T w e n t y S i d e d

A quick reminder that while I’m writing this in the present tense (easier for me than switching tenses) we’re actually looking at this game as it existed three weeks ago. My first code check-in is dated July 29, so we’re visiting the past right now. If things go the way they usually do, then this series will eventually catch up to the present, since coding tends to slow down as a project grows.

So I’ve got my world of random walls and I’ve got a little avatar I can fly through it. I guess next we should work on AI. But to work on AI we need some foes. Well, there’s no sense in adding foes if they can’t attack me, and I don’t want to debug both AI AND shooting mechanics at the same time, so I should add shooting first. Of course, shooting will require collision detection. And to add these things to the scene I need textures for it all so I can tell one thing from another.

I’ll be using one texture for all the foes and projectiles in the game. In old 8-bit games this was called a sprite sheet and it looked like this:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Good Robot 3: Killer Robots”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

So now we’re working in 2 dimensions. The advantage is that 2D development is a lot easier than 3D. The disadvantage is that I don’t have the right tools for the job.

If you’re making a game or some other kind of 3D-rendering type stuff, then you need some basic variables and tools. The first thing you’ll want is some sort of geometric vector. Like, if you’re going to be using x, y, and z values then you probably want some way to bundle them together. With a proper vector toolset we can have this bit of code:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Good Robot 2: Welcome to 2D”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I have hinted about this on the Diecast, on the blog, on Spoiler Warning, to friends, and to anyone else that’s exchanged more than two words with me in the last couple of weeks. I have hinted at this so often that I really should stop calling it “hinting”. To wit: Yes, I’m programming again.

But!

The why is often as interesting as the what, so before I talk about what I’m working on let’s talk about what I’m not working on. Let’s jump back to three weeks ago…

I’ve got this idea in my head for making a city of destructible buildings. Maybe it’s because we watched Pacific Rim recently and I’ve got building-pulverizing action in mind. I’m not sure WHAT – in gameplay terms – would destroy the buildings. Superheroes? Godzilla monsters? Missiles? I dunno. We’ll figure that out once we have a working demo of blasting away at a building until it falls over.

The idea works like this:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Project Good Robot 1: Not Project Good Robot”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.