AFK for the holidays :)
Also waiting for 1.00090 release. Playing mechwarrior online and WOW: Warlords of draenor isn't helping either.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Valuable Asset's TGC Store Products
Realized it's been a while since I wrote a review so it's time, once again, to put some poor bastard under the microscope. Today's victim? Valuable Assets.
Store link: http://en.tgcstore.net/?md=artist-view&aid=35753
I get the feeling I'll be coming back to this store soon. Valuable assets showed up on my radar about a few weeks ago and I had planned on writing a review earlier but .. he just keeps releasing new things. It's so regular I could set a clock by it. By the time of this writing, I'm pretty sure most of what I'll say will be outdated. That said, there's enough inventory at this point for me to review a large swath of products.
Store link: http://en.tgcstore.net/?md=artist-view&aid=35753
I get the feeling I'll be coming back to this store soon. Valuable assets showed up on my radar about a few weeks ago and I had planned on writing a review earlier but .. he just keeps releasing new things. It's so regular I could set a clock by it. By the time of this writing, I'm pretty sure most of what I'll say will be outdated. That said, there's enough inventory at this point for me to review a large swath of products.
5 packs and a total of 81 products (for now).
Apparently Valuable Assets also goes by the moniker 'teamhalo'. Apparently under that older moniker he did a lot of art for the FPS Creator (classic) community. Indeed, his website link from the forum points simply to: http://www.thegamecreators.com/?m=view_product&id=2262, aka Pack 48 for FPSC Classic. Google shows me he's also a pretty decent gallery artist as well.
VA's done a terrific job. I really like that the textures are clear, yet gritty. They seem of high quality in terms of texture definition and the models themselves fit a very clear theme, which is nice. Very often I find artists are putting their art all over the place, without direction. Every single pack thus far plays well of each other pack.
Looks like where I grew up!
What's the one item I can't live without: This is a hard one. I really like his grunge city pieces. His trash models are interesting in that they are not decals, but ultimately redundant for my purposes, so that one is out. The ruined buildings are useful looking, but the utility factor really sits them squarely in a FO3 style environment.
So really it comes down to price and utility. The best value for the dollar right now is the blood pack:
Just a fraction of the 31 blood spatters.
Sure, you could say they're all the same (they're not). But if you have the horror pack or are planning on doing an FPS of any sort - blood is sort of going to be necessary. There are other blood kits on the store don't compare in quality or type. This blood looks fantastic and you get a veritable library of crime scene photos. I really love the attention to the different types of spatter, as well as the dried blood versions. It'll go really well with the horror kit from TGC.
Yep, that about covers it.
Pic courtesy of metalinjection.com
The bottom line: I really can't find enough to say about VA. He's given three superb free models. He's got excellent, low priced models on the store. Definitely give him a glance or three.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Current project: AI_NPC.lua
This is my AI NPC code. It's a pretty simple modification of the NPC code to orient the character towards the player, then spit out some text at them when they hit the use key.
ADD TO global.lua:
+ Code Snippet
nsarray = {}
nsarraymaxvalue = 3
nsarray[1]="test1"
nsarray[2]="test2"
nsarray[3]="test3"
ns_def="Default."
FYI, NS=abbreviation for 'npc string'.
As you can see there's an array max value used to define just how many times our loop should cycle. Then there's a flag passed to an array index via nsarray. That flag unfortunately for now had to be the health indicator. I'll work on the code later so the guy won't die when you shoot him (at least easily) but for now this gets the job done.
Then make an AI_NPC piece:
AI_NPC.lua
+ Code Snippet
-- LUA Script - precede every function and global member with lowercase name of script
-- globals
ai_neutral_state = {}
--Mike's Simple NPC script
--You must set the following global variables:
-- nsarraymaxvalue = 3
-- nsarray[1]="test1"
-- nsarray[2]="test2"
-- nsarray[3]="test3"
-- ns_def="default"
-- Each of these array values correlate to the health of the object.
-- More can be used. Default is fallback if it's out of range.
-- init when level first runs
function ai_npc_init(e)
CharacterControlUnarmed(e)
ai_neutral_state[e] = "stood"
end
function ai_npc_main(e)
local hastalkedyet
local NPCm
local NPCh
NPCh = g_Entity[e]['health']
NPCm = nsarraymaxvalue
hastalkedyet = 0
-- Detect player distance
PlayerDist = GetPlayerDistance(e)
-- Always looking at player
if PlayerDist < 200 then
LookAtPlayer(e)
if g_KeyPressE == 1 then
for NPCi=1, NPCm do
if g_Entity[e]['health'] == NPCi then
PromptDuration(nsarray[NPCi],1000)
hastalkedyet = 1
end
end
if hastalkedyet == 0 then
PromptDuration(ns_def,1000)
end
end
end
end
Video Example:
Not the best code, I'll admit. But it does the job. Enjoy!
