Upon review of 2009, it was one of my most fruitless years outside of BYOND. It feels like I did little but I think that's because my day job sucks so much that I count it as a black hole of things done. I didn't used to. :(
With BYOND, I did the following.
- Tower Defense: Clone Wars
This was no trivial undertaking and had me doing a number of new things.
.Interface Work
.Large Icon Effects
.PathFinding (with library help but modified)
.Lobby Efforts which lead to a whole bunch of crazy ideas
I updated Cathedral from V1 to V2 and spent a month or two trying to implement a Lobby System...
an AI System, and Turn System. All of which came near to done but in the end, I ripped it all out because I wasn't happy with it. I just have to finish the end game and I can release V2 which adds the Turn System.
and now... for something completely different. Well.. something a little older. Here's a shot of my OutPost project that is sitting on the back burner. I've kept a lot of this stuff under wraps. This was designed before interfaces came about. Notice the little hubbies. Those slide out and dynamically size themselves to the content they contain. Your looking at border conflict between three factions. I'm really in love with the idea and have so many fun ideas. This is one project that I really hope to make it back to. The size of the project is the current problem. Although, my BYOND skills have grown significantly since its conception so my thoughts are constantly drawn into scoping it into a V1.
- MRTS (Mini Real Time Strategy)
MRTS was a total whim where I am trying to build an RTS (for starters) without any pre-thought or design and with AI at the forefront of the design. Well, it turned out to be more of a lateral design process where I would add a feature and then make sure the bots could us it. It did require an initial bot loop which is just a simple condition tree but its been working out well. So far, the design as you go thing has been working fine. It always does until you stop working on the project though. I've been thinking about a MRTS for years. I wanted a quick strategy game where I could get into some fast action. I wanted it to be like a chess game but with more action and strategy. Most of you have already seen this as well but it is an end year summary.
- PopLava Project Manger
Another MAJOR MAJOR undertaking. We're talking about writing full blown applications using BYOND now. I don't know how I get myself into these projects but I've got to learn to say no and walk away. What's funny about this project is that I posted a Help Wanted in the classified section where I was planning on paying around 100$ to anyone who could do the work. Well, nobody was interested and perhaps they knew something I didn't. Here's the first line in my notes for this project.
07/22/09 - Started designing PopLava Project with the expectation that I will pay others to do it.
Alright, NOT!. 4.5 months later with tons and tons of hours put in on this project and I'm still working on the basics. Wow. We are talking about several thousands of dollars in dev hours at this point.
- There are a ton of features so I won't go into all of them. In short, the plan was to release a free project manager to BYOND developers. It's pretty dang near V1 complete. I just lost steam as I headed into my vacation where MRTS was hap-haphazardly born. Take a sneak peek. You deserve it if you made it this far. :)
I've done a lot more small stuff on BYOND this last year as well. Responded to more posts, read more blogs, followed more designs, created and shared more examples.
Overall, a pretty good year on BYOND. As for 2010... if I were to spit out a couple early resolutions, here they are...
1. Finish PopLava Project Manager (Pronto)
2. Make and spend more time working on projects with other people while spending less time working on heads down projects. :| Yah.
3. Take a stab at the next PopLava project which wildly contradicts #2 but its so dreamy I can't help myself. :)
4. Hash out a real solid Outpost V1 (Part 1).
What are yours?
Before I go... I want to thank those of you who have tagged along and especially those of you who have continuously posted quality blogs and/or chatted with me about design. This kind of stuff keeps me going.
Well, goodbye 2009! Here's to what comes next. I honestly have no idea what that might be but lets make it good shall we!? :)
Happy New Year!
ts