Linux build of Starship Light beta released

OR How to Learn C++ One Compiler Error at a Time

It wasn’t easy, but I got this game running on Linux, on my distro, at least. I was running into the kind of barriers one finds at the end of reality, so I decided to write a new AGS sockets plugin for Linux from scratch. It’s simple compared to even the oldest existing AGS sockets plugin that I know of–I won’t be making an AGS torrent client with it anytime soon–but it does what I need, I think.

So far, testing the game in a live environment has been interesting. Much like I imagine space exploration, I keep finding things in my own software that I can’t explain. But, onwards and upwards.

The beta release of Starship Light

After playing one of the Bloodsword gamebooks in IRC, I was inspired to create a small networked RPG. So at the end of March 2020 I started working on such a game, not knowing how much work would have to go into it. Nine months later, and still barely in 2020, this server delivered Starship Light.

It’s still in beta, with some issues that need to be worked out, but it is quite playable. The first thing that it needs though is support for linux.

Do you have friends online that are nurds? If so, then Starship Light might be the game for you. It’s freeware and DRM-free, and might promote spiritual well-being.

Racist nominated for Best Game Ever Award

That may or may not be a slight exaggeration.

With the conclusion of the nomination phase of the AGS Awards for 2018, my monthly AGS game jam entry, Racist, has been nominated in two categories, being Best Non-Adventure Game, and Best Programming. I am super proud of this. Voting will start next weekend, and the competition will be tough. In the Best Programming category for instance, the competitors are two commercial games by industry veterans. Racist should win of course–the code in that game might cause unprepared minds to blow–but to be honest, I am perfectly happy with just a nomination.

I’m strongly considering finishing Racist. After release I had the thought of adding a dune buggy stage as an alternate game mode, and my interest in things with wheels has only grown since then.

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Racist

The deadline has closed and Racist, MAGS Edition, is being harshly judged as we speak. I did manage to add the new ship(s), animation, boost function and combat to the game, but had no time to balance it or add any music or sound effects. I’ve also found two bugs.

I want to make this game complete at some point, but I have too many other things to do first. It would be great to have the time to add dune buggies to the full version, as an alternate game mode.

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That went well

Over the last few months I’ve been putting every spare night I could manage into developing the client for the AGS Awards ceremony 2015. Being that all these chunks of dev time didn’t add up to that many, it took me a fair few missed deadlines to complete the client, but this week I finally went from alpha to RC, and about five minutes after that we held the ceremony. There were quite a few features I had in mind but no time for, and even some that the older client had that I didn’t get around to, but the ceremony itself went very well, especially considering the political strife surrounding the awards this year. There is a recording of the event here, incidentally made by one of the award winners.

So now that I’ve been so diligently working in my spare time, I’m hoping some of that motivational momentum can continue at least until I release my next game. I apologise for being a bad blogger. Truth is that I don’t like to talk about my games very much while I’m making them, but since I brought it up I’ll say one word: Space. I think I might call it ████████ ███, but that might be only a working title.

In terms of blog content, I have also been working on a post about Star Wars (the late Star Wars?), but I don’t want to post it until I have the correct imagery to describe how much of a hack Abrams is. Maybe a black hole that sucks in the best franchises and spews out nothing but half-digested action films? No. Maybe a drunk who is mistaken for an editor because he fell asleep on wet newspaper.