ADD TO global.lua:
+ Code Snippet
nsarray = {}
nsarraymaxvalue = 3
nsarray[1]="test1"
nsarray[2]="test2"
nsarray[3]="test3"
ns_def="Default."
FYI, NS=abbreviation for 'npc string'.
As you can see there's an array max value used to define just how many times our loop should cycle. Then there's a flag passed to an array index via nsarray. That flag unfortunately for now had to be the health indicator. I'll work on the code later so the guy won't die when you shoot him (at least easily) but for now this gets the job done.
Then make an AI_NPC piece:
AI_NPC.lua
+ Code Snippet
-- LUA Script - precede every function and global member with lowercase name of script
-- globals
ai_neutral_state = {}
--Mike's Simple NPC script
--You must set the following global variables:
-- nsarraymaxvalue = 3
-- nsarray[1]="test1"
-- nsarray[2]="test2"
-- nsarray[3]="test3"
-- ns_def="default"
-- Each of these array values correlate to the health of the object.
-- More can be used. Default is fallback if it's out of range.
-- init when level first runs
function ai_npc_init(e)
CharacterControlUnarmed(e)
ai_neutral_state[e] = "stood"
end
function ai_npc_main(e)
local hastalkedyet
local NPCm
local NPCh
NPCh = g_Entity[e]['health']
NPCm = nsarraymaxvalue
hastalkedyet = 0
-- Detect player distance
PlayerDist = GetPlayerDistance(e)
-- Always looking at player
if PlayerDist < 200 then
LookAtPlayer(e)
if g_KeyPressE == 1 then
for NPCi=1, NPCm do
if g_Entity[e]['health'] == NPCi then
PromptDuration(nsarray[NPCi],1000)
hastalkedyet = 1
end
end
if hastalkedyet == 0 then
PromptDuration(ns_def,1000)
end
end
end
end
Video Example:
Not the best code, I'll admit. But it does the job. Enjoy!
Monday, November 3, 2014
General Banter: Why FPS Creator: Reloaded?
Ok, so I know I said I was going to write something about the differences between writing and making games. That, however, will take a lot more resources and time than I currently have available.
So instead, I thought I'd focus on why I ended up here with FPS Creator Reloaded instead of a different engine.
Don't get me wrong. I've worked off and on with a number of engines. Unity is pretty feature rich, albeit it didn't really 'make sense' in terms of code manipulating objects. I didn't like the cost either; it was tremendously expensive by my standards and what's worse the game assets available on their store were not cheap either. I mean pricewise it wasn't unexpected but at the same time it was just a lot to swallow. If you wanted to make a worthwhile game, you had to shell out 1500 dollars. That's not the kind of cash I had lying around. The newer price of a monthly fee is pretty nice though and definitely bore consideration. 75/mo is similar to the structure that other engines use.
The Unreal engine is a similar setup, though vastly cheaper and ironically the industry standard. Currently they're doing a deal for like 20 dollars a month and 5% of your gross revenue. That's pretty impressive and I may (or most likely) will go to that in due time. The problem here is one of technical complexity. This is not the kind of engine you want to bang off your ring rust with.
Prior to this I was very familiar with and comfortable with the Lite-C/Acknex A8 engine. Don't get me wrong, I *LOVE* the A8 Engine. It's awesome. So easy to use, the object management is easy to code and intuitive, lite-c is a breeze, etc. The problems? Much like Unity, the only version worth a damn is the Pro version. That's a cool 900 dollars, by the way. The other huge problem is how absolutely outdated the engine was becoming. They simply haven't touched it in 3-4 years and without a much needed update, it's simply not worth looking at.
None of the other engines really struck me. There are plenty of good ones out there, sure, but they just didn't have what I wanted. A simple, easy to make FPS engine that allowed coding and was reasonably up to date in terms of technology. That means shaders, terrain, etc.
Enter FPS Creator Reloaded.
