Pointers Hurt My Brain

So, over the past week, I have been up to three things instead of programming Araknoid:
1. Preparing for a show with my band.
2. Earning big cash money on the stock market simulation.
3. Trying to learn C

The hardest one has become number three simply for the fact that pointers SUCK! Other than that, C is pretty cool. If anyone was wondering, I'm learning from K&R on the suggestion of a friend (and half the internet). After I'm done, I think I'll mess around with DirectX then move onto C++. Haha, I've been programming so much I initially punctuated that last sentence with a semicolon. I'll be learning C++ from Stroustrup. Here's to a close future of pointers and self memory management. I'm not saying goodbye to C# by a long shot. I'm just trying to gain a better appreciation of the art. (No, I'm not learning assembly)

Ouch!

Yes, that's what all my teachers said at conferences yesterday (4.000) when I told them that I wouldn't be in class because I was getting my wisdom teeth out. To tell you the truth, it didn't hurt, because I was asleep, but it sure as hell hurts now. This is good news to xna lovers, because all the time I would have spent doing things (like eating), I can now spend programming the rest of Araknoid. Oh yes, speaking of technology, I finally broke down and got a cell phone. Don't get excited, it's not uber cool or anything because I'm broke as hell. Lol. I hope to finish the game soon.

Time Consumer

I almost forgot to mention why I haven't posted in about a week. To tell the truth, I haven't really done much work on Araknoid. Much of my time during this week has been spent researching and acting on said research in the Wisconsin Stock Market Simulation (www.wisconsinsms.com) Yeah I know, it sounds really nerdy right? The thing is, my team is actually doing pretty well, especially since we started about 4 days late. Don't worry though, I think it will only be a few more days that we will be selling and buying stocks before we settle down with a number of good ones. I just can't stop researching. It seems so important that it's taking over my entire life, but pretty soon, Araknoid will again fill that role.

Organization Is Key

Since the beginning of this project, I have added a lot of content, and, as most game programmers know, content is usually organized into separate folders and subfolders. As of today, my content follows this norm. After viewing the tangled mass of files in the project folder, I decided that it was finally time to make this program pretty in an organizational way. Now, when viewing the Araknoid folder, I see four neat folders instead of a bunch of random file types and names thrown together in alphabetical order. Now if I could only make my code that organized...

Not Much Going On

Ok, so I haven't worked on the game since my last post, but hey, can you blame me? So what if you can blame me. It's going to be the coolest game ever, so you better be patient. Anyway, I have consulted the help of a friend to make more awesome backgrounds for my levels while I continue to endeavor the realms of free music loops on the internet. The only problem is that there are none. At least no good ones. I have recently resorted to making my own, which didn't turn out well the first few attempts. Maybe I need some backgrounds to inspire me?

Developers Only

I just read this post on the MSDN forums and it spells bad news for the GSE Beta. Apparently, for the beta at least, one must have it installed in order to run games written with it. That sucks. So this means that only XNA developers or people who download GSE can play Araknoid. Don't worry, I'm sure Microsoft will fix it eventually.

Finally

This is what you've all been waiting for. An extremely limited, may crash your computer, uncommented, alpha release. It can be downloaded from this location. Anyone who develops with XNA should have no problem executing this app by simply double clicking Araknoid.exe, but I have not tested it on a non-developer PC. I would assume that it would also work, but I'm not making any promises. So, on to the good stuff. In this first release you will find that:

- there are only three levels
- you can't die
- there are three special blocks and two normal
- there is no menu system
- the third level is pretty

Lol, yea, thats why they call it an alpha. Please comment on this post about your experience of Araknoid and what, if anything, you think should be changed.

Almost playable

Today, I added the beginnings of gamestates. Basically, the game still starts up without a menu, but at the end of a level (all blocks gone), the score gets the remaining time added to it. Soon after, the next level starts up. Pretty snazzy if I might say myself. Just a couple more details and it should be playable.

Prepare to Launch

Cool, I finally found all the audio I need and have it implemented, plus, I have created a new block. I'm not going to tell you what it is, you can try to figure it out from this screenshot. It's the yellow one. There is also a clue in the screenshot (the new level). Oh yeah, I also added a countdown timer and a lives system. This weird game is coming along nicely. It should only be a short while longer before I have an alpha release available. Stay tuned.