Zipplet's Stuff: Blog

zipNES progress update - yes, I'm programming!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 12:34:57 +0000

The zipNES 0.2.x rewrite is getting somewhere. I now have a functional NES system bus and CPU core attached to it. Different types of memory chunks in the address space have been implemented and this works much better than in zipNES 0.1 which used blocks of IF statements to check the type of memory being accessed. I use a very fast method now involving pointers and jump tables.

I probably wont get much more done until tomorrow as I'm with my girlfriend today, but so far I'm pleased with the progress!

Edit: Heres some proof I have it doing something:

This shows a CPU execution trace from cold reset. You can see 2 bus reads at the beginning when the CPU reads the reset vector. Then, I force the CPU program counter register to $0000 to make it execute uninitialised (garbage) work ram. The 3rd bus read is the first opcode fetch, and from there you can see it running.

The trace format is fairly simple:
r (read) address = byte read
w (write) address = byte written
exe (location) = opcode fetched [register dump before executing opcode]

Edited on Sat, 1st Jan 2011 at 12:43 UTC

Happy new year!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:32:14 +0000

Happy new year to you all!

Hope you have a productive and interesting year. I'm currently working on zipNES, maybe this time I will actually get around to releasing something?

300,000 pageviews!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:53:42 +0000

Hi all,

When I created this site I never imagined I'd get even 100,000 pageviews - let alone 300K!
I seem to average 300-400 per day, which isn't too bad considering I don't have an awful lot of content on here apart from my electronics projects.

I have been getting a lot of feedback (via email) about my Megadrive modifications from those of you that are attempting the mod or asking for more information. I can say that I will have instructions for the Megadrive 2 soon, and a firmware update for the Megadrive 1 mod.

I will also be putting up some details on adding RCA jacks to the Megadrive (both models) to allow you to use standard easy to obtain cables to hook up to your TV.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or just want to tell me about your mods - pictures are welcome! With permission I may put up pictures of other peoples attempts at the mods.

LightX ready to go

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:29:15 +0000

LightX has now been signed off as ready to use. Work on the 'project' can begin

Well, it began a while ago but it can begin properly from now!

LightX in Delphi 2010

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:39:18 +0000

A long time ago I wrote a multimedia API for Delphi - LightX. I used it in a couple of game projects that never got off the ground for various reasons.

A month ago I decided to bring LightX up to standard, which means getting it to run in Delphi 2010. After looking at the code I decided it would be better to rewrite LightX in a better way. This rewrite turned out to be quite simple in some places as I could copy across functions that worked well and modify them for Delphi 2010 compatibility, but I did a lot of refactoring and some improvements.

The result? LightX now works very well with Delphi 2010. I also added the ability for full hardware acceleration to be added easily at a later date - that came with the refactoring I did.

The technical bit - only interesting for programmers:
Both the old and new LightX graphics classes had a base class that implemented abstract methods for all of the drawing methods. The difference is that the old LightX software rendering engine was a fully implemented class that used a library called gfxout to display the output and it was impossible to descend the software engine and add hardware acceleration - any acceleration would have to be completely written from scratch and not use any part of the software rendering engine.

The new LightX implements the software rendering engine as a seperate class, allowing hardware acceleration to be easily added at any point by descending from the class, and in steps. Say I wanted to add full Direct3D acceleration. I could start by implementing video RAM surfaces and basic tile drawing in hardware. The LightX software rendering engine would be used for all other drawing calls. This means I can even support functions like Rotozoom on hardware that does not support it, because the software engine takes over when the hardware does not support something. Win-win!

Other benefits of breaking everything up include the ability to - theoretically - have LightX graphics working on the Nintendo DS very easily. I would only need to write a simple output layer and use the software rendering engine - as the 2D core on the DS cannot do all of the things that LightX can especially with large/irregular surface sizes. However, I could make it use the 2D core acceleration where possible. Fun possibilities.

I need to implement the Unified Application Window which will allow game code to compile on any supported platform with *zero* - yes ZERO code changes.

But for now, LightX is almost finished, and ready to use in a game. What game? That would be telling.

