It probably wasn’t the smartest move to read the GameDev.net 4E6 elements at 1 a.m. this morning. I must have had ponies and accountants and pony accountants running through my brain for the last 15 hours. Consequently my productivity wasn’t the best in terms of research output. But then again, it’s Friday in front of a long weekend, so it’s not like that was unexpected.

I’ve just learnt from the local Apple store that the replacement screen for my MacBook Pro is almost ready, so they can fix my pixel damaged screen next week. That’s pretty good news; I wasn’t sure if it was damaged enough for them to replace with nine to a dozen dead pixels. It’s mainly an irritant than something totally dehabilitating to work, although the cluster on the end is a pain, and it’s annoying when I try to lean in to look at something closely, which happens now and again when you work in computer vision and with art. But I’m pleased with their customer service, and it makes me more likely to buy a Mac Pro as my next desktop replacement so it’ll be a win for them in the long run too.

This means that I’ll be Mac-less for much of next week, so I won’t be doing much work directly with Flash. As a consequence I might move my long weekend tasks of updating the website back to the middle of next week, as I can do that on my ol’ Windows box. I’ll also look into other things I can do without my main software tools, like designing some ActionScript classes, writing some articles or maybe a bit of C++ programming.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been spending (too much) of today musing about 4E6. If you’re interested in following the contest you can consider me as joining in this year, at least for now. I don’t know how far I can go before the time pressures get too great, but it’ll be a fun academic exercise in game design.

This year 4E6 contestants can choose three of the four elements to include, or to put it another way they can throw one out. In the early stages it’s a nice exercise to figure out which elements suit your design style the best.

For me, it’s pretty much a given that whatever I end up making will be cute and/or retro - pretty much all my game ideas fall into one of those categories; that’s my niche. I’m also committed to using Flash this year; I’m considering this as part of my Flash game development strategy. This means 2D, vectorised graphics, possibly web based, mouse based control preferred.

With that in mind, it’s pretty clear to me that “ponies” and “crystals” should be in the game; that’s prime cute material right there. The two can pretty easily work together in a number of ways, too. The question then is which out of “accountants” and “explosions” do I have as the third, or whether I include both.

I’ve got a few ideas for those two elements, although I’ll need to brainstorm them up a bit more with a clearer head. I’m hoping I can factor in accounting as some kind of financial management side to a game, and explosions can easily fit in as a special effect if they aren’t too much of the violent kind. It probably won’t be too difficult to factor in both of these after all.

Lots to consider though - still very early in the game development process, but there’s also a lot of Flash learning to go before I can make something sizeable enough for a contest piece. Stay posted.

My fingers on my left hand are now semi-operational. I can curl my middle finger about half way, enough to wrap it around large objects, but not enough to make a clenched fist. I can also write legibly now if I don’t put too much pressure on the pencil and I use large letters. It’s not healed enough for extended writing, but at least now I can jot things down as I work on a computer. I’m also speeding up with nine fingered typing, so that’s a bonus.

As I doubt my hand will be healed enough for fine pencil work for a while, I’ll dedicate this work to keyboard only tasks. From the perspective of game development, this means I’ll have to continue holding back learning Illustrator and Flash animation a while longer. I could just use geometric shapes with the mouse I suppose, but I’d prefer doing draft work with pencil (either real or digital), and I think it’s best to wait a bit before putting too much pressure on my swollen finger. Instead this week I’ll continue to get to grips with ActionScript 3.0.

More on Springing into ActionScript

I’m up to nine workable digits again. My finger doesn’t seem to be badly injured, but the joints have swollen up as it heals. I no longer need to splint it to my ring finger, but the swelling means I can’t flex the finger for a while. With my middle finger stuck in an extended position it makes it a fair bit harder to grip anything, but it also makes certain gestures a lot easier.

I’m back to typing at a reasonable speed with my operational fingers, but annoyingly I can’t grip a pen or pencil properly and mightn’t be able to for a few more days. I hadn’t realised how much I rely on being able to jot things down. I can type things up I guess, but it’s just doesn’t have the same flexibility and immediacy as pencil on paper. Still, there’s a lot of typing I need to be doing at the moment, so it can be considered a benefit that my actions are somewhat limited to being in front of a keyboard.

On the game development front, I’m slowly working my way through Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Animation - Making Things Move, gaining speed now I can use both sides of the keyboard. I haven’t got much further than the first introductory exercises, but my current impression is that application development in Flash is uncannily like the methodology I was already using in my games; a heavily event and object based approach.

