Rounding out Week Three

So, I've changed plans again.

Let me explain.

Going into my iPhone work, I did not admit to knowing everything I was going to need to know, nor do I believe anyone expected me to. I've had quite a few game ideas over the years, and I had a handful that I wanted to work towards when doing app development. My first idea that I started with is still a viable option, and I plan to continue with it eventually. My tornado work caused me to shift focus as I thought it would be easier to get something up onto the app store quicker. My tornado construction however was a bit of a memory hog, and there was no way around it. I even tried simplifying things, but when it came down to it I could not got results similar to running on a PC, so the effect lost most its appeal. On top of that, I still have the same memory issue. I'm intent on solving it, but exploring options that won't cause the same hindrance.

I realized that the level of real-time I was going for was too much for my first application. Too many moving parts without a solid understanding of the system I was working on. So my new project is based off code Ryan Morrow and I wrote a few years ago as an introduction to OpenGL. It's simple, small data bandwidth and pretty much has one moving part. This means the core game mechanic can be polished up quickly (I hope, I'm pretty sure I got it all working tonight), and I can focus on all of the other fluff that needs to wrap the game up and make it worth playing. It breaks one of the original design paradigms I had which was randomly generated levels, but makes up for it with the possibility of a PC based level designer. The benefit to this is quick level creation, easy updates to the game, and user generated levels. It's all still far off, but within the realm of possibility.

So, Monday morning I'll be starting fresh and trekking on once again into new territory. I have not lost faith, but rather gained some resolution. I knew this would all be a learning process, and that I might not make the mark the first time. Let's just hope I got it this time and don't have to step down into...turn based games.