Meaningless Existence Belongs To Me And To Me Only...

10:30PM - Things *may* be looking up, at last

Well, in the few short weeks since I last updated, I've basically been trying to work my arse off, find flats and acquire money.

I've also been sending my CV off to here there and everywhere. Some of the companies I know have my CV, and I'm waiting on for further development, are:

• Bluesky - A Java Dev role


• virtalis - Junior C++ Programmer


• cool-games - experienced games programmer


• CDL - Windows C++ Dev *Funny story this one, see below


• There was another java role, but that was a 6 month contract, the recruiter hasn't gotten back to me on that one

*I applied for the Windows C++ role and chat to the recruiter and she suggests doing a C++ test. Now this test is an AI style one, where questions are weighted and there are usually more than one answer. I felt a little stressed when doing the test but I did finish it and I worried whether I did well or not. When I spoke to the woman the next morning she said that I performed rather weakly in three areas: Polymorphism, memory allocation and something else, in fact the way she said that I performed weakly made me think that I buggered up the entire test. So I asked what I got overall and she said 63% - which isn't bad for someone who hasn't touched programming properly in 2 years or so and she said that the level I went in at (moderate), Senior devs pass rate was 75%

Now just to give you guys the grasp of what recruiters usually see on my CV (yes I'm showing off! ;p) here are my major skills:

Work Experience:

VBA

Wrote a couple of macros for Trafford General Hospital.

One was to use another Excel spreadsheet as a reference document to search when a user double clicked a particular column. This would then show relevant data in a message box.

The other searched through an Excel database and displayed the next three months of upcoming contracts to update in a new tab. The next three months worth of contracts is a rolling year (October and November always show the next year).

Home based Experience:

C/C++

Game Programming on the GP2X handheld:

Homebrew:

The Road To Mayfair (currently in development) – a Monopoly clone that aims to have features, such as, full house rules (for game customisation) and custom skins for different types of board/cards.

Ports:

Zombiepox – a game port (the process of recompiling from one format to another, in this case, from the x86 family of processors (Pentium/AMD) to the handheld’s native ARM processors).

Libraries: Allegro and DUMB (Dynamic Universal Musical Bibliotheque)

ZeeSpace – an engine port of a 2.5D engine, which is the same style of engine used in Doom or Outrun games.

Zoids Quest – a game port of a SDL and xml-based game. Xml is used to create the levels.

Libraries: SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer)

J2SE

JCharCreator (currently in development) – a program that will allow people to create characters for their roleplaying game(s), much like the Character Creator supplied with D&D 3rd Edition. However, this will have character creation from a wide range of RPGs. The GUI is mainly written in Swing and J2SDK 1.4.2_16

J2ME

This is a skill I’ve started to learn, since a lot of companies are using this technology. I have already uploaded two tutorial samples to the Motorola C975. Once this is learnt, the JS freefall simulation (see below) will be ported over.

Visual Basic 6

e-BattleTech – a play-by-email game that incorporates the rules of a war game, like Warhammer 40K, called BattleTech. This uses a custom xml based technique for the data.

JavaScript

A freefalling simulation – Using a HTML image tag, CSS and JavaScript, an image simulates freefall with only a click of a button.

AJAX

Sega games database – an online database that displays the megadrive games, on request, without having to refresh the page. This can be found at http://www.stupendous-stuff.com/sega_index.php

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Oh and in freelance news, currently I'm in negotiations with two people on php projects one is for $50 and the other is for $500 - no shit! :)

All more money for me to get a house....although the $500 one won't be paid till sept (so much later) but hey, I get more experience.

Tomorrow I'm back in Chorlton looking at flats, then will (hopefully) be "drinking for research".

7:42PM - Thank you karma police!!!!

So after last weekend it seems that I've got a good karma return!

I looked at my bank account today, to see about finances for getting me back on track to get a place, and I saw that I had £400 paid in. Strange, I thought, that's a little too much. Please don't tell me someone fucked up the payroll.

