Projects

[zircher]

Humble Bundle is offering a bunch of courses for the Unity engine at a reasonable price.
https://www.humblebundle.com/software/learn-unity-game-development-software

Heck, even the $1 tier has some interesting stuff if Unity is not your thing.

I'm really liking the Finish It! course which is a combination of project management and motivation exercises. Totally worth the dollar I paid for and I'm already making excellent progress on my latest project and I have way much better organization for it than I had before.

[zircher]

I decided to go with a B&W manga look for the internal artwork for my current project.
https://sjc1.discourse-cdn.com/business5/uploads/gamedev/original/3X/9/7/97c8d45f12e19aa7e7d32e5f8f8ae59e004afcb0.png Logo
https://sjc1.discourse-cdn.com/business5/uploads/gamedev/original/3X/c/6/c6571225004e602dc0f0167fc1494404364507d1.png Dice

[tombombodil]

I decided to go with a B&W manga look for the internal artwork for my current project.
https://sjc1.discourse-cdn.com/business5/uploads/gamedev/original/3X/9/7/97c8d45f12e19aa7e7d32e5f8f8ae59e004afcb0.png Logo
https://sjc1.discourse-cdn.com/business5/uploads/gamedev/original/3X/c/6/c6571225004e602dc0f0167fc1494404364507d1.png Dice

Super cool! Sometimes I'm sad that the availability of free and cheap art assets has essentially removed any motivation I might ever have had to learn to draw

[zircher]

I can't draw for beans, but I was a drafting fiend in mechanical drafting and architecture class. It didn't pan out as a career, but it did come in handy for making dungeon maps. Most of those were done in MS Paint and DoGA CGA (with a little bit in Metaseqouia.) They're low tech, but at the same time easy to learn and easy on the wallet.

[tombombodil]

Cool. Without knowing that much about the game, is there like a book of common moves and defenses that might apply?

[edit for pesky typos]

There are a handful of what I'd call "patterns" that I have on a shortlist. There are two main ways I've been messing with encoding them in the system, but haven't settled on any solid plan yet.

One way would be to identify types of individual moves that are commonly found in said patterns and add them to the tie-breaker list and then playtest endlessly to try and get them to execute those moves when appropriate.

The other way would be to build an entire separate class that stores fully adaptable and transportable records of each of those patterns, and when part of the first half of a pattern appears on the board, incentivize the Agent to start executing those patters in their entirely, double checking each turn to make sure that continuing that pattern instead of shifting to another one or just making an atomic separate move is more advantageous.

I'm legitimately unsure which one would be more work

I've officially retired this project after having learned what I can from it. I spent a while implementing some more tie-breakers and trying to teach it some of the basic patterns of play that it will default too in the right circumstances. They made it a little bit better at the game but not much more considering the time it took to implement; the only real way to teach a computer to play a traditional abstract game like this is with lots and lots of careful machine learning and that's just not what I was interested in experimenting with.

Still fun to work on though!

[zircher]

Hey, little programming challenges pretty much describes my video gaming development history and I've learned a lot. (Even if I've spent way more time doing that than bringing a project to completion.)

Which is probably why I really like that Finish It! course and plan on applying it to my next video game project after I finish the RPG I'm working on.

[zircher]

Still happily grinding away on my RPG project. It's working name is Sword and Gun, Song of the Phoenix. Actually, my writing has leapt ahead of my graphics (the original goal was to do them together.) So, this weekend I'm going to strive to catch up on the pretty pictures and filler images that I need. [I actually love filler art since it has fewer restrictions aside from the shape of the image and I can play around with ideas.]

[zircher]

Well, ran into a snag on my RPG project, but it is the best kind of snag. Several other projects have risen to the top and I need to focus on them least they be wasted.

One, an old friend of mine wants to co-create a tactical space combat game that aligns with my sensibilities and uses some of my existing design ideas from Tactical Command. This leverages existing mechanics, design programs, and virtual miniatures which are all things dear to me.

Two, I'm helping to coordinate and contribute to a Renegade Legion revival magazine. This ties directly into the restoration of Kannik's RenLeg web page that I am hosting.

Three, I'm on the team to help write the Fate version of the Ninja High School RPG. This is a very cool thing for me, but it came with big gotcha. The current team size is one. Undeterred, I'm halfway through the task analysis of what it would take to complete this project.

Pity me not, for I am rich with projects I love and sleep is for the weak (and those without a time travel machine.)
--
TAZ

Maybe I really should add a time management class to that list.

[tombombodil]

Huehuehue. All sounds pretty fun

[zircher]

Love the shape that the space combat game is taking, not surprising but still pleased in writing out Jared Sorensen's three questions and answering them. It's a simple thing, but I think it is important enough to write down in the Designer Notes and check back on them from time to time to make sure that you're focused and not going off into the weeds.

If you're curious, they are:

• What is your game about?
• How does the game do this?
• How does your game reward/encourage this?

--
TAZ