3/28

HC:
Went over the code for AD3. It's like staring into the abyss and letting it consume me. Started writing a little bit of the code for the bunk menu.

Eric:
Coded a bit of battlemap.
Fixed preloader bug...partially.

HC and Eric:
Finished setting up svn stuff to better manage back and forth file transfers.
Discussed redesigning aspects of the map system (considering how to make it easier to code, faster to load, more user friendly, etc). Some good arguing here.
Synchronized sleeping schedules.

3/26

Eric's progress

- I've tweaked the bullet class so that it can fly towards its target and hit them

- Improved the turn based flow of combat so that enemy moves and attacks one at a time (Initiative checks for enemy ordering not included. Will decide if it is necessary to add later)

- Added pushback capabilities for able weapons (maximum pushback is 4 tile units)

- Implemented shotgun pushback system to coincide with rangepenalty

- All enemies now have pushback resistance

- Removed spawn groups and spawn chances for enemy database

- Integrated the spawn challenge system so that weak units do not get summoned on harder days

- Tweaked the enemy combat functions so that unexpected errors won't occur (may still be some bugs I've missed out)

3/25

Worked on viewCharacterCreation:

Switched fonts default device fonts to save memory.

Squished signature button bug

Wrote all biographies for the Cap.

Feng shuied the shit outta this

new

old

3/24

Blog will be updated daily/every other day until I'm ready to go back to hourly. I don't mind telling you every dripping detail, but there are prying eyes.

Eric's progress:
Increased sound functionality in battle
Solving resource garbage problem
Modified character selection system

implemented prototype ammo system
implemented prototype character damage system
auto reload mode (temporary)

use of barricade as shield temporarily

Me:
Readed.

3/22

6a0- Woke. Yesterday was a day that I'd been putting off for a long time. I threw a party. I called it the "Almost Done" party. "Almost done" isn't really a milestone, but if the party wasn't now, I may not ever be able to celebrate AD3 (not because I wouldn't finish mind you, but because everybody would die of old age). Yes, I took your hard earned backer money, and bought all my IRL friends a sushi buffet meal. Could not even confirm that the bill was under the double digits, however, since they hid the bill from me. Played Battlestar Galactica, my favorite board game. Good to dust off the old game box and spend time with friends.

I guess if you were a backer, you might find it odd reading how I spend money. Do I really need to spend $80 on celebrations to finish the game? No. You could argue that the time spent actually detracts from the game, but I don't feel at all irresponsible. That's why it's a bit weird that people want transparency when it comes to how backer money is spent. You wouldn't want the creator to go to Vegas and gamble it all away, but what if he spends 90% of your money on Vegas and manages to deliver his product with the remaining 10%? Who knows/cares as long as he delivers.
7a1- Exercised a little bit. Internetted.
8a2- Ate.
9a3- Ate.
10a3- Woke from nap.
11a4- Got to work on story, going over a few things I didn't like.
1p6- More proofreading.

3/20

7p0- Woke.
8p1- Internetted.
9p2- Exercised.
10p3- Ate. Eric and I had our first fight! We fought over who gets to do what.
11p4- Ate.
12a5- uhhh slacked off...damnit.
1a6- Studied.
2a7- Studied.
3a8- Wrote Stella's gift response.
3a8 to 8a13- Wrote Zoe's gift response.... it's a bit long... But it's good! Gosh that was depressing. What I wrote, fictionally. It makes me want to scream into my pillow "why don't they kith already?!".... So it's really funny and depressing.

3/19

It's my birthday. I didn't do much yesterday, so let's just say yesterday was my birthday break and get right back to it.

Sorry for being mean, I know it takes energy to wish someone 

a happy birthday, but this was just too hilarious to pass up.