I checked with Select Appointments and they said that all was good as it was my tax rebate, so coupled with the £100 I still have here, thats £500, more than enough for a place in Chorlton! YAY!

I'm there this weekend to see a place on Keppel Road (near where I used to live).

Things are looking up quite quickly, I hope I can get *everything* sorted soon. :)

[edit]:

Oh BTW, I was catching up on ctrl-alt-del online and I noticed that Diablo 3 was mentioned and I'm glad to day that, yes it's being done and looks AMAZING!!!

7:36PM - Where do I start?

I know I'll start this a couple of weeks ago!

The guy I'm moving in with will be called X.

Basically I'd gotten a place in Chorlton (Beech Road) and was getting the person, who I was supposed to be moving in with, to speak to the agent with me. We do, and X understands that he has about £400/£500 to stump up.

Lets move this story to Friday, X rings me to say that his parents would be getting down into manchester around 12 on Saturday, so I ring up the letting agent to say that he'll be down at 12 and I'll be there at 11.

Next morning, I end up being late (again) and then worrying that I don't know where I'm supposed to meet the agent, he would be open (on a saturday) from 11 - 2. So I think that it shouldn't matter too much as he knows that X wouldn't be there till 12. So I finally get there and the agent has had problems himself. No X though, the letting agent wants both sides of the cash before he'll release the keys. So I try and get hold of X who doesn't answer his phone. I tell the agent that I'll try and get hold of X and speak to the letting agent when I've got hold of him...I'd try and see the letting agent about 1:30, since it was about 12:10 now.

I decide to go back home and carry on packing with my g/f whilst trying to get hold of X....an hour later I get hold of him and he's busy packing and, consequently, has forgotten the time (his excuse). I tell him to get hold of the letting agent to talk to him, he tries once (gets answering machine), then bitches about "waste of time letting agents" and why they are only open at those times on a sat....completely forgetting that most letting type places aren't open. So we (g/f and I) decided to go down to the letting place to sort things out because X hasn't turned up. The agent isn't there and we wait, meanwhile, X is phoning us and saying that he has to leave by today, and generally getting me annoyed. The agent doesn't turn up at the agency and we decide to go home.

So I tell my housemate (who isn't pleased since the secruity deposit is "on the line" and we have to be out by monday). More packing.

Cue monday morning, I wake around 6:15 to get to work early as I forgot my timesheet on friday, since I was packing. I read the Metro and get to the horoscopes section:

Leo:
It's a frustrating way to end June, with your goal within reach but yet so out of reach, thanks to someone's obstructive attitude. Try to stay calm. Rocking the boat at this stage simply would not help. Patience.

Returning from work I'm worring that something will go completely wrong and X won't be there or will tell the agent to "fuck off to his face". I try to ring him and get "Sorry this number is not recognised". I panic and remember, patience, so after another two attempts I try my number and get the same thing, then realise that BT cancelled the phone line (despite me asking for PM switch off). Then I use my g/f's mobile to get hold of X, surprisingly, he's at the letting agency....so things are being sorted, cool. He goes to get some money out (even though he'd be saying that he couldn't draw out over £300 over the counter, or otherwise) and then says that he hasn't checked his bank account in months....patience....then we get a call from him, he only has £350 in his account (I, on the other hand, have the full wack). We decide to negotiate with the agent, on the walk down, discussing this, he could get an extra £50, cool, may not be that bad.

I hadn't told the agent I was coming but after everything I'd decided to wait for him to turn up since I felt we fucked him about enough, being late and everything. During the wait X is realising, all too late, that he probably couldn't afford the rent anyway with his wage and that he's never seen his pay slip and finds out that he'd getting about £90 per week.......but this is Chorlton and with his experience in kitchens (about 4 years worth), I said that I'd get him a job within a month, there are enough bars around and whatnot, but he then complains that it wouldn't be possible because of the "recession" and because of it the place that he is working at isn't making the money. THEN we find out that he's working at some business park thing.....cos THAT'S going to make money.......anyway.

