Sleep well and prosper my friend, You gave me so many hours of, not just entertainment, but dreams, to reach for the stars and beyond. We'll miss you old man!!
Friday 27 February 2015
Tuesday 24 February 2015
WooHoo, new monitor!!
Well, the new monitor is fantastic, I love it!!
What I don't love, however, is this....
For the last couple of weeks I have continued writing and programming on paper. This poses more problems than you could ever imagine.
Programming on paper is nothing, and I mean nothing, like programming on a machine where you can compile every 5 minutes, if you need to.
On the machine, I have a whole bunch of resources in the program, that I can reference, anytime I need to. On paper, I have dick. All of this means that I don't actually know anything, about anything.
Therefore, I have decided that, firstly, I need to know what I'm doing and secondly, stop fart assing around with a game that, for the moment at least, is way out of my league.
I am NOT going to give up on it but, it has become apparent to me, that I need to release a set of smaller games first (Like most author's do, and like my one and only tester suggested I should). Purely so I get a better grip of how thing's work and how to construct a program in a more useful, and more uniform manner.
It's OK to have a huge mish mash of jumbled programming, that somehow works, if you actually know what the fucking mish mash does in the first place!!
It's all very well saying "Oh I have done this before, all I have to do is copy, paste and adapt. " when what you should be saying is "Oh that's easy enough, I remember doing that before. " because I actually learned something the last time I did it.
At the moment I am learning nothing, nada, zilch, zero, fuck all. You get the drift.
Yesterday I started on a smaller game that I have been writing on paper, oh and that's the upside of paper, you actually learn something, by writing it down.
I was amazed today, giving the game it's first run through a compiler, as to just how much of it worked, I only had two errors, both of which involved a semi colon. All of it looks neat and tidy and solutions to problems are solved within a couple of lines. Everything has a place, it's own file, and everything is so much easier to work on. It begs the question then "Why didn't I just do this in the first place? "
I think the answer is very clear and simple. And here's the rub..
We all, at some point or another, have ideas of grandeur, ideas that are so fantastic they cannot possibly fail. We are going to bathe in the spa's of Moosch and idolize the moons of Chinkata. (copyright The Doc) only to wake up, eight hours later, in our own beds, back on planet earth, and with a huge black cloud of reality hanging over our head. Three months down the line and a zillion cups of coffee later, you finally come to the place in which I am now sat.
It's not a bad place either, it's warm and comfortable, there's definitely something very homely about it, the smell of fresh coffee makes your nose twitch, and you feel at peace here.
Gone is the turmoil of expectation, that you foolishly hung around your own neck and, in the top right hand corner of your vision, is a small light, it's the same light that has been seen for months, only now it's not so menacing. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you know, you just know, that you will eventually reach it, and, that when you do, it will welcome you like an old friend, it will shake you by the hand, and congratulate you on a job well done. Trumpets will play and the moons of Chinkata will glow brighter than ever before. You will bask in their glory, and, as you soak in the spa's of Moosch, you will have a new found feeling of belonging, a feeling that is personal only to you and you alone.
But, for now, it's just something to aim for, there are an untold number of stairs to climb before you reach your goal, many hurdles to leap and many pitholes from which to escape!!
So that's where I am, the first, shorter game will be ready soon, when exactly, I can't say as I do not want to put pressure on myself, I would rather it was right than release it half cocked.
Look after each other.
Come all without, (Baboom, boom, boom) come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn!!!
The Doc
What I don't love, however, is this....
For the last couple of weeks I have continued writing and programming on paper. This poses more problems than you could ever imagine.
Programming on paper is nothing, and I mean nothing, like programming on a machine where you can compile every 5 minutes, if you need to.
On the machine, I have a whole bunch of resources in the program, that I can reference, anytime I need to. On paper, I have dick. All of this means that I don't actually know anything, about anything.
Therefore, I have decided that, firstly, I need to know what I'm doing and secondly, stop fart assing around with a game that, for the moment at least, is way out of my league.
I am NOT going to give up on it but, it has become apparent to me, that I need to release a set of smaller games first (Like most author's do, and like my one and only tester suggested I should). Purely so I get a better grip of how thing's work and how to construct a program in a more useful, and more uniform manner.
It's OK to have a huge mish mash of jumbled programming, that somehow works, if you actually know what the fucking mish mash does in the first place!!
It's all very well saying "Oh I have done this before, all I have to do is copy, paste and adapt. " when what you should be saying is "Oh that's easy enough, I remember doing that before. " because I actually learned something the last time I did it.
At the moment I am learning nothing, nada, zilch, zero, fuck all. You get the drift.
Yesterday I started on a smaller game that I have been writing on paper, oh and that's the upside of paper, you actually learn something, by writing it down.
I was amazed today, giving the game it's first run through a compiler, as to just how much of it worked, I only had two errors, both of which involved a semi colon. All of it looks neat and tidy and solutions to problems are solved within a couple of lines. Everything has a place, it's own file, and everything is so much easier to work on. It begs the question then "Why didn't I just do this in the first place? "
I think the answer is very clear and simple. And here's the rub..
We all, at some point or another, have ideas of grandeur, ideas that are so fantastic they cannot possibly fail. We are going to bathe in the spa's of Moosch and idolize the moons of Chinkata. (copyright The Doc) only to wake up, eight hours later, in our own beds, back on planet earth, and with a huge black cloud of reality hanging over our head. Three months down the line and a zillion cups of coffee later, you finally come to the place in which I am now sat.
It's not a bad place either, it's warm and comfortable, there's definitely something very homely about it, the smell of fresh coffee makes your nose twitch, and you feel at peace here.
Gone is the turmoil of expectation, that you foolishly hung around your own neck and, in the top right hand corner of your vision, is a small light, it's the same light that has been seen for months, only now it's not so menacing. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you know, you just know, that you will eventually reach it, and, that when you do, it will welcome you like an old friend, it will shake you by the hand, and congratulate you on a job well done. Trumpets will play and the moons of Chinkata will glow brighter than ever before. You will bask in their glory, and, as you soak in the spa's of Moosch, you will have a new found feeling of belonging, a feeling that is personal only to you and you alone.
But, for now, it's just something to aim for, there are an untold number of stairs to climb before you reach your goal, many hurdles to leap and many pitholes from which to escape!!
So that's where I am, the first, shorter game will be ready soon, when exactly, I can't say as I do not want to put pressure on myself, I would rather it was right than release it half cocked.
Look after each other.
Come all without, (Baboom, boom, boom) come all within
You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn!!!
The Doc
Tuesday 3 February 2015
Feeling The Pinch
This week I come to you live, from my Xbox, that's because my bloody monitor decided it was time time to go to the big Walmart in the sky, and trust me, it very nearly made it that far.
I have no monitor so, nothing is being done, and I can't get another now til the end of the month.
On the good side, I suppose, I will at least be raring to go and, as we speak, much work is being done on paper. It took a little while to remember how to to use a pen. but once I had, it became as familiar as twelve pints of Carlsberg and a bloody nose, on a Friday night, in the rain. Ahhhh such memories.
I'll be back soon, be good, and be nice to one another.
The Doc
I have no monitor so, nothing is being done, and I can't get another now til the end of the month.
On the good side, I suppose, I will at least be raring to go and, as we speak, much work is being done on paper. It took a little while to remember how to to use a pen. but once I had, it became as familiar as twelve pints of Carlsberg and a bloody nose, on a Friday night, in the rain. Ahhhh such memories.
I'll be back soon, be good, and be nice to one another.
The Doc
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