Metal Glove Solid: Taking it to the Next Level

I thought it was about time I gave the game a bit of variety, and nothing shows variety than different coloured background images. Level 2 is now like a whole new game - to the people who put graphics above gameplay.

Actually though, I do intend for the levels to be different. The first level is a simple dungeon requiring keys to get through it. This second level is far more open-plan, meaning that enemies also have much more access to the players death-button.

I was reading a thread on FreeGameDev about another potential Gauntlet remake, and one comment caught my eye - "The game was quite fast paced. As long it is a bit fast and manic, we'll be on the right track." It's factors like that that make the difference between a good game and a great game, and it's a phase I call "gameplay tweaking", since that's what it is. I've still yet to do that with this game, but it can make all the difference between this being a plodding, tedious game and a fast-and-furious arcade monster.

Metal Glove Solid: A Policy of Constant Improvement

It's time to party like it's 1987! Where to start with the list of new features?

1. Back-ground graphics: The player is no longer walking on a void. And there doesn't seem to be any slowdown.
   
2. More enemies: Flayers to be exact (that's what the image file was called that I ripped them from). I might just call them zombies though.
3. Score - it keeps it, it starts at zero, and it goes up.
4. Different images depending on which direction a sprite is walking in - You'll have to take my word for this until I do some kind of video of the gameplay. But it is there, honest.
5. A GPL licence. Again, since I can't release it yet, you'll have to take my word for it, but I give you my cub-scouts honour that I svn-added that into my repository. And this time I didn't forget to commit.
   
6. A working exit. Unfortunately due to there being no second map, this does cause the game to crash.
   

Metal Glove Solid: The Key, The Secret

You would hardly recognise the game! There are now graphics for the ghost generators and the exit, and new graphics for the walls, and new gameplay features, namely keys and locked doors.

It's almost looking like a finished game, but there is still plenty of the donkey work to do, such as designing more maps and adding more gameplay elements, such as more types of enemies.

Metal Glove Solid: More Graphics

Flying in the face of possibly copyright lawsuits, I've added more ripped graphics to the game. In this case, it's the walls, but there is a flaw:

Since Wyvern (where I've got the graphics from) is obviously a better game that mine, it has different images for a wall depending on whether it's a corner section or a straight (amongst others), there is no actual image for a straight top-down wall. And since my game doesn't calculate what kind of section a wall, I'm going to have to think of something else.

Oh, and the other problem is that my "mapsquares" are bigger than those in Wyvern, meaning I'll need to stretch them as well. Why is ripping off other people's graphics never easy? I might as well have drawn them myself.

Metal Glove Solid: Looking better

Yes, your eyes do deceive you - there are in fact no original graphics in this screenshot. I'm no artist, and as many others find, getting graphics for a game takes longer than actually writing the thing. I've used the graphics from the excellent Wyvern game, which comes with sprites that are perfect for my Gauntlet clone.

Here you can see the warrior wondering what that ghostly noise is coming from the other side of the wall. The red square is an exit, which can only mean one thing - that there is another level, though in the interests of keeping the surprise, I won't reveal it yet.

I do have a conundrum with the graphics though: I'm guessing that it wouldn't be right for me to release it with them, as they are not mine. There is no kind of licence information included with Wyvern, so I think my only solution is to email the author and ask him politely.

Top Mud Sites? Bugger that

I run a mud based on GTA. I say "run", what I mean is I wrote it about 2 years ago and it's been sat running ever since and I've not even looked at it. It gets quite a few players though; back when I was promoting it, I registered it at a few of the Mud listing sites, one being "Top Mud Sites".

I'm now in the process of changing the URL. Since my DynDNS has stopped working, I'm moving over to No-IP. So I've just tried logging into the Top Mud Sites website to change the details. Oh, my login details don't work. Why not? Well, this is the FAQ section with the solution.

WTF? Bear in mind that, surprisingly, I'm not "familiar with the new TMS database", whatever that is. I've already got one full-time job and frankly I can't be bothered to go through that rigmarole, so the details are going to stay wrong.

(Contrast this with The MUD Connector, which took me about 2 minutes to update the details).

Guest Post: The Price of Games

This is a guest post by my other personality since I forgot to take my pills today.

The price of games - it's way too low! What? I'm not talking about the current crop of games, which compared to the prices of (good) games of yesteryear seem to be a bargain considering the amount of content you get with them.

No, I'm talking about old computer games from the 80's, and specifically old Spectrum games. I've got a fair few boxes of the things that I've bought from Ebay (obv) and I was hoping that the price of them might have increased slightly in order to make me very rich. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Even a bona-fide classic like Escape from Krakatoa (a game I can't believe hasn't been remade yet - I'm adding it to my list) is available for a paltry £1.50 from the Preservation Team Shop. As it is, it looks like it will only be my great-great-grandchildren who stand to benefit. Bloody scroungers!

Metal Glove Solid: Now with a map

No, your eyes do not deceive you, you really can see some bona-fide collision-detectable walls in the screenshot on the right. They are the two blue vertical lines.

But the fun doesn't stop there. You may have also noticed the small yellow square in mid-flight downwards towards the white square "ghosts". Yes indeed, that would be a bullet - I have also implemented shooting. I'm still debating whether to allow the player to fix the direction of shooting in a Llamatron kind of way, but I'll do that as part of the gameplay tweaking later when I determine the speed of all the movement.

Whenever writing games that involve some kind of "map" (i.e. most of them), there's always the perpetual problem of how to design it. I always like to get something up and running as quickly as possible, so instead of writing a custom mapping program, or implementing a way to "design-as-you-play", I simply use a spreadsheet program (OpenOffice of course). This is a picture of the map data for the dungeon shown in the screenshot:-

As you can see, by using colours it makes it far easier to see the layout of the map, and when saving it as a CSV file, all the colour is stripped from the file leaving a nice flat file of data for the import code to read. Designing the map couldn't be easier once all the different sections have been placed at least once; it's just a case of copying/pasting about, and then re-saving as a CSV.

Another bonus is that any hackers can edit the CSV files and make up their own maps very easily. My other games Laser Tactics and DangerMan (among others) use this method, though as of yet nobody has told me that they've been bothered.

Metal Glove Solid: Spooky!

Development is steamrolling along now, crushing all that dare to question my lack of motivation which typically aflicts my projects like a sudden freeze spell.

My Gauntlet remake now has monster generators (dark grey) and ghosts (white). The screenshot below shows a game in progress, as a terrified purple warrior (fnar) runs around in circles awaiting a programmer to implement a "shoot" feature so that he can destroy the ghosts that are hurtling towards him.



