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I will put something here,
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Other News & Random Things
This page is for anything that doesn't fit elsewhere. Maybe some news, random bits and pieces, who can really
say at this point? Not me, I know that. On with the words, newer items appear at the top, if you didn't know.
say at this point? Not me, I know that. On with the words, newer items appear at the top, if you didn't know.
Spotted an option in AGS for "Write game text right-to-left". My God, the temptation. I resisted, and that's why you won't have to use a mirror to play Guess who's Saving Christmas.
Supposed to be a bit of rain on the way, for the next few days. Hope so. We've had months of drought, Wales was on fire! Wales, of all places, rainy Wales. Serious fires, too.
Christmas Copter Crisis was the first game I finished, and on finishing, I realized I didn't have any music for it, aned didn't have the means to make some, and so asked my brother if he could knock out a couple of simple tunes for it, since he's an actual musician, which he did. It needs more though and I'll have to make a few more tunes for it at a later date, now I can do that. My brothers' site is here Andy MacDonald music.
Christmas Bounce-Out. My "solution" to the music problem with this games was to grab a midi file of "Oh Christmas Tree", I think it was, and ran it through a programme that makes it into an MP3. It didn't go well, and that's the next one I'll be making more music for.
Pong-Wars is the only non-Christmas game here, and the first time I had a stab at making my own music for, this also, was not a success. I used AcidMachine2, it's a 303 sequencer. That's the free online version there, I got the dwonloadable one for only £7.00, though that option doesn't appear to be available any more. I am replacing the music right now, I have three tracks to add, I'll make at least one more.
Christmas Versus the Aliens. I wanted to try and do some better tunes for this one, so I looked at some of the more popular DAWs. Ouch! Expensive, for me anyway, closest was FL Studio, which I liked the look of, but still it was out of my range. Then I found Magix Music Maker, and yes, as you've noticed, this is not something music professionals would be drawn to. Magix is mostly loops-based, but has full midi support, and I've not had any problems with it accepting the various VSTs I've installed. Since I had again, left the music 'till last, I decided to go with loops, thinking it would be quicker, and it was. These tunes aren't going to win any awards, I can tell you that, but I've heard worse, I really have.
Guess Who's Saving Christmas is my latest game, and this time I got only about 3/4 of the way through before remembering it would need some music. Progress. Most of the tunes for this game I created with MIDIs, though one of the club tunes has a bassline which is a loop. The songs on Pam's stereo, and in PT's arcade are loops based, since I wanted them to sound like the kind of songs you might here on a radio, also they're easier to make. Still had to use MIDI quite a bit for these, as well.
Guess Who's Saving Christmas is 99% done, and will hopefuly be published very soon.
Finished the towers game, it's here: Christmas Versus the Aliens. Next I'll be doing more on Pam's game, the point & clicker, and also have a stab at doing some better music for Bounce-Out.
Weather: It's been pretty rainy, had a couple of all-rain days, nice.
Nearly finished the last tune for the towers game. Tweaked a few bits here and there while putting off doing the music.
The nav links are now a readable size on mobiles now, I fixed it with a media query, which I've never used before. Extremely useful, I'll have a stab at explaining how it works, i'm not a tutorialist though, you know. I'll assume that if you're still reading this, you know something about CSS already. I am using it here to change the font size of my navigation link, a.navlink, if the screen width is 1200 pixels or less.
<style>
a.navlink {font-size: 1.0rem}
@media screen
and
(max-width: 1200px)
{a.navlink {font-size: 1.8rem}
</style>
media:
The media rule gives information (viewport width/height, resolution, etc.) on the device being used to view your page.
screen: This is type of media you are targeting, the options are all/screen/print/speech. Screen is what I'm using to get the current width of the viewport (browser window). Print is for formatting printed documents, I suppose, I haven't used it, and speech is for having your page read aloud by some kind of text-to-speech application, again, not used by me yet, I can't tell you more.
and: I only want the text size to change if the device is screen, AND the second argument is met, in this case, a maximum viewport width, so I use this operator here.
(max-width: 1200px): Here I check that the viewport width is less than 1200px (this is just the size I chose, it could be whatever). Other things you could check for: minimum viewport width/height, resolution, and orientation of mobile device. You can also use media queries to switch between stylesheets, or even execute javascripts.
screen: This is type of media you are targeting, the options are all/screen/print/speech. Screen is what I'm using to get the current width of the viewport (browser window). Print is for formatting printed documents, I suppose, I haven't used it, and speech is for having your page read aloud by some kind of text-to-speech application, again, not used by me yet, I can't tell you more.
and: I only want the text size to change if the device is screen, AND the second argument is met, in this case, a maximum viewport width, so I use this operator here.
(max-width: 1200px): Here I check that the viewport width is less than 1200px (this is just the size I chose, it could be whatever). Other things you could check for: minimum viewport width/height, resolution, and orientation of mobile device. You can also use media queries to switch between stylesheets, or even execute javascripts.
OK that's all for now, find much more info on media queries and responsive web design here: w2schools.com, and here: css-tricks.com.
Finished redesigning the site, and this is it.