So I end up losing the place as I couldn't negotiate it. So I had no place to go, luckily, the housemate had been keeping in touch and has a possibility that I could move in with his sister, my g/f also suggests that I could go with her, short term. X apologises for fucking everything up and offers to pay for putting my stuff in storage.

My housemate arrives home whilst we are looking and talks to the shop below us. They have some space in their bathroom bit for storage that they are willing to loan us for far less than actual companies. We move the stuff in and I decide to live with my g/f as housemate's sister lives not far from Aston Avenue and I didn't want to return there.

So here I am, pissed off, thankfully have a roof over my head AND realising what the horoscope meant....this was going to happen and I will be going back to Chorlton soon, only this time I'm going to go with my original plan and live on my own.

I'd like to thank everyone involved in helping me as that was great! :) Couldn't have done it without you.

7:54PM - No, I STILL haven't moved out yet....

....just DON'T go there!!!

Hopefully *crosses fingers* tomorrow WILL be the day.

Regarding my last entry, there were things I said that should have been worded better, but I have no tactfullness at times, so I'll apologise for that. But still, I do feel that things aren't right. All housemates have ups and downs together, and that's the "fun" of living with each other but after 4 years, I feel that things are one sided and a little unfair. So I want to sort things out to see if I went wrong or something.

I have tried before but I either got ignored or something similar to "Gay" written and nothing else further, meaning that the only way to voice my concern was to rant without any thinking before I got a response.

I'm not sending an email for a few reasons:

1) I don't know your email address

2) As a friend of ours already mentioned blog-wise (and with such truth), email is the great world wide ignoring system - I'm not saying that I'll purposefully ignore it but we've all done it, in a I'll "look/respond at another time" type of way

3) I won't have internet for a couple of weeks yet, since I'm moving

So if you want to talk, get hold of me but give it a couple of weeks while I get finances sorted and get settled, please.

11:47PM - These last two years make me wonder.....

After moving from Aston Avenue and managing to live for two years with people that don't shit on you (I say this, with the exception of a fellow Vague member and his brother), I've managed to do a lot of things this year. A lot has happened, and I'm going to miss this house AND the people living here!

It makes me recall the first house in AA (I'd occupied two places there, long story) that I lived in and after the couple* left, it made me feel lonely since the house was *SO* empty.

And now this time comes again, but without the "family" feel and no pets - unlike the last time. It's such a lovely house, the area is great (which is why I'm staying - only moving around the corner) and the people living here are great too. Most of us are staying here, just one other who is going to city centre for living.

I'm looking forward to actually keeping in touch with them, which means more carrot cake making for me - which I'll be more than happy to do.

I'll probably organise a BBQ, depending on weather and such, DVD nights might have to stop for a while since we've decided no TV for 6 months and I need to pay off bills from here before I decide I want the box back. Plus I'm looking for a permanent job in programming, whilst I temp for a while.

*the couple who haven't spoken to me since - yeah, 4 years - and left me wasting my time wondering what the hell *I'd* done wrong for them to ignore me in this way. True, I could just talk to them, but the way things were left - they didn't want many people knowing where they lived *shrugs* and the only time they...sorry, rephrase..he came over, was when he wanted to get their mail. Other than that I felt as though I had to drag them over - and that ain't nice....but things have been left so long that I feel the only way that this could be rectified is that they got a time machine, because I sure as hell don't need to! See I'd understand if I knew that they hated me but, that isn't quite true as he tries to talk to me when they see me at other people's get togethers (which I try and avoid, for obvious reasons), she - predicatably - says nothing. But there is that phrase: Too little, too late. But I digress, what's done is done.

10:22PM

I did some more work on TRTM on Sunday, managed to get the dice problem sorted out.