Next on my ever-expanding todo list is to make up some proper maps. I've been thinking about the kinds of maps I'll have, in order to make things interesting; probably an open area (forest?), and long trek (like Level 2 on the original game) and a maze. Other suggestions on an epostcard please.

Metal Glove Solid

I've decided to do another remake! "Pray tell!", I hear you say. "What game have you decided to direct your God-like programming skills at this time?". Well, the following screenshot should make it pretty obvious:-


Okay then, maybe not. Here's a few other hints: it's a top-down view; the blue square is a wall, and the white square is either a warrior, wizard, elf or valkyrie.

You should have got it by now. Yes, it's going to be a Gauntlet remake!

In order to get something up-and-running as quickly as possible, I've forgone graphics for the time being. Despite it not looking like much, the white square can be controlled in 4 (count 'em!) directions, and all the sprites have collision detection. I've developed a way to have as many sprites as possible on screen (and across the whole dungeon) without slowing down the collision detection or the frame-rate. It works with just two (as proved by the screenshot), so I don't see how it can fail with 200 or more. I may patent it, so details cannot be revealed just yet.

Next step: Ghosts (or grey squares).

Microsoft Helpline?

Sorry, this post falls under the category of "rant" rather than "games".

When you buy a washing machine (or pretty much any kind of consumer-electronics item) there is usually a telephone number you can call if you have any problems, at no extra cost over and above the cost of the item itself.

So why doesn't a company as rich as Microsoft have a number you can call if you have a problem with Microsoft software? Okay, they have far more customers than, say, Hotpoint, but equally that means they much more profit from all of those customers and could afford to man a helpline.

The reason why a number like that would have proved useful was when I was trying to install SQL 2005 onto Windows Web Server 2008. The option to install anything apart from the "client modules" was greyed out. It turns out after to-ing and fro-ing emails that it's not compatible (after initially being told the opposite).

What? Microsoft can't even write an operating system that is compatible with a program as common as SQL 2005? Yes. Who would have thought that someone wanting to run a website might want to run SQL 2005?

The solution, once I knew the problem, was simple. Install MySQL. They (along with most other people) can write software that works on more version of Windows than Microsoft can.

Why No Open-Source Adventures?

I've seen it commented before, and I've had a good look myself, but there seems to be a distinct lack of open-source free adventure games. However, it seems to me that reason is obvious - there's not much fun in writing them.

The fun of playing an adventure is wondering what's going to happen next; where the story is going, what you might see. But as the programmer, there are no surprises because you actually have to create it (and test it, again and again). As the programmer, you are the one person who can never appreciate the adventure for what it is, so it would be quite a sacrifice of your time to actually write one.

Still, I did finds this link to free adventures. I've never played them though, so I don't know if they're any good.

Announcing: Space Jihad

In between planning epic strategy roleplaying adventures that I'll have trouble completing in my lifetime, I like to knock up a quick and simple arcade game, and I now present another one.

Called Space Jihad, it's barely got a pixel of originality in it, so hopefully you won't have played any similar games before. It's like Tower Defence, but side-on. And IMHO it's quite fun to play.

I spent more time fine-tuning the game balance than actually programming it, and there is a lot more strategy to it than may meet the eye. Strategies like what kind of installation to buy and when, and then where to place it; all of these play a part.

And as with a lot of my other games, if you log in to the website before you play, it will save and show your high-score for the rest of the world to try and beat!

Games Should be Fun - All the Time

I was playing Resident Evil 4 on the PS2 last night. It's a very graphically impressive game. However, it does have a major flaw (which it shares with most other games) - it's not always fun to play.

[Spoiler warning] If anyone out there has RE4, it's the bit where you have to fight the first giant/ogre thing (see right). It's one of those boss battles where you have to guess where the weak spot is, and also what else you have to do. If you don't work it out, you'll be stuck on the level forever, and the only way I can see of working it out is to spend a whole day on it, or look on the internet. In this case, you have to shoot it in the head until something bursts out of it's neck, and then run up to it and jump onto its back and stab this thing. You have to do this 3 times as well, so hopefully you won't run out of ammo.

The problem with the bit in question, as well as getting a bit tedious, was that it is preceeded by a 30-second movie clip that you can't skip through. Every time you die, you have to run back to the same point in the game, and then sit through the same clip again. Why do companies think that we want to watch the same clip over and over again? To massage their ego?

The various GTA (and a lot of other) games suffer from this problem as well. If you fail at a mission for example, you then have to go through the build-up to the mission all over again (reloading the game, running to that area of the map to get the mission, run to the area of the map where the mission takes place etc..). This wouldn't be a problem if these bits of the game were fun, but running across a map is rarely fun, especially the second (or third...) time round.

The bottom line is games should be fun. All the time.

Laser Tactics - CPU v CPU

One of the best ways of testing your AI is to get it to play against itself. Often this isn't possible as most computer AI is very simplistic, involving standing still and shooting at the player, or following a set route and waiting for the player to trigger some change.

However, the AI in Laser Tactics is quite advanced (IMHO), and there is AI available for both sides in nearly all the various missions and objectives. So I quickly added the code so it's possible to select AI for both sides (previously you could only choose it for one side). The game also has a "Ghost" mode, which allows a player to view the game through the eyes of a unit that is CPU-controlled.

Once I'd set all this up, it's actually great fun watching the computer play against itself, especially when the missions actually have objectives (meaning it's not just a case of watching the units wander around shooting on-sight). And of course, it's ideal for checking that the AI works well and doesn't have any of the usual problems that AI suffers from (like get stuck in a loop or end up wandering in the wrong direction). Add to this the "randomly-generated map" option and it almost feels like I'm watching two humans battle each other. Place your bets now!

Blindingly Obvious Java Tips #2

Todays tip is all about getting your game to run at a consistent speed. You may not think it a problem on your new game, since you probably crammed in enough features to keep the CPU busy for just the right amount of time, but once you try and run it on a Cray (since surely that must have a JVM??) you may find it slightly unplayable.

So, to stop it running too fast: First, define a variable of type "long" at the start of your program for how long you would like the program to take over each game loop. In the example below, I've chosen the name "LOOP_DELAY" for this var, and I usually give it a value of around 25. You'll probably want to tweak this amount. Also, declare another long called "start_time".

Anyway, at the start of your "game loop", write something like:-

start_time = System.getCurrentTimeMillis();

This will store the current time when the computer started the game loop. Finally, at the end of your game loop, write something like:-

long wait = LOOP_DELAY - System.currentTimeMillis() + start_time;
Thread.sleep(wait);

(You'll need to wrap this in a try/catch BTW). This bit of code will make the program pause for a certain amount of time at the end of each game loop, that time being the number of milliseconds you wanted it to take over each game loop, minus the amount of time it took to actually process the code in your game loop. This will cause each game loop to take a consistent amount of time, assuming that the time it takes to process the code in the game loop isn't longer than the time you want it to wait for!

