menu class, which allows for the creation of game menus in pure basic, as well as an audio form class which allows for the creation of virtual, off screen forms read by screen reader and Microsoft SAPI, again useful for audio game developers since everything is off screen anyway and it was previously quite difficult to request information from players in audio games coded in pure basic. There are still a few tweaks that need to be made, but once those are sorted out I’ll release this set of includes to the blog.
In other news, S Quad Racing wasn’t worked on all that much. I coded a vehicle structure, and made my code more flexible for changes to cars such as gears and such, but I haven’t added in the gears yet. I’m still not exactly 100% sure how I want to code them, but I’ll post an update once I get it figured out. Anyway, once I figure out how to implement gear shifting it should only take an hour, perhaps less, to get it fully working without bugs, that is assuming everything goes smoothly.
That concludes tonight’s post. More details, as well as possible releases for my latest projects will be in my next post. Also, be on the lookout for Episode 36 of the Steven D Podcast.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
Tag: pure basic
An Update On Game Development and Other Things
Hey guys,
Steve here.
Over the last few days, I’ve done quite a bit of coding on the Racing project I’ve been working on. Now that I completed the basics such as driving and such, I was able to begin on some things that should make the game much more interesting. One such implementation is the opponents’ rather comical ability to “rage” at you while in the midst of a race. As it currently stands, opponents driving by you can: glare at you, yell at you, or honk. I plan to add more amusing possibilities, but the aforementioned were just tests to insure that the system was working.
Similarly, opponents can now crash into obstacles, but at the time of this writing there are still some major bugs to fix: instead of Enemies always dodging obstacles, they now crash into nearly every single one. The most probable cause for this issue is that I coded it so there was a 1 out of 6 chance that the opponent would hit an obstacle, which averages just over 8 obstacles per lap. Considering that an average player only hits 1 to 3 obstacles per lap, I’ve come to the conclusion that this must be reworked.
More importantly, I’m currently in the process of coding in a stat management system. It is now possible to earn money at the end of the race, and level up as well. A detailed summary of this can be found here.
At some point this week, I’ll begin to work on some more built in tracks. In these next tracks, I’ll be adding more items: walled navigation sections, and perhaps power ups. I already have a good idea of how I want to build track two, and very much look forward to playing it.
Aside from the racing game, my weekend was awesome! Yesterday, I took a break from my coding and relaxing to attend the 2015 Winter Jam concert with my church. It was a total blast, and I wish I’d gotten pictures or something. It was a whole bunch of worship, rock and roll, Gospel singers, and… Skillet! :))
Well, I guess that wraps up tonight’s post. Expect another one later this week, along with an audio progress demo of my Racing game. Also, though I might need some assistance, I need to come up with a name for the game, because “My Racing Game” just isn’t gonna cut it!
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
Spring Break?
Hey guys,
Steve here.
I’m really confused. Here I am, a citizen of Texas, on the Thursday before spring break, out of school for a snow day. A quite large winter storm blasted us with around 5 inches of snow and ice last night, making this the 4th episode of winter weather in northern Texas since last Monday.
This time, however, I was not so unlucky as to be trapped in the house all day. In fact, despite the cancelation of school, my day started at 6 this morning, with a trip into the back yard to check out the left overs from last night’s storm. Against the common unwritten rules of being a teenager, I was neither tired or grumpy even though I went to bed just after two in the morning: these days, oh the few rare days when snow blankets the ground, are when “getting efficient rest” is the last thing on my to-do list. However, as I type this post, I reap the outcome of such a fun filled day of snow ball fights, sledding attempts, and no sleep.
Since the sun was out pretty much all day, most of that snow melted away, tipical for Texas. So, we’ll be going back to school tomorrow, but thankfully it’s only one day; next week is spring break, if you can call it that in light of recent weather patterns. 🙂
Moving on, I’ve officially entered week three of audio game development. Though it was very late last night, around midnight I think, I posted the audio demo for this week on the S Quad Racing Page. This reflects most of the changes I’ve talked about in the change log and blog post from the last week; the sound of the player’s car is noticeably quieter, the turning system far less flawed, and there are now opponents that can drive on the track as well, though that’s about all they can do.
As of yet I’ve not completed a fully functioning opponent intelligence. This is still being worked on, though, one step at a time. As I said in my last post, I began working on opponents on Sunday, and have only been making minor changes and additions since.
Moving on, my week has been relatively pieceful for the most part save the winter weather and asociated impacts. On a more negative note, amidst my normal routine of school, relaxing, gaming, programming, and reading, I was involved in a pressing matter that had to do with Reality Software, Danny’s game development company, for the first half of the week. Thankfully, it was finally resolved yesterday evening.
Aside from all of what’s been said, there’s not much to report, except that I’m really looking forward to this Spring break, regardless of what season and/or weather it happens to proceed.
Thanks for reading,
type you later,
Steve.
PS. The following are pictures from the snow day.
