Breakout

The courses are going very well so far.

The Game Production course is very interesting and it's very good for me to know those things, even if I never get the chance to work in a game development company. It will contains information on how to run projects and handle people and many other things.

The XNA course is very fun. As a first test we got some instructions and graphics about an Aquarium Game. In it you could steer a shark that ate other fishes that appeared and moved randomly over the screen. It wasn't so difficult to do once I got the hang of how to organize the code.

We have to create a Breakout clone as a first hand in assignment I'm mostly done with it already even though we have another month to do it. The trickiest part was to figure out how the ball was supposed to bounce off the bricks. I finally got that working.

Beside the actual moving of the ball and paddle, I've also done:

• Created a menu system.
• Added music + some sound effects. www.SoundJay.com is a good source of free sound.
• Added functionality for reading the levels from a text-file.
• Added scores and lives.
• Worked on the graphics, but still need some time on that. Paint.Net is amazing!

It's not much left to do to meet the criterias for the game.

Now I also have to figure out what kind of game I want to do as a final hand in. It's a free assignment, but should include a menu, particle/fire effects, highscore and probably in 2D.

Courses

Have started two distance courses about game development.

Game Production which teaches how to handle a game development project. It describes the different roles and how to set up a successful project.

It looks very interesting so far.

Introduction to game programming in C# with XNA. This will teach me the basics of XNA. Even though I know most of it, it will be good both to have a grade and fill in any possible gaps I might have in the basic knowledge. It should be quite an easy course since half of it is also about learning C# which I've worked with for the past couple of years.

Another attempt

I'm back, and now I'm gonna give XNA another try. I will not do something as big as my last project, but do a smaller game to try and learn. That way I might actually finish it!

I don't have the idea what game I will do yet, but will post here as I get going.

Still here..

Haven't been active with the game for a while now. Mostly because I've started working again after the vacation, and haven't had as much time and energy on the evenings and weekends.
Hopefully that will change, because I really want to continue with the game!

Battle

Started working on the thing I've dreaded the most.. Battles! Made quite a bit, but I have no idea if all the parameters are working as expected. Also it probably needs a lot of tweaking to get the balance right. As I start I just wanted the battle loop to work and it seems to do that.
What I'm doing is to have all troops get a random initiative based on their speed. The higher the number the better. Then I loop through all and randomize a defender of the attacker. Then randomize values based on attack and defense. If attack is higher the defender is wounded.
Still have to add modifies for morale and battle orders.

Heroes

Started a bit on heroes. There's three different classes of heroes:

• Warrior
• Archer
• Magician

Heroes will have a rank which shows how good they are. Ranks varies from Unblooded to Legend.
When a hero gains experience they will raise in ranks and also gain new skills. Heroes can lead armies or perform quests.
It should be possible to gain heroes that are not just humans, but other mythical races too.

Cruelty

Been thinking some about the cruelty of the game. The viking age was a cruel place to live in, so the game should reflect that. Slaves were common in the viking countries and their masters could do anything to them without repercussions. They didn't hesitate to kill defenseless people or women and children either when needed. Of course some were more cruel than others. One way to put this into the game might be that the player can decide how cruel his armies are.
A cruel army affects the moral of opponents, but also makes trading more difficult.
Also, when brining in the fantasy element, a cruel army might be more approached by the giants and evil creatures, while a not so cruel army gets approached by good creatures.