Progress since my last post.

Set up my Groove Shark music library with lots of music.
Skyrim.
Skyrim.
Skyrim.
Skyrim.
Skyrim.

On a more academic note I have done the following things:

• 5/10/2011;
  Finish proposal work and fooled around with more of the actual game, mainly the map editor and export/import ideas.
  Originally the map editor supplied my game with a single image of the map and huge array of bounding boxes, instead I will make use of the single tile sheet and have the game engine rebuild the map using information from a simple text file. The clipping information is stored with the tile sheet.
  
• 12/10/2011;
  Work through the plan using some Microsoft office tool called Microsoft Project or something. Not a huge fan of how the use interacts with the the interface. But it's do-able.
  Further work on the game engine from scratch, rebuilding the simple windows and the way content is drawn.
  
• 19/10/2011;
  Started work on research into existing games. Type up of research, need further research later. Huge influences such as the original Mario series and Capsized interested my greatly.
  
• 26/10/2011;
  Started work on survey, decided to use an online alternative, as this allows me to post and request answers from a larger group of people, utilizing SurveyMonkey.
  
• 2/10/2011;
  Further research.
  
• 9/10/2011;
  Even more research.
  
• 16/10/2011;
  Sick.
  

Today:
Well today I did this. Further completion of survey, I'll be posting it on facebook and on here, although that seems a little pointless as this is purely for my progress log. So hai random viewer!

Week 3

Today I start the research type up.

This is the biggest part of the project and will make up the bulk of the final project.
It is slightly dissapointing that the game itself will be put onto the back burners as I enjoy that part the most. My re-write is gonna be a big task, but I look forward to it.

For the research I am going to do some research into existing games in my chosen genre, 2d sidescrolling platformer.

One of the main influences I wish to draw inspiration from is the original Mario series.

Progress...

Last year I started a game design project and found extreme difficulty sorting the clipping information (making it so the player and enemies etc don't just fall forever).
I still need to work on a way to sort this efficiently, I worked on an algorithm to reduce the time each check of the map would take by compounding rectangles of similar sizes together into slightly larger rectangles. That was quite entertaining.

Here's this snippet: code

"rectangles" are the array of rectangles which are in a set position and are of a set size, they get drawn elsewhere in the code. Changes a map of around 850 odd rectangles to around 20-30.

Found some of my old tools I had been using, a map editor; incredibly buggy and it doesn't load and save exactly how i would like it to, and a tile sheet clipping editor; this saves and loads the clipping information from/to my tile set info files.

So this is what I will be working from to create my game, re-writing the game code itself though.

I will release some of the software if people would like a play etc.

See you soon :)

First!

I am going to be using this blog to dump all of my research/progress on a game I am working on.

This is sort of my project diary...

This is my extended project, an artifact, for this I am going to be making a game with a written manual.. Gulp.

Check back if your interested.