I am so slow, and yet so steady. It has been 18 days since my last blog update and a lot has happened since then. With the month of January almost over I can now look back and reflect on what has happened and anticipate what the new month brings.

First up, brief recap of the whole month,

1) Helped family move to Houston

2) Moved to new apartment

3) Learned how to program in C

4) Officially gave up programing in rails (it sucks)

5) Got into fight with landlord and have a restraining order filed (on him, not me)

6) Began a new game, AND TRYING TO FINISH IT.

For starter, my new game is called The Squares: The Princess in the Castle and is based on a short strip I made last month. This game is a simple, short action platform game. You play as a knight (Kyle) who has entered a tower to save a sleeping princess (Lana). Unfortunately, the princess is not too happy with your arrival and tries to violently escape. Now you have to chase the princess and dodge her deadly obstacles (she is using everything from machine guns to rocket launchers to slow you down) before she escapes and blows up the castle.

The game is a 2D, side scrolling action game that consists of one level. The objective is either to catch up with the princess and inflict enough damage to knock her out, or to make it to the exit before she does. The distance between the princess and the player is illustrated by a meter on the top of the screen. Because the princess is heavily armed, inflicting damage is much more difficult. If the player performs either of these, he/she is rewarded with the following:

· An ending where Kyle carries the unconscious princess to a cheep motel. · Coins based on how the game was completed (damage inflicted, damage received, time, extras). · The option to unlock more weapons.

· An online high score table.

The player cannot die, but can be slowed down by obstacles and the princess’s weapons. If the princess reaches the end of the castle (shown by her icon on the top of the screen) she will blow up the castle, causing a game over screen. All progress will be lost.

So far, I have completed basic gameplay, the meter tracker (I used a few distance algorithms, this was a bit tougher than I thought), the princesses navigation AI(Using nodes and obstacle avoidance,also tougher than I thought). and a few enemy turrets. Also, I am using google code as a repository for the game. That way, I can add code from my crappy ass netbook (MSI u230. Everything made with GM6 up sucks).

here

This is not the true sprite, this was doctored using GM5's outdated image editor

I have a class in the evening and will not finish untill 11 PM (Senior engineering classes are a bitch), but expect a demo tomorrow.

PS:

I heard kilin is making 64 Brawl again. Can I add some of my own characters to the roster?