Just a small update

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 08:57:43 +0000

I thought I'd let you all know what I've been up to. I took a small break from my hobby stuff last month to play through some DS games and socialise. As of a week ago I have been working on Delphi graphics engine stuff in preparation for LightX and other projects needing it (e.g. zipNES). Direct3D is now supported so my games will run under Windows 7 as and when I have releases.

No, I am not going to even hint towards what I am working on, but it is big. Very big. It will take a huge amount of time and effort. It will be worth the wait and probably surprise people. It has been in the pipeline for about 12 years (is that right Tomatzu?) and it is now finally possible to bring the plan into action.

The only thing I will reveal is I am working on this project with Tomatzu (you may know him as Koretetsu) - and no, he wont tell you what it is either

Delphi 2010 developers - executable size a problem?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:44:49 +0000

Recently I switched to Delphi 2010 and noticed the sudden increase in output executable size. I spent a short while researching the problem and have put together an article with tips and tricks you can use to get the smallest possible executable out of Delphi 2010.

Shrinking large Delphi 2010 executables - removing RTTI properly

While it does not matter for most projects it does for some - and I hope the article helps those people for whom it matters.

Whew, busy busy!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:15:43 +0000

I've just finished putting together an alarm system for my room with a difference - a set of RF keyfobs using the Keeloq protocol are used to arm/disarm and control 2 extra relays (for room lights or so). It proved to be a nice experiment with RF stuff that's also useful

I'll be putting up the schematic/code soon - it's a mess but I'll do it anyway. When I do, you can be sure I'll post the addition to the site news as usual.

Megadrive mod update

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:32:39 +0000

I am currently modding a friends megadrive - and taking step by step pictures as I go. Once I've done that I need to draw up a schematic. At that time I will update the megadrive mod page with all of the information needed for you to mod your own megadrive along with a step by step guide.

Stay tuned.

Electronics: uC controlled 6-level LED striplight driver

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 06:38:22 +0000

I have added a project to the electronics section. It is an LED driver I built a few months ago that is designed for use with 12V LED strip lights. See the project here. The design is very simple but very efficient

Minor zipNES 0.1 update to 0.1.120

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:42:22 +0000

I've uploaded another minor update to zipNES 0.1. The changelog is as follows:

Changed Dump CHRROM to use proper save dialog (8KB CHRROM/CHRRAM)
Added dump name/attribute data to file (4KB PPU memory)
Added dump sprite data to file (256 byte spriteram)
Added dump palettes to file (32 byte internal array)

These had to be finished now as I need them to help me debug the new zipNES releases.

Cool console mods

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:02:44 +0000

Stay tuned for a couple of cool PIC controlled region mods for the megadrive and SNES

DMDirc

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 10:10:31 +0000

I've joined the DMDirc development team to work on the windows parts of DMDirc (notably parts of the setup program, launcher, updater and uninstaller). Who knows maybe I'll end up working on java bits later?

If you haven't used DMDirc already, what are you waiting for? It's a real alternative to mIRC and my opinion much better than the rest. What's more - it's completely open source and free.

Grab a copy from the official site

zipNES + Windows Vista

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:01:58 +0000

I am aware of a reasonably serious issue with zipNES on Windows Vista. The sound is unstable and crackles. There is no quick fix I can apply to the code base without changing the sound output pipeline so I am afraid you wont be able to play with sound on Vista until the next version of zipNES. Sorry

Additionally, Aero will be disabled while zipNES runs because it uses DirectDraw mode. You can work around this by disabling DirectDraw and using GDI. Luckily, any PC capable of Vista Aero will be able to run zipNES in GDI mode perfectly even with a stretched window.

I am pleased to say that zipNES does run well under XP inside Sun VirtualBox for those of you who really want to get it running properly and don't have XP. I've also been told it works well under Wine on linux.

Minor update to zipNES 0.1

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:18:41 +0000

I've uploaded a minor update to zipNES 0.1 to make it slightly more useable. The debugger console has been disabled, the emulator no longer writes CHR files and I disabled CPU exceptions as they are buggy. Grab it from the zipNES project page.

zipNES resumed

@zipplet.co.uk () — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:15:52 +0000

I have decided to resume development of zipNES with new knowledge of Delphi and how the NES works.

