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Socoder -> What Have You Done -> What Did You Do : 2010 |
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| Wed, 29 Dec 2010, 03:30 | |
Jayenkai
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A nice lengthy look back at the year. Mine will, obviously, be entirely made up of games, because I do feck all else, ever! Hopefully everyone else has done something slightly more worthwhile!! JanuaryA fresh new year, starting with a whole new language.I finally made the switch over to BlitzMax, and took some time building a great big new framework to speed up development. Lesson Learned : Frameworks DO help, and DO speed things up. Even if it means you'll be missing a few weeks, it's really worth the time and effort you've put into it. FebruaryA disappointing sequel occurred in February. Centipong 2 somehow managed to take an excellently playable game, and turn it into a bag of crap.Lesson Learned : When doing a sequel, don't force stupid new game ideas.. Just enjoy the original! MarchMarch 2010 became MAR10, as I spent the whole month making silly Mario themed games, starring all my favourite characters dressed up in Mario costumes.I missed one, though. I wasn't sure what to do with Greenie, so his game stalled shortly after I drew him. Lesson Learned : Nintendo didn't appear to give a rats ass about having a whole calender month dedicated to MAR10! AprilApril was Platdude's special month, where I took a whole month to make the biggest ever JNKPlat game! Turned out nice again!Lesson Learned : Platdude Rocks MayNothing really big at all happened in May. Hmm.. Bit of a downer!I did make Gravity Bombs, though, and spent a couple of weeks wondering if it was good or not. In the end, it was.... something! Lesson Learned : Games aren't always gamey JuneHaving been avoiding doing sequels since February, I finally jumped back in, and attempted a NeonPlat remake. I figured NeonPlat couldn't possibly go wrong, and with a few powerups, and some nice new bad guys, it really didn't go wrong at all.6 months later, it still crops up on random websites, so I guess it didn't do all that badly at all! Lesson Learned : Platdude Rocks JulyAfter the success of NeonPlat2, I figured "What the hey", and did a couple more sequels.Microbe2 and RetroRaider2 probably weren't as effective as NeonPlat2 was, but they were both still just as much fun. Lesson Learned : Only add if you have something to add. AugustNear the end of Year 2 I'd, quite frankly, overdone it! 54 games damn near killed me, and yet I stupidly struggled to the end, not even realising I'd hit 54 weeks instead of 52.Man, was I ill!!! Lesson Learned : Take a Break! AGameAWeek isn't THAT important! SeptemberThe whole of September, I did absolutely bog all!!... Or, at least, that's what I tried to do. Instead I worked on my iDev, and even did NeoPlat for the DS. So much for time-off! Lesson Learned : DS homebrew is quite popular. OctoberBack to AGameAWeek, and my second game of Year 3 was a remake of an Amstrad CPC game, starring a bunch of flying monsters in space. Not being bothered to draw a bunch of monsters, I tried to randomly generate them.They turned out quite nicely, and so a couple of weeks later, I took the time to build the generator into something slightly more substantial, and reusable by all. Lesson Learned : Temporary sprites aren't always temporary! NovemberAnother sequel, and another fail. The sequel to Box's Adventure seemed to be coming along nicely, but somewhere along the line it just kinda stopped being any good at all. Quite annoying, too, since it was really the last couple of days that seemed to kill it off!Lesson Learned : If it looks like it's going badly, STOP!!! DecemberI created 25 games in 25 days, and yet because they were all little tiny minigames, the pacing didn't even phase me. It even, ironically, gave me extra time to do other things, like building a complete Music Archive!Everyone seemed to really enjoy Spike Dislike when I remade it in DD's PlayMyCode. Lesson Learned : People didn't play my advent collection.. --- If you can't be bothered typing out each month's name, I've popped them into the Spoilercode box below!! > Reveal 🔎 -=-=- ''Load, Next List!'' 
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| Wed, 29 Dec 2010, 11:23 | |
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CodersRule |
2010Lesson Learned: Don't slack around on your lazy ass... No matter how much you wish for it, nothing gets done!