Basically, there was a problem in the code between board position 31 (Go To Jail) and 40 (Mayfair) in that trying to account for a random number between 2 and 12 (the max and min possible values of any dice roll in Monopoly) and get it to land on the correct board position after it went past 40 (anything past 40 went back to board position equal to or greater than 1).

After a couple of attempts, I realised that I had to use a switch statement to force the code to look at each position from 31 to 40 and add the total dice roll to the board position number before taking it away from 40, this DID work, however, on occasions where the total dice added to the board position yielded a smaller number, taking it away from a bigger number meant that, although I had a correct value, it was negative......unless I divided it by negative 1 to change that value into it's positive counterpart!

Going to do my usual and add this to the Live Blog on my facebook, any that want to add me, then you're more than welcome to! :)

9:07PM

Wow! Its been over two months since I last updated!

OK, so I now work for Trafford General Hospital doing general admin stuff. Well I do on occasion, but the boss has me doing database stuff on Excel, which gives me a good excuse to use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) for their requirements. For example:

They wanted a custom query so I wrote one in about 250 lines of code, now I'm getting Excel's VBA to display information, via message box, on each individual cells by double clicking.

The game project is, and was, on hold due to searching for work and now I have until the 30th to move and I've only just managed to get a viewing not too far from my present location.

When The Road To Mayfair is finished I do hope I can have releases for all formats, including linux and MacOSX. :)

Also having problems with XP and the pointless WGA stuff, but I will elaborate more on that later.

9:57PM - Investigations into the game versions

After reading some of the articles on artificial intelligence (AI) in gamedev.net I decided to research (play) some of the monopoly games that I was basing my idea on. Namely these were the ones on the Spectrum:

Leisure Genius' Monolopy (1985), Work Force's Do Not Pass Go (1982) and Automata's Go To Jail (1983).

Thoughts:

Work Force's Do Not Pass Go (1982)

There isn't *ANY* AI stuff here. It's just a game for human players only

Automata's Go To Jail (1983)

There is an implementation of *AN* AI (will only allow you to select one computer player) and from what I've seen it's quite poor (to be fair, it was a 2 player only game) but it still wasn't challenging

Leisure Genius' Monolopy (1985) - I actually had this game so I have more fondness for it

A much better improvement, however the game is implemented so that you *HAVE* to select all 6 players and the computer can be as many players as you wish. The only gripe I have with it is that the AI still doesn't play tactically enough (more so than the other one - with obvious reasons) but it's lacking the competitiveness. The amount of times I saw the computer trying to trade with itself with rediculous price adjustments was incredible! For example:

On numerous occasions the computer wanted to trade it's Electric Co (£150) for my Bond Street (£320) with the price adjustment that ranged from £120 to £170 (even when it had a fair wack of cash - almost £1000). Now you could argue that it was playing tactically, but it was trying to complete a set, of which I held the last one, and it didn't think to realise that increasing the price adjustment to something about £200, which was something that I was looking for, would have given it the property that it wanted AND the advantage on that side of the board.

I'm going to fire up the amiga emulator on my GP2X and see what's changed between the Spectrum versions and the Amiga versions. I'll edit this post with my findings.

[Edit]:

The Amiga Versions:

Dave Addison's version written with AbasiC (1985)

Virtually no AI to speak of. I managed to beat the computer by having a monolopy of the yellow set (all had hotels), I was against one CPU player, amongst others, who had hotels on the dark blue (Park Lane/Mayfair) and the brown sets.

Leisure Genius' Monopoly (1989)

I played two games with this one, one was just me and the "AI" and then there was me and 4 of them.

1 Vs. 1:
It had no discernable tatics whatsoever, it (like the spectrum version) was selling me property at varying prices, and it was trying obtain property of mine, which gave it no advantage. Confusing.

