So I have an idea and I’m working on it now.

WPF is the right solution, but it is a pain in the rear.

That said, I’m starting to put things together.

So I use virtual box rather than proper SCC.

It means I can take snapshot of everything. Awesome. Until it crashes.

Trying to figure out what’s taking so long in rendering I ran the VS2012 profiler. Crashed the whole VM. Luckily it came right back up.

My game play continues to evolve here, I’ve added animation, previous path, marking walls hit.

It is challenging! And I keep wanting to play it.

GB

So this is coming together much better than expected.

I’ve got movement, I’ve got the problem, I’ve got a solution.

I still need to add timing, difficultly, scoring, sound, polish.

That said I’m happy with my progress. Very happy.

Oh and to plug my semi-live stream again:
http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/

So I just tried a 50×50 maze.

Wow. That just hurt to play. I’ll need to add various difficultly levels. It just is a must now.

Oh and sound. I should do some sound.

So I’ve spent the last two hours trying to get sound to play. It should be simple. Everyone says it is simple. I try their code, no love.

Then I ran across a post from someone in France. Yeah, apparently WPF won’t play sound without Windows Media Player installed. And I just happened to install Windows N on my VM, (the version without Windows Media Player).

I feel special now.

That was far harder than it should have been.

Turns out I shouldn’t have touched the WPF sound functions. They are junk. I’ve gone back to the good ol’ SFML.

Anyways, it is coming along, at a slower pace than this morning.

Keep track on my Semi-live stream: http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/

So I have enough to put together a demo:
http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/timelapse/26/Debug.zip

Checkout my semi-live stream at: http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/

Um, what else?

Oh. Go banana!

Okay it is time that I admit I suck at creating graphics/music.

Are there any tricks people are willing to share?

At this point, pacman has better graphics than my little maze runner.

GB

Release form of what I have already: http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/timelapse/26/Release.zip

Let me say, WPF made a splash screen so easy. Very happy with that.

My VM continues to be a great SCC/progress recorder. Of course you could always watch my semi-live stream http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/.

My graphics still suck, I’ll see if there’s anything I can do about that. No music yet either. Need to have a way to turn music off as well (I’m sure it’ll get annoying).

Finally I need to look into a mysql db I can access on the web for high scores. I wonder if I can find some free hosting for that.

GB

I’m opening up a bottle of my home brew to toast a very successful first 24 hours.

I’ll focus on the sprites tomorrow, possibly turn the ball into a character or something. But my game, the game that’s been struggling for years to get out finally is real.

The story line isn’t there. It may never come. But that’s okay.

Try it out, with background music, sound and full game play: http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/timelapse/26/Release.zip

One last screen shot before I head to bed. The Nerd Troop monkey, I mean employee, is running late. Unfortunately, due to a night of binge drinking he’s not seeing well out of either eye. He can only see half the shelves with each eye. Guide him to the punch card system quick as you can, before his boss finds out. She’s a mean one. There are customers waiting!

And I’ve just made my first virtual steaming pile of crap. Really!

I still need to do scoring and maybe clean up the graphics some more. That said, I’m feeling good. Very good.

Oh this would be a good time to remind people…

Backup your data!

My word, it is starting to take shape now. I have a story I want to add. I have graphics, instead of just boxes. I’ll trash the crosshatch for actual shelves.

My “Tech Troop” guy and the time card machine.

Need scoring. Need a persistent high score list (online). Need to finish my oatmeal.

There’s just one more feature I’d like to add, which is internet scoring.

Anyone know of a good MySQL host where I can push/query my data?

It feels complete now: http://www.kins-home.net/ludum/timelaspe/26/Release.zip

Feel free to play test it. Feedback is welcome!

As for the theme, I went the minimal amount to tell the story.

My supportive and awesome wife just brought me second breakfast.

X10 hosting doesn’t allow remote mysql, which sucks. I may just rewrite things and use standard post to send the high scores.

Any other suggested hosts for MySQL? I’d love to have remote access.

Tags: foodphoto

So I can save my high scores, via MySQL, using HelioHost.org. Remote MySQL access so even though the website hasn’t been created, I still can hit the database from my game.

Now all that’s left is the loading of high scores.

Shouldn’t be too tough. Onward!

I’m done. Finished. All good. Ran on my machine. Ran on my wife’s machine. AVG threw a fit, but then it stopped and everything ran just fine.

I’ve got high scores. I’ve got mazes. I’ve got screen shots. I’ll pull together my time lapse soon.

And this one looks better than my last game. Much better.

Get it here

So as part of my game, Tech Troop Tim’s Big Pay Day, I’ve been keeping track of high scores.

Here’s the thing, you can only see 5 or so entries in the game, you might want to see more. So I’ve put up a website where the raw data is being dropped:
http://techtrooptim.heliohost.org/

I wanted it up earlier, but the host just finally activated my website. It isn’t pretty, but it works!