Status Update

Well it has been about a month now since my last post, so I suppose I should make a record of my pernicious and insouciant behavior over the past month:

Game Making

Hard to believe, perhaps, but I am still latched on to my ideas for pot farming games. I am still working on the details of Grow Tycoon as a mod for Civ4 Colonization. I have delved into the SDK, toyed with .py files and even managed (with a lot of help) add a basic zombie into the game.

The current path of learning I am treading is to figure out how to add these zombies into a simple modcomp where they will be generated randomly and automatically at the start of a game. This behavior is very similar to how Barbarians are handled in Civ4, so I may try to re-add Barbarians into Colonization. I figure (assuming it is feasible) this will be a great way to become more familiarized with both C++, XML and graphical elements at the same time.

As I continue to get better at PHP, I am looking more seriously at my capability of producing a Browser Game. The deeper I delve into mod-making for Civ4, it almost seems like it would be easier. That is probably the me-trying-to-get-used-to-Blender talking, though. After all, you don't have to worry about site hackers or bandwidth limits with a Civ4 mod.

While my vision of a pot-farming browser game is more along the lines of Travian than an xRPG, I was hopefully in search of potential travian-like frameworks but instead found and installed World of Phaos on a test server to have a go with it. So far I am enjoying myself quite a bit with its basic setup, and it looks like it both requires the code love and has the ability to be easily modded that may make me want to stay with it. I've always wanted to do my own RPG, perhaps this can provide the basic framework for it.

But maybe not as I have been none to keen lately on making a multi-player for some reason. For an RPG I was considering adapting the Tunnels and Trolls PnP system or even Dungeons and Dragons (basic 1981 version) to a simple php single-player game system. The php would only really be used as a glorified character sheet and dice-roller, perhaps with the ability to save character and location information to a persistent cookie or as a text file. Not really sure why I'm not feeling the multi-player browser game love at the moment.

But if I decide to rework World of Phaos and get something interesting going, I'll put it on a public server so anyone can play. And did I mention something about a test server? That is right - this past month I finally got off my ass and repurposed an old computer as a web server so that I can avail myself of the joys of CLI with SSH tunnels and whatnot. Thanks go to Verizon FIOS for allowing the ability to create remote access to it as well. But if you think I'm linking it here for everyone to see, forget about it - my security skills aren't good enough yet to lead the world to my door.

Game Playing

I have been playing a lot of Lord of the Rings Online lately. I've fallen out somewhat with the MMORPG genre this past year, but still LOTRO keeps me coming back. Even with all its warts (like the dreaded pathing system) Turbine really did a quality job with this title.

I attempted to get back into World of Warcraft again, and just couldn't do it. I don't know why I even try to rekindle the passion, that game is utterly dead to me. If I were playing any other MMORPG right now, it would probably either be Dungeons and Dragons Online or Vanguard.

I have been playing a lot of Colonization and a bit of Civ4 lately, as working with the modding requires it. I have been playing mods, both official and not, a lot more and I can't believe how rich and diverse the modding scene for Civ4 is. Playing the mods made by other people as well as attempting to come up with my own has really rekindled some of the passion I have held in the past for the Civilization franchise.

Lastly, I bought Defense Grid: The Awakening on Steam a week or two ago (when it was on sale) and it was more than worth every penny. I truly enjoy this game, I only wish I had more time to really crack-out on it. I enjoy the progression also, making it a game that is easy to learn and play, but very difficult to master. I'm not really a tower defense afficianado so I can't really compare it to anything else, all I can say is I really enjoy playing it.