yay!

thanks for auto-coloring me interested. I was away from the forums, but have been looking for locations, mostly in South-London.

more after jump. don't jump yet, tho.

schizoid contribution: I love my iMac but I feel like booting into Windows way too often (indie games, yeah). EDIT: there's always Crossover Mac, but there's also always the fact that it can't handle GameMaker surfaces and some other things.

I've got no experience with brands such as Rock (or Pegasus?) or Guru (or Fire?), but would be interested to know how they worked out for others.

What I've got is a Dell Studio 15 (for a bit more than one half of the Pegasus' price), it has some lower class Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz (T4200?) with an acceptable VGA (ATI HD 4570). Came with 4(!) GB's of RAM and 320 GB HDD (even though that was part of a summer offer). I can only say good things about it, even the crap that came with it as software was rather nonintrusive.

[Too much top-down design.]

Creative Problems

Too much top-down design.  I have lots of high-level ideas for taglines, basic narratives, set-piece scenes, etc.  But as soon as I try to expand those into anything more complete, my creativity dries up completely.

Lack of skill at gameplay design.  Related to the above, I usually have ideas for a scene, or a story, not for a gameplay gimmick.

Technical Problems

Reinventing the wheel.  Probably because I work on very close-to-the-metal stuff in my day-to-day programming, I have a very hard time using any tool that I don't understand how it works.  So I end up expending what energy/time I have reinventing the 1 billionth 2D side scrolling engine from scratch in OpenGL rather than using an existing higher-level tool.

I'm surprised to see myself use third-party code, but add the above to my list.

Released v0.91a. Got sounds. Many problems fixed.

I'm open for collabs if there's anyone out there wanting to create tilesets or music. (It's a just for fun project.)

This is an awesome thread. Very reassuring to see a human side to the familiar names (...whom I haven't met in person). Sorry if doesn't sound right - I only mean that forums are generally not big on this; then again, it's no coincidence that I ended up here rather than anywhere else.

So, obstacles:
1, day job. (devours time, and doesn't contribute to my game making skills.)
2, the chasm between idea (the mental image of the game) and implementation (getting it working).
3, the fact that I'm still prone to get to work on a game outside-in.
4, the fear of irreversible complexity (which is a trash term really; what I mean by it is walking down a path (never mind summoning up the courage), then, having walked too far, finding that it doesn't work.)
5, I'm such a loner and while I'm learning to ask for help where needed, I feel I still suck at it. (The Berlin Jam was an awesome revelation, having met and worked with so many cool people.)

oh, 6, overambitiousness. Experience will take care of this, and in fact already is.

Yeah! Let's overcome our weaknesses with strengths! (Uh...) 

Hell yeah!=D

I'm a good programmer / systemic thinker / musicer, and I'm okay at pixeling (if not animation) / painting. I just need to be a hell of a lot more patient.

hey, congrats on the approval and good luck with the sales! also, loved the low-budget gamedev post on your blog (and the twist was the cherry on the cake;)).

/btw, I'll be a noob, but what's the 'iPod integration' feature, as mentioned in the trailer?/

Voted. And it was easy. Go and vote!

Well damn, the time slipped away from me. I wus going to do an artsy game on drugs... Maybe for a late entry.

Haha, I actually did an artsy game on drugs, but I didn't get around to adding a title and ending screen so I never submitted it.

"On drugs" can have two meanings. Which one do you guys mean?

The other one, I guess? (On the other hand, I was going to make an artsy game on sex, medication and rock and roll. No I wasn't.)

[arrows]

Here's a little game I'm working on (again -- it was conceived during the Berlin Indie Game Jam, for the "Bad apples" / "Taking a shit" themed 3-hour love affair extraordinaire). It's in early alpha.

Screenshots:

original:

new one:

We're missing a level editor (the levels are randomly generated, expect some light weirdness), title screen, nice transitions, but the gameplay is pretty much complete. Oh, no sounds either, yet.

Controls are arrows for movement, z (shit) and x (fart) (restart after death with either of these). Esc (un)pauses, then r gets you a new random level, and q quits.

More info in the readme.

Downloads (v0.91a):

OSX (2.96 MB) | Windows (2.31 MB)

Is there a download anywhere? I'm having a hard time finding it.. then again it's late

it's not late, it's way too early... for a download.=)

I'm interested to see how you're handling collision, swept collision and multiple collisions/penetration is tricky.

