Starting Over - part II

Yep  - it's been around 6 years since I started this blog.  All those years ago when I decided to get back to retro programming and create/finish something.. well.. that didn't quite work out as planned.

I would have loved to make old games for the Amiga, but to tell the truth there's nothing in it..  I still enjoy programming in assembly (I even kicked right back to the c64 the other month and tooled around pushing sprites and writing code) - but to be honest, it takes way too long to get things done and there's ultimately no future in it for anything more than a fun hobby (and I really don't have the amount of time needed to invest  in something that will only ever be 'a fun hobby').

I'm sure the fan community will disagree, but from where I'm sitting there isn't a market for new Amiga software, in the form that I'd be willing to put it out (digitally) - my take from forums and such is that they would be willing to pay for something that came with full color art, nice box graphics, and an actual 3.5 inch disk that works...  Which at the end of the day is a big outlay for the same 'pennies on the dollar' you'd get publishing it yourself digitally for 5 bucks.

Also, although the community is willing to pay outlandish amounts of money for hardware (both old original and newly minted add-on and replacement parts), it seems for software there is very little enthusiasm at all.... So by all means program for the platform, if you have the spare time and energy, but make sure it's for the right reasons (fun only).  If you look at as a potential market - even just to cover 'smokes and cokes' consumed in development... you're best off looking to (the much more active) C64 scene.


So... that's what I've stepped away FROM.. where have I gone TO? And why am I reviving/revamping this blog?

Well.. I still have the desire to write games, I still have the goal to eventually supplement my income by doing so (even if it's just smokes n cokes, or a new computer every 5 years).  I still want to write the style of games I played and loved in my youth, and all the various games I tried to design and create back then.
Nowadays we have a great variety of platforms - and unlike the 'old days' people have a variety of them that they use personally - there's the PC, Mac, Linux, Android devices, iPhones/Pads/whatevers and the web...  I don't think it's enough to write a small game and say 'this is just for platform x' - a much nicer solution would be writing a small game and saying 'you can play this on just about everything you own, and take it with you'... and this is what I'm working towards (eventually).

Now you could roll eyes and think 'well - another 6 years of watching and waiting' - but truth be told, I've already finished more in the last 4 months than I've don in the last 4 years... choosing Java as my development language of choice I've already written 2 games and started working on my third.. over the next couple of weeks I'll make posts to catch up and detail them, then keep folks updated on what I'm working on currently...

Cheers!

Sig.

Well....crap.

After slogging it out all week the cpu and fans arrived. I waited till the kids were in bed, busted out the screwdrivers and went to work. I cleaned out the case good and proper, took out cards, put in the cpu and fan and..... nothing.

Honestly, this is the most problems any computer has given me for over a decade - even my clunker A2000 was easier, and I had to bust out the soldering iron and chip extracter to get that running.

So, after some chat with some buddies over skype we all agree - I may as well soldier on rather than just trying to put together a brand new PC.. so hitting up NewEgg yet again I decided on a new motherboard that fits what I have (easy choice, there's only one).

I'll be possibly ordering it tomorrow if I have time - I have another weeks work out at the farm, and some more money for the house will be a good thing.. So I'll see where I stand at the end of the day before I cut myself a paycheck from my online business.

Given that I have at least another week before I can work on that again, I've set out to getting this laptop set up to do a bit of development. I'll be backing up everything I do so I can load it back onto whatever permanent system I end up using, and back to the amiga. I've managed to engineer as many dodgy parts as I could find to rig up a system to get code to/from the A2000, and a copy of the game-shell resides here now. I'll post what I've been tinkering with tomorrow.

Cheers.

Mo progress, mo work

Don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but everything kinda travels around in a ying/yang lately, not that I'm complaining as it's all good.
Project CodeShell is making good progress this week with a bunch of basic blitter routines brought over from older projects, keyboard input working rather nicely and mouse handling finished. All the routines are nice and generic (although my joystick routine could do with a bit of a re-think).
My older code for Scramble and EVA didn't really take into account splash screens and other things - so doing a nice framework from the ground up has worked out very well.
Some polish routines, like palette fades are in there - and the core stuff is coming together rather nicely.

I have another week of work out on the farm coming up, so hopefully my dev PC will be back online by the end of it (barring any other unforseen problems) - if not I might start putting together something that will utilize some of the things I'll need for Scramble anyways. A chance to write some code that is needed, and be working on something more than just some test demo. I have some pretty good ideas for an Arkanoid style game, some features such as bonus levels and the like that I don't think have been thought of before and might really breathe some life into that genre.

Stuff to think about... for now I'm going to finish up some optimizing and some tidying, then perhaps hit DPaint for a few hours.

Cheers.

Countdown for computer parts!

A few curveballs thrown at me this month made ordering a new cpu and some other tidbits hard to get going, but now they're on the way here.
Hopefully between the new power supply, cpu, and cooling fans, (crossing fingers) I'll get things up and running for a few more years before having to upgrade.

Really there's no reason for me to upgrade atm to tell the truth, the system lets me run the handful of things I need for work and my Amiga emulation is pretty zippy.. I'm looking forward to getting it running again as using this busted up laptop is rather clunky. The screen has packed it in, the keyboard is pretty rubbish, and half the USB ports are rather dodgy.
I tried to burn a CD yesterday in hopes of getting another clunker I had lying around up and running on linux (an attempt to get my A2000 using amitcp or a terminal program to give it some kind of network support on a budget) but the CD actually slipped out of its drive and is currently somewhere inside the laptop.. it was like a magic trick you see on TV.. put the CD in, close the case... abracadabra, open the case NO CD! IT'S VANISHED!

