Most of my time is actually spent at the lab, surrounded by a bunch of computers, studying things related to 3D-graphics, graphics programming and especially augmented reality. In fact, I'm often so absorbed into my work that I end up missing the last bus home, which passes the university at 11pm. A lazy bastard like me, there's no way I would do something like that unless I found my work very interesting indeed.
Video games.
I always wanted to make my own, but for some reason never got around to seriously attempting to put one together.
So, a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a shot!
I've been an avid gamer since 1980s, and I firmly believe that modern game makers have forgotten, what makes a good game good. It is not downloadable extra content, or a fuck-ton of shaders to make virtual boobies look so real you want to lick your monitor, nor is it real-time ray tracing or character models with million+ polygons.
It's nothing more complex than the core idea of the game. It's the game mechanics. It's the way it's been realized. IT'S THE FUN. I have two of the current generation consoles at home and I enjoy playing on them a lot, and will probably continue playing the latest games all the way to my grave, but it is my opinion that most of the games today simply can't hold a candle to the classics of days gone by.
I can accept someone calling games like X-Com ancient. They are getting there, but are still heaps more enjoyable than 99% of the offerings today. Then I hear someone saying that they have never played games like Thief, "because it's too old" and all I can think of is "Holy shit I'm getting old." If I talk about old games, I usually mean the very early 1990s offerings, like the first Monkey Islands or Scorched Earth, or if we talk about console gaming, the late 1980s NES games, such as Megaman or Metal Gear. (Kids who think that Metal Gear Solid 1 on PS1 is the original game in the series, make me die inside a bit).
Now, before someone gets it into their head to slap me in the face with their big fat nerd penis and show off their Commodore 64 or Intellivision -- I did play on them, a lot. But for me, true gaming began with post 1985-games pouring out from Japan, when the technology really started playing leap-frog with the developers.
Okay, okay. The reality is that we are now living in the new golden era of gaming, because Internet and things like Flash allow people to develop their own games with extremely limited resources and still get them to where thousands can play them, be it for free or for tuppence.
It really warms my black heart.
Can we please get to the point of this post already?
Here it is.
I've never coded anything graphical before, and I feel this little project was a great way to start looking into OpenGL. It took me about two weeks worth of long nights to put it together. My homage to games like Scorched Earth and Worms, the wonderful genre of artillery games.
I give you: Dudes!
You start off by drawing an outline:
After which the game generates a level from it, and you can place a bunch of Dudes in it...
...and then proceed to try and destroy every last mother-loving pixel, whether it belongs to other Dudes or the terrain itself.
A nice little physics simulation for explosions, dirt and blood particles.
And a bunch of weapons that make sure that there is no such thing as a safe place for your opponents.
Good times, I'm very happy with the outcome. :)On to the next project, Robin!
