My Journey

Clearly, this is the question on everyone's minds!

Well I have the most terrible news, my laptop broke. Luckily I always back up my data on an external drive; alas that too broke.

Yes that's just my luck goes, I lost a lot of work including games I was working on but luckily nothing that can't be remade easily. I've learnt my lesson, on bigger projects I'll be backing everything up on three separate drives.

So you can see why I haven't been on in a long time, luckily my laptop was fixed today so expect a large influx of updates over the coming couple of weeks!

This week was a week off from university; what did I do you ask? Learnt C++ of course!

I've covered all the changes from C to C++ and started learning a bit about classes.

Beginning C++ Through Game Programming is an excellent introduction to C++ and I greatly recommend it. There is a problem though, where to go from here? Every book I've found is either for beginners or advanced, where is the intermediate books? I may have to teach myself through experimentation or move onto another language such as Java.

But I like C++, it's the industry standard, so I'm going to learn OpenGL or SDL (graphics libraries for making games I believe, I want to start in 2D obviously).

More info soon, I promise!

Well that was my final C assignment (more information coming, be patient please!); so now I'm getting ready to move onto C++.

The course officially doesn't start C++ until 3rd of October but I'm getting a few weeks head start to ensure I do well.

The book I'll be using to begin with is a book I bought a few years ago but never attempted very far past chapter two: Beginning C++ Through Game Programming.
Amazon has it listed at $5.91 (US), I recall paying a lot, lot more than that so it's certainly a bargain now.

I'll also be using the last few chapters of Engineering Problem Solving with C and C: How to Program as they include introductory chapters to C++ (the former has C++ for almost half of the book!).

So finally, finally, I should be able to make games as C++ is such an object oriented language. Hopefully you'll see playable games, albeit not great ones, within the next few weeks!

Alright here's a little information on the assignment I'm currently working on:

We have to be highly modularised, which means pretty much every minor action in the program gets its own function and is all stored in separate files instead of one chunk of code. Apparently this is less confusing, whoever believes this is stupid.

We have to make a program that generates random numbers, then subs those random numbers into an equation which somehow integrates the equation, not sure how sound the mathematics is but who cares it's worth 15% of this subject.

It's not going too well at the moment, it's due in two days. I'll post more progress up until then but don't expect me to do very well as it pretty much covers all the topics I'm yet to learn.

Well I finally picked up the 6th edition of C: How To Program, the only difference is that some chapters are removed as far as I can tell; a little disappointing.

Also an update on what I've been doing: working bloody hard! It's mid-semester which means loads of assignments are due. Specifically programming this Monday, a program using random numbers; an audio editing assignment next Friday; a piece of fiction due tomorrow and a maths test every week with an extra maths test on Tuesday.

I'll post more information on the programming assignment this weekend where I'll be working most on it! It's certainly been a busy time.

Also: I received a reply regarding posting code. Unfortunately I cannot post it all since it might be plagiarised, what I can do is post parts and discuss what I did without giving future students something to copy and paste. So expect that soon too!

Enjoy this big update!

Well as you saw yesterday I finally completed my retry of the first of last semester's assignments. I also began to re-do the second one which seems strange considering I got a mark of 97/100 for that one. But I'm a perfectionist so I want to get 100/100 for it.

My second reasoning is also because the third assignment is a mixture of the first two, so the more perfect they are the better it will be.

Expect me to begin assignment 3 retry sometime this week. I'm still waiting on confirmation if I can post university assignment code online or not so bear with me on that.

Finally! I have completed my re-doing of my assignment from last semester; best of all I fixed all the errors by myself!

It's far from an exciting or even perfect program but I'm proud I finally finished it. I'll get to work on retrying the second and third ones too, which I actually found a lot lot easier than this one when they were first due so expect them soonish.

I'll post the code itself asap; I'm currently double-checking everything and I'll add comments so newbies can understand the code itself!

Well I'm happy to say I've made great progress, I'm pretty much done! There's just a small error that causes the program to crash right at the end instead of being happy and finishing.

Once I figure out the problem I'll be done! I'll post the code on here with a nice explanation so you can see what it is that's been killing me for the last few months!

