| Friday, November 11, 2005 |
 A New Hope | 
Posted - 11/11/2005 10:10:57 PM | It's been quite a while since I wondered the developer journals of gamedev.net, and it looks as active as ever. I actually haven't accomplished that much within the last three weeks, except for effectively slaughtering an entire generation of brain cells. I suppose that's something though. I also saw off a good friend of mine who moved to Phoenix Arizona in hopes to find something that he feels he's been missing in his life, and I hope he finds it.
Recovering from the weeks of binge drinking hasn't been as timely as one would think, and infact I'm already getting back into things full swing. Phoenix is progressing nicely and so is the planning stages of resurrecting a few past projects. You see I have this idea that if I can go back and complete all the projects that I began investing time in, that I'll end up with a lot of finished work, and I'll actually be able to credit myself with some experience. That experience may or may not help me land a job that will be more focused in the areas of my interest, but either way, it's really just the feeling of saying, hey, I finished that, and that's all right by me.
So, I'm going back and working on revisions of my novel, as well as some other things that I won't disclose. I hate writing stuff and then coming up short changed from all the hype, so I'll just leave it at that for now.
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| Wednesday, October 12, 2005 |
| WTF??? | 
Posted - 10/12/2005 7:35:34 AM | Well,
about 8 people downloaded v0.25 of C.F.L., the funny part, I thought that when I changed the zip file in my storage area here at gamedev.net it would automagically change the one on my GD Showcase too, WRONG! So to anyone out there I apologize if you downloaded the file again thinking it would be the new version. Interestingly enough, no one told me about the error, I thought today to find out if that happened because I wondered before. ANyways, the actual 0.25 version is now linked in the SHOWCASE
so if anyone actually wanted to see that version there you go. Once again sorry.
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| Bah! | |
Posted - 10/10/2005 11:32:16 AM | Well not much to say really. I've been having a hard time getting things coded this last two or three days. I've actually been spending more time reading as of late. I've reading a lot about some low level coding, compiler theory, all the stuff that I probably would dread to study if I was actually in school  .
I updated my GDSC C.F.L. entry today. It's not really anything impressive. A lot of the stuff I managed to add isn't accessable as the gameplay never makes use of it, I never advanced the gameplay past the last version, but it looks a little nicer, and I added a few more features. At anyrate I just wanted to get it out there as I think that maybe the death of the text version. I'm focusing on Phoenix full force, or atleast I'm supposed to be.
Works going good, not much has changed, although I'm do for a raise at the end of the month. I'm also planning on moving into a new apartment at that time. I also want to get a laptop so I can code outside, and at work on my breaks. I probably won't do that until mid November though.
I'm still working on some initalization stuff for Phoenix, as well as the editor Myrrh. Um.. yep, it's almost bed time for me, working nights is nice.
Damnit' I just realized to I'll have to do another build of C.F.L really quick so that if anyone actually gets into a battle they won't be stuck cycling through empty question segments.
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| Saturday, October 1, 2005 |
| Jago, Spinal, Phoenix! | 
Posted - 10/1/2005 8:37:45 PM | Contrary to my actual journal entries as of late, I'm actually having some fun designing and coding. I've switched all my current focus on to working on my game engine and editor. I decided to do this because I want to produce a graphical version of C.F.L. and as I was redesigning my base class for all semi intelligent entities for the game, I realized that the text interface and graphical interaction were going to be too different for me to really invest a lot of time in redesigning a text interface that had advanced features. As such, I'll be releasing version of 0.3 of C.F.L. which will be the final text version. Short of text reformating shortcut keys and a battle system that is a third of the way finished, there really isn't that much difference in this version and the last release, I'll update all that information when I post release.
So, I managed to get a prototype up for the launcher for Phoenix, and I've also made progress on the actual engine. Here's an image of the launcher. 
It uses a class derived from CDialog to create a custom dialog class that uses a bitmap as a dialog. Thanks to David Forrester for the code. It also allows access to the game engine and the editor as well as a future configuration module. The logo, which is being used as the dialog, was created by Mike Pool from Phyersoft. It's being finalized still, but I'm liking the way it looks so far. More later..
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| Monday, September 19, 2005 |
| Sounds like somebodies got a case of the Mondays.. | |
Posted - 9/19/2005 2:20:45 PM | Ok, well once again, it's been a few days since an entry. I have been more focused recently and am continuing to be focused, which is a good thing. I'm currently tearing apart my base code for C.F.L. and looking at some better ways to handle my classes. Also, there are memory leaks all over the program, I'm working to correct this b y incorporating a garbage collector.