Announcing Laser Tactics!

If you've read one of my earlier article, you'll know that I've decided to "re-released" Nuclear Graveyard under a new name - "Laser Tactics" (kindly suggested by Charlie). And now I've finally got round to it. I've given it a few more tweaks, and I'm pretty pleased with it all. I've taken a few more screenshots to celebrate, which I'll be sticking on the website as soon as I can.

The only problem with it is that it's not an FPS, and it's not turn-based, and most people expect a game like this to be either one or the other. If anybody reading this decides to give it a go, please bear this in mind: Your unit's APs are replenished in realtime!

Blindingly Obvious Java Programming Tips #1

(This is number #1 in my intended series of Programming tips for Java. They are probably blindingly obvious to most people, but they have passed me by until recently, and it doesn't do any harm to mention them in case anyone else has missed them to).


Daemons

Todays tip is all about setting threads as "Daemons".

I used to have a problem in my games that used multiple threads, in that it was very hard to get them to actually end. Even when all the windows were closed, there was still a process running in the background. I usually fixed this by adding a "System.exit(0);" to the code when I wanted it all to end, but this is certainly not the best way to go about it.

A Java program ends when there are only "daemon" threads running. This means, in short, that any thread which isn't what you would call the "main program thread" should be marked as a daemon so that it ends when the main program thread ends. This is simply a case of writing "mythread.setDaemon(true);". Incidentally, threads are not daemons by default.

Programming Affects the Mind

I've long suspected that spending too long programming affects the way the mind works, and I've finally come across a quite-good example:-

My wife innocently asked me if our car boot was locked. Being a programmer, where accuracy and logic is paramount, my mind was instantly plunged into a spagetti of possible answers and their respective problems.

Our car's boot (trunk for Americans) can only be opened with a key or by using the lever by the side of the drivers seat. There is no button on the boot to open it if the car is unlocked, which it was. So was the boot actually unlocked? One possible answer is "no", since it couldn't be any more unlocked than it was. However, giving this answer implies that it was possible for her to go out and open the boot, but I'm not sure she knows about the lever (since she's not a driver) and she doesn't have a key, this wouldn't work. So is the answer "yes it is locked", since the boot cannot be opened directly? But this can't be correct, since it is openable without a key, which is presumably the definition of "locked". Is the correct answer "sort of"? No, not if you want to be helpful. Is the correct response to explain how the various boot locking mechanisms work or describe where the lever is? Probably not, since it would take too long.

In the end I just ummed and ahh'd and said I'd open it for her.

The Problem with RTSs

One problem is knowing whether to put an apostophe in the word "RTS's". However, the other problem I have with them is always feeling that it's pointless trying different actions; either they won't make any difference, or it's all down to chance anyway.

I really want to enjoy RTS's, ever since I played what I think is the very first one: Stonkers (not Dune II!). I've not played many of the later ones, but I've played C&C, StarCraft, Age of Mythology, and quite a few free ones, and even written my own.

The typical scenario goes like this: I select a group of units, move them towards the enemy, and err, repeat. All I can do now is watch them do battle. Maybe my units will win, maybe they won't. Should I try some newfangle tactics? Does it make any difference if I have some units on the left side of the enemy and some on the right side? Or maybe I should build a tank instead of two foot-soldiers? Is it better to have a tank than two footsoldiers? I don't know. All I know is the units keep shooting at the enemy and eventually some of them die. The tank is more powerful but has a slower shot rate, but I can't be bothered to check the "stats" to see if the more powerful gun with a slower shot rate is better than two weak guns with a faster shot rate.

I might be fighting another small skirmish in another part of the map while this is going on. When I go back to the original skirmish, some of my units have survived and the enemy seems to be dead. Or did they retreat? And if they did, how much damage was inflicted? Who knows. I'm no closer to knowing what the best tactics are, or if it makes any difference.

So by now I've lost interest and decided to play an FPS or something.

Name of the Game

I've been toying with the idea of changing the name of my game Nuclear Graveyard (again), since it has nothing to do with anything nuclear, and even less to do with graveyards. The reason I chose it was because I got a DynDns domain name, and I chose "ng" as the prefix to the standard domain "game-host.org". I chose NG as I was thinking of the phrase "network game", since at the time I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do with it! I then decided to give my new (at the time) game the initials "NG", and the rest is history.

I have toyed with the idea of giving it the ridiculous name "Space Nazis", just to see if it would perk up interest. However, this would be misleading as most people would expect some wacky platformer or something, whereas Nuclear Graveyard is a 3D multi-player "serious" strategy FPS game.

I might just change it back to its original name "Laser Squad 3D", since that sums it up perfectly if you remember the original Laser Squad game. I think it's a bit of a cliche to add "3D" to the end of a game's name though, which is why I changed it in the first place.

So, watch this space...

A* Algorythm in Java - Download

I wrote this code a while ago, and I've finally got round to putting it here for public use. It's the A* path-finding algorythm, nicely self contained and ready for use. It can run in a thread if required, and to use it, you can simply write:-

AStar my_astar = new AStar(mymapclass);
WayPoints route = my_astar.findpath(start_x, start_y, end_x, end_y, b_run_in_thread);

Your mymapclass must implement the IAStarMapInterface (included), which has 3 methods: getWidth(), getHeight() and isTraversable(). This tells the algorythm where it can and can't go. The class WayPoints is just an ArrayList of Points, giving the route.

I've used this code in all of my games (that require pathfinding) like Nuclear Graveyard and TremulousHulk.

(For those not in the know, the A* algorythm basically finds the closest path from one co-ordinate to another, taking into account blocked points.)

Tiny Web Server

There seems to be a durge (if that's the right word) of web servers called "Tiny Web Server", all vying to be the smallest web server. And now there's another one! I don't think it's the smallest, but it is a full web server for delivering static pages and documents.

It's written in Java, and the source comes to 23K. It should be pretty easy to extend to make it write dynamic web pages, so it should be ideal for starting your own web server project, or just giving you an idea of how web servers work. Or how not to write code. Take your pick.

It's available via SVN here. (That's svn://www.onlinegameplanner.co.uk/TinyWebServer).

Originality is a Curse

...That's probably why most games companies still churn out mostly FPS's and endless sequels to those FPS's.

I've written a game called Nuclear Graveyard which (IMHO) has a bit of originality: it's what I call pseudo-realtime. This means that rather than be proper realtime, it uses action points (e.g. walking forwards costs 1AP) but unlike most games that use APs, the player's APs are replenished automatically as both sides use them up.