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| Wed, 29 Dec 2010, 15:39 | |
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dna |
January I made the graphics for the second issue of the January eMag and then began the graphics for the February issue of the news mag for which I work. February Began the Graphics for the second half of the February issue of the eMag and the preliminary images for March. I then realized that my drive space was beginning to fill. I inspected it and found that there were many duplicates of software that I downloaded. March Began the Graphics for the second half of March and began creating graphics for April. After Deleting nearly all of the duplicates, I began to see that these duplicates were not completely the problem with my large disk space usage. I was the size of the graphic files that I was creating. April Began the graphics for the second half of the April issue and began making graphics for May. After assessing the disk space problem I discovered that I would probably have to upgrade my disk since my current size setup is smaller the industry standard size sold at retail, 320G. I have 280G in all locations. May Began the graphics for the last half of May and began creating imagery for June. I was asked to submit flash based images for some new format that may be forthcoming and so I will have to learn swf. June Began the graphics for the last half of June and began the graphics for July. My Disk space on one partition ran into the red with the creation of this months graphics. I used some DVDs to remove some items but the problem will occur again since the quality of the images requires a large size file. July Began making graphics for the last half of July and began the images for August. Tired to use a smaller file size for the images but the experiment can be called a failure if I want to maintain the resolution and clarity of the images I use. But the lower resolution is good for making graphic artifacts as a filler but banding might become a problem. August Began making graphics for the last half of August and began the graphics for September and downloaded the trial of Flash. September Began making the graphics for the last half of September and began the news graphics for October. After Installing CS5, I discovered that the software might cause other problems. Comparability might be one problem but the largest would be file size again since the 48bit color files, which makes even my older stuff look even more spectacular, increases the file sizes to 3 to 6 times their current sizes. October Began making the graphics for the second half issue of the news for October and began the images for the November issue. I opened some of my older files to test the size and got a whopping 2.1 gig out of one of my PSD files. File size might be a problem but I'll try some tricks. The CS5 package is a huge 4G+ download which becomes 6.6G when decompressed. If I can find the Flash manual then I can proceed from there. November Made the graphics for the November second half issue and started the December graphics. December Made the graphics for the December second half issue of the news and began the January 2011 images. I received the specifications for the new trial news page and was told that the formal, final version, will be sent to me by May. Without any doubt. Should be plenty of time to learn CS5 flash. Fortunately for me Adobe has left, or put, the keyboard commands for many of the menu, filter, and some mouse movements, in the same place that I am familiar with, which will make it easier for me to move to that software should I need to use that. -=-=- DNA |
| Fri, 31 Dec 2010, 07:16 | |
shroom_monk
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JanuaryNew year, big plans... more schoolwork. :/ GCSE Science modules, lots of coursework to do, not much coding.Lesson Learned : Better timetabling is key FebruaryAccording to my calendar (where I'm getting most of this early stuff from cos I can't remember), this month was mostly schoolwork, except a half-term in the middle which I probably wasted.Lesson Learned : It's one thing to ban yourself from games to get your schoolwork done in a holiday, but that doesn't mean the solution is to lie on the floor *thinking* about doing work and wishing it was already done. MarchFirst half:Second half: Stage crewing in a school play. Also GCSE language orals. Lesson Learned : Just because the last school play after-party was fun doesn't mean all of the will be. Particularly when it's an all-nighter and you have a German Oral the next day. :/ AprilMostly this was the Easter Holidays, and that wonderful DT Coursework deadline got extended for the bazillionth time, so I went in near the end of the holiday to submit that pile of crap. Second half of April was spent no longer having to worry about DT Coursework. Instead I just had lots of exams to worry about... D:Lesson Learned : Do not slack of at beginning of course (even if everyone else is) -> Therefore no panicking at the end. MayDid some work for our entry to the Schools' Aerospace Challenge. Year 11 stood down near the end of the month, and remaining time was spent doing exam revision, working on SAC entry and playing video games (not in that order, nor in equal amounts).Lesson Learned : Working on a 5-page essay at a friend's house is infinitely more fun when said friend has a zipline in their back garden. JuneMonth began well with an interesting picnic in a not-so-local-to-me-but-local-to-everyone-else park. Month was then pretty mundane due to having 3 weeks of GCSE exams, followed by two weeks of somewhat more interesting work experience.Lesson Learned : All my lessons were learnt by this point, because now I had to apply it all in my exams.  JulyActually, most of that 2 weeks Work Experience was at the beginning of this month. After that was mostly relaxing, with some coding work on a flowchart engine (dunno what will happen to said project, because I intend to rewrite a better version of my GUI code and possibly make a far more interesting version of the same project), and the end of the month was spent learning about aviation and flying various air-vehicles after our team was one of the 12 winning teams of the SAC.Lesson Learned : Flying a helicopter for the first time is bloody scary, particularly when you don't quite understand how the controls work. AugustSummer holidays. Spent as a relatively equal(ish) mix of gaming and coding, with a trip to Germany in the middle. Near the end of the month I got my GCSE results, which were pretty good. A group of us from school also got a very amateurish team together for the ETF2L Highlander League for very new people.Lesson Learned : Holidays can be long and fun. They can be longer and funner if you spend them better. SeptemberMonth began with my 17th birthday, quickly followed by back to school, beginning the Sixth Form. Kept leaving weekends open for the aforementioned TF2 tournament, which kept on getting delayed due to administrative issues. At the end of the month I got a girlfriend, much to the surprise of basically everyone. Happiness significantly improved.Lesson Learned : What can go wrong will go wrong, particularly if you're nervous. Be bolder! OctoberMostly school stuff, with the TF2 tourney in the middle and towards the end. We got monumentally destroyed, partly because our team was full of new-ish people drafted in to make up numbers. End of the month was the busiest half-term ever, finishing off with a fun overnight Hallowe'en party. Some coding got done this month, but school work, as ever, took priority. :/Lesson Learned : You might be good, but they will always be better. NovemberHelped at Saturday School sessions. The Xmas Xompo was also announced this month, and a lot of time was spent faffing about with an over-complex snowman puzzle game which never got anywhere at all.Lesson Learned : Keep It Simple Shroom! DecemberTook part in the British Informatiks Olympiad. Beat everyone else in school, including teacher, with acceptable score of 48/100. Broke up for Christmas Holidays, and restarted Xompo work, with Rise of the Zombie Snowmen. Week before Christmas was entirely on that, every day solid. Just about got something submit-worthy done in time.Lesson Learned : BIO: RTFQ and don't be afraid to think hard. Or brute-force. -=-=- A mushroom a day keeps the doctor away... Keep It Simple, Shroom! |
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