Falling down

June 5, 2008 By Sokurah

Not just the title of the song I’ve just listened to, but also a description of my state of mind. Well, actually that may be exaggerating just a bit – I’m not about to go into a Burger King, waving a gun and complain why the burger I got didn’t look like the one pictured, but I’m not my normal self either. Depressed?…dunno – a bit perhaps, but when it comes to programming I AM feeling a bit burned out. So, Am I really burned out on programming or am I just having a midlife crisis?

This is all very existential and I wish I had an answer to it. As for the ‘midlife crisis’ – I am having my 41st birthday today (see, notice I didn’t write ‘I’m celebrating my…‘? But, I don’t actually think it’s a ‘real’ midlife crisis (wouldn’t it make more sense if I’d had it a year ago then?) – why would I lose my ‘programming-mojo’ just because I’m having a birthday? – no, I’ve actually not felt like like doing anything much, programming wise, for the last month or so. Don’t know why but it’s probably more likely to be the stress of needing graphics for a game and not feeling like doing it, and then completely losing my drive all together because of it…I think (and to be quite honest there are a few other non-programming factors involved as well).

Basically it means that I won’t be able to finish my project for The RR CD50 Project by the end of june as planned. Unfortunately.
It’ll still get done though. Perhaps if there’s enough contributions to the project this one can get on CD2 but it won’t be finished in 3 weeks as planned.

For what it’s worth I can’t be completely burned out because I’ve actually started up 2 new projects up over the last couple of weeks (both are games that are pretty light on graphics) and these will be finished – just as my other projects, but I just don’t want the stress of absolutely having to finish something specific to meet any sort of deadline right now.

For now I just need to recharge my mental batteries and fool around with something fun for a while. More ‘news’ when I feel like it.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Despair, Usual excuses

Burnout follow up + new game in development.

April 6, 2008 By Sokurah

3 Weeks since my last post and I’ve been meaning to write a follow up to my Burnout rant ever since. I’ll keep it very short though. My last rant may have come out very negative but don’t misunderstand me – it is a very good and addictive game. Criterion has definitely done something right…but they’ve also done something wrong. This is the most frustrating and annoying Burnout game in the series. I just played it a bit today – the first time in a week…and not because I haven’t had the time – I just haven’t cared. I’m now 78% through the game and have spent 62 hours doing so (not caring, that is), but I’m so bored and annoyed with it that I don’t see myself playing it much more until the new downloadable content arrives sometime later this year.

Time to play something else…and time to do a bit of programming.

I’m working on a new game for the The RR CD50 Project. It’s not a remake but something original. It’s a platformer but with slightly different gameplay than what I remember having seen anywhere before and I think it’ll be fun. There’s no pictures yet, as I haven’t quite decided on a theme yet. It’s coming along nicely though, but I really need to come up with a theme pretty soon – I need all the time I can get to make the graphics needed…a talent that doesn’t come terribly easy to me. More later.

Filed Under: Misc, News Tagged With: Burnout Paradise

Project Future…not so much into the future.

February 25, 2008 By Sokurah

Just a quick update to let you know what’s happening with Project Future.
The programming is done, the graphics are done and the presentation is also the way I want it to be. This weekend was spent making sure the map is working correctly and that the player can’t get stuck in the scenery anywhere. That took ages, but I’d decided not to do it until all the final pieces of graphics was in.
Yeah, yeah…always leaving important things until the last moment. 😉

The only thing I can think of now, is swapping some of the soundeffects with some better-sounding ones, and record a few phrases of speech for the the game…and writing a ‘readme’. That should be all (as I keep saying) 😀

…It should be out sometime later this week.

Funny thing really – I’m usually just running the game in windowed mode, but the last couple of weeks I’ve been running it in fullscreen mode more and more, and it seems…faster. It shouldn’t – the framerate is locked to 60fps, but for some strange reason it seems faster in fullscreen mode. Hmm, so this is not just an arcade-adventure…this is an arcade-adventure – with emphasis on arcade. It’s fast – really fast.
Good luck – you’ll need it. 🙂

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Project Future

“Weekly” update.

February 18, 2008 By Sokurah

Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this page and I think it’s time to do so again.

I’ve finally come the the realization that my friend, who was supposed to do the remaining graphics for Project Future for me, will never return to the project, so I’ve done it myself. All that’s needed now is to clean up the sourcecode and test the game to make sure that it can be completed and no big bugs are present. Ohh, and I can’t remember if I’ve put in a gamepad option, but if I haven’t, then I’ll have to do that as well…but it’s a small thing.

I’m expecting a release of this in a week or so (perhaps two, but no longer).

…things just take a little longer thee days as I’ve been a bit distracted lately – I finally bought that Xbox360 about 10 days ago, so I’ve been using that a lot to play Burnout Paradise. So far I’ve completed 43% of it.
Yay. 🙂

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Project Future
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