Zipplet's Stuff

Yup, lightX is actually working now!

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Now just to polish up software mode and get HW mode to work...

For the first time in a long time, I've actually been programming a lot recently. I'm currently working on my graphics library as I think I said on the news page. I have the archive and image stuff working now - including the new efficient FBM image format. Tests show it's slightly more efficient than PNG when used to encode a test set of files using the "supercrunch" mode of the conversion tool - combine this with the slightly more efficient than ZIP archive format (ZGP) and I think I have a nice useable setup for game graphics data.

One fun image I captured while I was writing the FBM decoder and it went a bit wrong is shown here!

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This is what it looks like now I've fixed it:

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Things are moving along really well and I should have the actual library useable for simple games soon.

So? Well, no updates really.. again I'll get to it, I promise! I haven't actually been programming at all recently. I intend to resume shortly and I'll be working on PPC when I do - that's the project I want to get pushed out of the door and into the hands of the public as quickly as I can. It could be the last huge fan made game I work on - that's why it has to be as perfect as I can get it.

Yea - you heard me right - due to how things are changing I may not have the time and/or motivation to work on future huge fan game projects. Smaller ones will be OK (mostly arcade/action type games) but larger ones like RPGs will be out of the question.

On a random note, I got a Sony Ericsson W710i, and I can say it's an excellent clamshell phone by SE. The accelerometer isn't as silly as it seems, and is actually quite a bit of fun if you like to walk regularly for exercise... the phones OS is a lot faster and has many design improvements compared to all previous SE phones I've used too, such as an SMS outbox - you can compose an SMS to send at any time and the phone will keep trying in the background until it can send it, you can even queue up SMS messages while you are not in signal range of your provider. A small thing perhaps, but it shows the kind of attention to detail they've put into this phone, and this continues throughout the design of it.

On yet another random note, digitally imported net radio (http://www.di.fm) rocks. You have to get a premium subscription for the high quality streams (ask a friend who has one if you can borrow it for a day or so), but it's worth it if you like any of the genres they have (vocal trance is a favourite of mine).

Until next time...

For sonic's 15th anniversery, Sega ported sonic 1 (from the megadrive) to the GBA. Or should I say, attempted to. It's awful. I was bored and created a badly edited video showing some of the problems in the game. Take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw8AeGG5jmo

You'll be shocked, I was >_<. It gets worse - a new puyo game released for puyo's 15th anniversery for the Nintendo DS stops saving properly after it has saved 255 times. Idiots.

How about progress and updates on the site and my projects? Well... I never thought I'd say something like this, but I'm going through some changes in life that are distracting me from programming, emotionally. When I'm on the computer I'm often not in the right mood for it. With time (and stability) I'll continue programming again and progress on my current projects, including PPC. It will be worth the wait

First up, heres a fun game. Old I know, but I like it, and I want more people who haven't yet tried it to try it:

Click here to play Nanaca Crash (Flash player required)

Quite fun, actually. Try to avoid hitting the "shy girl with glasses", unless you have a combo active for her, or you'll be stopped instantly like I was -_-. Some english instructions and tips could be found on Wikipedia in the past, but it seems the bright people at Wikipedia have deleted the article. Oh well

Yesterday I turned 21. As usual no big party or w/e like most people, that's how I always am. But I can't help but feel that I should be doing more than being at my PC during most of my free time and going to work. Atleast now I have my eyes set on someone - a start, I guess. We'll see what happens.

Yea, I'm keeping to my promise of not letting this site die out due to a lack of updates - but that doesn't mean it's easy. I don't have all that much to post about when I'm working on stuff I can't really reveal right now

I didn't even realise the full scale of the project until the last couple of days when I began planning out the resource editors. It's absolutely massive, and I can now see why the games of the same genre I have looked at have certain limitations. I don't want those limitations so this is going to be a tough one.

A lot of the ideas for this project go back a few years to when I was first inspired to create it, which does save me a little work, but not much.

Even after realising how big this project really is, I'm not going to abandon it or go back on my promise to myself about the timeframe for it. This project must succeed at all costs.

I can say this much: I aim to have a playable version with 25% of the content (you'll see why this is a nice number later) out within the next 12 months. That's my timeframe. Yes it's long, but wait until I reveal what it is - then you'll understand

Edit: The 12 months doesn't mean it will definately take as long as 12 months, I hope to do it more quickly... just that's my goal - to do it within that time.

Edited on Sun, 8th Oct 2006 at 21:22 BST

Most of you probably already knew but im sure many didn't - the 2 games were released on thursday (28th September). Take a look at these videos - quite interesting although I'm annoyed by the mono left-channel-only sound.
http://uk.media.ds.ign.com/media/707/707323/vids_1.html

I can't wait The semi-3D world map works as I expected - Mode 7 with real 3D polygons for buildings. Not bad.

Edited on Sat, 30th Sep 2006 at 21:56 BST

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Found this linked to from an IRC channel. Need I say more?

Yep, things are progressing - even though you can't see that from looking at this website. Have you ever been working on something which you really, really want to shout about - but you can't until you have a working prototype that you can show to the world? That's the current situation.

Maybe I'm being big headed by saying this, but what I'm working on right now will cause a massive ruckus if I can pull it off (and I'm very confident of being able to) - mentioning what it is right now would be a bad thing because if I then failed to produce the result, many people could be dissapointed.

All I'm going to say is this: It's based on a very popular game, it will capture the spirit of it completely including stuff that the official game lost in later installments, online play will be a major feature, and it's going to take a long time to completely finish. Sorry, that's all I can say for now