3D shooter: Progress

I been working with the control system and thanks to some nice helpers at the Blitz3D forum learning about movement and control in 3D games, as well as some theory about the targeting system in Star Fox (aka Lylat Wars in the UK).

Now, thanks to this great help with working out the movement and adapting some code kindly given to me, I'm pretty happy with how the ship moves.

Over the weekend I haven't been able to stop thinking about the game and have come-up with some ideas for names:

Seren 1 (seren is Welsh for star) Serol (welsh for stellar, could use it with a name, such as the pilot or squadron) Galaeth (galaxy).

Regarding how it plays, I'm considering two game modes (ideally, I'd like to have them both): 1. A survival mode, where the player has to survive as long as possible and random enemies are created, this would be the easiest to implement. 2. Story mode, where the player has to travel to different worlds or environments, such as in a city or in an asteroid field. This mode will depend on how confident I feel in my programming abilities as I am learning 3D game development as I go.

Development Difficulties and History - part 3 or 3

I haven't been able to update the blog much over the Christmas period, as I have been visiting family in the UK.

But good news is that I have a new lovely laptop, it's not too expensive but it does pack hell of a punch and can manage all 3D games I have tried so far.

Anyway I thought I would finish this tedious history of mine in the quickest way possible.

...After downloading Blitz3D and having a month of experimenting I knew that this interpretation of the basic language was for me. Unlike my failed study of Java and brief tinkering with C++ and another version called C-Lite (if I remember correctly), the Blitz3D syntax seemed to suit me well, and this was the first time I actually enjoyed programming, with complete understanding of what I was writing and the great ability to see if what I had written was working in an instance.

Within weeks I had created a simple 3D Star Trek game where you could fly in a giant sphere representing the Solar System and fly from planet to planet and even been chased by an enemy ship (but only with six or seven lines of ai). Also, I even managed to create my own 3D models for the first time.

After also creating another basic game with a sea landscape and some island and a pirate ship that could move about, I decided to work on my educational computer game for learning English.

While my initial enthusiasm was great and I started well. Eventually, my enthusiasm dropped and appeared in brief spurts, maybe this was due to the fact that the only place I could receive a wifi signal to connect to the Internet was from my bed, and this was an awful and uncomfortable setup for programming, as I couldn't sit-up as the table was to low, so I was always slouching. This went on for about three months, and I barely had anything to show for my time.

I don't know at what point I decided to try out BlitzMax, but even though at first I thought it was too fiddly, I eventually got hooked, especialy by it's more object orientated language, which is fantastic for me compared to Blitz3D which wasn't object-orientated.

Using BlitzMax also gave me the chance to start again with my educational game, with a new approach and a more modular design, where I keep everything seperate, like graphics, data, each of the game screens, the menus. This has and will help me, as code can easily be changed and new bits added and removed. However, the same problems of enthusiasm appeared and I found myself sometimes only doing one or two hours every week or even every fortnight.

I did manage to get back on track in September, when I moved to a newer and bigger flat, that it included it's own studio and a massive desk for me to work on. Work on my game continued well all through the month of September and for some part into October, and initial fears of how and from where I would get the graphics and music for my game where put to rest, when I decided to make my own graphics and actually found a cartoon style that looked good and I could actually draw (well except for the main characters, for whom I am still undecided of how I will draw them). I also found a couple of websites where people submit their sounds and music and these can then be legally used for commercial games and programs, all just for a possible mention in the credits.

However, programming did come to a halt during October, as financial worries and concerns where at the top of my head and I never managed to sit down and even do a decent hours worth of programming. This lack of work continued through November.

Finally, In December as mentioned in this blog, I finally took the plunge and changed from the Windows operating system to the Ubuntu version of Linux. This lead me on to a quest to find a high level programming language that I could work with on Linux, and then run on Windows.

My initial thoughts where to try the scripting language of Python and Pygame which is designed to help with making games in Python. But this language wasn't for me, with the forced indenting which wouldn't compile unless I got it exactly write and the general syntax and layout of the language.

I also tried some versions of the basic programing language, like Free Basic, but even though I liked it a bit, the lack of tutorials for the type of game I want to do, and the default graphic engine not being for commercial use, led me to try something different.

After playing around with a few other versions of basic (I can't remember all their names), I landed at Pure Basic, which even though I have only played around with it for a week, I think it could be a serious contender for me to use instead of BlitzMax, as it is easily setup in Linux and Windows, and using my dual-boot computer I can compile nearly (if not all) the same code for both operating systems. So here I am now, considering whether to continue with BlitzMax or switch to Pure Basic.

Any other suggestions for basic like and cross-compatible programing languages are welcome.

Development Difficulties and History - part 2 or 3

After writing this article, I have decided to split this history of the beginning of my journey into independent game development into three parts, to make it a less strenuous read and write.

Here's the second part of my self indulgent history of how I got here, but luckily this is shorter.

After University I relocated from the UK to Spain and worked as an English Teacher.
During this time I discovered a little game creation software program called Game Maker. It aims to allow people without programming experience to create 2D games, while allowing more experienced users to use it's inbuilt scripting language to make more complex games. While, I found this true, I think it would be incredibly hard or tiresome to create a descent game without the use of it's language.

After making a few simple games in Game Maker, I came up with the idea of maybe using my English Teaching knowledge to make some educational software, as I had seen the strengths and weaknesses of various educational software, and how children quickly tire of repetitive and long computer games and activities.

Using my knowledge from my degree in Computer Science, I came up with a good design document (even if it was scribbled) of what I wanted. However, putting these ideas into Game Maker was a frustrating experience due to the limitations of the software and also the speed. So, after two months I archived my Game Maker files and decided to find another programming language.

After various searches, and finding C++ to strenuous for what I wanted to do, I downloaded a copy of Blitz3D..