Progress!

Dalyn’s Quill is coming together slowly. As you can see, the dungeon canvas now draws as it should do and can be edited with the default pens (the pen selection toolbar doesn’t work yet). It breaks embarassingly often, and annoyingly strange and weird stuff happens if you push more than one mouse button at once. Still, a lot of code has been tidied up along the path to this milestone, and things can only improve… I hope…

Oh yes, and the MDATA11.MDR import code works just fine too:

Also, after discovering how to adjust certain things, Windows Vista isn’t entirely awful like I thought it would be. Months after originally buying it I finally took the plunge during some spare time over the holidays and installed it for about the third time. Fingers crossed, it’s going much better than the previous attempts at forcing myself to embrace the future.

2009

Happy New Year!

It’s a time when a lot of people will be thinking about what their New Year’s resolutions should be. But keep in mind: New Year’s resolutions can be bad for you! Whatever you decide you want to do this year, I wish you good luck and success all the way.

These aren’t resolutions, but here are just a couple of things off the top of my head that I’d like to get done this year in no particular order:

• Write more interesting stuff for the site
• Finish Dalyn’s Quill
• Enter a competition
• Release a 3rd game
• Learn how to use 2D physics
• Get 30,000 unique visitors to Zolyx during the year (yeah, right!)

Last year was disappointing in one way (with the cancellation of Mordor: Return to Dejenol) but good in another (the really positive feedback I got from Millenipede, especially from v1.2.0). Although Firestorm Productions did its job well, the move to Zolyx was worth it, and there are fewer artificial hits coming to the site every day. Yep, even now, the fallout of the collapsed Binary People publishing deal for Poing! PC is still being felt - but not for much longer I suspect.

Anyhow, have a jolly good 2009 and comfort yourself in knowing there are only 358 shopping days til next Christmas…

Here’s a quick scattering of images from the development process of Dalyn’s Quill. I’ve certainly not been working at full speed so far - this probably took me only a few hours of concentrated hacking…

The first is of jsp’s LogicGUI, a pretty nifty editor for MaxGUI (which is basically the GUI module of Blitz). BlitzMax lacks its own form editor, so without LogicGUI I wouldn’t even be near this stage yet. Thanks jsp!

Then there’s the proper editor window running by itself. I’ve simplifed the layout as much as I can think to and moved some stuff into the menus, such as the buttons for clearing a level and assigning all rock fields to area zero. You can see some of the gadgets for chute properties showing when they shouldn’t, but I’ve literally just finished the basic form design and there’s no code to deal with hiding things that shouldn’t appear yet.

Rounding the nostalgia trip off - and bringing some memories back - is a pic of the old monster that was the editor for Return to Dejenol. Oh, the hours I put into this, only to have it gathering dust in a forgotten folder Entirely my own fault, so I can’t complain, and a lot of the editing code will live on in Dalyn’s Quill so it isn’t all bad.

Right, enough blabbering, time to crack on!

Although the coding has been fun, it’s also been really nice not to have Millenipede-related problems or ideas nagging at the back of my mind for the past couple of weeks! There’s a never a “perfect” game and I can still think of other things to add, but I think it’s okay to call Millenipede done (barring future bugfixes, of course).

So now it’s time to think that dreaded question… what next?

I’ve pretty much already decided! The project I have in mind should be quite short but at the same time big enough to seem satisfying. Most of the important coding is already done; it just needs to be repackaged a little.

What I have in mind is Dalyn’s Quill, a re-release of the old map editor I’d originally created for Mordor: Return to Dejenol. It had the option of also working with dungeons of the original Depths of Dejenol, and was pretty intuitive to use. How much demand there will be for such a thing, I don’t know, but it’s a loose end that I’ve wanted to tie up for a while.

After that, well, who knows? I’m busy doing some writing for… well, I can’t really say just yet, but it’s retro and games related. And I’ve got a growing desire to make an 8-bit exploration platformer of some description, but that’s a deceptively difficult thing to do alone. For the time being I’m taking it one step at a time. Let’s see how the future flows!

This puts the last piece of the great Millenipede 1.2.0 puzzle into place! For everyone who is interested in it, you’re now able to get the source code along with the extra required BlitzMax modules from the Millenipede homepage. There isn’t a comprehensive guide to compiling the game yourself right now, but I will try to add one at some stage in the future.

Happy coding!

Yes, I’ll admit that’s probably the worst post title yet to grace this blog.

In case there are any RSS subscribers out there, this post is to let you know that I’ve just added the Intel Mac download for Millenipede 1.2.0, so be sure to go and grab your copy now! Enjoy!

08/11/08 EDIT: Whoops! A repackaged Mac .dmg is now available which should fix a problem with the FMod dylib file and enable the game to run.

There are still a couple of things missing after Saturday’s initial Windows release of Millenipede, and this quick post is just to say that I haven’t forgotten about putting up a Mac version. Indeed, it’s being worked on even as I write this Rest assured that unlike version 1.1.1 (which never got a Mac port), you shouldn’t have to wait too long to get your hands on 1.2.0. EDIT: The Mac version is now available! As usual, get it straight from the Millenipede homepage.

Source code is on the way too, but it relies on fixing a last minute glitch that’s causing the Mac delay in the first place. Ho hum

Thanks to all who have posted feedback so far in the various places I’ve blatantly spammed about the new version - it makes it all worthwhile

Millenipede v1.2.0 is now available!

It’s been ages since the last major new version of Millenipede but now you don’t have to wait any longer - version 1.2.0 for Windows is now available! Yippee!

After all this time, what is there to make a fuss about? Well - first and foremost, there are now online highscores (known more grandly as the World Leaderboard) so you can compare your scores with Millenipede players everywhere. It’s limited to the all-time top 100 scores right now but I have a couple ideas for improving that side of things in the future.

There’s also a selection of rockin’ powerups which the teaser video earlier in the week showed off, including missile volleys, smartbombs and railblasts - all of which can be devastatingly effective if used correctly!

To give things a final spit and polish, there have been many other refinements to give higher scores, smoother gameplay and more varied visuals. Blasting evil space insects has never been so much fun!

I hope you all enjoy the new version. I’ll be waiting for your scores

Coming at ya straight from the Tube of You, check out the selection of lethal new powerups that will available in the latest and greatest version of Millenipede!

Yeah, I know the quality is pretty naff and the ending screen doesn’t show for long enough but considering that’s the first video I’ve posted on YouTube… in fact, the first video I’ve made at all… I’m pretty happy

As for a release date, well, after the fiasco of announcing it would be ready well over a month ago, I’m falling back to my usual tactic of… oh my - *points* what’s that behind you??!! *flees into the far distance, giggling to himself like a little girl*

After far too long, Millenipede v1.2.0 is nearly ready! All of the delicious new features are now added and balanced, but there is one last intermittent bug that I want to hunt down and squash before finally making it available. This bug has been giving both me and hitm4n (of Handheld Remakes) the runaround for a good week now, and I still don’t get the impression of being much closer to fixing it.

Today, though, I got my Vista installation running again especially to get it sorted. If that doesn’t throw up some new leads then nothing will!

Suffice to say that after all this, I’ll be very happy to get 1.2.0 out of the door…