Mid Life Crisis....

[JonR]

Nice one.

as long as we all remember we're not trying to make the next Quake 3, we'll be fine

i look forward to seeing your exploits.

Take Care,
JonR.

[DanDanger]

The light can be found at:

http://www.realtimeworlds.com

Ive worked the games industry my entire life.
I feel old and sleepy now.
But I will continue until my eyes burn out.

Try our company, we are hiring.

Ive seen things your people have already created...

[arron]

Funny this, I complain that my games programming is going nowhere, and then I have two really productive evenings where I get lots done.

Now the next thing to worry about is a undo function for an editor so I can undo changes that are made to a dataset. Except I've never made one before, so this should be interesting..ulp..

[Muttley]

Or maybe a book on time management?

I bought one of them, but I haven't had time to read it yet!!!!

That ain't a joke BTW!

Muttley

[kroll]

Now the next thing to worry about is a undo function for an editor so I can undo changes that are made to a dataset. Except I've never made one before, so this should be interesting..ulp..

I've done an editor with undo/redo before. I used the Command Pattern. Worked pretty well.

[moobaa]

Now the next thing to worry about is a undo function for an editor so I can undo changes that are made to a dataset. Except I've never made one before, so this should be interesting..ulp..

I've done an editor with undo/redo before. I used the Command Pattern. Worked pretty well.

Got to retro-fit that into an app soon... not looking forward to it

[arron]

I've done an editor with undo/redo before. I used the Command Pattern. Worked pretty well.

This is in C, so it probably won't be anywhere as easy

Unfortunately the functions that are called have all sorts of different parameters. If delete a series of vertices from the list, then the undo function is several 'add_verts' to put them back on again.

I think the general way of thinking at the moment is to have a list with append storing a undo and a redo option. If the user decides to perform an operation, then store the current operation along with the steps required to reverse. Then if the user messes things up, then merely step back through (or forward) and then replace the steps afterwards when the user adds new commands.

The undo commands would need to be a list, to cope with several stages, and abstracted from the code that performs them. Just need to scribble out some code to test it out and see where it needs to be improved..

Once upon a time, I didn't think that I needed scripting systems. And now I've written two so far this year..

[hyphz]

Pretty soon, we're going to realise a third fact; we are in the majority - or, at least, a sizable minority. The more that the major devco's cater to the so-called "mass market", the more of *us* there are going to be. The more Fifa sequels we see, the larger the market for small, independent gaming (such as Unity f'rinstance) will become.

And with that knowledge comes power. The power to strike out on our own. To write the games we choose to write rather than the games we are forced to write. To only play and support games which meet our expectations.

Except that this power lies only within our group, and therein lies the rub.

First let's say that Unity is a bad example of "small, independant gaming". Lionhead are not exactly a small, independant firm, and even if Yak is developing Unity on his own, he still had to have Lionhead's resources to get him the devkit, and he'll need them again to get the game on shelves and marketed.

Small independant games have problems. They can't viably go retail. They get stuck in obscurity. They have no access to the most popular platforms (and if MS get their way they soon won't be running on PC's either). The only thing that can overcome those is megabucks for shelf space and advertising. But all the firms that have the megabucks are - yes, the ones making Fifa sequels. And they don't care about the popularity of independant games, because Fifa sequels still sell.

I truly can't see any way around that.

[junkster]

Also note that most indie projects aren't of the kind that will get noticed: simple shooters, remakes of Chuckie Egg and other old 8-bit games, and so on. I think the key to being an indie is to work on projects that are different and interesting, and maybe one day build up a reputation based on that. Easier said than done, of course, because game design is fundamentally hard (more than I really want to admit).

Getting back to the original topic, there's something to be said for following the path of least resistance. Learning DirectX, while admirable, may not be nearly as productive as using Blitz or PyGame, for example. And writing Windows applications using raw API calls is certainly less productive than using one of Delphi, PowerBasic, BlitzPlus, or Visual Basic. As much as I don't want to say it, .net may be the path of least resistance for the future.

[korruptor]

One thing that might help, and Achay may have a point by indicating at the power of this group for this, is if magazines actually covered some of the more accomplished "open source" or indie games. And I'm not talking Linux Format here.

Edge (for instance) would be doing much more of a service to the industry, and the people trying to break ideas, if it removed its one page review of yesteryears titles for a critical review of something like Mutant Storm.

[teamonkey]

Edge (for instance) would be doing much more of a service to the industry, and the people trying to break ideas, if it removed its one page review of yesteryears titles for a critical review of something like Mutant Storm.

Absolutely. We should suggest it on the Edge forums... oh.

This was on /. today: http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com. Interesting.

[JonR]

Hi all,

well, what do you think??

(hopefully this will display)

(oh blimey, the colours are crap on this. can you tell what it is??)

JonR

[korruptor]

Blimey!

Are you going for the full on visual vest, or clean vector goodness?

[JonR]

Blimey!

Are you going for the full on visual vest, or clean vector goodness?

good, so you can tell what it is

hmm......lets say its going to be closer to vectors than anything else

Glad you like it. still only runs 1 level and no baddies yet.
will keep you informed.

Take Care!
JonR.

[korruptor]

Yeah, please do Jon. I'll make sure I announce my own little efforts as soon as I've got some of the GFX done