White Wind

Week 1
Day 1

First of all, i am excited that we have a new teamate. Yesh, we are not 3 legged doggy anymore.
Revised on Link List, trying to get used to PopCap FrameWork. Lucky, its a user-friendly one.
Ok, we built and divided our game's framework into 3 sessions. I created all the variable classes and integrated the link list into the framework. Looks cool... thats all, took the whole day doing it. Ok, we have 1 new member but the designers lost 1 member. Hope that everything will turn out fine.

Day 2

Tried to render something onto screen using the info from each node. Did lots of testing and integration. The framework is there, now we need to code our logic in 1 by 1. So i started out with getting images pointer from each node and render out. Then added a few more variables and functions to the nodes, because we have 2 types of link list and nodes. 1 for monsters and the others for items, obstacles and projectile. So, we need more variables to differentiate them.
Thats all....

Day 3

Merged codes... Alot of codes to merge. 3 sessions into 1 big framework. Wye Huong, Yan Long and Eng Tong are doing good. Ya, took the extra time during the break to do programmers's graphics. It was FUN... and the graphics motivated us. Even though we wasted 1 day merging, but its worthy. I managed to render the GAMEWORLD....yeah....
Yesh, did OverTime at home... Redoing camera... Luckily it turned out well. Now the camera is "following" the character.

Day 4

Tuned the camera class, implemented collision detection with the ground. Wasted the whole afternoon doing CD with obstacles, gave up and passed the dirty stuff to Yan Long. Tuned the framework, linked every classes together. Half way through, i found out theres something wrong with my link list.
As usual, did OT...managed to repair them(orelse teamates gonna kill me) .

Day 5

Game managed to start normally. As usual i did lots of data reading,management and linking...
Finally....the designers gave us the graphics... Only a ninja animation....running animation. I loaded in and tested it out. Merged all the codes, now we have a background to move and jump around. The camera is locked within the map. We found out something very amazing. I asked Zhi Wei to do high score stuff and taking him forever. Eng Tong managed to finish it within 5 minutes.

Weekend

Did spawning of projectile and effects when the user attack. Collision detection when user attack the items and monsters. Debugging.... We need graphics to test out. My ninja is using button to attack the door, and the ninja...which is an enemy...become a main character.

Warning!!!: The contents below may spoil your mood for the day.
Look, I am trying to be professional here, you have a choice not to read it.
If you decide to fail my module after reading this. You are not professional.
And its you guys who taught me how to be more professional.

I feel bad when i keep pestering the DMD, but we have no choice. They had lost 1 teamate because he failed the previous model. Whats more amazing is, he took part in the discussion. If he failed Studio Project 1, WHY IS HE TAKING PART IN THE DISCUSSION??? WHY??? And the team didnt get 1 new member, so....Whats the DMD module leader doing??? Even their supervisor is busy with Studio Project 1, I have seen lots of supervisors coming down to take a look at their work, BUT WHERE IS OURS???!!! I heard that the DMD team is still waiting for her to approve the main menu and UI on the third day. Luckily, Mr Peter is not the same as the DMD supervisor. He helped us alot.

My teamates keep telling me that we are not graded on the graphics, but without graphics, we are not able to show! Some things can only be done when theres graphics....and do you think the lecturers will fully understand our codes??? Even the programmers forgot wat they did 2 to 3 weeks ago. Yesh, at most a C will be given to us, and maybe a + for our effort put in for the 3 damed weeks. C??? AIYA...STILL PASS WAT...(Noted: This is a "positive" comment given to one of my friend in the TD side from a lecturer). I am not worrying about the grade, but i will feel discouraged when we put in our best and we cant even get a complete game out. So what if u have a complete game engine??? There is NO GRAPHICS NO GAMEPLAY!!! Do you think showing a ball bouncing on the presentation day is FUN???!!! And ITS NOT THE PROGRAMMERS' AND DESIGNERS' FAULT. The lecturers can only give us a pat and say "too bad", they cant feel how angry we are right now.

WHAT IS THIS???!!! YOU TELL ME~!!! SUNDAY 3 PM, NO GRAPHICS NO ANIMATION. OUR ALPHA VERSION GONNA BE A GAME INSTALLER and a few buttons linking each other??? Boxes jumping on boxes??? What can i do??? WAIT AND FAIL LA!!!
Its ok mah, next year i still can participate in the discussion on the studio project with my teamates. When the 3 weeks project starts, OH GOSH!!! I FOUND OUT I NEED TO RETAKE LAST YEAR'S STUDIO PROJECT WOR!!!! BYE BYE TO MY CURRENT TEAM.... And my teamates are left alone to DIE...