Okay, okay, I'm sorry I haven't updated in ages. But to be honest, nothing's really been happening. Everything I've been doing is just revision, I'm trying to get ahead a little bit myself but there's no point moving on until I've mastered pointers, arrays, functions and such difficult topics as those.

I'm currently working on re-doing the assignment that I said I'd do weeks ago but barely started, perhaps I should write about how to emulate my wonderful work ethic?

I'll update this week again with some interesting programs if I make any, maybe I'll share a written piece or something like that.

Well today was my first programming lab, it was some simple revision in C so nothing exciting, they must be waiting until next week.

I'm thinking of using my knowledge of C to start a tutorial series, I'd be about a year ahead of those I'm teaching so it could work well if people are interested. (Plus it would help me revise basics as I teach them).

If you like the sound of this and want to be a game developer too, please comment this post.

Well it's my second day back at university, nothing very exciting has been learnt; except I've been forced to dive straight back into vectors with a test this week as well!

On the programming side, the lecture was just an introduction so nothing is going to happen until next week. I should probably do some practise before then.

I'm currently waiting for my Writing Fiction class to start, which isn't on my university page so I know nothing about what kind of work I'll be doing or if there's any pre-requisite work I was supposed to have done. We'll see I suppose.

Hey loyal readers, all one hundred and fifty million of you (give or take a few hundred million), here's your update for this week since my internet has been down I'm afraid.

I've really gotten into 3D modelling, I've been doing some video tutorials and so far just taking it slow by learning all the basics thoroughly before I move on.

I did however make a cake, a chocolate cake with pink icing and a candle! I'll post a picture of it soon for you all to admire!

I'll keep you updated since I'm back at university in two days, learning more programming and design things that I'm sure will keep me nice and busy.

A friend of mine, finally, has sent me loads of sample code from my last semester (everyone else I asked either ignored me or hadn't done the work!) and now I can finally use it to compare and learn from. Expect lots more programming progress from now on!

First off let me just re-introduce you to this book, I'm almost done and it is very insightful and a fascinating read.

Moving on to more pressing matters: it is nine days from now until I begin semester two of my course. The subjects I am taking are C/C++ Programming, Digitial Video & Audio, Fiction Writing and Engineering Mathematics.

I'm going to be focusing all my efforts into the programming parts obviously since they're the most important but I aim to get at least distinctions in everything if I can.

Expect more frequent posts as I'm forced to do more programming homework and projects.

Because this blog is a bit boring, primarily because I have nothing decent to show yet because my skills aren't sufficient enough, I've decided to stray a little sometimes with articles on Game Design, Game Theory and similar things since it is part of my course to study these kind of things (and because I enjoy doing it anyway).

I also, in the future, want to start some tutorials in C and whatever else I learn, so I may help others do what I'm trying to do - maybe even ease their process a little.

Well I continued working on my text adventure game a little, yes I know I'm a bit over the place with my projects but this is how I work for some reason!

I'm collaborating on this project with an aspiring writer and friend of mine, Colin, whom I gave him a simple premise and he's ran with it creating a hilarious script that's still being updated with more and more side splitting moments.

I'm hoping that when my skills improve, I can transform this from a text adventure and into a point and click game. The narrative is pure gold in my opinion and I want as many people to experience it as possible; perhaps I'll make it into a Flash game so that it's easier to share around the internet?

But alas at the moment it is simply in a black and white window with just text but hopefully come release day it'll be a fully fledged hilarious game for everyone to enjoy.

Hey everyone, I know panic has ensued at my disappearance recently. I've not had a lot of time for programming since I just started a new job and things have been busy already!

I'll be practising tonight and tomorrow as much as possible since I have some spare time whilst my girlfriend is away. I also just started reading a new book, which definitely appeals to me.

 I'm actually borrowing it from my library, I'm surprised they have this book since the only other computer related books they have are "Laptops for Seniors" and the like but this one sounds like it's just up my alley, so to speak.

I'm feeling very disheartened, this assignment was for people with only a few weeks knowledge of C, I've been doing C for months and can't quite get this to work!

I've made good progress but the fact that this progress hasn't been swift makes me feel a little disappointed in myself as I feel as if my skills should be much more progressed by now.