6p0- Woke.
7p1- Stared at funny pictures and movie trivia on the web.
8p2- Ate. Discussed super important business matters with Eric(programmer), partially organized the fullBodyPortrait index...
Since Eric's inclusion, he has:
Partially looked at everything. (major undertaking, for you non-computer literate, this is like opening a book, reading it all, and understanding every plot point)
Tweaked viewIntro.
Tweaked viewNarrative.
Continously reminded me to update fullBodyPortrait index.
9p3- Ate. Partially organized fullBodyPortrait index.
10p4-Talked to sister. Worked on fullBodyPortrait and went over bug stuff with Eric.
11p5- Finished fullBodyPortrait Index (wow that took way too long), went over bugs...
12a5- Assisted Eric with bug. Took a nap.
2a5- Woke from nap.
3a6- Ate.
4a7- Assisted Eric with minor things. Thought about how to tie up a few loose ends in the story. Corneas were burning off, so took a shower.
5a8- Stared at story. Story still has minor loose ends, still don't know how to resolve them. Stared at code for long period of time, until lightbulb sparked; proceeded to fix viewCombatMenu. Staring is productive.
6a9- Working slowly on code, alongside with Eric. Sometimes our conversations start with me saying "hey, this thingamabob is uh, it's not working".  And he'll say "oh yeah I put a breakpoint on it", and I'll say "ohh, right, ofc breakpoint", and then frantically search google to figure out what he's talking about.
7a10- Figured I wasn't helping much in the programming department. Gonna leave Eric alone on the game for now, read up more on programming for a few weeks and come back into the game, gandalf white style. So all's this blog's going to say for the next few weeks is "readed programming book".
8a11-Readed.
9a12- Had a study-ache. Exercised by running to the grocery store. Junk food get. Studied.
10a13- Ate. Internetted.
11a14- Studied.
12p15- My brain is full. Good night.

3/17

5p0- Woke.
6p1- Groomed myself for date.
10p5- Ended date. Wasn't actually a date. She invited me to dinner to break it off with me. It could have been worse. She could have just ignored my texts, but instead she took the time out to dine and talk with me as a friend, so it was a very kind and respectful gesture on her behalf that I won't forget.
11p6- Sat in car for 30m, (depressed), went home and called my friend over. We sparred, so I guess that counts as exercise. Good cardio at least, I'm pretty bruised up otherwise.
2a9- Friend went home. Texted milf, told her I would eat her out if she taught me how to code. She said she'd accept the offer but she doesn't have much experience in my specific field. Once you know a programming language, you sorta know 'em all, but she specializes in database work, so apart from the classes she took, she wouldn't be much help. Guess I'll just have to hit the books.
3a10- Threw some texts around.
6a13- Found a new programmer. My initial impression of him is good. He contacted me through here, not through the shitty "find-a-coder" channels, so he's already passionate about the project. Spent a bunch of time talking to him, and got him set up. (thumbs up)
7a13- Woke from nap.
10a16. Readed programming stuff for four hours, focus deteriorated near the end, ate. Whattaday.

3/16

5p0-Woke
6p1- Internetted. Exercised.
7p2- Exercised. Friends came over and took me out to birthday dinner.
9:30p4- Got back home.
10p5- Got a little bit of programming reading in.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 4/10
11p6- Readed moar programming.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 3/10
12a7- Readed moar programming.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 4/10
1a8- Learned programming stuff.
Difficulty 6/10 Efficiency 10/10

2a8- Woke up from nap.
6a12- Worked on some private affairs.
7a13- Reading code.
Difficulty 7/10 Efficiency 10/10
8a14- Readed some more.
9a15- Prepared for my get together.

3/15

6p0- Woke. Good sleep, 14h.
7p1- Exercised. Ran to CVS to get groceries. Clerk awarded me $2 extrabucks for alerting her to an expired bottle of V8. I've done this a few times, because not nearly enough people drink V8 as much as the bottles just go bad, but this is the first time I've been awarded for it. Anyway, I think getting the $2 loot is a 20% proc, and it only procs if you never choose the "hit on attractive clerk" option.
8p2- Internetted. Ate.
9p3- Ate. Showered.
12a6- Felt like crap. Played games for a few hours.
3a6- Woke up from nap.
4a7- Readed programming stuff.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 5/10
11a14- Continued reading. Right now, my biggest hurdle is trying to figure out everything that's going on in the previously written code. I still need to learn more though. At the rate I'm going, I'll probably need three weeks before I actually write any more code for AD3. It sounds bad, but I have written plenty of UI code... and I just need to sort out the code, figure out all the references, and step up my own skills, so that's the dealio. Hopefully I'll be able to stay on task; today was not too bad in terms of focus.

