Dear Me, I have a blog

Man it's been a while. After developing a new blog myself and messing with the hosting business, I do miss how easy Blogger makes things. I don't have to worry about falling behind or missing certain functionality and I think I'd like to resume my writings here.

Game Maker Studio 2 is in beta currently and I plan to mess around with that. I'm happy to see the rewritten IDE which makes it feel a lot more robust and future-proof. It's still lacking certain features I'd love to see, mostly from my time with Unity such as being able to write your own UI tools within the IDE. Please Yoyo <3

GML is still more or less the same, though YoYo's resources can only stretch so far. They did just recreate the IDE so I can wait for them to focus on GML - fingers crossed that's the next big project. I'd love for GML to support OOP eventually, or even structs would be nice. However I am toying around with the idea of writing a Typescript to GML transpiler in the meantime.

I'm looking forward to creating with GMS2, once I can decide on which project I wish to tackle. For now, I'm just enjoying messing around with the revamped features.

Here's a little preview of what I've been tinkering with today:

As GMS deprecated the menu the menu a while back, I decided to write my own based on the Chrome style. It only supports a single list currently, and I have an issue with how to write the click events in a simplistic manner. Right now I'm triggering user events based on the list position, though there's only a maximum of 16 user events, so I don't really like that idea too much. Internal object functions would be a blessing here.

Anyway, I cannot wait to see what comes next for GMS2.

New Website

Alright, it's finally done. (At least on the usability stage) My new website is live! :D
You'll find me here from now on: http://www.harrk.com/ :) The comment system isn't working as of yet, it's almost finished though!

I entered Ludum Dare as usual but this time I set about creating a game using Java which I've been learning for a while but never really made a game for. So with this in mind, I set on with my game.
Due to real-life plans I ended up wasting most of my Saturday so by Sunday I didn't have enough progress on my game to get it finished for that day which resulted in me joining the jam instead.

I'll perhaps do a post-mortem later, there's a lot of things that I could have done better with and now I know what exactly I need to look into to prepare for the next Ludum Dare.

You can see the game here, http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=4626.

Or direct link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/23931032/LD25_IWanaBeTheVillain.jar
Applet: http://harrk.com/applets/LD25/

The applet is hosted on my site which soon will become my main site once I've finished developing it. It will replace this blog but it's not going to be finished for a little while so I'm still here for now!

I'm currently in the progress of polishing the game and I'm going to port it to Android with extra features. That's where my plans lie next for this project. 

Ludum Dare #24

I UGH! I CAN'T BELIEVE I JUST MADE IT IN TIME! In the last 20 minutes I was rushing to bug-test and fix everything I could. I made it with like 2 minutes to spare!

This won't beat my first entry from the last contest that's for sure, I slacked too much and I think I focused too much on story. There's really not much gameplay to it like I would have hoped for. Maybe in a sequel?
There's a few little mistakes (mainly typos) in the game still but nothing too bad I hope lol. First time I've made an ending to my own game where I've laughed my arse off.

Play here:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=4626

Now excuse me while I come to terms with the fact that I just made a love story based on rabbits... WHY, HARRY, WHY?!

Ludum Dare #24

I've failed three game contests so far because I've failed to find the willpower and motivation to do it. Hopefully I can turn things around this time. I'm not aiming to beat my last result for Ludum Dare, I just want to make something without much pressure so I'm taking it easy.

Ludum Dare's theme this time is, "Evolution". I have a story laid out in my head and I'm just really keeping it simple. It's a love story between bunnies lol. Here's a preview: (I apologize for the Shakespeare :P)

Inactivity and Reactivity!

Woah, I've not been on here for a long while! (Honestly I got attached to Tumblr)

I've given up on my entry for the 64 Digits RPG competition since I have nothing to show and there's only ten days left, so yeah. No chance.
There have been too many irl issues which made it hard to continue working, anyhow, let's look at the bright side now, eh? :)

 I'm working on a new project with the goal of making it a commercial game, so far I have a few plans jotted out on paper with plenty of things still whizzing around in my head.
The goal of the game is to make it as customisable as possible, not a sandbox game like Minecraft though.
Of course it's going to be a RPG game but not as much story-driven like JRPG games although it will be based on the JRPG style. Heck, most of my games follow that sort of base albeit never getting released.

I suppose this will be a combination of JRPG and WRPG themes.

On another note, I really should focus on developing a battle engine I can reuse across multiple games. I find myself making a fresh one for each game and they don't exactly get done within a week.
That would cut my developing time down drastically for future projects that use the same idea.

Might build my own extension for the sake of making life easier and will probably release it to the public too. We'll see.

RPG Development - The Start

I've been slacking a lot but I've finally gotten to a point where I'm happy to show what I've got for my RPG game for the 64digits RPG game contest.
Everything in the screenshot below has been done in a slight rush so now I'll be going back over what I've done and clean up a little.
Then comes adding in reuseability then I'll start work on getting some story and gameplay into the game.

Meet Tirus, my main character for this project. The game is set in a futuristic world where the world is overpopulated and war has broken out (probably where we're heading?).
Space travel has been around for around 10 years and people have started moving on to populating other moons and planets, albeit very slowly. Plus only the people who can afford it managed to move on away from the current mayhem on the "currently unnamed planet".

The planet is suffering from its highest crime rate in history and the governments can no longer keep their people under control. There's just too many of them cramped into a small space.
Riots were growing in frequency until the governments of their respective countries decided to invade other countries in a bid for more space. Hence our world of war is born.

The world is now a tough place to live in and young and old need to know how to fend for themselves as they need to defend what little they have from thugs or from the marching tides of war.

Tirus is only 15 years old but he's one in a million. His intellect is superior for a boy of his age, as if an elder of the old had been born anew.
In order to survive in this day and age, Tirus and his friend - Knives, as he calls himself - take on dangerous jobs from unknown clients.
Tirus is no stranger to danger either, and neither is Knives. They will aim to kill if necessary and it's a skill that is required if you wish come out on top in these dangerous times.

During one of their jobs, they encounter a freelance armed force that pretty much hates every official in the world. In any case, they're taking matters in their own hands and now Tirus and Knives are in their way.