Unfortunately, when most people play it, they don't seem to read the instructions, and assume that it's either a normal FPS ("why can't I move?") or a normal turn-based game ("How do I end my turn?"). I can't blame people for not reading instructions - who does? - but I've tried my best to make it self-explanatory, and included a tutorial, but to no avail. What do I do?

Multiple Platforms, Multiple Databases

SQL Enterprise Manager (or SQL Server Studio, as M$ like to keep changing the name) isn't a bad program, but obviously it only works with MS SQL, and only on Windows. Since I use MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and MS SQL on Windows and Linux, I've been looking for a single program that can handle all of these databases, and I've found one: Aqua Data Studio.

It's written in Java (though there are other versions available) so it runs on Windows and Linux, and it easily connects to almost every kind of database, allowing you to do all the impotant things that SQL Server Studio does, like view the tables, edit the data, run queries etc...

I'm not affiliated with Aqua Fold in any way, but I thought I'd mention a program that is really useful and pretty good. It's free for personal use as well.

Domain Name Front Running

I wondered if any companies do this (i.e. you search for a domain with the intention of buying it, and the company that you use to search for it buys it up, knowing that you want it). And yes! Of course it happens...

My New Language

I have finally abandoned my attempt at a new Lisp-like language. I don't think I realised how hard it would be. Converting a text file of my new language into an AST (an active syntax tree) was the easy part. The hard part was storing variables (globals v locals, scope, identically named vars overriding each other, etc...) and calling functions (i.e. replacing the params in the function) among other things.

I should have planned it all better as I was also going round in circles with my language definition: I was changing it to fit one circumstance, but then forgetting why I'd done that, and then I'd change it back again to fit the original circumstance.

However, the final nail in the coffin was my thought "what am I going to do with it when I've finished?" It obviously had no IDE, barely any libraries, no debugging facilities, probably lots of bugs, and probably lots of flaws in the design. Why would I, never mind anyone else, choose to use it when there's plenty of other better languages out there?

Still, it's given me a new insight into how languages (might) work, and hopefully made me a better programmer. Now onto my next project: a mega-multithreaded program, where every little aspect has it's own thread. It's how the human body (i.e. cells) work (I think) so it must be a step in the right direction. And with all this talk of parallel programming, it can't do any harm for me to fail at that as well.

Don't Buy Western Digital Hard Drives

More political posting I'm afraid...

Anyway, to get straight to the point, Western Digital HD's are crippled with DRM to prevent files with certain media extentions (e.g. AVI, MP3) from being shared across network drives. Even if they are your own creation! And the name of the software that does this? "WD Anywhere Access". You couldn't make it up!

My Programming Adventure - Is the journey nearly over?

I've alluded before to the fact that I sometimes think of my time spent programming as an adventure, looking for the reason why I program and what I hope to achieve. (I'm talking about my hobby programming of course - I do my profesional programming to pay the bills).

Several times I've been in the middle of writing one of my games, and suddently realised I'm not actually enjoying writing it. Or I've finished a game and realised it's not that much fun to play, or I think it is but the ROTW disagrees.

However, I have now found my holy grail. I've written a small, simple and (AFAIK) original puzzler called Chain Reaction. It's pretty addictive, but what has caused it to really take of here where I work is the high score table. People are falling over themselves to try and beat each other, and I'm loving the fact the people are telling me they hate the game because they're spending too much time playing it but they can't stop! I may be egotistical, but I think it's the kind of praise and recognition I've been looking for all these years.

New Language Update

Here's a tip for anyone who's thinking about writing their own language - plan it first. I know I should have. I've got a reasonable understanding of how Lisp works (i.e. evaluate everything inside the brackets recursively, and then process it) but I made some silly mistakes...

..Like evaluating the brackets each time I read them. For example, the program:-

(defvar lst (quote 1 2 3) ; <- "lst" now contains (1 2 3), correct.
(print (lst)) ; Error! I've processed "lst", but the function "1" (i.e. the first item in the list) is (obviously) unknown!

This is just one example. I'm going to start again. I've learnt a lot from my mistakes though, and my aim is to have a language with the best Lisp features like Macros, but more practical with simple functions to connect to databases etc...

My New Programming Language - "Harry".

Being a programmer who has no fear of programming a disaster, I've decided to write my own programming language.

"Madman!" I hear you cry, but no, seriously. And on the face of it, it's not that difficult. On the face of it, it's just a case of reading a text file and turning that into "symbols", which your interpreter/compiler converts into something existing, whether it's Bytecodes or good old machine code.

My language is called "Harry", and is similar to Lisp, since everyone seems to rave about it, and I've been quite impressed with it. However, there are a few (minor) problems with Lisp, which no doubt people will take me to task for. Here's my : it's not standard enough (there seem to be lots of variants), and it's not very practical (in order to do something like graphics or databases, you need to find libraries).

I've written the interpreter in Java for platform-independence. It's still in the development stage, so no download yet. The current problem I've got is functions and the variables contained within. What happens if a function names a variable with the same name as a global variable? And scope is a problem, i.e. "unsetting" the variable once the function has finished, so the global var becomes available. But what if the function calls another function? And recursion? And what about if a parameter to the function has the same name as a variable?

Anyway, to whet your appetite, here's an example of the code (which should be self-explanatory):

; Add, eq, print
(print (eq 2 (+ 1 1))) ; returns 1

; Set
(set lst (quote 1 2 3))

;quote, contains, if, return
(print (if (contains 2 lst)(ret true)(ret false))) ; prints "True";

Why Are Named Parameters Rare?

One of the things that seems common to most languages, even the supposedly better new ones, is the lack of "named parameters". Surely it must have come to the attention of most language designers that having a line like the following is ridiculous:-

// Do some stuff
int x = MyFunction(true, false, true, true);

Okay, it's probably bad programming practise to have something like this, but even a simpler line with just one boolean would be bad. What on earth does each parameter mean? The only way of finding out is to query the underlying function's code, but that defeats the object of having well named functions. I'm still surprised that having named parameters isn't in most modern languages. How much better is the next line:=

int x = MyFunction(foo:true, bar:false);

Here you can see, without having to browse the underlying function, what each parameter means. Okay, this is nothing earth-shattering that will lead to perfect code, but it has to be a step in the right direction.

Eclipse and Subversion (Subclipse)

I've blogged before about using Subversion and Eclipse - if you haven't installed Subclipse then don't do it! However, I've discovered another problem and solution to Subclipse...

