Having loaned out my copy of Konami's Arcade Classics I filled some time yesterday playing Jet Grind Radio. I forgot how fun this game is. I finished up what I thought was the last mission - tagging the backs of the last of the three rival gangs. That just opened a new mission set 2 months in the past. I'm sure there will be plenty more after that too.

I also forgot how frustrating the controls are. Maybe I'm just not good at the game, but I can't do that wall hop with any consistency. The game is addicting though so I'm not complaining too much.

I keep meaning to get around to redesigning the site. But where to find the time?

Finally. I got past level 31 on T3K. From there it was smooth sailing until about level 60. The difficulty goes in waves since there needs to be some easy ones to introduce new enemies. Then I got over another difficulty hump and reached level 90-something. This game is just intense.

Game Progress Did a spot of programming Sunday evening and finally got the texturing code going. It's not correct by any means, but at least it's drawing something.

I'm trying to polish off games now. The latest victim is Merlin Racing for NUON. It's a cute little karting game. It's not Diddy Kong Racing, but not bad by any means. The AI seems to cheat which is annoying, but so far I have been able to persevere. I'm a bit over half way done with the game.

We spent the weekend at Gwen's folk's place. Funny, I got an earful from both her brother and dad about not bringing the PS2. I figured since we were only there for a day that it wouldn't be worth lugging the system up. Guess I know better for next time :)

Gwen's dad likes to play chinese checkers so we got a few games of that in instead. He beats me nearly every time, but it's fun (I did manage to win once this time).

Game Progress The texturing now works correctly. It was warping pixels before, but I found the bug last night. I haven't tested it very well yet, but it's a step in the right direction. Still lots more to do with the engine before I even start on the game code.

Game Progress I had plans to overhaul the existing code to streamline it and bring it within the NUON programming guidelines. After much typing I had it nearly done when I realized I couldn't do things the way I wanted. So now I have to go back to what I had and tweak that to bring it within the guidelines. It's a shame to waste a weekend like that, but oh well. Going back and re-coding is just a way of life.

This is becoming habit-forming. For the sixth week in a row I'm posting an update on a Monday. Guess that means I make good progress over the weekends, but don't do squat during the week.

Game Progress I let out a happy yell last night as I got the engine back to where it was functionality-wise, yet with all the modifications that were needed. As always there's optimizations to be done.

I have something cooking web-wise in the back of my mind. Give me a few weeks to get things ready. It's not the much desired redesign of this site, but something totally different.

Most of you probably don't come here by way of the main page but rather have this site bookmarked directly (okay, I know it's wishful thinking that anyone has this site bookmarked). If you pop on over there now you'll see a new link. I am a big fan of Time Pilot, but its sequel is a great game too. In fact I'm working on a fan page dedicated to Time Pilot '84. You can get there by way of the main page or by the handy URL www.TimePilot84.com. I couldn't believe that one was still available so I gladly scooped it right up. To save my hosting bill the URL just redirects to a page on this site.

I'll be adding a ton of info about the game eventually. Maps, strategies, secrets, and so on. Call it a little side project of mine. The nice thing is that there is a definite end to it. There's only so much info on the game and once I get it all up the site will be "done" (or as done as web sites ever get).

Game Progress The first non-Monday update in a while. Good progress made this week as I ironed out lots of bugs and optimized lots of code. I'm getting pretty psyched about the game which is always good for the motivation. I can't wait until I finish the core engine and can start work on the game itself. The neat thing is that the engine can be reused for other games later.

Game Progress I spent a good chunk of time programming this weekend. Must have been close to 8 hours total. I squashed many bugs, finished many features, and almost completed the one module I've been working on. It will be nice to get this one out of the way so I can concentrate on other things.

Game Progress The renderer is all but finished. However, I thought of a bunch more features I would like to add so I have more work to do. Only one is really that difficult. The others I can probably add in a day or two once I spec them out.

I was in Madison, Wisconsin for a friend's wedding this holiday weekend. This is the first wedding I've been to after my own last August. I could appreciate what the bride and groom were both going through a lot more than before. Both my wife and I agree that we do NOT want to go through that again. Just planning it takes so much out of you.

Game Progress I did get some work done last week before leaving. Probably the most important thing was figuring out why my benchmark program was not working correctly. It is now and I can more accurately see the effects of any optimization I do. I also added a couple features because that's just the crazy kind of guy I am.

I haven't done much work on the game lately. Mostly just optimizations. It's interesting making that trade off between super-optimizing the code and keeping it readable. A nice linear flow of assembly instructions is not always best for efficiency. Still, I have it rendering at a decent speed already.

While I don't want to shoot off my mouth for fear of jinxing it, certain events have me hopeful that my game-design efforts will not be for naught. More info as I get it.