-+@ Computer Center @+-

14 hours after I started Final Twilight, the game is almost ready to go into beta testing. Of those 14 hours, I doubt I worked on Final Twilight for more than 4. Anyways, here's the latest screenshot:


Yes, this entire post is going to be about Final Twilight. I haven't been this amped up on a game since... Yukk! I think. All that's left is to code in the 2 icons and the Preview set of images once I get them from nate, throw together a simple setup script and an autodraw script for the game and it can head into beta testing as "no-frills". Not too shabby.

I guess this is where experience takes hold. Any poor newbie would probably take days if not weeks to throw this together. I make it look easy... and I guess that's one of the reason why people think it's easy. It's actually not. I've got two things going for me. Experience is one - I've got 20 games on Engine - more than that if the tally includes games I've mentored or have written huge chunks of code for. The other thing is that I have a large enough code library so that I don't have to write anything from scratch. I can pick what I want from Babylon 5 or Elemental or wherever, add them into a game with a little modifications and voila! Instant game.

Making MND customs has also helped in the process indirectly. I do believe that my image skills have improved since... well, HumAliens was coded - the background took no more than 5 minutes to crop from an existin card (Vanisher), edit - clone, paint, blur - to get it ready. I like the cool twilight looking effect of the card... and the overall play area looks cool... especially that ghostly handprint near the lower left where one goes to click to make markers.

Since I got the cardback, I also updated the forums to include it, not to mention saving a copy for Go Fish. The Go Fish update is a bit long overdue, but I was waiting for that cardback so that I don't have to do 2 Go Fish update this month. I expect that Monday will see an interesting update on Go Fish, and the plates post.

So, what's this game waiting for? Ed needs to link it up to the engine and give me all sorts of access to manage it. I have no idea if he'll do it quickly. After all, JC's Tournament has been waiting for it to be made public for more than a month now. So who knows? I hope it's soon though. I've got the enthusiasm burning through my system like molten lava through a lava tube. Who knows, if I can catch and ride this wave of enthusiasm, I might actually finish Bowling and have a good working start on Hyborean Gates. I sure hope so.

Talking about Hyborean Gates, one other thing is that I've finished scanning all the Triple Triad cards, so next week (or is that this week?), I'd be going through Hyborean Gates scans. Oooh!