Even when Subclipse is installed, if you have seperate src and bin directories, the bin directory can confuse Subclipse, since Eclipse likes to effectively delete it and recreate it with each build. The solution to this (apart from adding the bin directory to your ignore list) is to not "Scrub output Folder when cleaning projects".

New Game - Chain Reaction

And this time it's original! I knocked it up in Java over about a day (though most of that was trying to work out how to turn "bouncing balls into each other" into something resembling a game).


It's called Chain Reaction. Basically, you have to bounce a certain number of balls into each other. The page (just like all my other applets) keeps track of your scores in a global high-score table, which I think greatly improves the competitiveness. And it's pretty addicitve (and hard) to boot!

I Bought a Domain!

I've finally bitten the bullet and bought a domain - http://www.onlinegameplanner.co.uk/. My original "default" domain was "ng.game-host.org", which doesn't really roll off the tongue quite as well, and bears no meaning to the content of the website.

New Project

It's called Survival (at the moment).


[Added 19/11/07] A few other details since the original post was so sparse: it's written in Java and uses jMonkeyEngine to do the 3D.

BBC & Microsoft

(This blog is getting a bit political, I know). What happens when an ex-Microsoft employee starts working for the BBC? They develop a Windows-only iPlayer and claim that only 400-600 Linux users visit the BBC site, before hastily correcting themselves after getting it 16,000% wrong.

Software Exams! Grr!!

One thing that annoys me a lot are "software exams", where you can become a certified drone of the particular software company, typically Sage or Microsoft. They are a two-pronged attack by the software company on free software, gaining them money (because you have to pay to take their exam) and locks you into their software, since you are more likely to stay with software that you have spent money and time learning.

But they also have ridiculous questions! One of the Sage exams has the question "What is the maximum number of lines you can have on an invoice?" What?? So Sage has decided (either due to their inability to write software that allows as many invoice lines as possible, or their marketing dept. decided that it looked good in a brochure) that you can only have 99 lines on an invoice. And people have to memorise this (and a myriad of other completely pointless facts) in order to pass an exam.

Excuse me if I'm not impressed with anyone who's been stupid enough to take this exam.

Off Lisp

I don't see why Lisp is so great. I wrote a "random movie star selector", and it came up with Tom Cruise.

Shadowfire Remake

Shadowfire is a classic Spectrum game from 1985, and I'm always surprised that no-one has remade this, since it seems perfect to me. The original game had some great ideas, plot and gameplay, but was limited by the platform. Some modern graphics would enhance it no end.

So I've taken it upon myself to do the remake, which is located here.



I've given it an RTS-style interface. It's still unfinished; at the moment you can walk around, teleport your team in, and shoot the enemies. It currently uses sprites from the original game, which weren't designed to be used in a top-down game, so if anyone could provide me with new sprites that would be good. I've got the code to rotate them to all 8 directions, so you only need to draw one copy of each!

Java Threads

Unfortunately, one of the (few :) ) drawbacks of Java applets is that in order to have a consistent game loop, you need to run the main game code in another thread. (I may be wrong here; please let me know if I am). I've blogged before about why threads in any language are a pain as they exponentially complicate a program, not least because variables can change mid-line.

Another problem that I always forget, is that in Java, threads don't access another threads data directly (unless you use the volatile keyword). Forgetting this caused me several hours of frustration and I even wrote my own ArrayList class to try and fix it. Basically, the code in my thread's run() function was accessing the class-level arraylist. But completely failing to affect it! It was calling "arraylist.remove(13)" (say), but after it had run, that object still existed in the list! What was going wrong?!?

Well, I've already said the answer. It was accessing a copy of the arraylist, not the list itself. As soon as I discovered and fixed this, all was well and I could go back to enjoying writing applets again.

An RTS that I intend to be a 2D version of World in Conflict

I mentioned this a while back, and against my own advice I've come back to it. Actually, I've already written most of the difficult framework stuff of selecting units, moving them around, A* pathfinding stuff etc.., and just have the fun of adding a proper "game" and features (- classic assumption by programmers that the final stuff is fun/easy). The screenshot is below, and the game itself is here (or it will be by this evening).

I've nicked the graphics from Advance Wars, and although I've never played World in Conflict, I always think it's a good idea to try and copy a game, as it gives you (me) inspiration and something to aspire to. And if I do anything differently, then great, it makes my game slightly more original!

I used to do this a lot back in my Spectrum BASIC programming days - I've written versions of Carrier Command and Populous, among other games, in BASIC using UDG's (remember those?). It used to be pretty easy. Looked awful, mind.

Games Blamed for Society's Problems (again)

People have really got it in for games today!

* Manhunt 2 has been banned (for the second time). (Notice that despite the headline and parent's insistence, police said there was no evidence his killer was inspired by the first game). The Government has decreed that I can watch films like Saw and Hostel, but I am not allowed to play Manhunt 2.

* A Games violence study is launched. Despite the fact that there are far more violent films, books, comics etc., it seems that games are the favourite target for blaming as the cause of crimes and bad behaviour. Didn't we have crime before games started getting "realistic"?

Ignoring my own Advice

After deciding to stop writing overly complex games that take up too much of my time and I end up abandoning before I finish them, I suddenly found myself writing an RTS that I intended to be a 2D version of World in Conflict! Arrg! Note to self: Stop!!

To compensate, I decided to write my own version of the highly addictive game Gimme Some Friction. It took me about two hours, and the results are playable here straight away thanks to applet-technology.

Phew! A finished game that's fun! Whatever next? An original game? We'll see...

Tremulous Hulk

In my effort to single-handidly save Applets from obscurity, I have just finished the first working version of my new RTS applet, called Tremulous Hulk (because I intend it to become like a 2D Tremulous, but have ripped Space Hulk sprites).


It's very basic at the moment, but in true open-source fashion, I have big plans, culminating in something that will take on World of Warcraft for player-base size.

Online Game Scheduler

As an exercise in seeing if I could do it, I decided to write a web server several months ago. HTTP seems pretty straight forward in principle, but programming it can get bogged down if you accidentally send too many CR's and/or LF's. Also, closing connections is a problem, since clients like IE and FF often don't bother.

However, it now seems to be working, and I can officially announce what I think is a website with an original idea!

I've called it NewGame, and it's an "online game scheduling service". Basically, users select which online games they play. Then, when one user schedules an online game, all the other users who have selected that game will automatically receive an email telling them to date, time, and server.

I thought of this because a common problem with online games, especially new ones and the less well known ones, is that they are often bare of human players. Online games are brought alive by other players being there at the same time, and hopefully my solution will help this to occur.