FPS Creator has been around a LONG time. Like ten years long. It's extremely basic, but it's amazing what has been done from a technical standpoint for a simple engine. It's also got an extremely long running history where it's been updated over and over. There have been debacles in the past with the company failing to deliver (FPS Creator X10 was fraught with failure) but overall the core premises in FPS Creator Reloaded were very well thought. Moreover, the price was right. I got in the pledging at the top level for eighty dollars. This was a steal given the sheer volume of assets I'd be receiving, let alone a shader enabled engine.
So I saw these videos:
And this one:
Both of these intrigued me. For 80 dollars, I could afford to check it out. Especially with the lifetime upgrades bundled in.
The engine since then languished after a brief trial period as I waited for further feature deployment. The promise of lifetime upgrades ensured if I simply waited, I'd have what I was looking for. Now with LUA code implemented, physics, etc it's become a functional enough engine to work with. There's still some glaring faults, but it's saved me massive time in terms of programming an engine myself in lite-c. The upcoming patch 1.0090 promises massive adjustments in lightmapping, engine performance, etc. I for one, wait with baited breath.
If in the future I choose to move on to another engine, so be it. But for 80 dollars what fool couldn't afford to at least keep this constantly improving tool in his toolbox?
Currently the price is 100 for the 'gold' level; if you're interested in a discount coupon, comment or message me.
So instead, I thought I'd focus on why I ended up here with FPS Creator Reloaded instead of a different engine.
Don't get me wrong. I've worked off and on with a number of engines. Unity is pretty feature rich, albeit it didn't really 'make sense' in terms of code manipulating objects. I didn't like the cost either; it was tremendously expensive by my standards and what's worse the game assets available on their store were not cheap either. I mean pricewise it wasn't unexpected but at the same time it was just a lot to swallow. If you wanted to make a worthwhile game, you had to shell out 1500 dollars. That's not the kind of cash I had lying around. The newer price of a monthly fee is pretty nice though and definitely bore consideration. 75/mo is similar to the structure that other engines use.
The Unreal engine is a similar setup, though vastly cheaper and ironically the industry standard. Currently they're doing a deal for like 20 dollars a month and 5% of your gross revenue. That's pretty impressive and I may (or most likely) will go to that in due time. The problem here is one of technical complexity. This is not the kind of engine you want to bang off your ring rust with.
Prior to this I was very familiar with and comfortable with the Lite-C/Acknex A8 engine. Don't get me wrong, I *LOVE* the A8 Engine. It's awesome. So easy to use, the object management is easy to code and intuitive, lite-c is a breeze, etc. The problems? Much like Unity, the only version worth a damn is the Pro version. That's a cool 900 dollars, by the way. The other huge problem is how absolutely outdated the engine was becoming. They simply haven't touched it in 3-4 years and without a much needed update, it's simply not worth looking at.
None of the other engines really struck me. There are plenty of good ones out there, sure, but they just didn't have what I wanted. A simple, easy to make FPS engine that allowed coding and was reasonably up to date in terms of technology. That means shaders, terrain, etc.
Enter FPS Creator Reloaded.
FPS Creator has been around a LONG time. Like ten years long. It's extremely basic, but it's amazing what has been done from a technical standpoint for a simple engine. It's also got an extremely long running history where it's been updated over and over. There have been debacles in the past with the company failing to deliver (FPS Creator X10 was fraught with failure) but overall the core premises in FPS Creator Reloaded were very well thought. Moreover, the price was right. I got in the pledging at the top level for eighty dollars. This was a steal given the sheer volume of assets I'd be receiving, let alone a shader enabled engine.
So I saw these videos:
And this one:
The engine since then languished after a brief trial period as I waited for further feature deployment. The promise of lifetime upgrades ensured if I simply waited, I'd have what I was looking for. Now with LUA code implemented, physics, etc it's become a functional enough engine to work with. There's still some glaring faults, but it's saved me massive time in terms of programming an engine myself in lite-c. The upcoming patch 1.0090 promises massive adjustments in lightmapping, engine performance, etc. I for one, wait with baited breath.
If in the future I choose to move on to another engine, so be it. But for 80 dollars what fool couldn't afford to at least keep this constantly improving tool in his toolbox?
Currently the price is 100 for the 'gold' level; if you're interested in a discount coupon, comment or message me.
Friday, October 31, 2014
General Banter: What's new 10/31
So if you're following this blog you'll notice this week I laid back off the reviews for a bit. This is because there's a huge ramp up by a lot of the developers of TGC content. I think it has to do with the upcoming 1.0090 update, which is highly anticipated as a big fix for a lot of outstanding problems with the engine.
