So, with 2013 coming to a close ( or has, now I’ve finally finished this post! ) it’s probably about time I gibber a bit in a post to see what’s gone on.

The year started with me dealing with ATOS and illness.. I still think it’s horrifically wrong that what equates to a 5 – 10 minute interview determines whether you legitimately are unfit for work or not, but that’s the system. Either way, I have been fighting through my depression and anxiety for over a year now, and every day I am clawing back what I had. It’s progress

I also started on the path of my dream this year, and officially set up Arcade Badgers Limited through the help of the Princes Trust, Business Gateway, the Dundee Development Grant and the New Enterprise Allowance. One of the first things I did when I went to the JobCentre was rather than accepting ATOS’ decision of being put on the Work Related Activity Group, I asked to be put on the New Enterprise Allowance. This helped immensely in providing initial funding for me to find my feet, produce a quick prototype, and then a small web-based game – Germies!

Ok, so the Badgers hasn’t done particularly well with Germies, unfortunately… but we’re still poking about with things, and the company hasn’t quite gone completely bankrupt yet. Bills are still being paid, and it’s ticking over at least, if not actually earning anything or even managing to pay a wage!
A couple of important things with the Badgers, however.
First off, we got approved for Microsoft BizSpark, which has helped immensely in providing us software to actually get work done! While I may prefer the Linux platform, I cannot ignore Windows, so having access to MSDN and everything is a massive boon.
We also got approved for dev access to PS3, Vita, Wii U and 3DS. There might not be enough money in the coffers to purchase dev kits for everything at the moment, but it does allow me to read up on documentation and ensure things at least compile. We do have a Wii U devkit and have been tinkering with it… will update on that at a later date
Additionally, we have built a few important links with people. Germies! was picked up by the Toon Goggles service, as well as HoodaGames, and got some good feedback which we can use to further develop it.
So yes, although the Badgers hasn’t quite been successful, it hasn’t completely caved in on itself either.

As for other things on the go, I got a bit of interest with YoYo Games and eeGeo; both of which giving me interviews and a little programming challenge. I spectacularly mucked up the eeGeo one as I was at Claire’s parents at the time and didn’t have access to my Game Programming Gems ( where the very first one does in fact have a gem on what I was supposed to do, and would’ve helped point out the idiot mistake I did! ) however, I still progressed to the phone interview stage. I thank them for their time for entertaining a lunatic like me, as I gibbered a fair bit during the phone interview, and it turned out I was perhaps a bit too rusty for what they were requiring ( algorithmic programming and lots of maths, from what I understood. )
As for YoYo, they too gave me a programming challenge which I fared better in, and then brought me in for a face to face interview; where I also gibbered a bit in. While they didn’t have a place for me at the time they originally interviewed me, they recently got back in touch with me to see if I was still available, and I started work with them just a couple of weeks before Christmas!
This helps tremendously as it means I am back on a steady wage, and they’re completely happy with me continuing on the Badgers on the side. It also means I’m working primarily on tech with my day job, and games with my night job – so I shouldn’t get burnt out as easily of tackling the same type of problems all the time.

It’s not been an easy year at all, but we’ve got through it.
Here’s hoping that 2014 is the year of the Badger

For the past week, my server seems to be getting dos’d for some reason.

It’s quite annoying, please quit it.

Also, on the work front, not much has happened other than a major shake-up with GLESGAE being rewritten in C, and adding SDL2 support.
Yargh! hasn’t actually been started yet ( on the code front, anyway. )
This is due to currently being decanted from our house, while things are repaired… it’s been an interesting experience!

I also had a telephone interview with eeGeo, which was fun. Not sure how much my anxiety came through with me gibbering a bit, though.
They had given me a programming challenge to do beforehand, which although I managed to make a bit of a mess of it due to current circumstances, I got pushed through to the telephone interview stage anyway. I do enjoy a good programming challenge, as I feel it’s a bit more constructive in seeing how someone can actually write code, and how they plan things out. I much prefer them to the SURPRISE! here’s a three page quiz for you to do at the interview, enjoy! thing I remember getting a couple of times after I just graduated. That’s just textbook regurgitation. That said, I was still given a few technical questions during the phone interview, and I stumbled about a bit from being a tad rusty.

Hopefully we get back in our house soon, and back to normality.

I need to work! And earn the pennies!

This month, we’ve been working on Yargh! for the Ludum Dare October Challenge.

The past two weeks has involved me rewriting GLESGAE in C, and adding a bunch of missing functionality. It’s almost finished – I’m just fixing up a Tiled loader – and then we can start on the game code itself.
Octopi has gone and updated a lot of the graphics from the original Yargh! already. Cleaning them up and redoing them in some cases, so it’s just me holding things up!

Currently, GLESGAE will compile and run on Android, Linux and Windows. It has (slightly puggled) OpenGL and GLES2 renderers, as well as support for SDL2 ( which is where the current work is going into. )
‘I’ve also added CMake support, to make compiling a tad easier as there’s a lot of things to turn on and off in the code now. Though I haven’t quite figured out all the options to add my super strict ANSI flags on yet, so will need to sort that out to stop me doing lazy code.

As for the game itself, we’re going to be trying to take a different route with it.
We’re going to try and get some alpha funding for it. As such, I need to actually take some time out from the code now and then, to post updates and generally promote the game a bit. And first off, a description of what we’re up to with it would be a good start!

In keeping with the Arcade Badgers’ philosophy of breaking down barriers, Yargh! is an RTS game aimed at those that perhaps can’t play traditional, often stat-heavy, RTS games.
Borrowing a bit from The Bitmap Brothers’ Z, Yargh! is stripped down to giving you one of three main tasks:

1. Capture more islands than the other pirate leaders.
2. Amass more gold than the other pirate leaders.
3. Blow all the other pirate leaders out the waters ( or just have a bigger fleet, but blowing holes in enemy ships is more fun )

You’ll have a time limit for each map, and the totals of your islands, gold, and pirates are tallied up at the end to define a pirate overlord.

So it’s quick, simple and just enough strategy to make you think without having lots of stats get in the way. Maths and numbers can be evil and scary for people, so by hiding that as much as possible we should open up the RTS genre to more people. That’s the theory anyway!

In keeping with the simple RTS theme, there are only two kinds of units – ships and pirates – and three types of building – docks, forts and mines.
Capturing forts produce pirates. Capturing docks produce ships. Capturing mines produce gold. All come out in a nice steady flow, so you don’t need to micro-manage too much. Capture all forts, docks and mines on an island, and that island is tagged as yours. Simple.
You don’t tell anything to build anything, they just do it. You don’t require resource gathering. You just capture it by sending one of your units into the building, and the job’s done.
Pirates can capture anything, but Ships can only capture docks.
Ships can carry Pirates from island to island.
Ships fire cannons at Ships and Pirates.
Pirates can fight Pirates.

And that’s about it.
Oh, and did I mention multi-player support?
We’ll be having that.
And a leaderboard.
And some achievements.

So yes, by the end of October, we’re hoping to be in a position to offer an Alpha for some funding to finish it off.
For now, I shall leave you with Peg Leg Pete.

Dance, monkey boy, dance!