Traditionally, I’ve done quite horribly at these; invariably, I either give up due to a perceived lack of talent on my part, the utter frustration of not having my skill set and/or the allotted match my ambitions, or real life getting in the way.  The last six attempts have produced only one publicly-released binary (along with a lot of early exits and vapourware announcements) – and even this was devoid of enemies or an objective; this is quite a sad, embarrassing little ratio.

Each time, I tell myself I expected better, I should stop overdesigning everything, I should stay focused, I should do this, that and the other, and each subsequent time, I go out and make the same mistakes.  Although there are probably a variety of things I’ve gotten wrong (one does not, after all, bash out a perfect FFXI clone in a Saturday from scratch, no matter how much talent one has, and certainly not if they spend half of it shopping and surfing B3ta), I think my major failing is this: someone much wiser than me once said that people frequently end up hating (and, in my case, feeling enraged and powerless about, and ctrl+a->shift-deleting…!) their own work because they’re comparing their own ‘behind-the-scenes’ with everyone else’s finished product.

I’ve decided to try to take this advice to heart this time.

12 hours in, and this is as far as I’ve gotten:

…because titling this post ‘I’m in’ would be oh so passé.

Tools:

• Basecode: Allegro 4, AllegroGL, this skeletal framework
• Language: C
• Sound: MilkyTracker, autotracker.py, SFXR
• Graphics: GIMP, MilkShape, pencil & paper
• Computer: an old HP laptop that’s been dropped twice, dismantled, and subsequently been built into a desktop with an outdated version of Mandriva

I have a short attention span and frequently get bored while writing closing sentences, so I

In (sorta kinda, I guess?) accordians* with the rules, my framework/startup code can be found at http://illegal-instruction.org/.

*yes, accordians.

I decided to finally finish start the doodle/mini-LD project from a few weeks ago as sort of a warmup round, and, unlike every other jam/speed-coding/short-dev-cycle attempt I’ve ever made, I actually feel like I’m not a miserable failure this time! Go me! (more…)

Starting on the day something is due is decidedly ill-advised, but, as I understand it, the submission date for this mini is flexible, so there’s that.

No idea what’s happening here, yet, but there seems to be a bit of a hostage situation with the knight…if only some brave adventurer would come rescue him…

Of note: I’ll be starting with a little bit of skeleton startup code rather than going from scratch.  I’ll post this when the entry is done.