In the meantime, I've been neck deep in code and made some pretty awesome strides. The first is an all in one script that handles AI NPC's. Basically turns the 'neutral' NPC into one who will talk to you. It runs through an array of strings specified in the globals and then picks one based on a passable value to the individual NPC.
I also have a much heavier one that can be used as a custom unit script, specifically to make them have multiple responses and even script-able actions.
<insert vid here>
Once I get an answer in the forums over here:
On my question of invulnerability I will be able to wrap up this script and get it on the store. A little final testing on the lightning script will work for that one too. I'm planning on price points of 50 cents USD for the lightning script and 2 dollars for the NPC string scripting. That one took significant more work, so it gets a higher price. Given it's flexibility I think people will find it'll be quite sufficient for most of their needs. With support for I think a maximum of 255 strings, that's a lot of flexibility for NPCs.
I also have a similarly structured inventory control system in the works, though that's going to be tougher to implement without serious delving into the LUA classes present in the game engine.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
General Banter: My sordid affair with games-making.
First, a little background...
Since I was a small child, I've had an interest in games and games development. When I was about eight, I received my first 'computer'. It was a Tandy TRS-80 Color (CoCo). I remember getting it and having literally NO idea what to do with it. My mom had bought it for me at a yard sale, probably having no idea what she's set off. I'd sit there for hours, tinkering with code in BASIC, having little to no idea what I was doing. I'd make red flashing asterisks on the screen and feel empowered. Still, I was slowly absorbing the little pieces of what made things go tick.
At school, we had several APPLE IIGS's running LOGO (Anyone remember that?) and BASIC. I'd make a little triangle move around and take some of that knowledge home to apply to new and more interesting things. I don't recall what happened to that Tandy, but I do recall it falling by the wayside when I got my first Nintendo Entertainment System.
From there, I spent several years in the void of video games (ah, nostalgia!) while focusing on computer projects at school. I knew they interested me and pursued them rigorously.
A lot happened starting around age 12-13. I cracked my skull open and oddly ever since then I noticed my purely logical thinking went to a sort of logical and abstract form. My code got weirder. Less understandable from a flow standpoint to those who'd read it. But it still always did the job, often in novel ways.
Fast forward a few years...
Around age 15, I'd lost my first REAL PC due to some high phone bills from BBS door gaming. Long distance was clearly not my friend and my mom was not plussed. She sold the smokin fast 486 DX2 66 to pay the bills. Then, feeling bad for her now dejected son, she found a diamond in the rough - an original IBM PC XT with two MFM 5MB hard drives. You can imagine my joy at the downgrade, initially.
Turns out the sucker didn't even work. I had to dig through the thousands (literally) of pages in the original IBM manuals to figure it out. At one point I recall calling a very amused IBM tech support agent who kindly referred me to the manuals since they didn't support such an old system.
At some point, I managed to learn all about how computers work. The physical components to me now were in that inventory and fascinated me. I used this computer to try writing very simple AI programs in Basic (Chase the dot, dot warfare, etc) it worked well but I had trouble with implementation of some concepts. I started taking formal programming classes in high school and learned all about modular, top down programming in my Pascal class. I also learned simple graphical tricks and micro game making in Macintosh Hypercard. I purchased the original "GCS" Game Creation System at this time.
I was hooked on FPS's thanks to doom and the GCS. I made some interesting stuff, messing with the forth/fortran backbone (who the fuck ever thought that was a good idea, is beyond me) to improve AI.
Somewhere in here I pissed off a programming teacher, switched schools 3 times, and eventually ended up at Dauphin County Vo-Tech school. This school had a programming teacher who took me as his last great hope to sink the death star. He taught me C, unix shellscripting, and a host of other things. Got me a job in programming for the state, then later Keystone Programming. Unfortunately massive pressure at home caused my life to crumble and I had to basically start anew. The teacher, feeling crushed at my difficulties (as well as dealing with his own), retired the following year.
My biggest 'video game' programming achievement during this time period was writing the 'Coop-Bot' based on some code I found from the axe of friendship. The coop-bot was an amazing AI piece built as a mod for quake 1. No one at that time to my knowledge had written TRUE cooperative bots. Mine however had functional personalities and capabilities. The code eventually was used by "Nelno" the Amoeba who wrote the reaper bot and moved on to write the Unreal Tournament bot code (based on the reaper bot code and by extension my own). It was like fame by proxy.
