Malver's Swampy Realm of Mystery

Hail to Anonymous.

Fri, 18 May 2007 19:25:16 GMT

First and foremost, I offer my sincere thanks to whoever donated the year-long BYOND and BYONDScape subscriptions to me -- the generosity is appreciated.

However, I won't be able to hold up my end of the bargain and contribute to the community. BYOND has given a lot to me (back in the days of yore), but between university and my own projects I simply have no room or time for BYOND. Sorry Anon. :(

Still alive. (again)

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:27:59 GMT

Hey folks, I'm still gamedev'ing it up. No longer with BYOND, but continuing with my online shooter project, Skirmish Online:

I might drop in and do a small BYOND project sometime this summer; who knows?

Also took a look around at everyone else's blogs -- wow! Lots of gurus seem to still be hanging around, and with more cool games as well. Awesome. :)

Good luck to everyone and their projects!

Development

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:20:57 GMT

Hey there, folks. I haven't been around BYOND much in the last half year -- or more, really -- but I'll stop by to blab a bit about what I've been up to. :)

My previous development woes are over. I've got two projects (non-BYOND) moving along steadily, as well as a couple of older projects finished up.

Most of my development news goes up on my dev-journal on GameDev.Net, where you can see what devious plottings and games I've been up to. I go by the alt HopeDagger nowadays; mostly because "Malver" was already taken on GMail and I felt like a change. :P

What gamedev adventures have I been on? Well..

Meteorites - An older project; a Asteroids-�sque game with particles and nifty physics.

Gundown - An arcade shooter where you man somesort of mobile artillery contraption and blast down legions of foes in a plethora of explosions.

Magma Duel - A two-player (online play pending!) sideview battle where you aim to knock your opponent into the magma at the bottom of the screen, or destroy them with the powerups that float around the level.

Star of Shadows - An oldschool console-styled RPG that I'm in the process of writing. New release coming soon(tm). :)

Skirmish Online - Somewhat Bizlof War being brought to life again in a different way. I've put in heaps of work already, and it's moving forward steadily. No public download yet, but you can read up on its progress on my dev-journal.

So yes, I've been up to a fair amount of game development as of late. :P

Oh? An account? For me?

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 15:26:16 GMT

It would appear that I have a BYOND membership quite mysteriously. I'm both humbled and confused! Is there any way to see who made this most generous purchase on my behalf, or shall the name forever be enshrouded? :/

[tentative title here]

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:58:34 GMT

I'm on the brink of writing a game. But not just any game, a complete game. I'm getting tired of these incomplete project attempts that I lose my interest in after brief days/hours, and I need some real fleshy gamedev that I can sink my vampiric fangs into. Or something.

I've got a few ideas floating around. Most of them are online game. They tend to get the most interest from people, but I'm trying to determine if an action one or an RPG would get the best response. Any preference?

Something 2D, or maybe basic 3D. I've got a reasonable amount of OpenGL knowledge under my hat, but none of the practical stuff needed for full 3D games (BSPs, models, 3D collisions, etc), so I'm limited to a 3D game that uses 2D math.

Looking below you'll see a roguelike, an overhead shooter, and a brief mentioning of a space shooter. That's a lot of games. It's also a lot of lines of code wasted. I have trouble getting fervently dedicated to something. I'd love to learn the key to solving this, so if you have any secrets to this, please share them with me. :)

I also bought Star Wars Battlefront instead of GTA: San Andreas. It's an alright game, but I'm regretting it already. :/

Don't fret. I'll let you all know (read: in my make-belief world where people read this blog :P) if I actually get something going and established. No more vague screenshots or mentionings when I have nothing concrete. I'll keep it to myself until I'm sure about its future.

Thanks for reading. :)

Good bye exams. Hello gamedev.

Mon, 20 Jun 2005 12:20:02 GMT

Most people seem to be posting about exams too, so I'll add to the mix. I just wrote my last exam of the year, and so am finally finished highschool. Off to Seneca College next year for some programming goodness.

And of course I need to celebrate by buying myself GTA: San Andreas. Naturally.

