I NEED MORE TIME CAPTAIN!!

Alright, I want to apologize first for not having the update I said I would have last Friday. I am still designing, as my first design proved to be a failure (lucky while still in the design phase). I plan to have that complete on Monday, because I am hosting the 1st Annual Badmitton Tournament on 31st. More on that progress will come.

Speaking of the tournament, it takes off on July 31st! My wife and I are favored to take home the gold. So far it is shaping up to be an interesting and fun event. We'll see who shows and how the weather will be. There will be food, fun, and prizes too. Even if it rains, food and fun will show up!!

Oh, and finally, school. I am back into the groove. It is now my 4th week into the quarter and I am doing good. Had enough information to learn about GROUP BY and why Ben Franklin was such a smooth talker. Heh, maybe this time around I will actually retain this stuff.

Just wanted to let everyone know I am still alive and all of my projects are still alive and kicking. Prepare for more screenshots. Also, my boy is finishing up my site, so the Block Drop Progress Reports will be continued there. I will have a link when that becomes available.

Damn, time for my test. Lata

Until then, you know the drill!
OOH OOH EEH EEH

AND TODAY EVERYTHING WILL BE FREEEE!!!

This is a continuation to my past post about finding free software. I am seriously done paying form subpar software. It is frickin rediculous!

So I am happy to announce that I am now on the path to freedom. I have successfully installed Fedora Core onto my system using the GNOME desktop. For those that do not have a clue as to what Fedora is, it is a Linux distribution, like Red Hat Linux. Read about it here. Yes, it is great. I am still in the midst of tinkering, so I still have my Windows partition active. But mark my words, the day draws near that I will wipe my system clean of that cancer called Windows!!!

Oh yeah, another thing too, you can take screenshots of individual windows!!! How cool is that??? No more taking a screenie of the entire desktop then editing the image! And the "Gimp" has a timer to schedule screenshots, kind of like the timer on a camera so you can get your lard ass in the picture in time!!! SEE WHAT BEING FREE DOES??? YOU CAN USE YOUR GOD GIVEN ABILITIES TO MAKE QUALITY SHIT THAT MAKES SENSE!!!

Viva la Revolution!!!!
OOH OOH EEH EEH

Block Drop Progress Report #5a

This is a continuation to the "Block Drop Progress Report #5". I wanted to add a screenshot. This one shows the main menu of Block Drop with functioning gui buttons. I created a simple gui button that performs hit testing. Later I will update it to apply rollover capabilities and maybe a pressed state.

Also, I have been in the lab designing how I am gonna develop the tricky block puzzle. It will take a bit more design to complete.

Here is the screenie. Pardon my tireness, I am sleepy!

OOH OOH EEH EEH

Block Drop Progress Report #5

What was updated?

Okay, first I want to say, instead of working on the blocks and how they interact with the game board, I decided to implement the state management system.

This is an important system and will directly effect how and where I implement the block system. This system isolates each game state to function on it's own. Each game state is managed by a state manager. It is the responsibility of the state manager to track and process the active state.

Each game state has 2 main responsibilities, to process each frame of animation and to handle state specific user input.

This system allows me to handle a single key differently with each game state. This will provide a lot of flexibility. Also, if I need to add or remove states, this will be done by adding/removing a state class.

What's being worked on this week?

Now I will get into the building of the blocks and how they interact. This will probably take about a month to implement. I will still update my blog weekly to keep everyone posted on progress. This will involve collision detection/response, organization of the block components, and the line monitoring system.

Also, if this doesn't seem to make sense, I am a bit tired, so post clarification questions in the comments area. I have enable anonymous posts too so that you don't have to have a blog account to comment. Well, let me get back to the lab.

OOH OOH EEH EEH

Spreading the blog seed

Man, I need to get on the blog payroll. I mentioned it to my lil sis and she is all into it now. Everybody, go check her's blog too. This stuff is truly contagious.

Pretty soon, this will become a FREE blog nation!!! muhahahhahahah!!