As well as that, in order to give the site more content, it also has the latest gaming news headlines courtesy of a randomly selected news site. There are also forums for each game, and in a nod to free games, they are highlighted as such, so players can download and play them straight away. And finally, it's going to be the platform for my latest foray into bringing applets back from the brink of extinction!

Game Instructions Please?

I don't spend all of what little spare time I have on programming. Sometimes I even get to play some games. With this thought in mind, I decided to look through the Ubuntu games repository and see what strategy games were there.

I came across Boson, which I'd given a few seconds of my time to before. After installing it (which, thanks to Synaptec, is so easy anyone can do it blindfold) I started the game.

This is where the problems hit, and this is why I only gave it a few seconds last time. Visually, the game is great; I could only dream of one of my games looking this good. But how do you play it? My first (and probably only) port of call was the website.

Unfortunately, on the website:-

• There is no link that give the smallest clue that it might lead to some instructions.
• The link to the FAQ doesn't work.
• There is a wiki, but that looks like it's purely for the development team. Nothing to do with actually playing the game.
• Under "Contact us", there are only links to forums and mailing lists and an IRC channel. Sorry, but I haven't got time for any of those. I either want an answer now (or an emailed reply), or I'm just going to play another game, and there are plenty out there. I was going to email them to tell them that the FAQ link doesn't work.

It's a pity really. Like I said, it looks like a really good game, but they are shooting themselves in the foot by not telling anyone how to play it.

Applets Update

An addendum to my previous post: there is one drawback to applets, and it is that no-one takes them seriously, even when they are good.

Even the forums of the excellent Freegamer blog lumps them in the category "Proprietary & Web Games" (with the subtitle "Just in case you really have to talk about them... "!?).
Maybe the problem is that there's so many rubbish games out there? Do a simple search, and you'll probably come across a million versions of Sudoku, and applets that were written back in 1995. However, there are plenty of good games out there.

Maybe what the genre needs is something like Freegamer, but dedicated to online games, to sort the wheat from the chaff. Hmmm...

Applets Are Dead! (again)

Every time the subject of applets comes up, people insist they are dead. Why don't people like them? In one of Joel's latest postings, he mentions applets being dead because they are slow (despite the fact that the thrust of his post - that you shouldn't bother to optimise, but rather wait for technology to catch up - contradicts this).

I think people misunderstand applets. They were not designed to provide banner ads or simple flashy icons. We've got Flash for that (which is why I have FlashBlock installed). Applets are designed for full applications and games that are comparable to any shrink-wrapped software. And if you do compare them to "normal" software, they come out favourably.

The beauty of applets is that you don't need to install anything, but you've got a feature-rich application, or in-depth game, sat there straight away ready for use. And applets are far from dead - there are tons of them out there, and for the time being it's going to be my platform of choice.

Revelation And/Or Epiphany

I feel like I've had an epiphany. I was at a low, and now I've seen the light.

I'd spent an hour or so on one of my games (Passenger) trying to optimise the map so that if there were (say) four mapsquares next to each other, all of the same type, it just drew one big square. For various reasons it was taking far longer than I expected. (This is always bad news - one thing I've found guaranteed to get me annoyed is when a task takes much longer than anticipated. That's why I now always assume everything is going to take ages).

Anyway, I suddenly thought: "Why am I spending my time doing this? Writing open-source games? I'm not actually enjoying it, I don't get paid, and (to be brutally honest with myself) I don't even play my own games myself, and I don't think anyone else does."

Basically I'd just become fed up with fiddling around with games, trying to fix bugs, optimise graphics etc. etc. The best part of writing a game is before you start, when you have a blank canvas in front of you, and an image in your mind of how amazing the game is going to be. Once reality sets it, it all comes crashing down after you've spent several hours (or days, or weeks) of your time. Even if a game is finished, then what? There are a million games out there all vying for attention. Why should players spend any time on mine, when it's obvious to anyone that there are better games out there?

Anyway, after a few days of thinking about it, I have come to a solution - Casual Gaming(tm)! Casual Games are much easier to write, and also it means I can play against my colleagues at work, and gain instance gratification to know that the game has brightened up their lives.

My first casual game was (another) version of Tower Defence (yes, not very original). It only took about 3 hours to write, and being a Java applet, it means it's very accessible. In fact, you can play it here. (You do need to log into the website I'm afraid though, but I may change that).

Programming "casual games" means that I can spend far more time designed and tweaking the games and far less time on boilerplate programming and sorting out bugs. And get back to enjoying writing games.

Common Game-Programming Mistakes #34 & #35

* When looping through the sprites in your game to check for collisions against each other, you check a sprite for collision against itself, which is why the sprite always collides with something immediately.

* Also, forgetting to implement special code to ensure that two sprites that shouldn't collide, don't. Typically, when a sprite shoots a bullet, the bullet will start on top of the shooting sprite, causing a collision immediately when the bullet is fired.

Sun is Java's Worst Enemy

I'm a programmer, and I've been programming professionally for 12 years, 8 of those using Java. But even I find it hard and confusing to download Java! So how's a layman supposed to do it, if all they want to do is play a game that requires Java?

I'm trying to download it to a PC now. Here's the steps I take (bear in mind I'm impersonating a layman here):-

* First I type in "Java" into Google. Oh good, the first result is a link to java.com.
* At java.com, there's a nice big link saying "Free Java Download". I click on it.
* Oh, this page says it's for Firefox/Mozilla. I don't want any kind of browser plugin, I want to be able to run programs on the desktop!
* Oh, there doesn't seem to be any other download link, apart from a small one at the top of the page, and that only takes me to the same "browser plugin" page.

* Let's try java.sun.com. There's a link to Java SE in the "Popular Downloads" list.
* What's with all the JDK's? I just want the runtime? (Though, being a layman, I have no idea what JDK, JRE, or "runtime" mean anyway).
* Aha, I've found a link to "Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 Update 2". Update? I haven't even got Java to be able to update it? Does it contain Java and the update? If so, do I still need "Update 1"? Who knows. I'll download it anyway. What hell, I've spent too long already.
* The download page has two links for Windows; one "online" and one "offline". I'll choose the "online" download, as it's only ~400Kb. There seems to be a tickbox to the left of it. Do I tick this? No, I'll just click on the link.
* Oh, I need to accept the licence agreement. Okay, done. Now I click on the link again.

You get the idea. By now of course, the user would have just gone onto something else that doesn't involve Java.

Overcoming Lack of Talent

Writing games while having no graphical talent, as I do, is a constant struggle of imagination vs reality. In my head I have ideas for great arcade adventures with whizz-bang graphics. Then I come back down to earth and remmeber that I can't draw a matchstick man without it looking like it has a limp. And it's always been the same even when I used to write stuff on the Spectrum (though in those days people's expectations were lower as the competition wasn't up to much either). Nowadays, when I see some of the amazing free (and amazingly-free) games, my heart sinks as I realise that I'll never be able to produce something just as good.

