I am the sexiest pigeon.....coooo cooooo....

Oh my lord, I have seen the future of gaming and it is pigeons in street sweepers. Tonight's lecture basically devolved into watching you tube videos of Japanese pigeon dating games and the most bizarre simulator games ever....awesome....

But seriously, have been doing game programming for nearly 9 weeks and now it's time to turn our minds to assignment 2, a 2D XNA game. We have to come up with a basic concept of what we would like to do, whether it a scrolling shooter or platfrom or puzzle game...anything really, it's up to us BUT do remember you have to bloody code the bugger !!!!

I think I'd like to code some kind of scrolling platform game, in the style of Doodlejump or the old classic "Rainbow Islands", with slightly less rainbows........er....."Islands" then.... Not entirely sure I get my head around the gravity thing though even though a couple of the guys in the class have commented and think it's easier than it is.....(Probably true and my head is over complicating the issue as usual )

There is a platform game in my XNA book, so I might code that and see if I can get my head around it.

Will speak to Matt on Thursday and see what he thinks...

So, just time for a quick go on Delivery Truck simulator before bed me thinks......

Revenge of the pig....

Thought I'd post a little update on how the programming is going as had quite a satisfying lecture tonight.

The first few weeks have been ok and have taken me back to basics with a gaming twist, just console applications and the like. These have really not caused me any issues (being a programmer fnah fnah) but tonight we started learning XNA.

This was the bit I've been waiting for, as I can honestly say I never used it before. Although, it looks quite daunting when you open up a new project, it's actually relatively simple, once it was explained... and the most statisfying part was by the end of the lecture we had achieved this..TADAAAAHH!!!!

I know......I can see you saying it..... "OMG this is just like the new Battlefield or Assassins Creed" but honestly, such a sense of achievement in very little time. You can control the Firey Pig and Knife independently with the keyboard....true that's about it but I'm well chuffed :o)

This is definitely a boost for now..... Catch up with me next time kids, when I've had a nervous breakdown as it just becomes exponentially difficult.... Mwahahahahah!!!!

...Fantasy Finally

With only days to go until I hear the sound of fabulous new premium Final Fantasy dropping through the letterbox and with me getting a tad giddy at the prospect, I thought I would channel the excitement into an extremely short Exposé on my, frankly obsessive Final Fantasy world I live in.

This really doesn't have been be explained to my closest friends who I repeatedly bore (and drag to concerts etc...) but for those who didn't know....ahem.....

I'm not going to bore you to death with the history of my obsession....yawn....zzzzzzzzzz

I'd actually just like to draw your attention to the latest FFXIII-2 soundtrack of which I had imported from Japan !!! (...arm and a leg would have been cheaper...) I just have to tell someone about it before I explode so it might as well be you !!!

This 4 disc masterpiece composed by Masashi Mamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta & Mitsuto Susuki, I have to say pleasantly blew me away me as it's not the usual FF offerings is really different. They have gone hardcore uproar.....and I LOVE IT !!!

Yes, there is still the usual orchestral themed masterpieces and emotional ballad tracks which are the main staple of final fantasy. In between though they have come up with level & area themes that are a mix between chillout grooves that mix into hardcore house and drum 'n' bass versions which are credited as "agressive" mixes which I can only assume are for when the gaming action turn into a battles, as it inevitably does in FF. I'll have to wait and see...

I was also surprised that all the lyrics are in English, especially for an import. (I'm not going to mention at this point, good old Leona Lewis on the previous FF XIII soundtrack... as that was surely someones idea of a joke and surely the real reason, FF XIII got so much stick......damn I just mentioned it....)

The text inside the box isn't in English however so still no idea what they are talking about (I never did get the hang of Japanese Kanji...)

Anyhooooo, click on the links to get an idea of the diversity of this fabulous 4 disc masterpiece (I did not upload to YouTube myself by the way, as that would be naughty and I'll leave that kind of behaviour to others...ahem)

• Caius's Theme (Your typical Final Fantasy Orchestral Goodness...)
• New Bodhum + Aggressive Mix (The new and improved style - dance mix kicks in about 5.25...)
• Worlds Collide (Another of the new style with ridiculous lyrics sang in, I think they call it rap ;o)...)
• Xanadu, Palace of Pleasure (And this is obviously 80's American Comedy TV Show theme tune without a doubt...)

Although it's not surprising an outrageous fan like myself hasn't stopped listening to this album, as they can't really help it, I can't wait to see the tracks in there proper places in the game... So for now I think this little outburst has satisfied my FF pangs until I lock myself in a room on Friday with my limited edition FF XIII-2 PS3 game and spend another 140 hours of my life moogling with the chocobos.
Right, where did I put my Yuna outfit...???

Aaaah, that's better.... ;o)

010100111101010100101010101

After an extremely successful Game Design module (...still doing the occasional jig btw) it's time to turn my hand to programming and put my Bender head on (well my other one anyway....)

This is the module that I am least concerned about since as I do web development in my day job, so programming is part of that.

The first lesson started with the obligatory "Hello World" which I must have done a million times in a million different languages (exaggeration inserted for effect) times before and I expect that the first few weeks not to be too taxing on the brain for me at least.

But I am not about to be all dismissive about it either. It's good to go back to basics every now and again, as I have no doubt picked up some incredible bad habits along the way and I definitely don't "know it all".

I'm really looking forward to learning XNA, which I have never used before and also, I'm only guessing about how you would actually code games at this point. I could be barking up the wrong tree...

Matt seems cool and knows his stuff so looking forward to seeing how the module progresses.

So for the time being.... Console.WriteLine("PLAYER ONE READY");

Fus Ro Sparklechops...

Ding and indeed Dong Merrily on High. It's Christmas time and all that festive mularky...

I finally handed in my second assignment on Tuesday and bid farewell to my first Game Design module.

Didn't know quite what to expect when I started but was extremely excited. I have not been let down.

It's been great learning about the thought process behind games and looking into stories. Loved getting the insight into archetypes and seeing how they fit into nearly everything I've played (or watched for that matter). I now can't watch / play anything without going, and what type are you ???

Level design and mechanics were even more intriguing and has loved doing that. Again, it has changed the way I look at the games I play and actually find myself looking at things in life going, that would make a cool mechanic - OMG my nerding skills are going to be horrendous by the end of this course !!!

Maybe this could be the "player path" I take when I finish ;o) The reading list was rather large for this module, I have read a few chapters of most of the books but none are complete. I'm still going to read them though - I WANT TO KNOW MORE !!!!

Ben is an Awesome* tutor. I'm sure he has actually played every game known to man... ever...
(* copyright cptkittens 2011)

As for the guys on the course - couldn't ask for for a better set of weird and wonderful characters to spend the next 3 years with. All of us, proper gamer geeks. I love it :o)

Well, programming in the New Year. Although I'm looking forward to that, I think I will have a major advantage on this one, having done it for over a decade, so may be a little less focussed !!! But let's wait and see.

Right, I'm off for a large turkey, an egg nog and a mince pie (or should that just be mince???)

Messy Xmas from the Ponahkiin....

Where's the windolene ??...

Here's some shots of my completed crystal level.

Because of the crystal mountain being on different levels the first image shows only the bottom level of the mountain, the second shows the remaining levels side by side and the last images show the levels in place on top of each other.... phew.

Can now start to break this down into separate images for the level walkthough..

workin 9 to 5......what a way to make a livin....

And now with added player path for added excitement :oO

and just for your entertainment, a quick, sneaky peak snapshot view of how the 3D sketch up version is coming along