Q4, 2014

Hey guys!
Here we have our first complete week of Q4! Hooray! But let's not break out the champagne yet!
I want to talk about what's going on in my head.

Monday:
I'm excited! I have made several advances in The Cheese. I was so close to just starting over with a new game (and I did record the first episode of starting over). But then I took a break. I cleared my mind. I came back an was refreshed. I think we forget to do that. We get too close to the paint that we don't see the picture. It's good to rest your brain, just don't allow the weeds to grow.
Monday, I start up with design patterns. The design pattern I initially used, I'm sure is incorrect but it works so that's good for now. The reason I say I think it's incorrect is if I change the 'state' of the object, the pattern creates a new object to take it's place. I have been studying state patterns in my free time, but as of yet, I still have problems wrapping my head around them. I think it is a lot more difficult than it is.

Wednesday:
This last week, I also test drove http://gamedevprogress.blogspot.com Pedro Rocha, Pirizao's game: Sisters. It's crazy how much he gathered from my simple noobing about. I recommend you play indie alpha games and have others play yours and have the session recorded. It's been shown to be invaluable in several cases so far already. Wednesday will be my noob session. Game is interesting, check it out!

Friday:
I'm torn of Friday. I don't like the title of my series but I like my series. Who's that Sprite e mon? Yeah, it's kinda cute but it also infers that the audience should actually know who it is. That hasn't been the case. Maybe when I get better, I may reboot it but for now, Who's that Sprite e mon is out. I'll still do pixel art and sprite art but I'm going to change the name.

Else:
So I tried Blogger's mobile app and did all of the else section and saved it.... It didn't save.
Son of A B! Anyways, let's have fun and tell me what you think of this blog post as well as my videos for the week. # videos a week ain't easy with a full time job, a wife, and 3 kids but this is week 1 of Q4 in the books. 11 more to go! https://www.youtube.com/user/Hamenopi

The Cheese: Newbie Island Tile Set

Oh Hai!

A few of you guys have approached me about my pixel art and others have asked me about tile sets. Let's face it, we don't all have time to create tile sets and we are all not pixel artists. If you wish your tiles looked better but don't have the time or skill to do it, worry not, I have a solution for you.

The Newbie Island tile set!

This tile set contains 30 themed tiles for top down games. With these tiles, you can create hundreds of unique islands.

The Newbie Island tile set is 16 x 16 pixels and includes:

• 5 Land tiles
• 5 Water tiles
• 8 'L' border tiles
• 8 'I' border tiles
• 4 '.' border tiles

What's the best part of this tile set?

It's absolutely free for you to use!

How do I get the tile set?

Just contact me here for now and I'll send it your way. If there is a lot of demand for it, I'll post this and future tile sets  to a place you can download it.

Do I need to credit the artist?

Na, but it'd be nice!

The Cheese 2

July 4th Weekend, Let me tell ya about it...

July 3rd. I get the message that Baby John is sick and needs to go somewhere that is not the daycare. Anne Marie cannot come to the rescue so it's time for -fanfare- super dad! I get the go ahead with work and swoop in to save the day. Poor boy had a tummy bug. I loved and cuddled on him and soothed him for eternity before he finally settled down.

July 4th! Queue the kidney stone! If you haven't had one, don't try it. It's not worth it. First two times I went straight to a hospital. I did not pass go. The hospital however did collect $$$. This time I'll be damned to pay the deductible. Then John gets me sick. I start puking everywhere. Okay, just in the toilet but that's breakfast, lunch and dinner down the literal toilet drain. Odd fortunes here be that I was over-hydrating myself from the kidney stone, I wasn't dehydrated from the stomach bug. I missed all Independence Day festivities however.

Still, July 5th, I was a dead man walking. That one two combo really knocks a guy out. I don't suggest it. I spend half the day trying to recover. Trying being the key word. Anne Marie's mom is hit with the stomach virus too.

July 6th, Colin has the stomach virus. He was with his biological and appears to be recovering. By the night, we all seem to be on the road to recovery.

That said, I have found a few minutes here and there to work on my cheese. Below are some screenshots of it. Throw some comments my way down below. This is Hamography.

Start

Approaching NPC

NPC Dialogue

Maze1

NPC Dialogue Placeholder

The Cheese 1

So I mentioned that I decided to learn Java in my last blog. I kinda wanted to see if learning a new programming language would help the one that gives me paychecks for (VB.NET). It does! It's funny how much I thought I knew about .Net and how little I do know about it. So funny it's startling...

My original attempt to learn Java is to create an application game that could help second graders with math. I was able to fumble through a rudimentary alpha version that looked horrible to the eyes. I wanted something pretty and interesting. I needed it to look like a game, not a homework lesson. Queue the YouTube!

TheChernoProject Clone

I started out with sweeping searches on YouTube before settling in with thenewboston. Following his tutorials, I butchered code into things unrecognizable. I obviously needed a lot more practice. I then moved to DesignsbyZephyr and then again butchered more code. A little bit frustrated, I continued my search until finding TheChernoProject. I got up to episode 80 until I butchered my code to nonrecognition . This time, I decided to stick with the program. I restarted back at episode 1 and made my journey to episode 111. Now I'm confident enough to play with Java now. While waiting on Cherno to release his next episode, I studied OOP concepts and then practiced them from about 9pm -11pm  every night. Currently, I'm following MrDeathJockey in his series and I notice, my code deviating wildly from his but I'm getting similar results. Better results. This is not a knock on MrDeathJockey. I am just envisioning a different game engine than what he is tutoring. 

MrDeathJockey Hybrid Clone

This is what I have so far. This game will tenatively be called 'The Cheese'. It's about a rat trying to find his ... wait for it ... cheese. The concept came from making mob sprites for Cherno's clone. This offshoot game features the lowly lvl 1 rat mob moving through a bit-mapped maze, looking for wedges of cheese.

I imagine that once I'm halfway happy with 'The Cheese', I'll make another offshoot of the game and add more Math Logic and have the rat be a student and the cheese be potential answers to displayed equations with difficulty scaled by level.