The Code Zone Bargain Basement Blog

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Southlake, TX

Imparting game development wisdom of dubious quality a ridiculously long time.

1,746 comments
48 followers
1,277 entries
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johnhattan
June 19, 1998
Backgammon begins
Sorry it's been a bit. Been moving a couple of different directions lately.

I started on a Backgammon game. The user interface is close to being done, and I think I know how I'm gonna do the AI. Dice make a game easier in ways, and harder in others. Backgammon's also a pain because the players have …
753 views
johnhattan
June 09, 1998
Arcade Poker's Done
Arcade Poker is basically done, and Shelly's claiming that it's one of the better ones in the set. We'll see. I'm probably gonna spend today putting sound-support into some of the recent stuff I've written. I usually forget to put all of the zany beeps and clicks into the games, and I end up having…
837 views
johnhattan
June 04, 1998
Switchin' to FrontPage
Well, here's the first cut of my new front-page version web pages. I've just about got the hang of FP. So far, I've been happy with it. The biggest problem I had was removing all the weird table stuff that ATrax did. ATrax, for some unknown reason, liked to put just about everything into tables. My…
1,117 views
johnhattan
June 01, 1998
Automated updates
Just a couple of quick notes today. I finally found an automated website updater that I like. You know, one of those programs that'll automatically update a web site via FTP, synchronizing it with a local directory on your page-drawing machine. I run 3 web pages, so this is a long-overdue utility f…
1,379 views
johnhattan
May 30, 1998
Updates and. . .updates
Sorry it took a bit between updates this time. Been busy putting the finishing touches on Kizbot. I think I've got all of the pieces in place except for the sounds. Sounds for me are always an afterthought anyway.

For my next game, I've been thinking I'd need a couple of new pieces of EyeCandy. For …
1,639 views
johnhattan
May 20, 1998
Adding gratuitous nothingness
Probably gonna take it easy today. I think the haze and dust that's coating most of Texas is getting to me.

Otherwise, I've been making some good progress on the games. The latest dice game, now named "Kizbot", as I was feeling less-than creative during the naming process, is almost playable. I adde…
1,568 views
johnhattan
May 15, 1998
CGDC Observations
Well, I actually got some good feedback from the last entry. A couple of folks said that they shared my observations about the CGDC. A couple other people suggested that John Romero, the angry egotistical dwarf, be nominated for next year's People magazine awards. Still another person suggested tha…
1,696 views
johnhattan
May 11, 1998
Home to Texas
Awright. I arrived back to my cozy Texas home at 3 o'clock this morning. The CGDC has come and gone. There's a lot of stuff to talk about, and I don't wanna give a blow-by-blow description, as it'd take forever. For that reason, I'm gonna put down my random impressions into a buncha bullet-points. …
1,341 views
johnhattan
May 02, 1998
Off to Long Beach!
Well, I'm taking the redeye to Long Beach tonight. I'll be arriving in sunny CA at about 3 AM, so I'll be nice and fresh for my indentured servitude at CGDC.

I put together 10 press kits to pass out to hopeful publishers. I pressed CD's with the existing games (they'll time out on 6/15). Shelly prin…
1,783 views
johnhattan
April 23, 1998
Gettin' done with the GDC
Moving along on the whole CGDC thing. Got my plane tickets and I have a hotel room lined up. Now I just need to have a nicely-debugged set of sample games to hand out.

The new main menu is basically done. You can see it here. It's much nicer than the old main menu, and it should be much easier to ex…
1,839 views
johnhattan
April 18, 1998
Gonna volunteer
A bit of a departure from the past few days. A fellow game developer mentioned to me that people who volunteer for 22 hours of work at the CGDC get a free giga-pass. They've also got special room-rates in exchange for indentured servitude. How could I resist? I couple of hours later, I had a discou…
1,974 views
johnhattan
April 13, 1998
Minimax
Not much new game development over the past few days. Had to meet the families for the obligatory rabbit-worship ceremonies, getting myself a nasty sinus infection in the process.

I did, however, get the beginnings of the AI for the Um El Bagara game written on friday. I've got some nice little Mini…
2,065 views
johnhattan
April 07, 1998
Design commentary
First off, another good link. One problem I see in games nowadays is a problem of scope. Many products are so wrapped up in the video and the sound that they forget to put in an interesting well-tested game. Here is an article written by the head of Cheapass games (one of the better low-end card-ga…
2,232 views
johnhattan
April 03, 1998
No Ferrari for me
To confirm John Munsch's assertion. I don't drive a Ferrari, despite being a game developer in D/FW. There are three main reasons why. . .

  • Ferraris are exceedingly expensive
  • I'm 6' 7" tall, and those things are barely knee-height for me
  • I never learned to drive a stick


Until I overcome these obstacles,…
2,171 views
johnhattan
March 31, 1998
Spritelibs and timers
First off, I discovered that SpriteLib has moved here. The author has dropped the weird licensing stuff. You just need to put your free SpriteLib reg # somewhere in your app (like the "about" box). There's now no reason not to have this thing.

I made a long-overdue change to my timer code. In an ave…
2,283 views
johnhattan
March 29, 1998
No Code Today
Didn't write any code today, but I do wanna get you up to speed on my current project.

A couple of months ago, I decided that I needed some new content in addition to just spending time improving the existing games, so I decided on creating an entirely new game-pack of 12 games. Added to my existing…
2,626 views
johnhattan
March 28, 1998
First entry
First entry

Well folks, this is the first official entry of the Code Zone Development Diary. First off, big thanks to John Munsch for providing a bit of space and bandwidth for me to ramble on about my projects. Hopefully I can impart some interesting commentary on the state of an unusual project. …
2,795 views
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