Chapter 2 talks about conditional statements, such as IF, WHILE, SWITCH functions. I’ve used those alot with Javascript and PHP pages. So; for the most part, I plan on skimming this section. I did see a simple SWITCH program I wanted to run. It looked like fun. I had a weird thing happen though. My C/C++ Development Environment (CDT) went missing. I saw that the C++ plugins were showing, but I couldn’t get that perspective up and running. In the end, I simply uninstalled/reinstlled “eclipse-cdt” and it was back to normal. Something must have conflicted during the last system update.

I marked my spot on page 46. It’s been a long day and I have no energy left to work on programming. I took the kids to the pool twice. Today’s high was about 90 degrees and I walked them to the pool, on their bikes, so that took a while. It was a pretty chill time though. No rush. We swam around and Leeanne needed to use the potty. So; I took them to the door and the door wouldn’t open. I swiped our card a couple times, but nothing budged.  So; this meant we had to cut it short and take the troops back home… on their bikes! Oh boy was the trip home, no fun.

I fed them and we all took a nap. After we got up, I took them again to the pool and they had a great time. As for me, I’m tired beyond relief.

Back to My IDE-woahs!

I continued to have problems with my Integrated Development Environment (IDE). After I build the program and try to run it I get an error message. I forget what it was, but I’m guessing since I had to reinstall my CDT, I might need to resintall or reconnect the GCC compiler. Good night folks, this looks like a job for tomorrow.

I’m back on page 20 – variables. This part of the chapter is dealing with calculations, enumerators, etc. I finished chapter one and realized it might take me two weeks to complete a chapter, instead of one.

Chapter Two

Chapter two has my interest because it looks like he’ll talk about the “game loop”. When I took programming, back in college, I recall thinking about how these functions worked together. You can only have one main function and I thought about how what happens after the game finishes or after you “save and quit”. I came up with the term “game loop” – not knowing it was already a term. It’s pretty obvious that’s what it’d be called, but I’m happy I was able to figure it out – before someone told me.

Now that I have the basics, of this CDT, I’m back to reading the book. I believe I ended off declaring variables. I created a variable.cpp file and began working with the editor. Very nice how it helps.  Oh boy, I left it at page 20. I’m too tired to continue.

I made a decision last week as I was juggling the “Ultimate Game Design: Building Game Worlds” vs “Beginning C++ Game Programming“. I realized that building a game world will certaintly become a necessary skill for me, but I need more hands on, at this time. The game design book is more theory, as I don’t know how to actually create a game yet.  So; I dropped… more put the book on hold… until I have some more game developing under my belt.  So; I’m back to focusing on one book. Whew! That was certainly an ambicious move, on my part. No worries though, I love this C++ book and I should have no problems finishing it.

Right now I’m on page 14, learning the basics of C++. It’s bringing back a lot of memories when I was at Broward Community College (central campus) taking my first C++ class. It was intoxicating. I really don’t need to go over the first chapter, but it never hurts doing a refeshers’ course.

Today, I stopped at page 16 with “Declaring Variable”. I have to hit the sack. I have to be in Atlanta by 8:00 AM tomorrow.

• Choose a programming language to start with. Most likely C/C++
• Choose a platform. Most likely Windows. I’m going to start with Linux and certainly work my way back to Windows and Consoles.
• Before you think about start creating games, make sure you understand and are proficient with:
  • pointers
  • arrays
  • structures
  • functions
  • classes

Lucky for me, I remember these concepts from my C++ class (in college) and I’ve worked with functions, arrays in web development. I was never really good with classes, though.

• Learn to use resources. Besides reading books, there are online tutorials and forums/irc with people more than willing to answer questions.
• The author suggests you apply what you’ve learned by reading the article, “How do I Make Games? A Path to Game Development“. Funny, that was my next article to read.
• Don’t rush into joining a team, once you have several games under your belt, you can then make a bigger impact on the team.
• The author’s last tip was get more knowledge than just game programming. Topics, such as: graphics, artificial intelligence, networking, physics, etc.

I really don’t know how to date these entries. We’ll see how long it takes me to no longer write “day n”. Well; I’m making some subtle moves into completing my childhood dream of becoming a video game developer. Two nights ago, I came up with a rough plan, I’m hosting that document on Google Docs, and last night I did some more research. I’m reading this article from GameDev.net on Game Programming Beginners Guide, and luckily for me, they are suggesting C/C++. I really wished they’d suggest that language. It was the first system-level programming language I learned and I really have some kind of loyalty to it.

So; based on that GameDev article, I logged on to my local library’s web site to see if I can check out some C++ books. This was my first, maybe second time, visiting their web site. I asked my wife what my login information was and it was some generic password. Of course, the first thing I do is change my password. Yah, that didn’t go so well. I saw two books I wanted them to hold, but when I went to click on the button it told me that my session was messed up in some way. It seems that I needed to log off/in with my new password. In the end, I couldn’t log back in. So; now I’ll have to go to the library (so old school) and look for the book there.

The Force is Strong with Me

How fitting that Star Wars would interact, in some way, with my dream. I believe in things happening, in due time, and recently I stumbled upon an emulation project called SWGEmu. This is a group of volunteers that are creating a ligitamite Star Wars Galaxies engine emulating the first Star Wars related MMO. Sony killed it by not listening to their core users, but these fine folks are building the engine from scratch and my goal is to become apart of this group to sharpen my C++ skills. So; it’s perfect time. So far, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the community and I think they have an awesome website.