To celebrate I've released the latest old version of zipNES 0.1. It's not that great but it lets you see how I got on with delphi a few years ago when I started out.

Get it here

Busy, Busy, Busy!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:34:27 +0000

I've been quite busy with a new job and other personal commitments, hence the lack of updates. Here is a major update though:

Neutron NMS - project restarted

It's required again where I work now so it should be completed this time.

Memorybrick redesign

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:58:49 +0000

I am currently redesigning Memorybrick to solve the many problems it had including slowness, lack of support for some flash chips, requirement of jumpers to select device type and buggyness. The new design should eliminate all of those problems and will be "open source hardware" once it works.

If anyone has any suggestions for devices they'd like supported beyond the expected list please drop me an email and I'll see if it is possible

Woo!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:04:15 +0000

I've had my domain renewed

Also, I know the lack of updates... anyway I added a page for the lithium ion charger I'm building to the Electronics section. And I need to add some more reviews.

Pokemon PC - the beginning of the actual game code

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:23:32 +0000

P:\ppc\Trunk>pokemonpc.exe debugmount
bootstrap: mounting resources
bootstrap: debugmount
bootstrap: mounted all resources
tlxgfxwrap.initgraphics: WARNING: double buffering emulation
tlxgfxbank.create: 1000 images in bank
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: loading bank 'default'
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [10] tileset '/gfx/system/borders.fbm' with 64 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [11] tileset '/gfx/system/more.fbm' with 4 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [13] tileset '/gfx/system/loadingbar.fbm' with 3 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [14] tileset '/gfx/system/zstuff.fbm' with 196 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [100] tileset '/gfx/font/small_black.fbm' with 104 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [101] tileset '/gfx/font/small_red.fbm' with 104 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [102] tileset '/gfx/font/small_green.fbm' with 104 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [103] tileset '/gfx/font/small_blue.fbm' with 104 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [104] tileset '/gfx/font/fontsmall.fbm' with 960 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: [105] tileset '/gfx/font/fontbig.fbm' with 960 tiles created
tlxgfxbank.loadbank: 12 images loaded
tlxsoundfmod.initsound: Sound initialised
tlxsoundbank.create: 10000 samples in bank
tlxsoundbank.loadbank: loading bank 'default'
tlxsoundbank.loadbank: 0 samples loaded
tlxsoundbank.loadbank: loading bank 'game'
tlxsoundbank.loadbank: 0 samples loaded

So what does this mean? It means PPC has life! Lets see how far I get today, ne?

Pokemon PC: What's up?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:39:01 +0000

Recently I've picked up PPC and continued to work on it. It's a huge project and as I've said before it will take a lot of my time, which I lack, however if I will only ever finish one game project it will be this one (but I hope to finish/start others too).

One hindrance is the fact that the game is complicated, I have to get the World Editor working before I can even make a simple walk-around demo. The data files are too complicated to produce by hand, and hard coding a map just wouldn't work for an engine of this complexity.

It's working well now, well enough that I can draw terrain and set basic attributes. Yes I had the WE working quite well a few months ago but it was missing quite a lot of features necessary to actually push ahead with the game engine. The only thing left now is to finish the brush system, then it's time for a walk around demo me thinks!

Once that's working I need to look at the tedious data entry of pokemon attributes and graphics data...

Z80 project? There's only one Zipplet - as much as I'd like to be able to do 'kage bunshin no jutsu' I can't (but imagine how quickly I could write a game like PPC if I could do that!), so I chop and change my projects. A bit of programming, a bit of electronics, etc. Keeps things interesting.

Until next time!

Edit: I should say that Pokemon PC (PPC) is the name for the engine - the game I release will have a different, better name eventually. Once I think of one, that is.

Edited on Tue, 29th Apr 2008 at 13:59 BST

The Z80 project!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:40:53 +0000

I've been designing and building a Z80 microcomputer system from the ground up. I have a lot of ideas for the project, and currently you can see it by going to the Z80 project page under the electronics section.

So far I have it driving a nice LCD display with a parallel port I/O chip. Let's see where this goes, ne?

