Another New Project?!

As a bit of an offshoot from my Unreal Engine project, I got the idea for a simple 2D sidescroll/platform game where the player is always running forward and it is up to them to time their ducks and jumps to make it through the level. After getting this idea, I knew that I had to make it (despite it not being completely original). So I decided to begin creating this using GameMaker 8.0 Pro and 3 days later, I have a working concept and a playable game I’m calling: Retro Runner!

retro-mario-b2Brainstorming the back story and other ideas behind this, I decided to keep it simple, retro and a bit nostalgic. For this reason, there is no real back story. You’re just a character running through classic 8-bit and 16-bit environments. As of now, I only have games of the 8-bit era: Super Mario Bros, Castlevania and Contra. I’m still thinking about what other games would make for simple, yet challenging environments (so if you have any, please let me know).

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Putting the Raspberry Pi to Use

After countless months just sitting in my closet, I have finally found a practical use for my Raspberry Pi. I made a previous post about making a power box for it, and I finally decided to finish it. The box itself was all wired and basically set to go but after sanding it, I never painted it. Well the paint is (finally) drying on it as I type this.

Before doing that however, I hooked it up and began to configure some software for it. After installing the newest version of Raspbian (Debian), I took to installing PHP, Apache, MySQL, and Mantis Bug Tracker; the later being the most important. I’ve been considering bug tracking solutions for a while now, but popular ones such as Jira are just too expensive and the WordPress plugin was a bit too simplistic. Finally comparing Mantis to Bugzilla, I decided to go the Mantis route.

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UDK Project – Early Test

I began working on a platforming game project using the Unreal Development Kit and finally got the core systems fleshed out. I had originally planned on implementing all of these views in to a single system, but problems arose with projectiles hitting the target on a 2-D plane while doing so. Not to mention if the player is moving and suddenly the view changes, it can be confusing and may cause them to run off a ledge.

So in the end I made 3 separate systems:

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