Post date: Jul 10, 2012 9:48:30 AM

Later this week I should be releasing a web-player of an example star map that demonstrates a sector of the universe of planet101.

It’ll not be amazing in the first release, as you’ll be able to wander around a sector map looking at the star systems.

Here’s an example screenshot.

Post date: Apr 30, 2012 1:16:09 PM

Yes, umm … I am still working on planet101.

I’ve also cast aside some code that I’ve been getting annoyed with for now. Namely planet generation, I still have to sort all that out, but frankly, it’s rather a large chunk of code that can be replaced over and over. So back on the TODO pile it goes.

I’ve also noted that a couple of months after a friend tweeted about my p101 facebook page, notch announced that he’d like to do something similar. Thankfully, he appears to have got stuck into writing a virtual cpu so people can code in the game. I’m not sure if this has much to do with a ‘space game like elite done correctly’. Still, it irks me somewhat. If anything, it’s got me throwing more of my time and effort into this.

Post date: Aug 24, 2011 5:4:29 PM

After getting very frustrated with my previous attempts at devising a decent framework, I went back to basics and used a pattern from the time I hacked mostly with Java, and all my game objects are now agents :)

Now I can get on with generating planets again, which are generating just nicely, thank you very much!

Post date: Jul 17, 2011 2:41:41 PM

Hurrah. Lots of scripting stuff this weekend!

It now has variables, scope, etc. No looping nor anything that would allow it to be in any way be turing complete.

Now to add definitions to handle menus, splash screens, etc…

Apparently my Windows Phone (Samsung Omni 7) has arrived. Looking forward to playing with it! :p

Picture Unrelated

Post date: Jul 14, 2011 4:20:33 PM

Well, I managed to mess up the framework quite completely. It was just too complicated, and I wasn’t happy with it.

So I scrubbed it, reimplemented it using some researched design patterns. Realised that I was essentially inventing a language, so tried using XML, and finding mono was segfaulting all over the place. If the latest mono isn’t happy with XML, unity’s version - which is a little older, certainly won’t.

Post date: Jul 02, 2011 1:37:10 PM

So where am I ?

Well ignoring the collections of little tech demos that have disappeared into the mists of time, not really that far…

• A very crusty galaxy generator that was converted and heavily modified from Carl Burkes java applet (yes, it used to be on a Geocities site, so here’s another backup link to the same page).
• A whole heap of spaceship models that may or may not be used in the game.
• A developing C# game framework that sits on top of a renderer such as:

Unity 3D

Unity 3D is a fantastic game engine with lots of middleware built in. It sure beats building your own game engine + physics etc. It targets out of the box, for free, Mac and Windows (and a web-player for both), supports iOS, and Android, and even Consoles like the Wii, 360, and the PS3 - though I expect licenses for the consoles to be prohibitive!

Planet 101 used to be a fansite/portal I organised with a few like-minded individuals for the game Planetarion, that I used to play aeons ago. After they finally put up a portal of their own, I found motivation to write my own “space-game”. I had been musing about creating a “better elite” ever since I played it at school on their BBC micros, and my Speccy of old.

It has been “one of those” projects … one that you pick up fiddle with for a bit and never quite get anywhere with. However, hopefully putting up a page here may provide more motivation :-)