Minor update

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:36:05 +0000

I added a page about my new memorybrick programmer device to the electronics section.

I'm also thinking about building a homebrew Z80 computer system, which will be opensource hardware

Edited on Tue, 18th Mar 2008 at 02:36 UTC

Livejournal

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:16:49 +0000

Hi, I have a Livejournal now which I use to post things that aren't really worthy of the blogs/news on this site - yes, I know, 2 blogs - think of it more as a personal or real life blog, whereas the blog on this website is more for project progress and such. See it at http://zipplet.livejournal.com/

I've been doing a lot of work with PIC microcontrollers and electronics, and my personal commitments too with work and my girlfriend, so I haven't worked much really on PPC over the last month. Remember, I am not paid a single penny to work on my projects.

PPC on track; Force Reader?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:16:17 +0000

I am pleased to announce that PPC is still on track with the new schedule I posted. What happened to the hit counter? Some people were deliberately increasing the number of hits - why, I don't know. Until I fix it to only display unique hits, it is disabled. It wont be too long until I do that I hope.

On another note, I'm 22 now.. getting old

And on yet another note, walkman > iPod, in so many ways.

I was going through my old projects last night, and found a lot of stuff I'd forgotten about, including one very useful program called Force Reader. This program is able to recover previously unreadable and corrupted files from optical media which you simply can't get to. A friend of mine used it to recover a lot of anime from some old CDs, with a very high success rate. Most of the files were not corrupted at all, and a few of them had some corruption (Force Reader inserts blank blocks into the output file if it really can't get that part to read).

I am probably going to remake this utility in delphi and improve the reading method, as I have some ideas to minimise the size of corrupted blocks.

All in due time, PPC first!

Desktop screenshots

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:35:51 +0000

It's that time of year again, so I'll post a couple of screenshots of my current desktop - I always find it interesting to see how other people arrange things, so I post mine.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

On another note, I really need to update my CMS to support image-links, so that I wont have to always add a link underneath for enlargement!

New rig; PPC name going to change

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:48:02 +0000

I built myself a new computer, some may think the lighting is overdone but I like it http://www.zipplet.co.uk/computer/

PPC (Pokemon PC) is going to have to be renamed - because I learnt of the existance of another pokemon fangame which was started earlier than mine. Once I decide on a name I'll make it known here.

PPC World Editor begins to edit the world

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:16:57 +0000

Click to enlarge

This took more work than it probably looks

Pokemon PC!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:39:24 +0000

I've picked up the code base for PPC and I'm working on it - currently the world editor, which is required before I can do much else. I've settled on opcode-like scripting, since it's simple yet flexible at the same time

I'm on a new PC now so development is a lot more fun, with a larger monitor too!

News coming soon?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:04:43 +0000

There *is* some news coming soon, I've been occupied with some other things in my life hence the lack of updates! I'll keep you lot posted.

Planet Tetris Attack

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 07:11:37 +0000

I've now added a section for Planet Tetris Attack under Games on the navigation to the left. I'll keep everything about this clone on that page

Pokemon PC: Officially started

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:48:00 +0000

My biggest ever game project, Pokemon PC, has now officially started (as LightX is now useable)

LightX - first "phase" complete

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 15 May 2007 14:04:14 +0000

LightX is now complete, well the major set of classes anyway. It's now useable for writing games for Windows! Hardware acceleration is not done yet but can be added at any time, and it's still very fast without it due to optimisations

Now I can start work on actual games, finally...

So very, very wrong

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:33:22 +0000

So I'm looking around youtube while I'm bored, and I find some pokemon glitch videos. Then I find this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bORKndj4Sw0

After about 2 minutes in this gets very, very disturbing....

LightX progress #2

@zipplet.co.uk () — Wed, 09 May 2007 11:20:10 +0000

All of the lightX input classes are now complete, apart from directinput which is not critical right now so it can be written later. A few bugs I found including some that have annoyed me for ages have been fixed too.

Now I need to write the sound classes and it should be possible to start work on some real games!

Mew?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:50:48 +0000

LightX is progressing, although a little slower than I wanted. The Unified Application Window (UAW for short), which is a framework to write true cross platform games with LightX, is actually working now!

