ID:102617
 
Keywords: development
First off, so much for my GiaD, I've been immensely ill since Monday, so have barely had a chance to work on my already late entry. I still aim to finish the project however when I'm better.

Until then, I think I can just about manage a pretty pointless post telling you what you've missed this year from my lack of progress. Admittedly, a lot of it is to do with me not having a stable job. Ironically, having a lot of time on your hands doesn't mean increased productivity on hobbies, and for me it is seemingly the opposite. This might, hopefully change in the coming weeks.

It turns out that in the forum, I failed to make an actual 2010 todo list, this is probably a good idea, because I'm not sure how many of the 2009 goals I've kept:

1) 4.0, Medals and scores of previous games

In a sense, I have been doing this at a steady pace, mostly to bring them in-line for inclusion for AceMedalTable, a program that includes various games of a range of original release dates.

2) Release games I'd intended to for years

Not really done, its been far easier making new, smaller games quicker than releasing older projects. Games such as Jaivana which I intended to release years ago still hasn't even had a screenshot released. Idle Warrior 2006, while I had worked on and nearly completed, still hasn't been finished or even put online.

3) Earn lots of Money

Obviously, I haven't been doing this either, 2009 was the best year for me financially from BYOND, but 2010 has been dismal. You can tell this by the lack of any updates from my pie chart at the top of my blog, I'm not going to mention how many Subscriptions I've received since then, but its in Single figures. The reason is quite simple, I haven't been hosting, and I haven't been updating.

GAMES THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN RELEASED (At least, in demo)

Moving Mountains. A rather strange concept I designed around June 2009, I asked for ideas on actual goals to a game without any (at the time) meaning. I have since worked on it slightly, but not enough for release.

Captain. Released in December 2007, it was another attempt to capitalise on what I perceived as interest in board game styled games developed by me. It turns out that my idea was extremely crappy though, and I'm not entirely sure if anyone else has even played it. I hardly blame them. It was however, probably my first real attempt at a specially designed interface, as I avoided it completely from major games such as Wargames till this year.

Joshtan1. Originally demo'ed in Feb 2006, has only had one significant demo update since. Was intended to be finished for this years "get something done" project, but simply didn't happen. A series that I'd hope to end up as my flagship BYOND experience with several games covering complex political-militaristic storylines about a Continent in a flow of almost constant war over thousands of years. The project was actually a crossover from what I intended as a fictional novel, of which only an opening chapter was written and published online. Its something of a dream to reattempt this at some point.

Hostile Takeover. Despite being already released, I've always wanted to work on this to make it at least as interesting to people as Exploder was; as it was one of my first games on BYOND. I've never plucked up much serious interest to update it however, simply because there is no interest in it at all and I don't blame anyone. Its purely personal, so is unlikely to see any updates until a random date. AceMedalTable will probably speed this date up.

GAMES YET TO BE RELEASED

Ones that have Hub entries:

Idle Warrior 2006. As the name suggests, it was intended to be released in 2006, in the height of Idling games. The idea was that a graphical component would allow it to stick out from pure-text based ones that was a virtual monopoly at the time. I really don't know how idle games on BYOND are these days, if they exist at all. Fair to say that its not top priority, although perhaps before 2012 would be a good sign.

Jaivana. My intended entry to the Iccursion Contest in 2006, I thought I'd have a demo out the night I started it, and still nothing. Idle Warrior 2006 is more playable than this is! If that is believable. I intended it to be a fun little micro multiplayer game to get people I knew (I think they were called friends) interested in playing my games. As I don't have friends anymore, I haven't had any motivation to finish it.

Quest3. A lot of planning has been pumped into this one, but still little code. Another project started in 2006. ONE DAY!

Election. Another dream of mine is some form of politics/government game. Yet another project started in 2006, it must have been a really poor year. Politics sims has been something I've flirted with constantly over the years, and I'm sure I'll flirt with some more ideas before anything significant comes up. Expect to see Dreamland released with political elements involved with tribal and civilised societies before anything like this comes around.

Champ. My cheap attempt at a Desktop Defender clone, this one from 2008. I have to admit that I occasionally play this myself just for fun, but due to a higher level of self standards by this point, was never released.

Armies. Started in July 2009, this project had intended to be another cash generator, a tactical strategy game a bit like Joshtan1 but as a pure strategy rather than a role playing game. I'd intended to make it multiplayer for a very small fee leaving single player vs AI for free. It has yet to see fruition, and I'd expect it'd have to be pretty good before anyone is happy to part money for it.

Animalia. Started just before the turn of 2010, it was intended as a game for my Wife to enjoy, liking (like many others) the concept of Environment. She has pushed me to update Envionment in order to make it playable, but I convinced her to attempt making graphics for me for a separate game. She hasn't been very confident in her graphical skills, so this project ended up on hold. She has since pushed me to bring in her sisters friend to do the graphics for me (someone outside of BYOND, obviously) but in all honestly I'd find it a bit embarrassing to introduce them to BYOND which despite being only in 2D still lacks important features in terms of icon creation and editing (namely, the space of the icons on the screen while it has improved in more recent BYOND versions, anything larger than 64x64 is still unworkable and still leaves an entire 3/4's of the screen in a giant empty grey box of pointless nothingness).

