CyberEngine: Moved to part time work.

Since school suddenly got really hard to manage I am going to push the CyberEngine project back a bit. I am going to work on it in my spare time and just see where it goes from there. I will post something here when there is a major update or something.... yeah.... thanks for reading :D!

P.S. I got map collision working!

CyberEngine Update: 2

This past week nothing too exciting happened so I am just going to list this stuff for your reading pleasure.

•  I got my little state switching system set up with one simple InGameState that loads a quake3 level. 
• I got LuaJIT linked but it is not used... yet.
• Irrlicht is set up and running with the latest 1.8 version
   

This next week  I am going to work on the game object class and hopefully add some collision detection and a little bit of a game .... just to test.

Well thanks for reading this little update. Talk to you next week.

Game Loop Magazine

     There is a really cool FREE online magazine called GameLoop about making games. It was started just this year and is hosted by one of the Universities I might go to (FIU) the Game Developer's Guild makes it and is nice enough to share it with the entire internet for FREE.
    If you ever wanted to know how to make a game/game art this is a great place to look. I've read through the first 2 issues and it is actually some pretty good stuff. There are videos and everything so it's not just someone going on and on about game making. I hope you guys enjoy it!
  
    As a side note, the Game Developer's Guild is hosting the only Game Jam in Florida January 25-27 (the global game jam). I am going to be there and I hope some of you will be to.

CyberEngine Update: 1

Welcome to the first Update post for the CyberEngine. The CyberEngine is a little game engine that I am making to learn more about 3D and physics programming. I plan on using this in the 2013 Global Game Jam so I need to be able to make a playable game with it by Jan. 25. I will post an update every week or so to let people know how I am doing and keep a log of the development. I am hosting this MIT licensed project here.
    Now for the update. I just finished the outline for the state switching system. It basically lets me make GameState objects that switch via callback handling. I also made a little White Cube demo in the 3D renderer irrlicht. I never used it before and it actually seems really easy to use. Well... that was not a long update... but it did its job.

Global Game Jam 2013 and what I am doing for it.

    I am going to be attending the global game jam 2013 at FIU in January and I plan on making my very first 3D game there with an engine I am writing with Irrlicht. Since this is a big project (because I never actually made anything 3D before) I want as much input and ideas as I can; I am publishing this work under the MIT license at GitHub (the repo is dartosgamer/CyberEngine).
    This also happens to be my first time using GIT so I am sure there's going to be quite a few problems with me and uploading and everything but, so far it's going well.
    As an added note, during the jam I am going to make some live blog posts on whats going on. Complete with video and pics... you know... the works.

My First "published" game

So in the past week I was working on this game idea I had out of nowhere. It is a slight mix of the classic games Missile Control and Space Invaders. When I posted it on the site people said it was too easy then I updated it and broke the spawning system such that things would infinity spawn after someone's score was over 100.

Anywho, I finished it and I think I got the difficulty down so without further ado,

Here is my game SPACE CONTROL.

On Programming (An introverts hidden thoughts)

    Sometimes I walk through the halls of school thinking to myself. In my mind I have amazing thoughts and even more amazing ideas. Unfortunately when I try giving someone insight into my thoughts they either don't care or don't get it. This post is me trying to express what is in my mind.
    Ever since I was a  child I loved making things. I loved crafting things with my hands, bringing things from my mind into the real world in a tangible way. As I grew and matured my thoughts became too complex to make in a little clay figure and unfortunately  I never developed a knack for art. After a few years of not being able to express myself in anyway other than speech (which most people just ignored anyway) I found this wonderful art called programming. At first I just saw it as a tool to make video games and I'm sure that some people (even programmers) see it this way but, after a year or two I realized that I could express my thoughts using code.
    It has been so long since I had a way of making anything that I could use to bring my thoughts and ideas into reality and the feeling of it was just mind blowing. I started learning programming as though it was an art discipline like writing or painting. By that I mean that after looking at the technical aspects of some languages and algorithms I saw fantastic logic and style that lay just behind the code. I felt like one of the famous ancient Greek mathematicians creating, analyzing, understanding, and appreciating mathematic concepts. Programming forced me to see math in a new light. It forced me to see it as an astounding and expressive tool.
    It's hard for me to explain why programming arouses these feelings of worth and creative ability but I'll try. When you are trying to create an algorithm for some small thing like making a grid you need to break down what a grid is to its most basic components; then take those components and find out how to make them self-generating. You could spend hours musing over these small problems and find out that a solution is so infinitely simple that you almost need to force yourself to forget about complex math concepts. To most people, I would think, this would enrage them; after spending so much time on something just to see that it is actually as simple as 2+2 or for every grid square multiply its X position value by two to get the X position on the square to the right of it. But to me that is the most amazing feeling. The feeling comes after the juxtaposition of the, at time, extremely complex art of programming and the simplicity of elementary math. It's an amazing splash of reality that brings me back to earth for the next problem that need tackling.
     Basically what I'm saying is that programming is not just some boring/tedious (although it can be at times as with most things) means to and end but an art that gives people, like me, who like math and like making tangible (but are not really good with art) creations a way to express ourselves.

Life update: Starting the fun stuff

I have to get used to the whole blogging every day thing. I am going to try to do that with my Life Updates. I won't put anything up that I don't think people would care about (like me going to the mall or something).

So here goes:

Life Update 1

 Just 10 minuets ago I finished all of the technical work for my game engine. Written in XNA. All I need to do now is put in the actual game (a.k.a. the fun part). I hope I will be able to finish this game before the next IGF. I plan on entering it with my game; I think that it would be good to get the name of the game out there.

Also there is a new humble bundle over at www.humblebundle.com. Some really good music this time.

That is my Life Update.

Any complaints/comments/concerns please feel free to bother me about it.

Thanks for reading,
Ben

The Sound of Mixcraft

So a while back when I was first getting my foot in the door of game making, a friend of mine, who is some kind of magic music man, showed me a program called Mixcraft. After a long debate with myself over where to spend this $75 I have lying around I decided just 20 minuets ago to get Mixcraft 6.

And so I start my journey into the world of making crappy music. Wish me luck.

I made my first song by randomly clicking and dragging clips into mixcraft.
And here it is.
Thanks for listening/reading.

Learning AS3 for prototyping

If any of you have seen the Solar Flare Game blog you know that I plan on making and posting some prototypes of the game. Well just today I started learning action script 3 just for that purpose. I am putting games I make on newgrounds.com

Hello, World!

Hello everybody, my name is Benjamin Botwin.
This is my first venture into the blogging world so please be gentle with your comments.

I am a aspiring programmer who founded the Solar Flare Games team (I have another blog for them). I have always loved computers and am going into a job in game development.

This blog I will post about anything I feel like really... but it will probably be mostly about programming stuffs that I am learning.

So that's about it for the intro; If you have any question, concerns, or complaints feel free to post a comment yelling at me.