I also have Pokemon Diamond, USA import. Impressed with it so far. And I'll also use this opportunity to say that the linksys WAP54G sucks, and has speed issues. Connecting both the BT Home Hub and Linksys WAP54G to my network switch, having them on channels that are far apart, and then conducting a speed test, shows that the linksys is extremely slow - about 8 times slower than the BT Home Hub, in 802.11g mode. Tests were conducted by copying files to a samba server.

LightX progress

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:43:10 +0000

I've been tinkering with LightX and I have the basic design for the joypad input working, including some of the descendants. The new Xinput API for xbox 360 controllers is also supported - with independant control of both rumble motors and the L/R triggers being on seperate axes.

Click to enlarge image

Update: Just the mouse and keyboard input units, and some sound functionality and lightX will be good enough for some test cases!

Edited on Mon, 23rd Apr 2007 at 20:32 EDT

Back!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:19:21 +0000

Zipplet's Stuff is past the temporary downtime. On an unrelated note, I now have a nice test box I can use to ensure lightX performs nicely on an older system, and to allow me to port lightX to linux.

For some reason, the times shown for posts are all messed up right now - I think the new servers timezone is screwed ...

Edited on Mon, 23rd Apr 2007 at 15:20 EDT

Temporary downtime

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 11:58:48 +0000

This site will temporarily be unavailable somewhere from Thursday 19th April -> Saturday 21st April, for a few hours. The server this site is hosted on is being upgraded.

Game downloads also hosted here will be unavailable during that time.

Annoyance: GENS, and controllers with a POV HAT

@zipplet.co.uk () — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 20:14:29 +0000

When I want to chill and play some megadrive games on my PC I'll use the great gens megadrive emulator (get it here). It's always had a few flaws such as not putting the CPU to sleep during idle times (so your CPU usage is always 100%) but generally it's great.

That is, until I uncovered a really bad bug that many seem to have had, and the author refuses to fix it

If you use a controller that has it's d-pad mapped to a POV HAT, and push diagonals, gens does not recognise them. This makes many games unplayable, such as Thunder Force IV.

Why has nobody fixed it or released a patch? The code is available so I'd consider doing it, if it weren't for the fact I'd need visual studio installed...

This means I can't use gens with my nice new xbox 360 controller, which is a real shame. Every other game/emulator works fine with it.

LightX: Software rendering almost complete

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 11:56:50 +0000

The software rendering engine for LightX is almost complete! I've implemented all of the major functions, it's just a little polishing left. I've even written the documentation for it.

Now to come, roughly in this order:

lxgfxddraw class
lxsound/lxsoundfmod
lxinput/lxinputkeyboard/lxinputmouse/lxinputgamepad
lxinputxinput

Yep, I'm going to support Xinput (xbox 360 controller extra features not accessible with directinput) - why not.

Status updates for LightX

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:58:02 +0000

No more screenshots yet - I've been up to some other things the past couple days. I've decided to make the status/progress/todo/etc list available for the public to see while I work on it. Sure it's of no interest to most people but for some it might be, so why not. LightX status and updates

LightX blits it's first pixels!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:43:39 +0000

Yup, lightX is actually working now!

Click to enlarge

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

Programming progress

@zipplet.co.uk () — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:59:37 +0000

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!

Click to enlarge

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

Click to enlarge

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

Random.

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:43:31 +0000

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...

Sega fails.

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:01:35 +0000

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

Being older.

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 08:10:29 +0000

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.

Updates? Kinda.

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:53:45 +0000

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

Pokemon diamond and pearl released in japan

@zipplet.co.uk () — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 20:54:35 +0000

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

Naruto children need help

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 12:49:13 +0000

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

Progress?

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 11:45:44 +0000

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

OBJECTION!

@zipplet.co.uk () — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 22:12:22 +0000

More changes

@zipplet.co.uk () — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:02:58 +0000

I made a few changes since I uploaded the site:

My controls page renamed from "loginprompt" to "mycontrols".
The site root directory is now easily changeable so I can migrate to a different URL format later if I want to.
Fixed some errors regarding the new path format
All pages now have a heading at the top, looks much better
Added "toolbox" section and "articles" section