video game

Hello Internet,

Thanks to the promise of horrible weather, I didn't have to work this weekend. And the weather wasn't even bad. Bonus!!! But I also didn't make that money, so ... mmm ...

Having the weekend off gave me the first chance I've had since January to look at the game. But, it was good to have that long break. It gave me the time I needed to think it over and decide what I want from this project and where I want to take it. A change of perspective.

I've decided to keep developing in Java and OpenGL instead of scraping everything and starting fresh with Epic's Unreal Engine. It came down to one simple thing. I don't have an idea for a game. So that powerful engine wouldn't do me much good without some notion of where to run with it. With the Java/OpenGL project, I can show any future employers that I have significant experience with Java. Given it's really unlikely I'll ever work in the video game industry, saying I have experience with Unreal Engine just won't be as impressive. And, I really enjoy the challenge and learning experience it's been so far. So I need to just quick thinking about developing a game and focus on the joy of just developing.

If it does actually become a video game, it'll be an epic fantasy RPG. Which is super story intensive, so I'll have the same problem as if I used the Unreal Engine. That I don't have a story. However, I'll have a lot of time to really think the story over, since it's going to take a lot of time to develop. That's kinda looking on the bright side.

Here's another fun thing to mention. Blogger keeps track of page views, and I actually have viewers!!! Wow. There's only about 10 of y'all, but that's more people than I've shared this site with. Thanks for viewing and please leave some nice comments below.

At any rate, this weekend I made the tummy for my person. Past-Joseph did a really good job separating the code and making it modular and reusable. Meaning, I just had to copy/paste and modify a few little things. 'a few little things' still amounts to 6+ hours of work, but it's the most clever way I could think of, and I never need to do it again ( except when I make the female version of all this ). But, to make a new outfit, I only have to add one line of code ( and that's going to be improved upon at some point ) and make the textures. Done. Making 100 outfits means making a couple of hundred images and just adding the name of the garment to the code. Since I know already the faces for my humans aren't going to be super distinctive, the outfits and hair styles will be the most important things determining identity.

I'm taking a Monday off in a few weeks for some morning errands. I don't know if I'll get that weekend off, but I'll try and hopefully have another post this month.

Enjoy the pictures.