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Game Dev Monthly 2
4 years ago
Breakout Finished ...kind of.
I finished my breakout clone. It's feature complete, but lacking content and polish. The problem is the game took me a 2-3 months to get to this point, but looking at my time sheet, I only worked on it for a total of 6 hours, 45 minutes. In other words, the game could technically be made in a weekend. Given that I put 50 hours into Fallout games over the month, and I haven't put any serious time into video making, this is unacceptable.
Clean Code and Programming Forms
This month I listened to a bunch of talks by "Uncle Bob" about clean code. It had some interesting ideas I want to try that go against the usual programming advice dogma. I've also heard of Entity Component System architecture (from a talk about Overwatch), and data-oriented programming.
I never did formal training in programming, outside some very basic stuff in college that was mostly stuff I already knew, so these kinds of fundamental ideas are things I missed out on. eg. I've been programming for 15 years or so, and I only recently learned of XOR, which is apparently basic boolean you were supposed to learn early on.
Liminal Spaces
I've been a fan of weird, abstract locations. From mods like Mistake of Pythagoras (Half-Life 2), Sweet Half-Life (Half-Life 1), and Pasiri (Left 4 Dead 2) to paintings, and even weird dreams I had when I was in my teens or twenties.
The problem is there was no name for this kind of thing, which made it hard to discuss. I thought of the term "museum-punk", but that didn't seem right. Later, Vaporwave art kind of did a similar thing, but not really. In the last few days, I learned of the term "liminal spaces", which while not 100% the thing I'm describing, it's close enough that people understand what I mean.
Now I just need a term for old stock sound effects like footsteps and buttons...
Next Game
As for my next project, I had a couple of ideas.
One is to make another small game. Something like Flappy Bird or Asteroids or something. Something I can make quickly to get used to finishing games.
I'm not in the mood to revisit my Leanna game or mech sim just yet.
I considered making mods for Fallout 4, but the mod tools require Bethesda.net, and Fallout New Vegas already has mods that do most of what I want to do. A World of Pain and Mighty Dungeons specifically add combat dungeons to the game, and other stuff I want to add would be limited. So, I'm considering making my own first person dungeon crawl RPG. One of those ideas I don't expect to ever finish, and will likely never be released. I can give details if anyone is interested.
I finished my breakout clone. It's feature complete, but lacking content and polish. The problem is the game took me a 2-3 months to get to this point, but looking at my time sheet, I only worked on it for a total of 6 hours, 45 minutes. In other words, the game could technically be made in a weekend. Given that I put 50 hours into Fallout games over the month, and I haven't put any serious time into video making, this is unacceptable.
Clean Code and Programming Forms
This month I listened to a bunch of talks by "Uncle Bob" about clean code. It had some interesting ideas I want to try that go against the usual programming advice dogma. I've also heard of Entity Component System architecture (from a talk about Overwatch), and data-oriented programming.
I never did formal training in programming, outside some very basic stuff in college that was mostly stuff I already knew, so these kinds of fundamental ideas are things I missed out on. eg. I've been programming for 15 years or so, and I only recently learned of XOR, which is apparently basic boolean you were supposed to learn early on.
Liminal Spaces
I've been a fan of weird, abstract locations. From mods like Mistake of Pythagoras (Half-Life 2), Sweet Half-Life (Half-Life 1), and Pasiri (Left 4 Dead 2) to paintings, and even weird dreams I had when I was in my teens or twenties.
The problem is there was no name for this kind of thing, which made it hard to discuss. I thought of the term "museum-punk", but that didn't seem right. Later, Vaporwave art kind of did a similar thing, but not really. In the last few days, I learned of the term "liminal spaces", which while not 100% the thing I'm describing, it's close enough that people understand what I mean.
Now I just need a term for old stock sound effects like footsteps and buttons...
Next Game
As for my next project, I had a couple of ideas.
One is to make another small game. Something like Flappy Bird or Asteroids or something. Something I can make quickly to get used to finishing games.
I'm not in the mood to revisit my Leanna game or mech sim just yet.
I considered making mods for Fallout 4, but the mod tools require Bethesda.net, and Fallout New Vegas already has mods that do most of what I want to do. A World of Pain and Mighty Dungeons specifically add combat dungeons to the game, and other stuff I want to add would be limited. So, I'm considering making my own first person dungeon crawl RPG. One of those ideas I don't expect to ever finish, and will likely never be released. I can give details if anyone is interested.
LQCTim
~lqctim
I once briefly considered making a Flappy Kylina game. You're welcome to use that idea if you want to make a Flappy Bird clone.