I've also started coding some base rendering classes for Phoenix, which is more work then I've done all year on it. Taking my time to design definately has been paying off though. Maybe someday I'll leave the comfort of the developer journals and venture into the dark dungeons of the forums. Well, I'm going to go and get ready for bed as I should be pretty busy at work tonight.
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| Saturday, September 17, 2005 |
| Believe it or not, I"m not undead! | |
Posted - 9/17/2005 6:12:42 AM | It's been over a week since my last entry. I can't believe that the last week has flown by already. The majority of which I spent redesiging my website and reading lots as usual. I've also been working a lot as well, but what else is new?
EDITED FOR CONTENT : The ESRB aren't really bad, I just think that people should govern themselves more then appointed officials, and I suppose the ESRB is just the voice of people who want to control the exposure of mature content to the younger generations. I think I just get caught up in the idealism of open content and don't really take into account what the purepose of it is. I may infact have been directing frustration from other areas such as people blaming games for violence and such as a direct corrilation to the ESRB which in fact was established to help deligate responses to such claims and attempt to eliminate them from ever being made. My appologies.
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| Friday, September 9, 2005 |
| Platypus | 
Posted - 9/9/2005 8:45:43 PM | I couldn't think of a title, so Platypus seemed fitting. I've been terrible about journaling in this journal lately. I have been writing journal entries everyday in a note book however. That still doesn't help me meet on of my main goals, which is being more involved in the game development community. I've been pretty busy though, so that's my excuse 
So, many of you may be asking " What has old DecipherOne been up too lately?" Many of you may also be wondering "Why the hell do I keep reading this guys journal entries?" Well if the latter is the case, you don't have to mask your jealousy with hostility. 
If you fall into the former group, this is what I've been up to.
WORK! WORK! WORK!
This entails my job with Windstar Lines, the bus charter company I work for, as well as my own endeavors. Progress on my own projects is slow but steady and that's what wins the race, right? Atleast that's the way it is according to the tortoise.
C.F.L. is nearing it's next release and at this rate will be ready at the end of the month. I'm just starting coding on Phoenix's rendering module which I'd like to have complete within the next couple of weeks. I'm dedicating at minimum two hours each day to each of these projects on top of two to four hours of studying the library that I've purchased this year.
I'm also getting ready to move into an apartment that I will be using as an office/living space at the beginning of Novemeber. I'm still looking into locations currently, but I won't begin a heavy search until October.
As soon as I move into this location, I'll be working to get DecipherOne Productions registered as a business and begin buying new equipment for production. I'll also be looking to hire some local talent to help with production, an artist and an additional programmer. That won't be until later next year however.
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| Tuesday, September 6, 2005 |
| Monster | |
Posted - 9/6/2005 2:52:48 AM | I think I'm now officially addicted to energy drinks. I can't seem to put them down, maybe this is a substitute for smoking on some level, but I'd rather be drinking energy drinks. It's to bad they're almost as expensive as cigarettes.
Well, I decided to change my game plan. I've found that it's just too hard for me to keep focused on reading the same text all the way through. So, I decide to break my time up more appropriately and give myself longer to read the texts that I have. In the meantime I'll continue to work on my two main projects and read a bit less. That way, I can begin applying what I'm reading as well, and I'm less likely to forget as much.
I'm still working on a general garbage collector that I'll be able to draw upon for any application and use specifically for that app. Not really much more to say right now. I've got to take a trip for work Wednesday morning. I'm going to the main office for the first time for some additional training.
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| Saturday, September 3, 2005 |
| Progress | |
Posted - 9/3/2005 3:10:06 AM | So, I'm on day four of my eighteen day cram session and due to work, I've already fallen behind by two days. The good news is however that I've been able to put in over time and my paycheck will be pleasantly large.
Currently, I've been studying on garbage collection and building a single and multi-threaded collector based on the code from The Art of C++. I've also been thinking of rethinking this strategy of mine to do all this reading in the short amount of time that I'm attempting. This is due to the need to actually study code as well as do the reading, but I decided to keep to the initial plan. I can always go back later once I've read through the content once.
I read a comment where Ernest Adams said that Rockstar games should be shunned for putting sexual content into San Andreas. Too that I say what the fuck? I mean your already going around killing people, dealing with drugs, saying fuck more times then a squirrel eats nuts, and sexual content is the main concern. Obviously he is more concerned with the politics. The games already rated for a mature audience, how does the concept of sex offend? Being portrayed the way it is in the game I don't necessarily agree with, but come on. Sex is the most natural part of life, where all current life begins. Should designers and developers ignore the concept in games simply because it offends some people to publicly talk about sex? I think not.