Thoughts turned to getting winuae running on it to speed up programming and make it a little more comfortable (until I pick up some wood and get to work on in the shop again I have to use my in a less than comfortable position) - and transfer the work over a null-modem as I did with my old comp, but alas, no serial port on this thing either.

I'm seriously thinking of getting a micro atx case or a book sized barebones system and putting together a dedicated, small, convenient uae dev box that also handles networked workflow to my real amiga.... but it all requires $$$, and although I'm not totally skint - I'd rather spend that money on my kids - the whole point of getting back into Ami development was to try and support the fixing and upgrading of my machine. I get my Amiga running nice and solid again, the community gets some new games. Win-win.

Always the way - you get a bunch of good ideas when you can't really effectively work on them. Still, while waiting I've been working on the CodeShell and gathering up useful routines and organizing them. Keeping in mind the pitfalls I've had in the past while trying to finish projects, and the ones that have collapsed under their own weight. I think it's coming along pretty nicely. The object isn't so much to have a bunch of routines that will 'make a game' but rather enough to streamline down the process of getting a (complete) working prototype together.
Once running and tested, I'd first get any new routines worth harvesting and roll them back into the main library, then prune out what isn't being used. Finally optimizing the core routines to accomplish their relative tasks faster for that specific project.

It can't hurt, at the moment I have 1 project on indefinite hold (EVA) and one that has hit a bit of a wall until I work out a couple of tricky problems (Scramble). I expect Scramble will get sorted out again soon once I get the new system up and running, and in the meantime I do have something in mind to test out some of the routines of the CodeShell. More details another time.

Not dead, just sleeping (ftagn)

Damn, August already!

I think my last entry pretty much summed up how things were going. The middle of the year is always hectic for me, doubly so with kids now. A lot of things work wise and home wise to look after, and it's the 'farm season' and since taking up some part time work out on the farm, spring and summer are a good chance to get some extra money as well as a workout and some sun.

Now that things are getting quiet again, I turned back to working on the Scramble Project - just like 'back in the day' I can see where things could have been done better, and perhaps smarter, but unlike in the heyday I'm not going to scrap and start over (this is probably the number one reason I never really got much finished back then) rather I'm keeping notes on what I've learned for 'the next one'. And hopefully there will be a next one.. the base Scramble game is going to be a PD release and pretty much follow the coin op gameplay/maps. I'll likely do a MAJOR reworking using all these tidbits for 'Scramble Deluxe' the shareware game.

But all that is pretty much dependent on getting things finished here, and that seems to be a sticking point.. About a month ago my computer packed it in (I've cobbled together a setup that allows me web access and little else for the moment), what I thought was a power surge from a lightning storm (I was out working when it went down) turned out to be the fan finally shuffling off it's mortal coil (and housing) and frying the processor.
This system has been pretty good to me, I hardly realized I'd built it in 2006, It's worked smoothly and like a charm forever... technology has marched on a bit though, and if the damage to it had been more I'd probably be rebuilding a new computer from scratch - however there are still processors available to replace my old one (not many, but the ones that are out there are better and now cheaper than what I had) for a paltry 60 bucks.
Maybe I can nurse another 6 years out of it! At the moment it still does everything I need it to quite well.

Of course the downside is all my work on Scramble was on that machine. I was working through an emulator and testing on the Amiga via AmiExplorer. The bad news is that for the last 2 months of working on it, I'd only transferred executables (boneheaded thing I know, especially when I learned that lesson doing the reverse - working on the Amiga and not sending the files back to the PC). So the Scamble code I have on the Amiga isn't the latest versions - not by a long shot.

Still , things are not 100% lost - time is coming back for these projects and I'm not letting it pass by. The last several days I've fired up the Ami and have been going over the 'core' routines that are tried and true. I'm optimizing, organizing and, more importantly, commenting a lot of these and putting them into a framework where they can be reused with as little effort as possible.

Hopefully this can be used later as the base to build Scramble Deluxe and eventually EVA.

End of the month...already?

In like a lion, and out like a lamb. Guess that sums this months dev pretty well.

Exactly the opposite for everything else in the home. As the month went on I found less and less time for programming, and more and more time for the things I need doing around the house. General handyman type stuff - the twins requiring more attention - and spring arriving, so I have to start whipping the lawn (very unkempt from it's last owner) into shape and a brand new garden started.

I managed to get a bunch of the groundwork stuff done for a couple of things on the to-do list, I've decided to follow the original game on reset - have it go for 2 screens warm up before restarting the level, and I'm glad I did as a lot of the older code had the original test map hardcoded in - I never got around to making it use the map structures (which when setup right, would make changing maps for stages very simple). This still needs completing, but it's close.

While thumbing through the code to address this, there were several old placeholders for things that needed doing/fixing for bullets, bombs, and their explosions on reset - so I got that cleaned up and tidied up somewhat, and started tying a lot of the common functions for updating/drawing/erasing/background saving together. This also needs finishing, but it's cleaning the code up and making it a bit tighter.

Once it's written down it seems like a bit more - but not as much *visible* progress as I'd have liked to see.

Fuelbar Start

Slow progress this five days. Winter gives way to Spring, and projects in the yard need starting.

I've managed to tweak the fuelbar graphics slightly - using a copperbar on color 4 to do the fuelbar.. it's a bit of a dated effect, but it lets me get to the important thing - an increasing/decreasing horizontal fuelbar - without having to worry too much about the graphics. I'll probably put my head to making it a bit better, but more than likely that will happen on the shareware rewrite of the game.

Hopefully screenshots next update, but with the yardwork, garden planting, and looking after the kids, I'm thinking the 5 day update will be the order of the day.

Cheers!

Sig.