I’ve also been doing a little planning ahead, and I’m realising that I’m not going to have a lot of time for hobbies in the next six months. I’ve got an awful lot of work I need to do to wrap up my Ph.D. research. As such, the priority for my hobbies must shift towards keeping me sane. This doesn’t mean I’ll be stopping game development, as I regard that as one of my favourite pastimes. But it does mean I need to be realistic about my goals; I can’t really work on anything too large in the next few months.

As a consequence, I’m thinking the best aim for me is to continue working on learning Flash and Illustrator, with the aim of working on little mini-games for the next few months. Flash should be ideal for making small games, and I won’t get stuck in debugging engines. It should be a nice break from prototyping algorithms in C++ for my research and writing up results.

In which the number of my usable digits is temporarily decreased to eight

The good news: My knee appears to have mostly healed, only getting light twinges now and then.

The bad news: I tripped on something in my home study area while trying to access a bookcase, twisting around and falling back-first into a (different) bookcase, partially tearing down a shelf. A plastic file organiser broke my fall, and my fall also broke the file organiser into some inconveniently pointy shards. I’ve earned a few long gashes in my lower back; thankfully nothing serious, although the stinging isn’t a cup of tea.

More annoyingly I seem to have injured something in my middle finger of my left hand. While it initially didn’t seem to be anything serious, after trying to fill in a form the pain confirms there’s something wrong there. I’ve put a splint on and tethered it to the fourth finger to keep it stable while it heals up.

Since I’m a lefty, this means I’m fairly limited in what I can do right now. I can still type at a moderate speed (I’m good at adapting my typing strategies to injuries), but I can’t write or draw at all. As a consequence I won’t be practicing Illustrator or the artsy side of Flash for a while; while I can still move nodes around with the mouse it isn’t really the same without being able to use the tablet. Instead I’ll look into beginner ActionScript instead.

Hopefully ActionScript project doesn’t involve quite so many capital A’s and S’s as the name suggests. Hitting shift with my right hand isn’t what I’m used to.

I’m just back from a presentation by Jorge Cham, the creator of the graduate school themed webcomic Piled Higher and Deeper, who is currently on his Australian tour. I clean forgot that he was talking today, and was kicking myself for not claiming a seat ticket, but luckily there were a few spares. I thought it was clearly worthwhile to listen to a guy who has both completed a Ph.D. and published a webcomic, two things I really need to do myself in the next six months.

Overall I thought the talk went great. Jorge seems like a pretty cool guy, I spent every dollar I had on me on comic books for signing, the Ph.D. student in me was pleased at the free food, and the engineering undergraduate still in me was pleased with the free booze. I’m not sure his theme of “procrastination is okay” is the best for a grad student in the throws of a massive thesis write-up, but it still went down well with the audience. I also learnt how to pronounce “Jorge”, which isn’t as obvious as the letters suggest. All in all a great talk, and incentive for me to get cracking on my own digital penmanship skills.

In which I use the Internet and GarageBand as half-hearted excuses on my slow progress in learning Adobe products

I bought a new toy yesterday - an M-Audio KeyStation 49e, a USB MIDI keyboard (the kind you play music on, not the kind you type with). I already have a more fully featured 76 key Casio WK-3000 keyboard which I love, but I never got around to getting the MIDI interface to hook it up to a computer. While I’ve been considering getting such an interface for a while, I decided it was probably better to get a smaller keyboard that can fit on a desk and can easily be carted around, hence the KeyStation 49e. It doesn’t have much range and the keys aren’t weighted, but I was after a small size and am used to synth style keyboards anyway.

My recent desire to play around with music stemmed from procrastination in learning Illustrator and Flash - what I was meant to be doing in my spare time last week. While I have been slowly teaching myself the basic tools, distractions were legion and my resolve was weak.

More on If Music Be the Food of Procrastination…

Looking for Adobe books

I’ve decided it’s probably best to find good books for both Illustrator and Flash, since I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by them at the moment. My Inkscape drawing technique doesn’t seem to port to Illustrator very well at all. My usual strategy of drawing a rough sketch version then overlaying it with a highly vectorised shape that I hand mould into the right proportions doesn’t seem to work very well in Illustrator, as I haven’t found a functional equivalent to the node tool for manipulating shapes at the most fundamental level. I’m sure it can be done, as Illustrator artists make art like that all the time, but I haven’t yet figured out the best strategy for doing that yet. Hence my desire to hunt down some good instruction manuals to help speed up the learning process.