Ones that have been mentioned before:

Dreamland. Not really intended to be released this year anyway, as I want to make sure there is something substantial in its gameplay before its even released as a demo, I mentioned it in July of this year, with a spasm of screenshots of its current stages. It has simply halted due to an erratic bug that fails to randomise players first colony positions, deciding to place them all in a row somewhere near the top of the map instead.

I've pondered, as I have to rework some of the code in order to allow loading and saving of the data, as well as putting in measures to allow more than one map per area scope (such as extra solar systems and planets) whether to convert the game to an Isometric design as well.

Berlin Wall. Mentioned as an idea in November 2009 as my introduction to Isometric gaming, I had planned to do it quickly in time for the Anniversary of its falling. Well, its nearly been a year since then, so I've failed that. I have had a good 2-3 days of coding on this game though in that year, and its almost ready for a release.

Barren. My first and only mention of Barren on my blog has been with this screenshot ( http://files.byondhome.com/Acebloke/barrenearly.png ) back in December 2006. It is an RTS game, which has been worked on since you'd be glad to know (including unit graphics!). A planned trilogy, the series would be slightly less traditional by being more about control of very rare resources and defending those resources from raids.

Its current status is that units are movable and attack other units and buildings, but still has no functionality in regards to building creation or unit creation. I debated making a skirmish demo, and might be a possible 2010 target if I get a chance to look at it again for a serious amount of time.

Ones that have been barely mentioned or not yet at all:

Oh yes, ever the annoyingly frustrating developer that I am, there is even more projects that till now I have barely mentioned or hinted at. Here is a quick list of some of them.

Caliber. Another Strategy game, I do believe I blogged this once with a map. Intended to be a WW1 era fictional world, it was to feature trench warfare and limited armour support. Never really progressed further and sits in development hell.

Modern Day English Civil War game. Something I find quite interesting, most of the development time have been on doing the map, which still remains less than half done. Editing the icons needed is taking all the working time I make on it so far, although a cheap work around I've done allows me to test it. I had advertised for help before on the forums, you might even be able to still find it.

Arson. A quick real time strat for 1-4 players, this game has sat on my computer for a good deal of years, just begging to be finished and released. I always consider this as a possible candidate for a release but never get round to it. AceMedalTable makes it more likely.

CityScape. Intended as a simple 1.5 Dimensional (you'd get what I mean if I showed a screen of it :p) City simulator. Was supposed to be an example of a very small sized game without much interface back when we were just starting to be able to alter the interface (something I'm still not great at). Again, nearly done, needs a good days development or such to polish.

Crusade. A simple retro-ish platformer I really wanted to send off to BYOND Arcade, it like so many of the projects in this category simply needs a bit of finishing off and a polish which has never happened.

Wargames 3. Oh yes, I don't know when to stop. Wargames 3 is intended to my homage to one of my fav retro games. If Wargames 1 is in the style of browser games, and 2 of 4X Exploration and development strats, then 3 is of Mega-lo-Mania a mega drive/SNES/PC game that was as quick paced as a strat could get. It is unbelievably fun and seems to have only one other fan based remake in the whole internet. I have been working on this somewhat lately when I don't feel up to updating something already released, and I might even display something soon, if your lucky.
I'm happy for the number of strategy projects, but it would be nice if that Exploder update I've been waiting for was on there. (There might be some solid suggestions from my older post as well.) Parts of the current interface conflict with BYOND Strategy's feature standards.

I'd be willing to create an interface for you, but the dynamic parts would still require source code changes on your end.
I focused more on the less developed stuff in this post, just wondering, what specifics are conflicting?

I'd be more than happy to accept your help on the interface department! I'll give you credit in game of course as well.
Ironically, having a lot of time on your hands doesn't mean increased productivity on hobbies, and for me it is seemingly the opposite.

Word.

And last I looked, 2010 isn't over yet. So there's still a chance to shorten that list by 2011. ;)
Modern Day English Civil War game. Something I find quite interesting, most of the development time have been on doing the map, which still remains less than half done. Editing the icons needed is taking all the working time I make on it so far, although a cheap work around I've done allows me to test it. I had advertised for help before on the forums, you might even be able to still find it.

Sounds Interesting.
"I focused more on the less developed stuff in this post, just wondering, what specifics are conflicting?"


That's a perfectly reasonable question. Offhand, the verb panel comes to mind as a deal-breaker, but I must admit that I haven't made the time to give you a thorough answer.

I've marked this as my home page to nag myself. It's replacing Ripple so the charity guilt might work in your favor too. ;)
I didn't forget about Exploder. I just decided to cut the chat.

I've spent the last few days creating an improved skin, succinct help file, and larger graphics with unique shapes for the colorblind. I should have it uploaded later today. Demo files to help you with the dynamic settings will be included. =)
Thanks, I so need it!

Appreciate you taking the time to improve it. In all honesty I haven't been motivated to work on Exploder since I last updated simply because it looks as if nobody has played it since.
I still maintain that 2010 isn't over yet.
Tiberath wrote:
I still maintain that 2010 isn't over yet.

Exactly.