1 Vs. 4:
Very little, to next to, no interaction between myself and them and them and them. There was only one transaction, between themselves, and I feel that the computer was largely playing as a whole rather than different entities.

Oh and both of the above were american versions. The only difference that I could tell was in the tax, situated between Park Place (Park Lane) and Broadwalk (Mayfair). The London version has Super Tax which is the value of £100, whereas the US version is Luxury Tax and is only worth $75!

8:53PM - Free Parking update

I've added a fade in/fade out splash screen (which can't be exited), this splash screen will be my thing, from now on, in my homebrew stuff. Consider it more like my style of doing things, or a distinguishable (as in the differences between my style of work than say...Alex or Guyfawkes - for those not in the know Alex and Guyfawkes are devs in the GP2X community) dev thing.

I've also started work on the title screen:



Now, I could use the text function in GraphicsGale but then again I wanted a more personnal approach to the text rather than using a standard one. Plus I get more experience in pixel art.

[edit]:

About an hour and a half later and a few useful tips from my housemates:

4:55PM

I had an interview last Wednesday with UKFast, I wasn't successful - I've asked for feedback but I've heard nothing from them.

Currently I've been busy looking for jobs and game programming (so I can add it to my CV).

Game programming wise I'm developing a monopoly game called Free Parking (working title). I aim to implement the full rules, and the house rules (the unofficial ones).

It was interesting to see that a lot of people, who I spoke to, who thought that some house rules were official ones.

Examples:

House rules:

Delayed start - players cannot purchase houses on the first "lap"

If a player lands on a property that he/she doesn't want then the property is left until another player lands on it

Official rules:

If a player lands on a property that he/she doesn't want then the property is auctioned, by the bank, to the highest bidder. All players (including the player who declined the property) are allowed to bid.

The Free Parking space is just a space and has no specific relevance

Screenshots (early stage):





Although not all the graphics are "haXz0r" or "133t" they are meant for positioning rather than actuality. The icons at the top of the second picture are the player icons (roughly 20x20 pixels), although the "dog", if you can call it that is actually 13x18 - not bad considering I had little space to work with.

9:41PM - some help please?

Ok, I've been redesigning the site and I've come up with this:

New site

Is it any better than the last one?

4:00PM - music meme

This should be easy for you guys!

1. Put your iTunes/mp3 player on random.
2. Find photos of the first 25 artists/bands that come up (no repeats and no cheating).
3. Have people guess who the artists/bands are.
4. Paste this in yours and do it too, so I can waste time guessing as well.

( Music quiz from pickled_jo )

1:45PM - Phew!

So it's goodbye to 2007 and hello 2008!

Recap:

I've completed my new years resolution which was to read more (I've read 3 and a half books).

I'd finally managed to do some coding for the GP2X.

Seeing my lovely Diane for 6 months now (but still have reservations/doubts :S - although that probably won't subside for a few months to a year yet...)

Started college and doing well so far

I've almost completed improving my art using Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and I'm already showing huge improvements

Next year's plans?:

To go from porting code to actual homebrew games. Although a recent competition has just started.

See my family a bit more.

Carry on reading more.

Finish, or at least write half of, Aces High (my homebrew Space-Western) and Condemned Domains (my homebrew campaign for D&D).

Finish college and get good enough grades for entry into Astrophysics.

Finish my art book.

Happy new year to you all! :)

2:27AM - Merry Christmas Everyone! :)

Some experts from The Golden Age Of Wrestling, sorry it's all Ultmate Warrior based but he is one of my favs!

Ultimate Warrior & Randy Savage (Ultimate Maniacs) VS. Ted Dibiase & Someone else (Money Inc):



Ultimate Warrior & Jake "The Snake" Roberts VS. Ted Dibiase & Akeem (Why is Big Boss Man refereeing??):


Ultimate Warrior & Legion Of Doom VS. Demolition:


And for the grand finale, I present one of the greatest matches in WWF, the main event of Wrestlemania VI....