But with every problem comes and opportunity, and I've thought of a way I can get round my pseudo-disability, and that's to concentrate on the one advantage I do have - not sucking at programming (I think).

To cut a long story short, I'm going to design and animate 3D models using programming, in ways that would (I think) prove hard to do using a 3D modelling package.

And this is my very first attempt after about an hour of prog'ing away:-



Okay, so they look like Space Invaders that have learnt to walk, but it's my first attempt, and should go someway to showing what I want to achieve.

A word from our sponsers

Gameplay Vids

I finally got round to creating some gameplay vids. Having these is an excellent idea (and I'm probably the last person to latch onto this) as it gives people an idea of how the game works. My first candidate for this is Nuclear Graveyard, as I think it's complexity puts a lot of people off playing it.

Here's a [very small] video from The Assassins mission, just as da boyz are about to burst into the house. It's only 30 secs.



On a slightly less happy note, development was stalled today because I made the mistake of installing Oracle's client software, which in turn installed no less than 3 (count'em!) seperate Java Runtime Environments (?), all of which were version 1.4 or less, and all meaning that most of my Java software suddenly didn't work. It only wasted about an hour of my time in working out the problem and solving it. So thanks a lot, Oracle - not! I spend a lot of my time disliking Microsoft, but it seems to me that most software companies are just as evil, but on a smaller scale.

Note To Self: Playtest!

I have a very short interest span in games, and especially short for my own games. This is my excuse for poor/zero playtesting.

I just move onto a project I started a while back called DangerMan ( a platformer with weapons) since I've got bored of my latest project (though I will return to it eventually). And what a pile of bugs I found after only playing for only a few minutes!

Here are a few highlights:-

* If you shoot a rocket, you die straight away as it explodes immediately.

* Even when I got the rocket working, it destroys the scenery, but still draws it, because everything was being drawn twice in two different ways.

* The menu system gets confused with itself and you have to restart the program after a couple of goes.

* There was no mechanism for actually finishing a level (that I could tell).

I pity anyone who downloaded this game! It was completely unplayable, though it was at version 0.13 or something. I have now corrected these bugs and released a new version.

This leads me to my next thought - what's the point of releasing a game until it's finished? I suppose the source code is there for other people to examine/use, but if it's unfinished, why would they want to?

Threads - Don't Do It!

Here's a warning to anyone who's thinking of using threads - don't bother. Even if you've used them before, I think it serves well to be reminded (me included) that they should be avoided at all costs. Why? Because they make things exponentially more complicated!

Programming is complicated enough, trying to write a block of code that has zero bugs and defects. But what about if the variables you are using could change in mid-line? Or objects that you thought existed because you checked in the previous line now don't exist in the next line?

My multi-player games use at least two running threads; one is the main game loop, and another is the thread that waits for connections from players. This can cause problems in itself - the main game loop obviously loops through the players collection to send them data (and other stuff), but a player can join the game regardless of what stage the main game loop is at. So problems exist in that the main game loop could send all the players the current (say) ammo levels, but if a player had only just joined, they hadn't even been told that a particular unit exists in order to have a gun to contain the ammo!

Unfortunately, the keyboard input is also a seperate thread (as is the norm with Java), and until I corrected it, I was performing IO operations inside the KeyPressed() method. So the client software code could be halfway through sending the unit's location, when the player decide to press space to shoot, and suddenly a stream of bytes representing the "Shoot" command comes steaming through, completely confusing the server. The synchronised keyword fixed this problem of course.

This is just a few minor examples of threading problems. The irony is, that on the face of it threads seem like a great idea - like lots of little programs all doing their own thing. Unfortunately, it's when they have to interact with each other, which they always have to at some time, that problems start.

Interesting Enemies

I was watching Gamer TV the other day, killing 5 minutes and keeping up with the latest development in non-Free games department, and I saw a video of the new game BioShock. And I wasn't that impressed. It was only a quick video, and I was only glancing it at, but it gave me an insight into what a lot of games (including my own) lack, and that's "anything new". It's probably been said a million times before, but a lot of the games are just Doom with better graphics. I suddenly realised how boring an FPS can be if you're just wandering around shooting the odd enemy that appears. It's stating the obvious, but they need something new to keep the player wanting to play it.

It's with this in mind that I've though of something new! At least, I hope it is, and in the interests of open source and sharing ideas, it's going to a some kind of "fungus" that grows towards the player. It won't be easy to kill (probably impossible in fact) but the player will be able to shoot bits of it away.

Here's my first version of it. It's rudimentary (just using spheres), and I've still yet to perfect my fungus "ai", but it certainly makes an interesting and different enemy.

Got it working

After what literally seems like yonks, I've finally worked out the solution to the problem I described several posts back, namely that the perspective was all wrong in my game Passenger - it was drawing stuff further away over the top of stuff that was closer - like this:-



Needless to say, the problem had an easy solution (once you know what it is) - a missing "updateGeometricState()" on the root node when adding an object. Arrggh!!!

Here's what it looks like now:-



A dramatic improvement I'm sure you'll agree. And now I can finally get on with improving the game rather than messing about with small bugs!

Warning - Scary Picture!

I've just added some more hardened enemies to Last Remaining, and some more serious firepower. I don't want the game to become just another FPS, as the story is quite important, but it won't do any harm to have a bit of action in the middle of it!

This necessitated enlarging the levels and also adding a new one (now up to 3). I'm just ensuring there are no serious bugs, and then I'll be uploading it to Sourceforge.

Network Communications

Communication between computers is a nightmare, whether it's a web server or a multi-player FPS. How do you know when a client has finished sending you data? Does it disconnect? Does the stream contain an EOF signal? Does the client tell you how many bytes it's going to send?

I've just been trying to write a simple web proxy server, and this is just one of the questions that is proving hard to answer. Some websites (like Google) don't send a content-length (and I don't think it even disconnects once it's finished sending the data). So even if you want to write a simple proxy server that (on the face of it) just passes the bytes between computers, you have to write a piece of software that almost amounts to pretty much a full web server and partial web browser (except without the rendering features).

However, it's more compicated than that because you have to handle the communication two ways for each "connection". So you get the added complication of slow clients (client that connect to a server, and then decide to wait a few milliseconds before actually sending a request). Then there's flushing - when to flush and when to not.

Even though my Proxy now seems to be working for most websites, for some reason it can't read Slashdot (I get a blank response) and Googlemail says it's received a bad request. Gawd knows why.

