Tag: Fij

Some good news, and some bad news…

Posted on by Matthew VanDevander

Well, it’s that time again. The time of the month that I suddenly realize that I haven’t posted anything on this blog in a few weeks. But anyways, I said had news, so I should get on with it.

I always feel that it’s best to get the bad news out of the way first, so that the good news can give me some hope in the end. It’s more dramatic that way. So the bad news is that Fij is postponed indefinitely. Meaning that I most likely won’t work on it for a while. Truth is, I probably won’t finish it, looking at my history of unfinished projects. However, I definitely have some ideas that I want to pursue with Fij, so it will sit on my back-burner.

The good news is, I’m working on a new project in Game Maker. Which I know probably seems like a step back from real programming. But it’s actually going great.

Screenshot
Standing on a precipice

The game is about cooperating to solve puzzles. So it’s naturally a two-player game (at the minimum.)

Screenshot, again
A puzzle!

I don’t currently have a name for the game, so it’s just Untitled Cooperative Platformer in my mind right now. I also don’t know whether the current graphics are any indication of what the final game will look like, but the little blocky people have a certain charm to them, don’t they?

The design process is sort of an exploratory one, I just doodle out levels and try out any gameplay elements that I might be thinking of in different ways. If I can make it through the level some how, then it’s a puzzle. But usually I don’t know if I will be able to make it through the level before I test it. So the game is telling me what it should be. And I’m just sort of letting it become itself. Not to say it doesn’t require work, or that there aren’t bugs. But I do keep an open mind before I squash bugs, and try to see if the bug is actually functionality in disguise.

And just in case you want to test it out in it’s currently simple state, here’s a demo-ish length version of the game. It is my first game maker game, so if there’s some wierd .dll file you need, then let me know. Feedback of any kind is gladly appreciated. However, do keep in mind that it requires two players to play the game. It is possible to get through it on your own, but it would require some serious skills.

(Sorry, demo is no longer available for download.)

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Ah, you thought I’d forgotten…

Posted on by Matthew VanDevander

Well, I haven’t forgotten, and I will continue immediately with more movie review of 2009! Yeah, that doesn’t sound as cool now that it’s February, but still. It’s a fun exercise for me. Before I start however, I feel the need to give some update about the status of Fij. As is, I’ve been secretive to the point of misleading someone to think that I’m not even working on it.

Things are going rather well with the game. The game itself is up and running, although the features are quite minimal at the moment. I may or may not have a video soon. I’d like to have something more interesting looking before I show it off. The editor and the game have split off developmentally, so that I can continue work without having a huge mess of code that’s unrelated to the game. Although it would be nice to have a one button game-test inside of the editor. I feel that I’ve made the best decision for the moment. The game engine itself is designed to hopefully be the start of something I can reuse on more projects. Although I haven’t gone overboard on making it reusable. The important thing is to complete this game, after that, if I have some pluggable elements for the next one, then that’s just an extra bonus. I’m also in the process of looking for music that suits the themes of the game. It’s a bit difficult though, as I need to find either royalty-free music, or pay-licensed music. Of course, I could write my own music, and I may still consider that option if I can’t find anything better.

Now, on to some more reviews:

Continue reading “Ah, you thought I’d forgotten…” →

Some new swagger…

Posted on by Matthew VanDevander

Well, in Fij news, I’m still working away on it. I’m about halfway (I mean, how do you make an estimate of these things) done with the editor, and therefore, the underlying structure of the game. I’m in the process of refactoring some things so that I can add more features easily. I’ll leave you with something mysterious:

How do you forgive someone who never apologizes for what they’ve done?

Well, it’s 2010 now. In the past year, I watched a lot more movies than I usually do. Well, at least in theaters I mean. So perhaps I should talk about some more recent things I’ve seen. Or at least the ones that I didn’t already talk about…hmm…

So, I guess I’ll just go through all the movies I’ve seen that came out in 2009, including Up in the Air, which I just saw the day before yesterday, so I didn’t exactly see it in 2009, but it’s a film from the last year, so I’ll keep it in here. So, here’s my brief, or maybe not so brief reviews of 2009 in film.

Continue reading “Some new swagger…” →

And the weekend comes to a close, uneventfully.

Posted on by Matthew VanDevander

Sad to say I let the weekend pass by without doing anything very productive. However I do have some good news. I’m learning to program in C++

Maybe this could mean things for Fij, maybe not. I dunno. Just thought you might be interested. On second thought, you’re probably not.

*sigh* anyways….

Here’s something rather…interesting that I’ve found. It’s a little flash-based game about being trapped. I’ll just let you play it. Audience Award winner of the Nordic Game Jam 2009.

I’m so sleepy…

New banner! Yay!

Posted on by Matthew VanDevander

I have finally decided to make a banner for the blog, which you may gaze at to your hearts content. (Hint: It’s somewhere above this post.) It looks way better than the old banner, which wasn’t a banner at all by the way. And I guess you can also consider it a teaser for the game, considering the sources…hmm… In other news, if you’ll look up at the top of your browser window in the address bar, there’s should hopefully be a little (somewhat legible) image for my blog there as well. If not, blame WordPress for the tiny image.

In other news, I should have spent time writing an essay for my homework instead of creating that banner, so I’ll have to see you later.

Does anyone else find it odd that WordPress shows up as a misspelled word in WordPress’s post editor?