Later though
Part of the reason for redesigning the site was so it would look OK on phones as well, and this sort-of worked, though the navigation links are still too small. I'll sort that out. The problem here is that I'm seeing random articles with the font too small, don't know why since they're all using the same CSS rule. I'll try to fix it soon.
It's been a while since I updated, been busy working on Christmas vs The Aliens, the tower defence game. I've nearly finished it, just the last two level tunes to do now, plus a few tweaks and that.
Did a bit more on the point & click adventure, think that's going to be a long one.
So, what about the other game? What about the shark? I'm having to rethink the whole game, since it didn't seem to be working, I do have some new ideas for it though, it's not going away.
Weather Update
Since November, the temperature has been around 10C give or take a few degrees, except for two really cold dips, which were great, -7C at one point, and the week before Christmas, we had a really decent snowfall, like I haven't seen for years. Excellent, 8/10. Spring is definitely on the way though. Boo!
RAINY SEASON! Maybe I'll survive another year:) On level six of the Christmas tower game. Still not got a proper name for it, I can think again now, so I'll get there. Rainy season!
Don't come to England looking for rain. There's no rain, it will never rain again. I'll be back doing the towers game soon. Sorry to people getting it even worse with the weather.
Heading towards another miserable heatwave. Notice I'm putting the dates back in? Of course not. Revelation: since nobody reads these pages, I just realized I can write whatever i like! That will be the theme going onwards.
Tower game: Just started level 5, and soon I will be doing some of the level descriptions and so on, along with the French & German translations. I'm not good at this, have to use the translater a lot, though I have just enough understanding of French, say, to spot a flying mouse when I see one. You can't hit a six with one of those!
Pam: Made a library, and am working on the librarian.
Shark game: Nothing to report at the mo.
Nearly three levels done now on Christams Defense. Solved the problem where it wasn't moving on to the next level (intermitantly, which is the worst), and now how have added a shocking tower. Three more locations in for "I don't want to Save Christmas" (probable title for the point & click adventure. The protag is named Pam, for now at least. Did I say that already? Can't be arsed to read back. More later.
Edit:
Forgot to mention weather. It's been pretty samey. Occasional patches of light rain, and one realy ferocious one, very audible 7/10.
Finished the Pong game, and I've started a point & click adventure game. So far I've more or less completed the first few locations and the second draft of the main character (no name yet, I keep going back and forward on this.) It's going to be a Christams themed game again, that's just how it went,
Weather. Well, Winter's over, it was OK I suppose, no snow but there never is now.
Pong game completed. Shark game: I'm going to have to gut this in order to rewrite it for Godot version 3.2, there's just no way round it, 3.2 does better what I need itv to do. I'm also working on a tower defense (Christmas) game, and also a point & click adventure, which too is Christmas themed.
Well, the shark game was getting on my nerves a bit, so I started another game, which is a Pong game, of all things, but with guns and things. I meant just to start it off, and get back to sharky, but I'm close to finishing it, so I'll just press on now.
Stopped adding the date as you can see. Much better. Well, I have three projects on the go, I'm working on a point & clickie, which is something I've wanted to have a go at for some time, and also a mobile game, why not. The shark game is getting most of my attention still though. This is not a well-organized way to do things, but I'm not a well-organized kind of person, I'll do an item about that one day I think.
Had to completely redo the tileset for the first level, phantom blocks appearing, still don't know what happened there. Its fine now.
Autumn is here properly at last, though seems to me its more like September autumn.
Added a flamer robot, some more scenery items, and some mines. making some crushing doors now, nearly have enough to start properly planning out the level, I'm sure this isn't how the pros approach development, but listen, I'm getting it done still.
I was expecting a small September heat bump, and it did appear. Never mind though, its gone now, and today started with rain which continued for hours. Great!
Watched a YT vid by Call me Kevin, where he was playing Project Zomboid, a game I can't seem to stop playing even though it clearly hates me, it was LOL funny, and you should watch it.
I should stop putting the dates in. Found out while we in the UK were having our "heatwave", other parts of the world were just about melting. Last summer was much worse here, very hot, very dry. Enough about the weather. Well, its been a while since the last post, but I've been busy on the shark game, its a platform shooter. Ah wait, just a sec...
Dev Blog
Right so, I meant to do a dev blog on the first game, but I only thought about it halfway through, so it didn't seem worthwhile, then I was going to start one while doing Bounce-Out but er, I didn't, so since I'm only on the first level of Gralph's game, it seems like a good time to start.
"Working Title Shark Game" is, as I said a platforming shooting Christmas game. The player starts off in a hospital, and you know, I really started to not like it, then I changed the nasty green walls to blue and I just like it better now. There are robots. Three of them so far. Gralph favours a shotgun. More news soon.
Middle of a heatwave here. Nasty. I Was enjoying the cloudy, rainy days up till about a week ago. They had altogether too much rain over on mainland Europe, so sorry to see the devastating floods. Miserable business, and its only going to get worse if we don't sort it out. I want my propper winters back. I should move to Iceland, I like the look of the place anyway.
Haven't got anything to write yet, but can't just leave it blank. Thinking of releasing Christmas Copter Crisis on September, should coincide with the Christmas songs starting up in shops.