Update

I've been busy lately. The journey to begin to understand FPGA programming is neither short nor easy.

Video Games

GrazerBeam is still a thing. I haven't done any actual work on it, but I've put a little thought into it. I ordered a Pandora, so when I get mine and fine the time I'll start work on GrazerBeam for that. I feel that analog sticks would allow for more skill-based difficulty or something.

I've got another small game in development called Ten Strokes to Victory (nsfw). It combines elements from the rhythm, typing, and masturbation genres. It's much simpler than GrazerBeam, so I'm going to try to get some work done on weekends, maybe, if there's time. That means I might finish it before May.

Not Video Games

I'm turning away from video games some in my personal projects. I've got two projects in the works that relate to music. Sinusynth is a parametric sinusoidal synthesizer. I made the original prototype in September and used it to make this abomination. There are a number of improvements that can be made, including dynamic synchronization of phase to phase 0 at t = 0 to avoid undesirable volume changes caused by changes in frequency. There are also some significant simplifications that can be made to the way sounds are described.

The other project is one that I also prototyped last year. I don't know what the demand is, and I don't particularly care, but there aren't a lot of Theremin companies out there, so maybe there is a market, especially given how much most Theremins cost. I've had the opportunity to play a Moog Etherwave, and having tried to build some Theremins on breadboards, I can really appreciate the excellent engineering that went into the instrument. It's really, really beautiful...

Anyway, I feel like there's a lot more that can be done with the Theremin form than has been done. A typical Theremin produce a single output signal consisting of a frequency and an amplitude. The signal can be amplified and played by a loudspeaker, but that's about it. It's not useful for much else.

I intend to create a Theremin that outputs two voltage signals: one to describe frequency, and one to describe volume. Different modules can then be installed in the Theremin or connected to the Theremin to produce tones based on those two voltage signals. The Theremin could serve as a standalone instrument using oscillator and signal processing modules, or it could serve as an analog controller for some other instrument or device using its two voltage outputs.

Modules might also be used to modify the way the Theremin is played. A simple differentiator on the volume signal changes the volume control from a position sensor to a motion sensor, so that the faster the performers hand moves, the louder the Theremin plays. The voltage signals could be processed by a microcontroller and discretized to produce only notes of a scale or transformed to change the relationship between distance between the performer and the antenna and output pitch or volume.

Summary

I intend to begin work on the modular Theremin project full time in May. If I have received my Pandora, I may also begin work on GrazerBeam in may during my free time. Along the way I may drop a little time in a few other things here and there, but until May I don't expect to get much done.

Blur/Glow/CRT

Was messing around with some ideas for GrazerBeam and some techniques from DSP. Ended up with this. It's not much of a CRT, but I think it looks nice.

GrazerBeam

It's been a couple weeks since I stopped on limit quest and started grazerbeam, so this post is a little bit overdue.

Also improved the width so that images are no longer cutoff all the time.

LORA finished, Limit Quest just beginning

3D gameplay, 2D graphics. Tile sizes are 33"x33"x22" and derived from the character's height ,which is why they are in inches. The guy there is for size reference. Movement involves ladders, stairs, and ramps as well as futuristic devices such as teleporter rays and pneumatic elevators (not shown).

LORA progress

Cells Redux Image loading bug

I have found that on a number of windows computers, Cells Redux fails to load images. Further investigation reveals that this is not true. The SFML image gives the correct height and width of images, openGL appears to create the textures without any problem. I honestly don't know why its not displaying anything.

I plan to rebuild the Windows version using static linking and a newer version of gcc in the near future. Maybe that will fix it. I sure hope so.

Cells Redux Complete

Available here for windows and linux.

Cells Redux Progress

Almost there... mouse interaction is going to be rather ugly, but then again this whole thing is pretty ugly. As to the tutorial... I don't even know. Maybe it would be better to just have a readme...

• Mouse interaction
• Better tutorial
• Add resume menu option
• Improve key repeat speed issue
• Add a high score table
• Make checking give some indication of what or how much is wrong. As it stands, failing on a fully locked board basically means starting over. Maybe have options.
• Come up with a more elegant solution than the reset button. 
• Add bitmap fonts
• Get rid of that console, add a title to the window, make an icon for the game
• Gameplay options: Color/Grayscale, Numbers/Colors/Both,
• Autodetect locked board and shuffle? (Removed)
• Sudden Death Mode (this may well be a luck thing and a bad idea) (Removed)
• Legend on/off (Removed)

Plans for the Future

Summer's coming up, and that means full time development on Limit Quest. Before that, though, I'm gonna want a week  or so to cool off from this past semester. I might also take that time to start thinking about game programming again with a remake of Cells using everything I've learned about game making. My goals are to make it look more polished, improve some really annoying things in the interface (for example: it's possible to resume the game from the main menu, but not obvious; I just had to guess and hope I was right.), and maybe make a nicer tutorial. I can apply new programming techniques to make the game much more compact and elegant.

