Postmortem
Well, I really don't feel too bad about my showing, as this was
my first comp and it was a great deal of fun...However, that
isn't to say that I didn't make a LOT of noobish mistakes...Here
were the downfalls as I see them:
Time Management - Between burning several hours at the
start working on my rather crappy tune, and getting called
away from my computer due to poor weekend planning, I was
pretty well shot for finishing. Though I didn't really
realize that until there was only an hour left in the comp.
This is the one that really killed me...
Resource Management - I would've been better off if I had
set some actual parameters BEFORE I just started throwing
things together. I probably would've saved some time in the
long haul.
Overemphasizing details - This is one of those situations
where I really should have taken a step back looked at my
time remaining early on and accepted what I could do within
a tighter timeframe instead of trying to make everything
"right". I should have given up on the audio after I had
wasted my third hour on it...Instead I burnt six and still
got a tune that I'm not entirely pleased with. I either need
to focus on improving these peripheral skills so as to be
able to do them quickly OR accept what results I can come up
with under the gun.
Even with a list of mistakes like that I still feel that I learned
quite a bit. (Oh no...Here comes another list!)
ALWAYS inform the cruise director(spouse/significant other)
of the schedule...Preferably more than two days in advance...
Failure to comply with this edict can, and most likely WILL,
cause you to be double-booked for activities.
Audio with SDL...Who knew it was so simple...
Comp. time is NOT a good time to try new software/hardware
Get sleep...Screwing up your normal schedule can just cost
you more time.
Sound is nice...Though not NECESSARY...=/
Probably about a dozen more things that I can't remember
right now...
Game Overview
Contaminate! was meant be a kind of cross between Othello/Go and
Life. You(the Virus) would go around trying to surround and
thereby infect the healthy Cells. The Anitgens would in turn
try and surround either an infected Cell(and repair it) OR a Virus
(to destroy it).
As a note, I DO plan on completing this game...
Just need to recover a bit from the Comp.
All of the graphics were done in The GIMP, music was provided by
recording and wave mixing(in Dexster) me playing on a Yamaha PSR-76.
Music was then changed into an ogg file using oggenc. Code was
built/compiled with GCC 3.2.2 on a Slackware distro. Dev Box Specs
Gateway Solo 2500 (Laptop)
Pentium 233Mhz
160M RAM
2.4.22 Linux Kernel
Sun Apr 18 19:57:06 2004 CST
Not done but it's in...
Sun Apr 18 18:24:09 2004 CST
Well...I have managed to put together a clickable music player...=/
Didn't have time to finish the game logic and at this point I'm so burnt
the I'm not certain that I can...I'm going to keep going however and at
least give it my best...I'll load whatever I've got to the download page
at the end of the comp...If anybody wants to (try and) compile the source
for Windows feel free, just please send me a copy at: eghost@charter.net
Regardless of how much I get done this has been a blast...=)
Sat Apr 17 14:59:00 2004
Ok...First screenshot up...With the base code in place I can focus
on kicking out the rest of the graphix...Only a few I really need
so it shouldn't take long...
Sat Apr 17 10:15:59 2004 CST
Ok...A few hours of sleep under my belt should give the drive to
do the graphics and a large part of the coding...=)
Sat Apr 17 04:47:57 2004 CST
Finally!! Finished the main track...I think I may have been overly
optimistic in regards to how much audio I can crank out...If I have
time after I get the coding and graphics done I'll come back to the
audio...Anyway you can find my (bad) track on the Downloads page...
It's called Contamination and it should be about a minute in length...
Fri Apr 16 23:37:20 2004
Finally getting started...The game is going to be called Contaminate!
I'm starting with the audio first, as it shouldn't take long. I'm
shooting for a bank of about 20 sound fx and at least one track,
if I get enough time I'll try to cut a second track for the game.
Fri Apr 16 20:08:06 2004 CST
Theme is INFECTION...Hmmm...What to do...
Fri Apr 16 13:06:27 2004 CST
Here's my basic plan of attack:
Configure spare laptop to work with my tablet
Budget out my time (x hours for coding, art,etc.)
Wait for "GO" time
Any or all of this plan may change dependent upon how much
time I actually get to work on the code, and what the theme
ends up as. One of the other things I am considering is
making a "cheat sheet" for the SDL API for quick reference
IF I have the time.
Fri Apr 16 10:01:16 2004 CST
Ok, T-minus 10 hours and counting...Give or take...
I'm hoping that I'll be able to devote a reasonable amount
of time to the development. The way I see it, I'm actually
going to have about 16 hours for the whole thing so I'm gonna
have to hustle.
Here's the libraries I'm planning on using, though this may change:
SDL
SDL_mixer
libogg (Maybe)
SpiderMonkey (JavaScript library) - This one is unlikely though
Now for the software...
The GIMP
gcc 3.2.2
SoundTracker
Bluefish (text editor)
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