What about the children? Well children shouldn't be playing these games anyways, and if parents actually had half decent relationships with their kids, they would know what games they're playing, as well as be able to have an open educational and personal dialog about sex, drugs, and any other subject openly. Scapegoats are in full fledge in our society as always, it's like saying I'm sueing Lucas Arts for putting bright lights in their game(which actually is happening). Come on people accept responsiblity for whats going on, games are a medium for communication, exploration, creation, and destruction. They are not a substitute for good parenting or an excuse for bad guidance.
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| Let's get it on. | |
Posted - 8/30/2005 2:03:22 AM | Today I'm starting an eighteen day cram session to polish up my C++ skills and to delve into some more advanced topics. As I venture through this campaign, I'll be journaling about the subjects that I read about and am currently studying. The roster for this endeavor look like this :
1. The Art of C++
2. Advanced C++ Programming styles and Idioms
3. Win32 System Programming
4. The Revolutionary Guide to MFC
5. Visual C++ Goodies
6. ATL COM Programming
This means I have to roughly digest an average of 175 pages a day. The good news is I already am familiar with a lot of the information found in these tomes, but I'm looking to get my focus out of bottles and back into binary and books. Away I go!
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| Saturday, August 27, 2005 |
| I've fallen and I can't get up! | |
Posted - 8/27/2005 1:15:00 AM | The title is in reference too the fact that my journal had fallen off of the journal page for the first time since I started this journal.
I have to work about twelve hours or more tomorrow night. I'm tired as hell right now, but I have to stay awake so that I can work tomorrow night, and not be tired then. I spent a few days coming up with a cool idea for the 4E4 compo, and as more time goes by, I realize that I'm not going to have time to really complete a submission. Especially considering I haven't even started yet. I could have had plenty of time had I not wasted so much time the last couple of months.
Two days ago, an old friend from highschool shot and killed himself. That is the third friend I've lost to suicide in the last two years. Sad really. He was facing some federal prison time and evidentally decided that Mexico wasn't his cup of tea. I just hope that if anyone out there ever has similair thoughts that they can talk to someone. It seems that the ones that have left us due to these circumstances have been some of the most isolated people I've known. They always had smiles on, but never really talked about anything real or personal to other people. I hope my friends grand parents are doing as well as they can. The funeral is tomorrow, but I have to work, and seeing as I'm the only employee in Ankeny for my job, I can't have anyone cover for me, because there is no one else. It's just the same though. I haven't been one much for funerals lately. I realize death comes for us all, I accept it, it's more so the living that I am more concerned with, and realizing that most of the people that will be at the funeral will mostly be other people who maybe looking at prison time, or just got out of prison. These are people that I've tried to stay away from the past five years, the type of person I once was. Unfortunate, but in my own way, I've already said good bye.
So, I'm going on a new health kick. I've quit smoking again, I've always eaten pretty healthy, I've also quit drinking, (my liver will thank me for that), and I'm starting a new exercise routine tomorrow. I'm not out of shape by any means, but I have been rather excesive on the intake of carbon monoxide and alchohol for many years now, and I figure it's better to change my life style now, then later ,or never.
I haven't gotten shit done on C.F.L. this last week, and in fact I'm still on the same task list from a month ago. I also want to start working with some animation stuff once again. I've dabbled with animation in the past, but really have never made a hudge amount of progress. Maybe I'll work on some animations for Phoenix, and DecipherOne Productions.
Oh, and one last thing. My Never Winter Nights executable continues to crash. It may take it like two or three hours, but it does crash non the less. I'm thinking of writing BioWare and complaining. I've got a pretty mean machine, so I know that's not the problem. It's just frustrating everytime I'm in the middle of an epic quest and, oh were sorry, your executable doesn't want to work any more. Oh what's that , you forgot to quick save the last twenty minutes of gameplay? Muhha ha!
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| Saturday, August 20, 2005 |
| Welcome to the World of Tomorrow, Today! | |
Posted - 8/20/2005 8:50:29 AM | I just saw this and I had to share it, this maybe burried somewhere on the forums, but for anyone who hasn't seen it check This
out. Remote controled humans.
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| Vroom! Vroom! | |
Posted - 8/19/2005 12:39:35 PM | I've been without a car for a year and half. A side from seeing lots of nice sceneray and keeping my cardiovascular system in good shape, it really has been rather annoying. For instance it took me an hour to walk to work, and was like this for about a year and a half. That was until yesterday, when I was finally able to get a 1991 Honda Accord. This is great news for all! Let the towns people sing up as one voice, and let there be drinks and food and women for everyone, even the women!