3/13

7p0- Woke. Yesterday, a friend from out of town came over uininvited, but he was very welcome, so we spent the day together. Apparently I'd forgotten that my birthday was coming up.
8p1- Internetted.
9p2- Ate.
10p3- Internetted, got back to reading programming stuffs.
Difficulty 2/10 Efficiency 4/10
11p4- same as below
12a5- Readed up on programming.
Difficulty 4/10 Efficiency 6/10
7a12- Kept reading and forgetting to update. Helped a friend with stuff.
9a12- Woke up from nap.
10a13- Alright, let's get shit done. I readed some more.
Difficulty 5/10 Efficiency 10/10
11a14- same as above
12p15- Talked to sister.
2p17- Arrived at "Pi Day Party (the day was 3.1415)". Brought a Mudd Pie for the occasion. Snuck an hour of nap into the party, as well as probably 30 mins of exercise in a remote room. It was a board game party. Despite having no sleep, I managed to win a game of 7 Wonders. Hadn't played a board game since.... maybe last year. That goes the same for seeing old faces.
2a29- Got back from party. Slept.

3/12

Aching Dreams 3: The Dark Planet, delayed until tentative October release.

Ready for a trainwreck? Here it is. The main programmer left. Art and Story assets are mostly done. By last February, I expected him to pick up the slack on coding, and he's just not here, so I'm taking over his responsibilities. Where did he go? Well, I'm sure he'd love it if I wrote that he died, but he didn't, and it's probably a very bad idea to shame him on a professional level, so we'll just say "He's just not here", and we'll leave it at that. I'm replacing him.

When I made the announcement of a February release date, that announcement came with the self-assured assumption that the programmer would be finished with his half of the code (the hard stuff), and we'd merge it with my half (the easy stuff). But he's not here, so I'm going to finish the rest of it. It's going to take a lot more time than originally anticipated because I'm still figuring this out. I basically have to go level 2 Super Saiyan.

This blog has been quiet, and I've two reasons why: First, it's inherently difficult to show the progress, because the nature of code is itself not easy to show. If you take a gander at any other developer blog from a different game, you'll see concept art, game design decisions, and posts on the story or the lore. Given that this is now a one man show, concurrent development is impossible.

The second reason is embarrassment. I wasn't showing any code from the lead programmer because, well, he's not doing it, and I wasn't very particular on showing my side of things, because showing any of that shit would have given you the impression that we had no idea what the hell we were doing. I'm going to go ahead and ditch that embarrassment from here on out, because the product is late, and the customers deserve to know what's up. As a first gesture of transparency, I will go ahead and say that I now have some idea of what the hell I'm doing.

With that second reason gone, I'll be posting more often, so you can read what I'm up to, but I cannot assure that the posts will have much of anything interesting to say. Hell, just the other week, I spent all day and wound up writing a single line of code. Since it's safe to assume he's not helping, I can go back and finish up the remaining 5% of art/story because they're of equal priority as code is now.

We were mistaken. I apologize. If you can't accept that apology, then I suggest you stow your anger 'til October because I am still very much at work on this game. October is a guesstimate. Out of all the things I've worked on for this game, programming is definitely the hardest to give a concrete estimate on how long it'll take to finish. When I say "October", I'm saying that's when I'll understand wtf the Matrix is, and I'll apparently be able to see everybody as green lines of floating code....and then I'll finish the damn game by then.

Also, if you haven't seen it, I posted up some cancelled content from AD2 here. It's old, so it's kind of shitty now, but I assume you somehow managed to fap to my old art, so I posted it as is.

4p0- Woke.
5p1- Ate brekka. Told Ex-lead to put more comments in his code. (in programming, comments help programmers that didn't write the code understand what the original coder was intending)
6p2- Wrote the stuff above.
Difficulty 1/10 Efficiency 10/10
7p3- Packed up some story stuff for a friend to read and critique.
Difficulty 1/10 Efficiency 8/10
8p4- Posted up a programmer job query. Studied programming. I have to go back and read things that I skipped before.
Difficulty 4/10 Efficiency 8/10
9p5-Did some autohotkey scripting, to improve scripting speed ofc.
Difficulty 1/10 Efficiency 10/10