News
Don’t Blow It! – Pig Hill
May 19, 2012
by Jonny D (Games/Don't Blow It!, What am I up to?)
Among other things, I’ve been making some new levels. Here’s one in development called “Pig Hill”:
On Pig Hill, you simply carry a round pig up to the top of a large hill. This round piggy likes to roll back down the hill, along with the oncoming logs that knock you around.
In testing, it’s a little frustrating because the logs come flying down the hill at crazy speeds. Â They easily send you back to the bottom of the hill if you don’t time your jumps well. Â A dash of linear damping should fix that. 
Don’t Blow It! gameplay video
May 10, 2012
by Jonny D (Games/Don't Blow It!, Site News, What am I up to?)
We’ve just released a gameplay video of Don’t Blow It! Â Now you can see the craziness of 4-player puzzle co-op in action.
Also, look out for dontblowitgame.com. Â That’s where you’ll find all the official info about the game as it comes. Â You’ll continue to get dev updates on this blog (yes, right here, where you are looking).
Don’t Blow It! progress
April 16, 2012
by Jonny D (Games/Don't Blow It!, What am I up to?)
Don’t Blow It has been steadily improving over the last few weeks. Â I’m running out of programming tasks! Â There are some new features I’m planning to add later, but more importantly, I’ll be producing a gameplay video soon (let’s hope for this week).
Here’s another screenshot to mark our progress:
It’s getting really exciting now, even as I struggle to manage the development. Â I can’t wait to play it for real… but that means I need to get various pieces in order, like level design, art, music, and networking. Â There sure is a lot of work left, but the game will be worth it.
All the silence is due to…
March 12, 2012
by Jonny D (Games/Don't Blow It!, Games, What am I up to?)
All the silence is due to… Â Hard work, of course!
My priority was shifted a while ago to working on a game called “Don’t Blow It!”. Â I mentioned it in a long ago post when I had first made the prototype for Ludum Dare 20 last year.
Tutorial: Using TinyXML, Part 1
January 29, 2012
by Jonny D (Code, Libraries, Tutorials)
TinyXML is a great little library (tiny, even) for loading and parsing XML documents. Â Here I’m going to introduce the basics of getting all your data out of (and into) XML files. Â Part 1 is quick and simple. Â In Part 2, I’ll use a more complete solution.
XController: A library for using XBox 360 controllers
January 25, 2012
by Jonny D (Libraries, What am I up to?)
I recently bought a wired XBox 360 controller to use with my Steam games on my PC. Â It works very nicely, so of course, I had to use it in my own code eventually.
Here’s the first place I’m using it. Â I made a little library called XController that wraps XInput in a class. Â It makes the interface to the controller a lot friendlier in C++ and does not require you to include the dreaded windows.h (or XInput.h for that matter).
Next, I might try to update StickyInput to use a similar interface. Â Then I could have support for these controllers in all of my games.
You can find XController on Google Code!
Merry Christmas and all that!
December 31, 2011
by Jonny D (General)
I missed it by a few days, but Merry Christmas, nonetheless. Â It’s not really about the day itself, right?
Tonight is New Year’s Eve. Â I guess that means there won’t be another update for either NFont or Sprig this year! Â Regardless, it’s been a good 2011 around here. Â Lots of changes for our family and lots of opportunities that we’re really thankful for. Â Props to Samaritan’s Purse for a great way to give back and show our kids the way it’s done.
I hope you had a great Christmas and have fun in 2012. Â Here’s hoping for some game releases from Blue Dinosaurs… 
A first look at NFont 3
November 28, 2011
by Jonny D (Libraries, What am I up to?)
It’s been a while since NFont was updated. Â While working on GigaSun Jet, I had added a couple of very useful features. Â It seems like it’s time to show NFont some official love.
I started working on the new version yesterday, but I’m nearly done already. Â All the hard work was done before. Â I will be pushing the version number up to 3.0.0 due to some serious changes to the API. Â Most importantly, NFont now controls the surfaces that you give to it. Â It will take care of freeing the memory.
Other nice things should be apparent from this screenshot:
Built-in animations and much more 
Writing, coding, and limitations
November 15, 2011
by Jonny D (General, Games/GigaSun Jet, What am I up to?)
As I’m working on GigaSun Jet’s first campaign story, I had some thoughts about writing stories that I felt like jotting down. Â I’ve decided to treat my time on the story as if I’m writing a novel. Â It really could end up being a real novel (I’m at about 10% of a short novel now, 6000/60000 words) and then I would have some interesting marketing options. Â I wish I could start talking about my story here, but I’ve promised myself that I’d wait at least a month so I could get a solid start.
Writing a story and writing a game are fun creative tasks, but they’re also full of frustration. Â One specific form of frustration that is common to both is simply getting started. Â Without some sort of structure, getting started can be very tough.
This frustration is a symptom of a problem with many creative endeavors: Too much freedom.  That’s why Ludum Dare works so well.  It gives you some restrictions (time and theme, mostly) that focus you into a creative frenzy for a small product.  There are writing competitions that work in the same way, but I’m not quite part of that big community yet.
Of course, books and games have a few major differences that change how well certain limitations work. Â The way that stories are communicated is simply through a collection of specially chosen words. Â There are even fewer natural limitations than a game (though games can have true randomness and procedural content). Â A game has to be logically consistent to some degree since the structure is based upon logic. Â Words in stories, on the other hand, can easily conjure up ideas that can not exist in any reality (i.e. irrational concepts, logical fallacies). Â Sometimes, the author can hide the inconsistencies well enough that they don’t interfere with the story. Â I won’t get into that any further yet. Â That’s a big can o’ worms.
So, my recommendation for you… Â If you’re doing something creative, try to brainstorm up some fun restrictions and limitations. Â That will help you focus instead of reading silly blogs like this one when you should be working.
NaNoWriMo… and I guess I have a No to Wri this Mo
November 2, 2011
by Jonny D (Games/GigaSun Jet, What am I up to?)
I’m starting off this month working aggressively on the story for GigaSun Jet. Â It also happens to be National Novel Writing Month. Â I’m not going to officially participate, but the feeling is still the same. Â My “novel” might be half novel, half script and I won’t be crunching to hit 50k words (which sounds crazy!!! Ahhh!!!). Â I’ll just be taking what I already have so far and deepening, expanding, and directing it.
I’m excited about it all. Â I have a great plan for the point of the story and a very high level plot. Â Even just today I made good progress on the ending (that’s where I’m supposed to start, right?).
Concerning the story… Â I’m trying to make it as unexpected yet natural as possible. Â I’ve never read this kind of story and I’ve never played a game which breaks out of the stereotypes of the meaning. Â One big problem lies in how I can write about the story here… Â How much should I discuss? Â Surely I can’t give away the meaning, since that’s vital to the ending. Â We’ll see how I do, either way!