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| Wednesday, August 17, 2005 |
| Ha ha | |
Posted - 8/17/2005 8:42:35 AM | Well my sanity aside, I'm seemingly getting focused again. A partner of mine recently quit his day job to concentrate on games and comics full time. I've been in contact with him for three years now, and we've had a lot of great ideas, but they never seemed to get off the ground in the past. It is my hope that with his full attention that will now change. It's been as much my fault as any one as to why these projects have lacked progress in the past, but I'm finally getting settled into my new job, as well as getting some decent content created so we will have to see where things go.
Not really much else to say, I've been working a shit load, and well sleeping. My bodies having to get used to all the manual labor I've been doing, and lately I've just felt drained. I can already tell that the exhaustion is starting to disapate and I actually am starting to feel better all around. That may have to do with the fact that I'm no longer binge drinking too, but no that couldn't be it. I guess that's the great thing about being a twenty something year old. When ever you feel lost or out of place, you can grab a few cases of beer for a few months, and it seems almost expected in our culture, kind of sad really, where the rest of world drinks their entire lives, but does more so without the excessiveness. I suppose it comes down to each individual though.
A few weeks ago I compiled a bunch of gaming trivia for C.F.L.'s battle system, at that point in time, I found out that Atari was responsible for the creation of Chuch E Cheese's. I grew up where there was Showbiz Pizza, in the South, atleast until I was thirteen anyways, and I always thought they were the same place, except marketed differently to cater to the different cultures. Billy Bob the Bear for the Southerner's, a ho down Jug blowin bear, hopped up on moonshine. For the rest of the country, Mice like cheese. I never even made the connection that they were competitors even when ShowBiz became Chuck E Cheese's in the late eightees. I always thought I was a bright kid, I guess I didn't have much business sense when I was eight though.
Thank you Atari for games and pizza, two of my most favoritess things.
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| Randomization | 
Posted - 8/12/2005 11:12:24 PM | Well, I've finally gotten some time in working on C.F.L. a bit more today. There really is a hell of a lot to do. At any rate, I have a selection structure for a trivia element with 500 questions listed in it ranging through about ten different categories.
I spent about an hour or so looking into better pseudo-random number generation today. My main source was Mathmatical Techniques from the Infinite Game Universe series by Guy W. Lecky - Thompson. Although he goes over two algorithms and seeding, which I've had an understanding of for sometime, I couldn't really find any useful information. Aside from creating various switch statements that use various ranges of numbers to come up with a random total, I can't seem to come up with a good approach to finding an algorithm that works very well at all. Everytime I run through that segment of the game, it seems that the results tend to be more in the first one hundred questions then anywhere else, this is probably about eighty percent or more of the time. I suppose I'm wondering if anyone out there has a solution to better randomization of numbers, or can point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance if you can help, if not :p.
EDIT: I suppose I should say that I am using the rand() function with srand based on time, actually here is the code. What the F@# I just realized what the problem has been all this time, I only have a total of one hundred instead of five hundred in my random number generation. That explains a lot. DOH!
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| Thursday, August 11, 2005 |
| Howard Hughes is one crazy SOB | |
Posted - 8/11/2005 11:15:19 PM | I just watched the last half of the aviator. It was definately a good movie. WEll, I have a phone call now, so I'll cut this short, later.
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| Wednesday, August 10, 2005 |
| Time Constraints | |
Posted - 8/10/2005 9:34:39 PM | There is a lot of things to do in a day and there always seems like there is not enough time to do it all. It seems that development, out of all things, is the one area that is suffering the most right now. I suppose I still am in a transitional period somewhat as I just started a new job, am in the process of working on a car that I am buying, and have been spending quite a bit of time with my friends. I just hope that I can get some dev time in when I get off work tomorrow morning.
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| Work, work, work! | 
Posted - 8/9/2005 11:47:08 PM | Yep!
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| Like a Sherpa, guided for the very first time. | |
Posted - 8/8/2005 6:00:37 PM | After driving for ten hours, I made it back from the beautiful shores of Spirit Lake in Okaboji Iowa. I've lived in Iowa for eight years, and I only recently found out about the lake up there. It probably is the most beautiful lake in Iowa, atleast that I've seen. Of course the ten hour drive was there and back and was the journey to save a dogs life as well as one of drinking coffee and listening to hours of silence because my friend couldn't find the car adapter for his xm reciever, so we were forced to listen to either crappy static stations or silence. All in all it was a fun trip, all except for having to see Neo the dog go but I'm sure that I will see him again.