Good news after the jump:

I'm taking a break from C for a day or two to work more on my Platform Shooter!

I know  I haven't given anyone much info on this so I'll fill you in now:

I'm having a lot of trouble with this assignment, as I did the first time around, except that was justified since I was new to C; this is inexcusable that I'm doing so terribly to make this program work!

I'll be working on it for the next hour or two but I'm not feeling very confident, maybe I'll do some more reading of my textbook on strings since that seems to be where I'm going wrong.

For those of you who understand programming, take a look at this code and have a good laugh at me:



For those who don't understand where I went wrong, here's what I stupidly did:

I set it so that if the user entered something that wasn't a digit, it would ask them to type a new value.

Alas I thought I was being clever by using "confirmed--" which tells the code to reduce the value of confirmed by one. What I didn't consider what that, if the user did it wrong more than once, the value of confirmed would plummet into negative numbers and the loop would last forever. Even if the user did enter a correct digit!

I'm working on fixing it now, I haven't had much time to work this week but I intend on catching up!

I'm currently working on doing my first assignment for my programming class; it was due about four months ago.

No, I'm not late, I'm actually doing it again with my newer superior knowledge than what I had then. I didn't receive a great mark, at the time I was really struggling with C mainly because I didn't have Engineering Problem Solving with C (3rd Edition) which was necessary to the course.

I don't know if I can post the code, in case it's a breach of university rules of something so I won't. But I'll let you know of my progress.

Well the blog is no longer a barren, simple blog. It's now a sexy, suave new piece of online brilliance!

Let me know in the comments what you think.

Well that was very easy I'm glad to say, it's restored faith in my abilities as a programmer!

Here's the final code, usually I would separate this into separate functions but since it's only a small exercise I just left it all in main.

Well here it is so far:

Okay so my recent attempts to create this "turtle graphics" program hasn't gone too well. So I given up.

Okay so I haven't given up but I chose to postpone it until I know more about arrays, especially 2D ones. Thus I  have turned to Engineering Problem Solving with C (3rd Edition) and it's chapters on arrays.

I am about to begin work on a fun sounding "Terrain Navigation" exercise, simulating a robot navigating hills: the program will look at a 2D array and evaluate based on height information where peaks and valleys occur.

I'll post my progress later this evening if I do well!

It occured to me I haven't told anyone what compiler I use for my C code. I use Quincy.

Why do I use Quincy?

1. My lecturer uses Quincy and it was told that we would be marked using Quincy so it's the logical choice
2. It's got a simple, clean layout that's easy to understand so great for beginners
3. My lecturer apparently helped make it so he's probably a bit bias toward his own creation.

I feel I should credit Paste Bin whom unless I find a better service, I will be using to display all my code.

From what I can tell they're a good service and it's helpful to have coloured, scrollable code to post on my blog so cheers to them!

Right, my turtle program is behind schedule since today I woke up late and spent most of the day eating bacon and generally being lazy.

The program is fairly functional but it doesn't quite do what it's meant to yet, at least it compiles!

Full source code after jump:

I know I said I'd post my progress today but unfortunately none has been made, I've had a hectic day and barely had a chance to get on the computer let alone programming!

I shall work on it tonight since I was reading up more on two dimensional arrays to prepare, it's not exactly difficult but I like to refine my knowledge by re-reading every chapter of my textbooks to ensure I haven't missed anything.

I'll also be doing some exercises from Engineering Problem Solving with C (3rd Edition) tonight and tomorrow to further cement it in my brain.

Ah, the benefits of being a student! As I write this, Autodesk 3DS Max is downloading onto my laptop!

"You thief! You darn software pirating theif!" I hear you cry! Alas no, I did not pirate this software nor is it a trial!

I'm currently working on a C program that is a simulation of "Turtle Graphics".

Turtle Graphics for those who don't know is when you have a square of blank paper and you program a route into this "turtle" for it to follow on the following commands: Go Forward, Turn Left, Turn Right, Raise Pen, Lower Pen.

For those interested in playing a game I've created or those too impatient to wait until I create more I give you Elood; a game I created a while back, it was my early experimentation with Actionscript 2.0. I no longer have the .fla file nor do I recall much of its development.