My senior year in highschool was incredibly turbulent and somewhere in there, I had an english teacher nurture my writing abilities. I wrote numerous short stories which ended up in the book I promote on the right (albeit many years later, after many MANY rewrites). I however was stressed to my limit and despite my talents I was extremely limited by my circumstances.
Ok, a lot of background...
I spent the years after high school trying to start my own game development company and eventually got so soured by scumbag investors who wanted things like 60% stake for 40,000 dollars seed money (barely enough to get a programming firm off the ground, let alone finish a project).
We'd done a lot of free work, creating an impressive 3D terrain renderer and server architecture (me and my 6 or so buddies). Eventually my experience was soured and I shut the whole project down spitefully.
A few years passed and Mechwarrior 4 came out. I.. LOVE Mechwarrior. Still do to this day. So I decided to mod it. I made a mod for the original game called 'Siege'. This mod addressed many of the glaring problems in the game's multiplayer - namely a complete lack of single player functioning assets (turrets, repair bays, etc). At some point I wrote the devs asking if they could increase the spawn points in the map to 32/32. They asked me to send them my code and promptly ignored me.
A few weeks later, the rumored 'black knight' expansion came out featuring.. you guessed it... a special new deathmatch mode... called SIEGE! Ironically nothing I could do at this point; they by right had the rights to all mod's intellectual property. It did, however, REALLY sour my taste for game devving. Throughout the years that followed I'd monkey with lite-c, opengl programming (thanks NeHe!) and other components like the Allegro library.
But never again could I recapture the joy of just making a map, coding some scripts, and doing cool things... like back in high school. Some 15 years later the spectre of Game Development reared it's head again and in my searches I discovered the FPS Creator Reloaded kickstarter. I donated to it because at the time I was really impressed that they had a shader-driven engine that cost less than 800 to 3000 dollars. The visuals were perfectly acceptable and by my standards would save me hundreds of hours in programming it myself. Development comes along steadily and the system is easy enough to use. Once the 'construction kit' is in play - I'll be running full tilt.
In the meantime, I'm learning LUA coding for the purposes of improving function in FPSC:R and making micro scripts to do simple tasks. So far I've done some interesting screen effects and also written some custom AI modifications (shocker, right?).
I hope, with time to produce not only interesting code snippets for what I find is an overwhelmingly helpful community (though considerably smaller than the Unity or Lite-C Communities) which might help pad my monthly art/development budget... which currently sits around twenty dollars per month.
Next time: The differences between writing a book and making a game.
What drove you to start making games? What kind of experiences did you have? I'd love to hear your comments and feedback! If you'd like to support me please feel free to purchase a copy of my ebook: The Longshores Rising
Since I was a small child, I've had an interest in games and games development. When I was about eight, I received my first 'computer'. It was a Tandy TRS-80 Color (CoCo). I remember getting it and having literally NO idea what to do with it. My mom had bought it for me at a yard sale, probably having no idea what she's set off. I'd sit there for hours, tinkering with code in BASIC, having little to no idea what I was doing. I'd make red flashing asterisks on the screen and feel empowered. Still, I was slowly absorbing the little pieces of what made things go tick.
Nothing like cartridges and a 300 baud modem to get the blood flowing.
At school, we had several APPLE IIGS's running LOGO (Anyone remember that?) and BASIC. I'd make a little triangle move around and take some of that knowledge home to apply to new and more interesting things. I don't recall what happened to that Tandy, but I do recall it falling by the wayside when I got my first Nintendo Entertainment System.
From there, I spent several years in the void of video games (ah, nostalgia!) while focusing on computer projects at school. I knew they interested me and pursued them rigorously.
A lot happened starting around age 12-13. I cracked my skull open and oddly ever since then I noticed my purely logical thinking went to a sort of logical and abstract form. My code got weirder. Less understandable from a flow standpoint to those who'd read it. But it still always did the job, often in novel ways.
Fast forward a few years...
Around age 15, I'd lost my first REAL PC due to some high phone bills from BBS door gaming. Long distance was clearly not my friend and my mom was not plussed. She sold the smokin fast 486 DX2 66 to pay the bills. Then, feeling bad for her now dejected son, she found a diamond in the rough - an original IBM PC XT with two MFM 5MB hard drives. You can imagine my joy at the downgrade, initially.
Turns out the sucker didn't even work. I had to dig through the thousands (literally) of pages in the original IBM manuals to figure it out. At one point I recall calling a very amused IBM tech support agent who kindly referred me to the manuals since they didn't support such an old system.
