Status Report...

This is your faithful ensign reporting. I know I haven't checked in for awhile but I can explain I had other things to do and didn't feel like making a report. I know I have failed you, oh gentle reader but I assure you I will have more to report in the coming days.

One of the things I wanted to talk about was the end of Ramadan and the Eid Festival. I've been meaning to blog about that for some time and I have some really cute content to go along with it. So yeah that'll be coming up soon.

Right now I just wanted to let you know about how my project is going. Like I've mentioned before I am working on a video game based on the fictional universe I created in my stories. I'll let you play a couple of levels for free online once I've made them. This would be my second attempt at digital entertainment. The first time was for my final year project which was required for getting a degree.


WARNING GEEK SPEAK AHEAD
I used a scripting language that freed me from dealing directly with machine language. Some guys like to get their hands dirty and work at the bit level. They usually opt for Direct X because it let's them better manipulate bit data. But that becomes complex real fast. My thinking is that I want my ideas on screen ASAP.


So when I decided to program my own game I figured I should stick with a scripting language. The one I used on my project was called Jamagic. This was five years ago and since then the language has been discontinued and is no longer supported by the vendor. That's another hazard about the IT field skills you acquired only a few years ago are subject to become obsolete simply at the whim of the market. An entity dedicated to consumerism and promoting a throw away culture. How can anyone appreciate the hardwork and craft of engineers in an environment like this? But I digress.

So what's a geek to do? I considered the Java language. A computer language that I am enamored with. What's more it has the graphic capability to produce some really first rate video games. However it can get really complex really fast. Game programming books for Java are no less than 1,000 pages! You have to remember that this is just a weekend project something to let me feel my oats and keep in touch with programming. (professionaly I am shooting for a CAPM cert, but that's another post).

So staying within the Java language I heard about the great work going on at Carnegie Mellon. They came up with a scripting language that allows for animation. The logical application of which would be digital movies and games. What's more the IDE is free. I was hooked and took to it eagerly. After exhausting online tutorials I still wasn't clear on a lot of issues that were required to be known before I could develop an actual game. So I got myself a book on the topic. I bought it off of amazon and it came two weeks later. (yes I opted for the cheapest shipping they had, hey we all got save money some how)

In the coming weeks I hope to do some realy neat things with it. I'll let you know what wizardy I've been up to...so stay tuned. Ensign out!