The designers finally gave me the animations, but still lack some. I spent the whole day tweaking the actions and effects so that they sync with each other. I rework my collision detection for attacking, yeah its working fine right now. The alpha version is finally out, but theres no AI for it. The main menu buttons are linking correctly with each other. Player can try killing the ninjas. Doors are also breakable. I did some fading effect on the enemies and doors when they are destroyed. Looks presentation even without the death animation.

Something amazing did happen today, a teamate is trying to get codes from me to link his part to OURS. The problem is ....can he understand whats the codes for even without asking us??? We had changed many parts of our codes, its almost totally different from what he took 1 week ago. Even the other 4 teamates forgot what they did. Oh...what can i do??? I can only SEE if he can link them together...

Coding for animation of enemy is done, enemy can chase after player in action. Controlling the enemy from AI.cpp is easy now. By pass in integers into a function can freely control the enemy's movement. I reworked on my attacking collision detection to perfect it. The animation of player is tweaked to make it smoother.

I programmed the melee attack and range attack of the enemy. This made my link list and node very messy. The collision detection for the range attack is done too. The player can squat to dodge the projectile from the enemies. This takes me lots of time because the enemy needs to shoot in 6 directions(left,right,left-up,left-down,right-up,right-down). Very dirty and nasty codes...Hope i don't need to touch it again. A few more functions and variables are added to the node... The designers finally gave me the animations...yeah... but i feel that we are behind schedule...

WE WASTED 1 DAY BECAUSE THERES NO GRAPHICS. TO MAKE THE SITUATION WORSE, THE DMD SUPERVISOR WANTED THE DESIGNERS TO CHANGE THEIR GRAPHICS. WHY...BECAUSE SHE DON'T LIKE THEM. WHY SHE DIDN'T TELL THEM LAST WEEK??? WHY SHE WAITED UNTIL WEEK 2 DAY 4??? MR PETER TAUGHT ME HOW TO BE PROFESSIONAL, WHY A LECTUER IS NOT PROFESSIONAL??? TELL ME WHY??? HOW YOU EXPECT A STUDENT TO BE PROFESSIONAL WHEN YOU ARE NOT!!! YOU MADE YOUR DMD STUDENTS WASTED A WEEK AND A HALF AND WASTED THE DET STUDENTS' TIME. ARE YOU SOME KIND OF BIG SHOT???!!! YOU ARE LAZY TO WALK HERE TO TAKE A LOOK AT OUR WORK... WHILE OTHER LECTURERS HAVE LEGS TO WALK HERE!!!

AI is half done... I made some effects for the character when the player picked up Speed Orb. I need the graphics in order to continue with the AI. Good luck to us...I have nothing to say...Its pointless.

AI is done except the boss... We are still waiting for designers' graphics... And our team is getting real lucky, one of the designers' computer got infected by virus. Thats a good sign, i got a feeling our game gonna reduce the characters from 3 to 1. This makes our effort gone to waste, we made almost everything dynamic. What we need to do is to add in the graphics and tweak a few variables. So, I did all these and.....our game has only 1 character. Lets pray the designers can finish up by tomorrow orelse i gonna make my own programmer's graphic out.

After so many stupid incidents, i totally gave up. I regretted doing OT for saturday and sunday, those stuff we did are not put into good use. The rate of the designers giving us graphics is....like turtle crawling...but i don't blame them because their system is cocked up. These happenings seriously demoralised our teamates(especially the one who took 1 week to do option screen), even the leader(me) who has lots of self control started playing PSP today. I pitied my teamates who did as much work as me. I gave them permission to stop doing their stuff and play waiting game with designers. We should have slack through these 2 to 3 weeks like some other teams. Doing more work but unable to show.

Oh ya, one more issue, our beloved teamate, Lee Zhi Wei, we are not protecting him. To tell you truth, he is late everyday. I have no idea how he got his attendance signed. For the past 2 weeks and 1 day, he entered the lab after 9:30 am and sometimes 10 am. He should have been promoted to 11 stars general, but according to my daily observation, he got only 5 to 6 stars...What is this??? But still, he holds the highest rank in the world, so comrades, give him a salute!!! Yesh i am being professional here, I salute him to give him RESPECT. At least he earned the RESPECT himself, not like a particular lecturer from DMD who i mentioned above. She is LAZY to earn the RESPECT... so does she deserve one???

I completed what i am supposed to and presented... I am a bad leader. Lets hope that the team for the next semester will not be the same. I learned something, a game with eye candy and no depth can last for at least 5 minutes, but with bad graphics, the lecturers don't even care about your gameplay. What have i learned in my Principle Of Game Design??? Can Mr Lim redefine the meaning of FUN???

I sincerely apologise for what i stated above. Sorry for the words I used on Miss Hoe Peng Peng.