Unfortunately my local bookstores don’t seem to have many of the newer CS3 books yet, so I’ll have to wait for Amazon to ship some to me. I guess I’ll using online tutorials for now. I’m a bit perplexed with where to begin with Flash, so I’ll probably be taking baby steps for a while. It’s like being a total beginner all over again.

As an aside, I’m starting to be overwhelmed by the number of projects I’ve got running at the moment. Apart from my postgrad study (which is taking up a lot of my time and will continue to for many months more) there’s Adobe products to learn, cartooning practice, work on Ice Slider and the game library, the MAGIC contest, and more work on this website. Something’s going to have to give. I’ll have to review what I’m currently doing and see what needs to be on hold. I don’t think any of these projects will be axed, but some may need to be put on ice while I work on other things.

Leaving the PC upgrade race

While I was in the shopping centre I briefly checked out the local game store, and I noticed the prominently displayed Bioshock boxes. I had a chance to check out the requirements on the box, and my PC sadly is not up to scratch. My processor isn’t fast enough, and my Radeon 9700 Pro doesn’t quite meet the specs. My usual practice is to wait until there’s a couple of games my computer can’t run before thinking of upgrading, but to be honest, I’m not sure I really care that more about the PC upgrade race. While I’d like to play Bioshock (I loved System Shock 2), I’m no longer keen on upgrading a computer purely to play games.

With computer technology so cheap these days, I find that my budget Windows PC does everything I need it do, save play the latest games. Even game development is fine; with my focus on 2D I honestly don’t need to play with the latest and greatest shader technology, and I frankly find all that a distraction from the fundamentals.

And these days I’m using my MacBook Pro for more and more of my work, including game development. I’m finding Mac OS X to be a more productive work environment than Windows, although that’s most likely due to the jillions of ways to distract myself with WinXP than any fundamental difference between the OS.

When it comes to games, these days I’m finding myself playing either console games on the Wii, classics from the 90s, or small indie games. I’m finding it hard to devote a huge amount of time to learn and play a traditional cutting edge PC game.

Thus I’m not really that keen on buying a new PC with a fancy-pants graphics card. My next computer purchase is likely to be something like a Mac Mini when Leopard comes out, so I can have a Mac desktiop working environment too (although I do want to keep a copy of Windows around; I haven’t yet found a proper Mac replacement for ModPlug Tracker yet!).

And for games, the Xbox 360 is looking better and better. Maybe in a year or two I’ll get one and be able to play the console variants of all those PC games that ask for high spec systems.

But for now, I’ll do without Bioshock. It’s not like I have the time to get addicted to a game anyway. Well, except for Super Mario 64 - accursed Wii emulation allowing me to play all those console classics I missed!

A grab bag of topics in this post. A few unfortunate things that have set me back a bit this week, my first (brief) look at Adobe Illustrator, and the MAGIC contest.

More on Life, Adobe and MAGIC

Sorry about not posting in a while. I’ve been both busy and away visiting family in Melbourne, so I’ve been a bit slack on all fronts. I did though get a little bit of game programming done on my laptop while away, but nothing much to write home about; I’ve dismantled my current game system and I’m in the process of putting it back together again.

I did however use my time in Melbourne to pick up a couple of new toys, both of them art related. First is a new Wacom Intuos tablet. I found a 6×8 one being sold in an educational bundle, so it was only a bit more expensive than the Graphire version. I’ve only briefly tested it with my laptop, but it seems to be very nice.

Secondly, I’ve bought the academic version of Adobe’s CS3 Web Premium pack, which I’m hoping will help my art considerably, even if it’s just the purchase price that compels me to get my money’s worth out of it. I’m really keen on playing around with Illustrator and Flash to see what they can do, and I think Flash will be a great tool to get my feet wet with basic animation, not to mention vector based games.

Unfortunately I’ll have to wait a few days before actually trying out the Adobe software, as the store I was in didn’t have the pack I wanted in stock until today; they called when I was just about to head back to Canberra. I’ll have to wait until it’s shipped up here first before I can use it. But I’m keen on trying it out, even if it does slow down my output for a while as I get to grips with the new software.

I made a few tweaks to the CSS, and it now seems to be working in Internet Explorer (at least for version 7). The functionality isn’t quite the same but at least the nav bar is usable now. I’d be grateful if IE users could mention if anything is amiss.

I also met my first GameDev.net member face to face today, when I had lunch today with “Avatar God”. I can vouch that he’s still alive and well. Tomorrow he’ll be heading over to Melbourne for a few days if anyone wants to keep an eye out for him.