So I’m attending this game-jam called No more sweden (funny name) this week. Wednesday/Thursday to Saturday/Sunday. I’ll be attending most of it, though I have to work at Thursday and Friday, which is a bummer, so Ive been thinking at what kind of game I’m be making. I’ve been thinking about making a simple plat former for some time now, and this might be good time as any to make it a reality.

I think I’ve chosen my tools. C# as the programming language for it’s rapid development time, sfml.net for it easiness (actually I’m forced to compile it since the official distribution was missing some things though the C++ version is the best 2d/OpenGL launcher library) and tiled for it’s easy-loadable data and unfriendliness.

Since any preparations is allowed I’m gonna jump-start and code that plat-former starting today, I might have a huge merge-problem when I get my topics, but that’s a problem for future gustav

On a small side-note, my aggregator tells me that I got ~200 unread items, most of them are lifehackerposts . I’ve been postponing the unavoidable and I think should read some of them – soon. I just gotta do this first

I probably should have posted this earlier, however I been sleeping and sobbing over the fact that I didn’t finish no more sweden :). A few hours before deadline all tiles in one layer went 3 tiles up, but collision-tiles were still in the same place. I though that was strange so I went to check the map in the (external) editor , and to my horror it didn’t load. No message, no crash nor any exception – just silence.

So the map-editor didn’t want to load my map, some tiles were 3 tiles away(kinda makes platforming hard) and my here, who was going to be a noble knight, looked like a 3-year-old was trying to draw the spaghetti-monster and failed. I gave up.

Next time around I use my own editor that doesn’t require you to exit when loading, doesn’t write a schema link that forces a proper xml-reader to verify it and support external entities and rotated sprites, plus I’m gonna use a library that’s a little bit more stable.

I made the mistake to use sfml.net without prior testing. Turns out that there is a bug in it that makes fonts unusable. I should be a good open-source developer and track that bug down, and let the sfml guys know of it, since they have done such a nice library and are quick with the support/responses on the forums.

Anyway, no more sweden was a fun, despite the fact that I was at work for the most of the time, and I hope to do it again next year, hopefully with a better planned vacation.

Since last time I’ve entered Ludum Dare and actually finished at 75ths place and a bronze in community – yay me.

Since then I’ve integrated the half/16-bit float from the glorious OpenEXR-project into my game-library pwn .

I’ve also been thinking about creating a 2d level editor as editing text-files suck, and there doesn’t seem to be a good level-editor. Most of the 2d level editors are focused on tile-based editing, but I want a more free-flow sprite-based editor, like the aquaria editor (nicely captured by wolfire design tour ) or the boingo editor that is briefly visible in their sga trailer . Preferably I like the editor to be integrate-able with box2d (so that it generates the collision geometry).

Whoa… almost 5 months since last time! I gotta post more than twice a year

Anyways, I’ve been quite busy since last time:

• My pwn game library is still in development.
• and I’ve entered ludum dare twice..

I’ve posted my first entry, let’s go cave exploring, earlier in this blog. My second entry for the “Explore” theme was “Xplorer – the game” a kinda unfinished 2-player game that ends when everything is explored

And my entry for the “islands” theme, that finished roughly one week ago, was “The Traveling Salesman Problem” where you are a saleman byuing and selling stuff, trying to avoid pirates and saving your dad.