I’ve been doing some overtime at work the past couple of weeks (the video game industry loves to keep it’s employees from having a life)… so it’s been more difficult to get in any time to work on programming, or studying Japanese… or you know, really doing much of anything. But on the plus side, my schedule allows me to see my kid for a couple of hours every morning before I go to work, and I’m doing my best to avoid working on weekends. Read More >

Whee! I got some time to get in there this weekend and continue doing work on the little game I’m building up. It’s slowly getting more and more features, and even beginning to resemble a game! Still heaps of work to go though, but it’s great to slowly mark items off my to-do list. Read More >

Verbs are simpler than in other languages in the sense that there is no plural or masculine/feminine, ex: He is / I am / We are. It’s all just です. They’re also more complex in that there must be various levels of politeness. Almost all sources teach polite versions… it’s what people use when meeting strangers, and there seems to be a larger focus on it in general in Japan. They also conjugate more uniformly, so it’s great for people who like rules. Read More >

I haven’t kept up with any Japanese since March 31st! It’s tough having so many interests. I had been making a big push at the beginning of the year to learn Japanese as there was a particular company advertising a job position that caught my eye. But timing on these things doesn’t always play out. I’d still like to get to Japan some day, and have an interest in the language. I’m not dedicating every ounce of spare time to the language, but I do hope to be fluent some day so I’ve still got somewhat of a plan for how to get there. There are different levels of fluency tests, and I’m considering trying for the N5 test in December. Something which reddit at least makes me feel is perfectly achievable to the point that I shouldn’t bother. But it’s a milestone and I think for that reason would be a suitable target to ensure that I stick with it. And who knows… maybe in a few years I’ll actually be fluent? Read More >

I’ve been busy for a good percentage of the past month, so it was exciting to finally get a chance to sit down today and continue prototyping the game that I started working on a little while ago. Read More >

I sat down for a small bit of time tonight and quickly added some new features into the prototype. Nothing overly complex, but I did the following:
– removed the joystick GUI
– replaced the joystick method of firing with firing based on touching on the screen and calculating the vector from the player
– collapsing the speed boost into a function
– created two sound effects for firing, and engines, and hooked them up (I used sfxr)
– added a max speed to the speed boost.

Finally sat down for the first time this week and started to actually mess around with getting something started. It’s a bit weird when starting out to try and figure out exactly how to start… but I decided to just open up the twin shooter template that ships with UE4 and just began trying to overwrite the controls with my own. Read More >

There’s a reason I’ve been trying to learn programming recently, and that’s because I intend to actually do some programming. I’ve got several games in mind that I eventually want to do, and honestly hadn’t really considered that any of them would be mobile, however a couple of months ago I got a-talkin’ with a friend of mine and decided that we’d try to whip something up this summer. So we’ve got some basic ideas down on paper and now it’s time to start trying to get them down on platter. Hard disk drive platter, that is. Computers, yo. Read More >

Alright! This marks the end of me working through Section 3 of this tutorial series. I feel like I’m learning a good deal going through this course. It’s certainly helping me feel more comfortable with UE as I peek under the hood. Looking forward to the next section. I would have liked to have seen a little more effort on optimization in this section, but I imagine Ben needs to leave something to teach in the next section 😉 Read More >

So on the 5th, I wrote about how I wanted to go see Generation Axe. I’d been thinking of going since before the tickets went on sale, and so I decided I couldn’t pass it up, got off my butt, and went. It was worth it. But between OT at work, and concerts, and trying to figure out day care for the little dude, it’s been almost a week since I’ve done any of the tutorials! Lucky for me, I still have both my computer, and my fingers, (and ears and eyes) so lets see how far I can get with this tonight. Read More >