Regarding the title, I couldn't come up with a new name… and since the blog is about my F4D progress… Well. Here we are.

Have a screenshot:

Now, before anybody jumps to conclusions about my game, it is NOT A 'SERIOUS SANTA III: THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE' GAME. Nope.

Santa is the final boss, and I'm just testing his sprites in this shot.

And I'll come right out and say that I'm pleased with the way the sprites turned out.

Interesting Santa boss battle fact: The shotgun is just one of the weapons he pulls out

of the bag. I'm going to try make the battle as varied as possible, and at least moderately challenging.

Luckily for me I can make new poses and animations like a factory for this game, since I have a lot of spare time. Woot.

Of course, Santa being the boss means that the little guy on the left hand side of the screen is the player. Why is he fighting Santa? Because Santa was a douchebag and didn't give our heroic protagonist anything for Christmas. Heh.

His primary weapon is The Snowball. Everybody knows that snowballs are Super Effective against anything you care to use them against, except for the things they're Not Very Effective against (Anything with a high body temperature).

Then, final note: The tileset. I cobbled it together yesterday; took me an hour for the progress so far. Here's the whole thing:

I'm going for the feel of a retro platformer and doing my best to add as much visual variation and scenery as possible, and keeping the platforms themselves simplistic. No need to go overboard.

Now, by seeing this blog you may be able to catch a glimpse into my workflow:

> Concept art first

> Test and finish artwork

> Build basic game (Implement things like gravity, collisions, basic attacks, etc)

> Construct enemy artwork

> Create enemies

> Construct extra pickups and weaponry art. Rinse. Repeat.

> Finally design some levels.

> Polish my tilesets and character art as much as I can.

> Remember all of a sudden that I forgot to make the music, and rush to do that

as quickly as possible.

> Find some crazy number of bugs that weren't there before.

> Release.

This is a messed up form of Rapid Prototyping.

My cat…

is sitting to the left of my keyboard and giving me the SRSCAT look. With a self-satisfied grin on it's face. I wonder what she's up to >_>

How I got the cat (on my birthday, ironically):

(Cat is now watching the words on the screen. Haha).

I live on a fairly large property which has two houses on it. My parents and siblings live in the one, and I live in the other with my grandparents. I like this setup because it's quiet, and I get a room to myself.

Now, the cat belonged to my mother. And all was well.

Until my sister decided that she'd love to get a puppy; everybody else agreed with her (I stayed out of it. I'm not a dog person).

After about a month of searching, we were given a puppy, a Chow crossed with an English Sheepdog. It was only 3 months old, but already larger than the poor cat.

The cat, when it saw the puppy, did the logical thing: It scratched it across the face and sat growling under a nearby bed for the rest of the day (If you've never heard a cat growling, believe me, it's the analogue of a person cussin' all day under their breath non-stop).

Now, a tense situation began building up, and for about a month the typical scene was: Cat wakes up and starts growling. Dog wants to play with cat. Cat wants to kill dog. Dog barks once, cat starts hissing like a box of fireworks going off and shoots off out the window.

Cat tries to enter my bedroom through the window.

In the end, in fustration, my parents decided that I'd best look after the cat in a dog-free environment. And the decision was made on my birthday; a surprise… gift? Heh.

Some rules with cats:

> Never assume you own the cat. That only happens in Soviet Russia.

> Never try to wash the cat.

> Never tell the cat to get off your keyboard. It'll sit there smugly grinning at

you, with a look that's clearly telling you "Make me."

The only solution is to deposit the cat on the floor immediately without

engaging in a debate, which you will lose.

> Don't be typing if the cat wants food/milk. Because your document will soon

have some additional asdfghjw that you didn't intend.

> Don't look it in the eyes. Main reason being that the second you make eye

contact, it thinks that you're challenging it to cause discomfort to you

in some way or the other.

> Don't leave your tea/coffee unattended on the computer desk.

> Don't leave your lunch unattended on the computer desk.

Other random snippets of information

I pulled nearly every muscle in my right arm yesterday while helping the gardener to load a massive bag of compostSHIT onto a wheelbarrow. Dunno how much it weighed, but I'm used to heavy lifting. That thing needed a crane. I can currently feel my muscles protesting as I type. But I refuse to go to the doctor; It'll heal, and I've got stuff to do besides sitting around with my arm(s) in a sling (My left arm took some collateral damage. At least I lifted the damned thing).

For those interested in the gritty details, we have six bags of organic manure alongside our garage, each one about 80cm wide and 150cm high, and with a depth of about 60cm. And they're packed full. Shit happens.

Also, I finally caught up with the internet with regards to MLP. Now I'm waiting for the next episode to come out, which leaves me with plenty of free time… to torment anybody who comes to visit by trying to get them to watch the show, and infecting their USB drives with pictures they don't want. :D

Anyway, time to continue with my comp game. I feel confident that I can create a good one this time round; platformers are my strong-point.