Yes, it literally came with all those books.
At some point, I managed to learn all about how computers work. The physical components to me now were in that inventory and fascinated me. I used this computer to try writing very simple AI programs in Basic (Chase the dot, dot warfare, etc) it worked well but I had trouble with implementation of some concepts. I started taking formal programming classes in high school and learned all about modular, top down programming in my Pascal class. I also learned simple graphical tricks and micro game making in Macintosh Hypercard. I purchased the original "GCS" Game Creation System at this time.
A copy of the original advertisement for the 3D GCS.
Make sure to click to full size and read for some giggles.
I was hooked on FPS's thanks to doom and the GCS. I made some interesting stuff, messing with the forth/fortran backbone (who the fuck ever thought that was a good idea, is beyond me) to improve AI.
Somewhere in here I pissed off a programming teacher, switched schools 3 times, and eventually ended up at Dauphin County Vo-Tech school. This school had a programming teacher who took me as his last great hope to sink the death star. He taught me C, unix shellscripting, and a host of other things. Got me a job in programming for the state, then later Keystone Programming. Unfortunately massive pressure at home caused my life to crumble and I had to basically start anew. The teacher, feeling crushed at my difficulties (as well as dealing with his own), retired the following year.
My biggest 'video game' programming achievement during this time period was writing the 'Coop-Bot' based on some code I found from the axe of friendship. The coop-bot was an amazing AI piece built as a mod for quake 1. No one at that time to my knowledge had written TRUE cooperative bots. Mine however had functional personalities and capabilities. The code eventually was used by "Nelno" the Amoeba who wrote the reaper bot and moved on to write the Unreal Tournament bot code (based on the reaper bot code and by extension my own). It was like fame by proxy.
My senior year in highschool was incredibly turbulent and somewhere in there, I had an english teacher nurture my writing abilities. I wrote numerous short stories which ended up in the book I promote on the right (albeit many years later, after many MANY rewrites). I however was stressed to my limit and despite my talents I was extremely limited by my circumstances.
Ok, a lot of background...
I spent the years after high school trying to start my own game development company and eventually got so soured by scumbag investors who wanted things like 60% stake for 40,000 dollars seed money (barely enough to get a programming firm off the ground, let alone finish a project).
We'd done a lot of free work, creating an impressive 3D terrain renderer and server architecture (me and my 6 or so buddies). Eventually my experience was soured and I shut the whole project down spitefully.
A few years passed and Mechwarrior 4 came out. I.. LOVE Mechwarrior. Still do to this day. So I decided to mod it. I made a mod for the original game called 'Siege'. This mod addressed many of the glaring problems in the game's multiplayer - namely a complete lack of single player functioning assets (turrets, repair bays, etc). At some point I wrote the devs asking if they could increase the spawn points in the map to 32/32. They asked me to send them my code and promptly ignored me.
A few weeks later, the rumored 'black knight' expansion came out featuring.. you guessed it... a special new deathmatch mode... called SIEGE! Ironically nothing I could do at this point; they by right had the rights to all mod's intellectual property. It did, however, REALLY sour my taste for game devving. Throughout the years that followed I'd monkey with lite-c, opengl programming (thanks NeHe!) and other components like the Allegro library.
But never again could I recapture the joy of just making a map, coding some scripts, and doing cool things... like back in high school. Some 15 years later the spectre of Game Development reared it's head again and in my searches I discovered the FPS Creator Reloaded kickstarter. I donated to it because at the time I was really impressed that they had a shader-driven engine that cost less than 800 to 3000 dollars. The visuals were perfectly acceptable and by my standards would save me hundreds of hours in programming it myself. Development comes along steadily and the system is easy enough to use. Once the 'construction kit' is in play - I'll be running full tilt.
In the meantime, I'm learning LUA coding for the purposes of improving function in FPSC:R and making micro scripts to do simple tasks. So far I've done some interesting screen effects and also written some custom AI modifications (shocker, right?).
Like these basic weather effects, for instance.
I hope, with time to produce not only interesting code snippets for what I find is an overwhelmingly helpful community (though considerably smaller than the Unity or Lite-C Communities) which might help pad my monthly art/development budget... which currently sits around twenty dollars per month.
Next time: The differences between writing a book and making a game.
What drove you to start making games? What kind of experiences did you have? I'd love to hear your comments and feedback! If you'd like to support me please feel free to purchase a copy of my ebook: The Longshores Rising
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