Mainly for my own benefit before I forget, here's a list of some things to do:

• Add resume menu option
• Improve key repeat speed issue
• Mouse interaction
• Add a high score table
• Make checking give some indication of what or how much is wrong. As it stands, failing on a fully locked board basically means starting over. Maybe have options.
• Come up with a more elegant solution than the reset button. Autodetect locked board and shuffle? Sudden Death Mode (this may well be a luck thing and a bad idea)
• Add bitmap fonts
• Better tutorial
• Get rid of that console, add a title to the window, make an icon for the game
• Gameplay options: Color/Grayscale, Numbers/Colors/Both, Legend on/off

Limit Quest Prototype 2b

On a related note, the Balding Man thing obviously never took off.

Taking a new edge on things

It's that time of year again. Time for me to start working on that project again. Yes, that. But this year it will be different. This year I'm going to approach things differently. This year things are going to be edgier. I'm going to push my coding skills to the edge. This year it's not Balding Man. It's Balding Edge from Second Edge Games.

What Happen?

Why isn't Arity finished yet? Why haven't there been any updates? Has SLG dropped off the face of the earth?

These are all valid questions with one simple answer (and no, someone didn't set up us the bomb).

I'm working on something else. I've got an awesome composer (unless you don't like trance) who also happens to play video games. He's played a lot more of this type of game than I have, so he's also got a lot of useful knowledge and makes a great co-designer. I think that once I get it all laid out, the engine will be fairly simple to make. I think the gameplay might not be entirely original, but I think it will be fun. I think that this game will also see the first iteration of L.A.U.R.A. Tomorrow is Bright!

In celebration of the new and exciting project, I've take time off from doing homework instead of working on the prototype engine to fix up the blog layout (the old one was really ugly) and the fix up the logo for the blog (the old one was really ugly). I might as well also mention that I made a new and slightly more interesting background for the main site a month ago. Get out your text highlighting-enabled browser, because that old broken down projector does a pretty poor job of making the text stand out from the background (EDIT: That's because apparently Chrome doesn't "do" FixedSys).

Arity Update

Things have been slow lately. I updated the main website.

I also did some work on Arity. The engine is mostly done. I got someone to play it for a few minutes in front of me, and from that decided that I had to do something about that disorienting screen transition, soI hacked in fast smooth scrolling, and it looks really good. I also took the opportunity to make some improvements to the collision detection. It would be better if I didn't treat the player like a point instead of a 1x1px box, but it works well enough, and maybe suggested that the character is just a bright glowing point, which fits well. I still need to work on the actual world, which is more or less where I stopped last Summer. I'm heading back to school in a few days, So I'll probably stop development entirely for a little while while I aclimate. We'll see if I pick it up again. It's so close. I'm really getting a sense for what the second 90% of development is.

Status Report

• PurEdit can create any aspect of a boss now.
• Anything other than creation has to be handled with a hex editor.
• All but two bosses are complete; one still need to have its guns shuffled around some.
  
• I need to add an eyedropper for guns to the editor.
  
• The engine is more or less complete.
• Roughly 25% of the rooms are complete and more are in progress.
• I'm not really sure what to do after the last boss.
• Credits maybe? New Game+?
• It's already pretty ridiculous with full powerups. New Game+ might actually be harder.
• Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
• Difficulty and Balance is probably way off. I'll have to test for that when the game is done. Maybe even before then.
• My code is a cancerous mess and I don't think I do any sort of memory management. The last thing I want to do it go back and fix it up, though. The game works; it doesn't have to be hyperefficient.
  
• I guess I'm more or less in the second 90% of development now.

Arity 1 Update

Done:

• Continue working on bosses (just aout done).
• Change the name to Arity 1.
  
• Save boss death and make the environment respond (done)
• Find the world map I made before I stopped.
• Make global (I know) event object to pass around events.
• Explosions.
• Improvements.
• And the like.
  

Todo:

• Add more Boss functionality to PurEdit (add/remove cathode/anode).
  
• Make rooms.
• Polish
• Polish
• Polish
  

Sound

FMOD Ex/VC++ has crushed my soul for the last time. I just downloaded IrrKlang. I'm done with FMOD and its damn VC++ addiction.

Purity Update §

Done:

• Continue working on bosses.
• Add boss-making capacity to PurEdit.
• Save boss death and make the environment respond (started)
  

Todo:

• Continue working on bosses (deathroll mainly).
• Add more Boss functionality to PurEdit (add/remove cathode/anode).
  
• Make global (I know) event object to pass around events.
  
• Make rooms.
• Find the world map I made before I stopped.

Purity Update Z

Done:

• Fixed List.
  
• Working on bosses.
• Made some more rooms.
  

Todo:

• Continue working on bosses.
• Make rooms.
• Add boss-making capacity to PurEdit.
• Save boss death and make the environment respond.
  
• Find the world map I made before I stopped

Purity Update XI

Done:

• Just about done being sick.
• Rewrite PurEdit (more work that it sounds; see above video).

Todo:

• FIX LIST.
• Make bosses.
  
• Make BMP to Map converter.
• Find the world map I made before I stopped

Purity Update Q

Done:

• Update gun class
• Update room file format to include guns and potential other things.
• Maybe getting sick. We'll see.
  

Todo:

• Make bosses.
  
• Make BMP to Map converter.
• Update/rewrite PurEdit.