As for the rest of this week, I'm going to be extremely busy at work, and I am going to get a lot done as far as content addition and coding go on C.F.L. I have managed to add about a quater of the content that I've created within about the past month, but I haven't taken the time to really catch up yet.
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| Screwed the Pooch! | 
Posted - 8/6/2005 6:23:35 PM | One of my really good friends has a four year old pitbull named Neo. My friend recently ran into some financial problems and had to end up moving back in with his parents for a short amount of time, and as such, he can no longer keep the dog. This is do to county laws, as pitbulls are illegal in this town. His dad basically told him to get rid of the dog, or he would find a new home for him in a shallow grave.
Armed with this knowledge myself and a few other friends went to work on the Save the Neo Campaign 2005. I wanted to make shirts and a website, and have a benifit concert and a bunch of shit because, well he's a really good dog and it would pain me greatly if he had to die simply from lack of effort. We didn't really have time for that though, so instead my friend found a home for him in South Dakota, and we're going to meet Rob, the guy who's going to take him, halfway there tomorrow. Adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves not these things. I am glad however that we saved his life.
If you wish to be a part of the save the Neo effort donations are being accepted for gas money ect.. just let me know and I'll guide you through the proper donation chanels DecipherOne at hotmail
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| Tuesday is for Taco | 
Posted - 8/2/2005 11:39:46 PM | Not really much to report. I've finally managed to get back into working on C.F.L. after about a two week hiatus. With the new bus charter job I'm able to setup my own schedule, and as such, once I've gotten my head out of a certain orafice, I will be able to get a lot accomplished. I know that if I'm still going to get my 4E4 submission in, I'm going to have to buckle down these next few weeks and get that next version of C.F.L. out.
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| Enter August | 
Posted - 8/1/2005 7:57:27 PM | Living in Iowa, August is the time for hundreds of thousand of people to come from all over the world to the state fair grounds for the Iowa State Fair. This usually consists of countless vendors, farmer's, 4H Cluber's, many different musicians, food, and of course the heat. If you have time to waste come to Iowa, and see one of the largest spectacles of wasting time around. I personally don't like the fair, and this has nothing to do with anything really, but it's interesting that we can unite to eat giant chicken legs and ride rides, but we can't unite for things of importance unless pressed from some kind of influence. Oh well, I suppose I may actually go this year and eat a turkey leg, and have a five dollar beer.
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| Hell Yeah! | |
Posted - 7/27/2005 11:02:12 AM | Well, a week and a half later, I got the job. I start tomorrow and this is the most excited I've ever been about a job.
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| Summer time | |
Posted - 7/23/2005 8:38:30 PM | Well, it's been a while since I put anything in this journal. I really haven't had much to record lately I suppose. The charter job that I went for seems to be taking a vacation from hiring anyone. I've attempted repeatidly to contact the vice president, whom is the one in charge of hiring, and to no avail. No reply what so ever. I even mentioned that if I didn't get the position, that I would just be satisfied with a follow up phone interview. That seemed to get me no where as well. So, I am currently out of work, and am putting off getting a job for a couple of weeks to see if I can find one that is more suiting for my current situation. I haven't been freelancing at all either. To be honest, I've been selling xboxes and that's about it, which is fine for the time being, but I realize that I need a more steady base of income comming. Preferablly one that the IRS can keep track of so they know I'm paying my taxes.
Conquest For Love has suffered in development durring this time. I have not been around a computer in a week, and it's actually been kind of nice. This comming week it is time for full fledge assualt on finishing up the task list I was supposed to have completed almost two weeks ago.
So, to sum it all up, this last week has been spent talking and reflecting with various people on a path. It seems that there are a lot of people out there lost of all ages and such. I personally have goals, but it's more so the means to attain those goals that I have to concentrate on working on. In that respect, I find myself lost as well.
An ODE to Guinness :
Rich, thick, creamy, smooth, coat my sorrow and my mood.
Splendid, tastey, lots of fun, you know you are the only one.
Too much seems like not enough, drink it down inside the pub.
Remember you, I will, when you are gone, with my last two dollars plus forty more blown. Oh where oh where could my last Guinness be, wait, oh yeah.. I've got to pee.
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| The Waiting game. | |
Posted - 7/15/2005 12:22:12 PM | The interview went well. I was told that they will probably hire me, but they still have a couple of interviews left to do. So, now, I sit here and wait, and go back to working on some M.F.C. fundementals, and working on C.F.L. .
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