Well, you know the drill. (if not, read below)
OOH OOH EEH EEH

OMG EVERYTHING GREAT IS FREEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG, a totally new world has opened up before my eyes. I mean, I have always known about free software, but I never believed it would be as good as their commercial counterparts. I mean, how could they when the commericial versions are backed by $1 million budgets. Now, I see things differently after taking the "red pill" and tumbling down through the hole leading to the land of "Google". I now see the truth, great products come FREE OF CHARGE!!!! (Stadium Cheer)

What brought me to find these great products was me researching tools to use to build my game "Block Drop". I have always known about SDL, but as I was searching for libraries that supported the SDL to use for my game. At that point, I realized I needed an image editing program to build the graphics for the game. The first 2 products that popped into my head were Adobe Photoshop and Jasc Paintshop Pro. I mean, from all the buzz, if you wanted a quality product you had to spend cash for it. Well, since I am on this kick to stay legit and not steal software, I began my quest to find a half-way decent product that would perform basic image editing procedures. And that is when it all started to happen, I saw the "GIMP"!

At first I was skeptical, but after seeing some screenshots, reading about its features, and it's support by the independent community I was hooked. I then installed it and my juices began to flow even further. And then it hit me, like my Momma had slapped me when I wasted her money in my high school marching band by playing Super Mario Brothers and Battlezone at the local Shoppette on Post (that's another story)...

Anyways, you have to go check it out if you ever need a free image editing product just as good as its $5000 counterpart. I mean geez, IT'S FREE!!!

Another free bit of software I found was MinGW Developer Studio. It is similar to MS Visual Stuido, but FREE!!!. It uses the mingw version of the gcc and g++ compilers. So far it works like a champ! Check it out.

Looking for a text editor that is extensible beyond your every dream? A truly platform independent text editor with a nice interface? Well, look no further, it is here, and it goes by the name of "jEdit". jEdit is a text editor written in Java 2 that has a fantastic plugin system to extend its capabilities. It can also be setup as a compiler for a plethora (i love that word) of languages including JAVA, C/C++, perl, and many more. I know, I know, but Java is slow, not this time around. This app is lightning fast for a java app anyways. I totally recommend this one! Go see this one tooo!

I feel like that salesman screaming at you from inside the TV to come to the new EXPO where everything is FREEE!!!!! =P.

Man, this makes me want to dump Microsoft and got strictly linux. I mean now my conscious can rest assured that no one can come knocking down my door because I wanted to tryout (*wink) their new version of their software to decide whether it works for me or not! Stick that up your tailpipe and spin on that you money grubbing bastards!

Anyways, post any other free development software you come across, so we can share the wealth of FREEDOM!!! Viva la Revolution!!!

OOH OOH EEH EEH

Block Drop Progress Report #4

Alright, update time! The thumb above is showing off the basic font system being used by Block Drop. This demo is incrementing the player's score 1 point per frame rendered.

Tools used
I did some research and I found that the BFont library best fit my needs. I just needed a simple font system to display font created dynamically and of any data type because I will need to print numbers as a string text. An added bonus is that this library also provides the ability of justifying the text left, center, and right (can't beat that).

Comments
First off, the SDL is AWESOME! I recommend it to anyone that wants to just focus on developing their game and not all of the redundant subsystem code. It is widely supported and has good enough documentation to get you started. Plus, it is platform independent, that is a great reason to play with it. Oh and yes mudface, I will be making a Crapple version, so be ready because I will need you to test.

Okay, be aware that the font being used right now is not the final product. It is just a test font to make sure the font rendering system works correctly. Once the base functionality of the game is in place I will recruit a texture artist to generate some bitmap fonts to use that fit the theme of the game. So relax because I don't want 80 comments about how disgusting my font selection is, because I am fully aware of that already =P.

What's Next
The next thing on my plate is to design/implement how the blocks will interact with each other. I am shooting for having some screens this Friday, but if not, it will be the following Friday, July 16th because this will be one of the biggest tasks. Most likely, I will have something for you guys this coming Friday so stay tuned!

OOH OOH EEH EEH