Programming in Java

One of the great things about programming in Java is that it runs straight off in Linux and Windows without even the need to recompile. I've never had any of the problems that I've heard described elsewhere, but maybe I haven't covered the same kind of areas. However, I've written platform games, 3D shooters, desktop applications, database connections, and I think the only time when I've had to include a bit of code that says "if (linux) { do this } else { ... }" etc..., and that was because of slightly difference font sizes, which is fair enough (and probably for patent reasons).

This does sometimes lead you to a false sense of security though. I've been caught out several times by case-sensitivity. A program will work fine on Windows, but then I run it on Linux and it can't find the file "xyz.3ds" because the filename is actually called "Xyz.3ds". Still, a bit of testing should sort that out, and we all do that, don't we?

Ease of Use

One of the major drawbacks of there being so many quality open source games is that it's too easy to dismiss games that don't provide instant and accessible fun.

I'm just as guilty as anyone of this; if I download a game and there's so much as a whiff of having to compile or make anything then it's goodbye from me and onto the next game. Having a young son, I have very little time to play games, so anything that looks like it's going to cost me more time than it should gets discarded.

It's having this in mind that has caused me many a headache in trying to make Nuclear Graveyard instant and accessible. After I'd first completed it up to version 1.0, it had about 12 keys, like "shoot", "wait", "autofire", "guard" etc... A few comments from prospective players had informed me that this had understandably put them off, so I changed it to a menu system.

Unfortunately, I still don't think this has placated them. When you first run the game, it looks like an FPS, so I imagine a lot of players wonder why they can't run around and shoot stuff. (This is because of things like Action Points). I've tried putting big warning signs on the screen saying things like "Out of action points!", and other things to give people an idea of how it works. I just fear that in this day and age, they'll have gone onto another game before they get the idea. Maybe originality doesn't pay!

Shooting

Now that I've implemented shooting in Last Remaining, getting a good "shooting" feeling in my FPS is proving hard. My first version of shooting was just to move a cylinder away from the player. It generally works, the player can see that they are shooting, and thanks to collision detection, the enemy knows when they have been hit. However, it feels like the player is using a pea-shooter. There's no umph behind it. This may be for several reasons:-

* No sound effect
* No muzzle flash when the bullet comes out
* No sparks where the bullet hits the target
* No camera shake when the player shoots

I think all of these add up to make a good shooting effect, and make the difference between a pop-gun and a BGF9000. I just need to work out the best way to implement them now.

I notice that some shooter don't actually draw the specific bullets. They have all of the above though. Maybe this might be the way to go - it will certainly save on processor time by not having to draw them all.

A Mention on Freegamer

I've managed to garner more than my fair share of paragraphs on the excellent Freegamer blog! Thanks Charles. Knowing people are taking an interest in my games, and maybe even gleaning a small amount of fame, is what keeps me programming.


Here's another screenshot from Last Remaining:-



I like the shadows in this one.

Passenger Perspectives

I've started changing the 3D engine I use for Passenger from JOGL to JMonkeyEngine. Unfortunately, I seem to be having trouble with my perspective:-

It seems to be drawing the closest objects first (and even the closest parts of the cloest objects first), which are getting over-drawn by objects that are further away. Still, it all moves at a good speed, and as soon I sort this out it should make the game a lot better. Maybe I could use this new feature for a psychadelic 3D puzzle game?

"Last Remaining" - Now on Sourceforge even more!

Last Remaining has finally been uploaded to Sourceforge - link here. It hasn't made it to the number one position yet, but surely it can be only a matter of time before enough people download this rollercoaster ride of action suspence and adventure! I've added the source code, and another nice screenshot.

"Last Remaining" - Now on Sourceforge!

..though I haven't had time to actually upload anything yet. It will probably be Monday.

"Last Remaining" Update

I've just mastered two other features of JMonkeyEngine - fog and stars! Actually, after thinking about it, the two are pretty much exclusive, as if there's fog you shouldn't be able to see any stars. However, as my previous post alluded to, realism isn't the name of the game.


Unfortnately, the non-disclosure agreement I have with myself prevents me from telling you what this particular map is, whether it is populated by unfriendly aliens, or where it fits into the story. It may or may not be set in space, and may or may not be some kind of spaceship, and the aliens may or may not want to kill you.

What I can tell you is that I've added some rudimentary sound effects (always good for atmos) and even some fitting music. No word back from Sourceforge yet though...

Scenery

IMHO, one things that makes a good 3D game is scenery. Call it blindingly obvious, but any 3D game without scenery might as well be Wolfenstein (or even 3D Monster Maze, and that's sooo 1980's). To this end, I've just added some signs to the map that the player starts on, to make it more homely and, err - I can't think of the word. Realistic? Maybe, but it's set in the future anyway, so realism isn't exactly top of the agenda. More natural? Easier to navigate around? I dunno, I give up.

I've almost done the first "episode" of this game that I've christened Last Remaining, and as soon as Sourceforge get off their *rses and accept my project, the sooner the proles can play it and hopefully give me some feedback. It's far from complete (what comes before alpha?) but has the makings of a could-be-good game.

"Last Remaining" - We have Lift Off!

I've finally had some great ideas for the story for my new game Last Remaining. I won't go into too much details here, as "the story" is going to be this games biggest selling point, and revealing it now would strip anyone of the main reason to play the game. However, basically the player plays the part of a space-wreckage-investigator (I'm sure there is a more succint way of describing that, but there you are).

I had a bit of a quandy as to how best to show the speech by the NPC's - do I show speech bubbles, showing writing along the bottom of the screen, or destroy my whole reputation and have a go at some voice acting? In the end I decided to go for the pseudo-speech bubble option, as it was easiest.

Another minor request for advice - I had amazing trouble trying to get the OrientedBoundingBox to work in JMonkeyEngine. In fact I still can't get it to work, so I decided to use Rays instead to check for LOS. Does the OrientedBoundingBox actually work in JME?

Anyway, now I've got all the major functions for a 3D RPG, like LOS, speech bubbles, collision detection and map files, I'm all set. Downloads are here, but are probably a bit out of date. I've just registered the project on Sourceforge, so I'm just waiting for them to accept it (or otherwise...)

3D Model Drought

The biggest problem I have with writing 3D games is finding free decent models. And yesterday I thought I'd hit gold with Google's 3D warehouse - a whole website of free 3D models with the usual excellent Google search facilities! I was set for life!

Unfortunately, the commercial reality has set in. The models are all in Sketchup format, and in order to export to any other format (with the exception of Google Earth) you need to buy the Pro Edition of Sketchup. Grrr!

Unless I can find a free convertor somewhere on teh interweb?