XRhodes' Collider2D is capable of Separating Axes Theorem-based collision testing of n-sided convex shapes / circles; it provides methods for static and swept volume testing. Sadly it's only 2D.

As for handling, I'll leave that open. It varies from game to game and one of the design goals with XRhodes is to leave it flexible and generic. (As for multiple collisions, however it's a bit off, I'd give the objects a collisionResult (vector) member, where the results of the collisions with other objects during the given timeframe will get summed up - they are supposed to happen at the same time (~cycle), right? then I just add it to the velocity in the next cycle and reset it. No, I've got no clue how it looks in practice.)

resurrecting thread -- 3, 2, 1.

the project is much alive and active and the framework was tested and refined in all this time. there is actually a documentation project in progress, which has just fallen back a bit behind the codebase.

for those who are interested, here's a quick summary of what had changed since May:
- revamped parallax scroll support (Projector)
- shader (GLSL) encapsulation / support
- the previously used list of strings serialization format has been replaced by a key-value based serialization format (XRSF); naturally, XRhodes' internal data types fully support this. there are tools for SAX and DOM style parsing of XRSF.
- Slicer: tool for processing spritesheets
- Skeleton: generic application skeleton that helps timing your application states' functionality (think Update / Render) - the StateManager has been revamped too.
- the Polynomial class is complete with polynomial interpolation (fitting over a set of points).
- SpatialHasher: helps optimizing collision detection and rendering (in progress).
- parallel to the documentation some other enhancements were put in place (debugging, inlining, streamlining)
- we've got a mailing list
- how could I forget: the codebase has been turned into a static library.

and for now, an even quicker screenshot about the SpatialHasher:

okay, it's just turned super-certain that I'm abandoning this game. I've been toying around with it and made quite the progress, at the Berlin Indie Game Jam, but I don't feel 100% about it and have ended up channelling my energies to XRhodes and a bigger game project. apologies to those who have been expecting something grand.

here's the screenshot of where I've left off (no NSFW):

[but wait]

throwing my 2 cents in the hat: in my line of work it's a widely accepted approach to hold trainings / events etc in community centres, church halls, etc., which at first might sound ridiculous in relation to a TigJam, but wait: it IS a relatively quiet environment after all, with no people wading in on our place. The network connection should not be too hard to arrange for either.

Then it only has to be placed carefully in terms of having sufficient choice of cafes/pubs/restaurants and supermarkets nearby so that instead of meddling with the hosts, everyone can just go and pick their own choice of refreshments. Without feeling guilty. Which we did, didn't we? Didn't we? No, we didn't.

The event not taking place in central London might further reduce the cost while not hindering accessibility (towns near airports & so, I'm just thinking aloud).

I'm gonna get down to finding out what does a church (etc.) cost for a weekend and let you guys know if something worthy of considering came up. (Phase two: the Apostolic Faith Mission of Independent Gaming)

I can't find myself on any of those

Serves me right for skipping the first two days I guess.

try this: http://images.zyndor.multiply.com/image/1/photos/32/500x500/6/DSCF4230.jpg?et=GD8ABOpA8DDodNAV0yLwZg&nmid=272860801


EDIT: I'll gather my jam photos together too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/PsychicTeeth/BIGJam2009#

Excellent photos and captions. :D

"Fucked if I know" --  that's Brandon's wife, sir!=D

2009: BIG
2010: BIGGER

Glad everyone enjoyed themselves! I really wish I could've been there.

BIG HARDER!

It was the epitome of awesomeness to meet you guys. Good times, good vibes!

Robert & Donald, thanks for the organization!

I'm not quite sure what planet is that. The Jam is still on.

(it's not like I didn't say all my goodbyes yesterday.
or planned to go sightseeing today.
'and if you can read this, you don't need glasses.')

Moor:

No invaders were hurt during the making of these photos, I expect...?

I need a beer.
I've got a beer in front of me.
But then it's no more coding for today.

It's not quite the dilemma it seems, or is it ... Dock?=)

I'm not going to be able to make it to the jam

It is a bloody shame. Good luck with the dealing and see you at the next Jam, then!