This summer will be one of gamedev. Hopefully successful gamedev. It looks like a lot of contests are running too, so hopefully I'll be able to add a few smaller scale games to by slowly growing portfolio.

My plans for a little BYOND roguelike have fallen (again) into the abyss, so don't hold any breath there. Progress is also paused on my Bizlof War remake (non-BYOND), but I have every intention of completing it. Currently I'm working on a similar game, but it is much smaller in scale and thus will be easier to complete than the BW one. Perhaps you'll see some linkage on the BYOND Gaming forum when I get something going more strongly.

That's all for me. And for everyone else, keep writing those games! :)

5 days without an entry? Inexcusable.

Sat, 18 Jun 2005 15:11:10 GMT

You're absolutely right, Mr. Carnabee. Five days without reading some of that juicy low-fat Malver goodness is ridiculous. Like riding a buffalo over a sheer cliff edge. Or something. I'll try to insert some better similes in the following paragraph(s). And speak entirely in third-person. But not my simile-toting persona.

So, what has old Malver been up to? Mostly finishing up his exams, which have been tedious and painful. One more left on Monday, and then freedom. Like a lumberjack in a steel mill. ..No? I'll keep trying.

Additionally, Malver is tinkering away on yet another project. That's right. I didn't say it would be pretty, but he's whipping up something else. He put up a short-lived blog entry linking to a demo of the game, but I decided that he should keep it to himself until he has a fully playable online demo. But certain people got a peek, and so far Malver has only gotten positive feedback!

The Deadron Donations Fund seems to be a real -- no ploy. Real like a salted seafish on a Wednesday afternoon. Oh yeah. Anyways, perhaps this little blog 'o mine will get the next big spotlight. How a little coder can dream.

In other news, this is another paragraph, and holds no significance nor meaning. That's right, just sheer filler. There goes 7 seconds out of your life that you'll never get back. If I was a superhero, I think that would be my super-power: I'd waste people's valuable time.

Oh wait, we already have government employees. :/

Real-life and all that hub-bub..

Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:02:05 GMT

Exams will hit low and hard, striking me mercilessly on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday. It's going to be a painful experience, not to mention the English essay I have due on Wednesday.

My college (Seneca@York; I'm taking Computer Programming & Analysis) has accepted me a while ago and I went today to pay my tuition fee. It took a hefty amount out of my bank account, but hopefully I can land a good summer job these two months and replenish it. Assuming I do get a good summer job, I intend to buy the following goodies: my own server, GTA: San Andreas for PC, XBox 360, and a Nintendo DS. Wishlists always look too optimistic.

As Unowuero mentioned in his blog, our highschool Computer Science teacher died on Sunday night. This was a huge blow to me -- the first thing that came to mind was that we'd never be able to banter again over various theory on OpenGL, .NET, and other programming-related topics. Or take me aside while he's subbing another class and show me some of the new software he got on his laptop. I'm really going to miss him.

Thanks for enduring this blissfully boring blog entry. No game news on anything, sorry. When real-life clutter starts to clear away, expect progress from me. :)

Bizlof War in a whole new 3D flavour?

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 17:14:35 GMT

In addition to my side-work on this nameless roguelike, I've also been tinkering away on Bizlof War-like game in Delphi in a nice 3D (non-tile-based!) environment that I hope to get online soon. I'm currently in the process of writing the particle engine and weapons system/editor, so it'll probably still be another month or so until the game is functional online. For those of you quasi-interested, here's a screenshot of the current testmap and shiny GUI it's sporting:

Certainly, those of you who played the original (and comparedly hideous Bizlof War might be interested in lending me a hand in beta testing/bug hunting when I get the game to an online stage, and a website is up. Even those with a vague interest are welcome as well. BYOND was the springpad I used to get into serious programming, and there's noplace else I'd rather draw contributers from! :)

On a harsher note, exams are next week. Lots of studying, not much coding. Hurrah. :/

Perhaps a roguelike?

Sun, 05 Jun 2005 16:53:12 GMT

There's nothing more fun than wandering around a dark smelly dungeon with some of your pals!