Ultimate Warrior VS. Hulk Hogan (Part 1):


Ultimate Warrior VS. Hulk Hogan (Part 2):


Ultimate Warrior VS. Hulk Hogan (Part 3):

1:12AM - Secondly

pppfft, my workplace has given me a redundancy date (for all of you seeing the rebranded Going Places shops that are now Thomas Cook, this is of the merger that happened quite a while ago....unfortunately Xansa didn't win the contract.....) for 31 March.

The redundancy pay quote is ~£600 (*grumble, grumble*), although I think that's bollocks so I've asked for a breakdown.

I'm going to start looking for a job in January, if I can't get one at my workplace.

GP2X-wise:

I've just released an early version of ZeeSpace for the gp2x

I'm thinking of changing Snails to Judge Dredd: Block Wars, since my artwork has increased considerably.

I've started the background work for Annilihator.

Last night, during playing the speccy emulator on the GP2X through the TV, I was playing an old game that I used to have, namely Monopoly, which looks like:



and I realised that this would make a good addition to the gp2x system.

It won't be released till after Xmas though...

I've finally had the change to try out the MegaCD bit of PicoDrive for the gp2x....and I must say I'm impressed! :)

The MegaCD games:
AD&D - Eye of the Beholder
AfterBurner III
Sonic CD
Heart of the Alien (Another World 2) - includes Another World

Everything else:
Going out this sat for my g/f's and Ginga's pre-birthday outing.

I'm halfway through reading Qin: The Warring States and will be writing an adventure for sometime after the Xmas. I've started writing a few Judge Dredd D20 adventures for when I go to my g/f's and run it there.

Otherwise, just busy.

:)

1:04AM - Firstly

My housemate Nicky....

Well, we were watching Star Wars on Sunday (yes that far back I know I haven't updated - busy! ;p)

and this fella pops up on the screen:



Nicky: Why is Johnny Vegas in an X-Wing??

Class, just pure class. ;)

4:30PM

So.....Snails is now off....

Why? I hear you cry.

Because Snails is already a commercial worms-like game for PDA's....GGGRRRR!!!

And I was on to something too.....however, after having a discussion with my housemate, he suggested that I carry the worms-style game on, but merge it with a lemmings-style game. The idea, well I'm not saying, it's based on a book of a well known series.

That's all I'm saying! :)

7:49PM - Snails

I've had a thought about how to implement Snails. Worms seems to generate terrain by having 3 different sets of transparent stuff. The first (and obvious) being the sprites/objects occupying one. The second being the "foreground" ie the areas where the game is played (and destroyed) on....which would mean that I'd have to use a circle to represent the damage to land and make that part (or whole) by that circle defined by the second transparency. The third transparency my be to do with the inversion (found in the terrain editor in Worms 2), however, there may be just the 2 transparency types and the second is switched depending on whether you wanted it to be inverted or not.

By inverted, for those who don't know what I mean, Worms 2 allows you to invert the terrain between the shape you have been playing on to the outside "shape" ie:

Outside becomes the inside playable area and vice versa.

Currently I'm making some land "skins" and I'll put up any that I do. I'm on Ninja's Vs Pirates skin (to tie in the war-like theme of Snails). Can anyone suggest any other themes?

Worms 2 has:

Snow, Pirates, Gulf, Cheese and a few others. But I don't want to copy. I do intend making a Christmassy one cos this should be released mid-November (if I get more incentive than I currently have - the only incestive-sapping thing is work - poss redundancy - and college work....).

As usual I'll post the art I'll have done.

Thanks.

3:13PM

I decided, today, to change the idea behind Snails to have a more cartoony (and more Worms-like) style to Snails.

The new character that I'm now adopting is this:



As you may be able to see at the top left was the original sketch I did and I added the hand later. It is armless and helps in artwork too!

More later...

3:54PM - for dyspraxia_x