Day 15: Wiki Walking

A Wiki Walk is a train of thought that left the track and is Riding into the Sunset. When going for a Wiki Walk you know where you begin, but no one knows where you'll end. Are you a Mad Scientist building an orbital death ray? Well, too bad, inspiration struck and now it's the world's biggest dancing dish washer with a fully adjustable cup holder. You want to have a serious talk about the Middle East? Within ten minutes you'll be arguing whether Darth Vader could take Gandalf in a fight. Just want to check the Rule Of Cool page? Before you know it you're adding examples to Bungling Inventor. You, my friend, have just had a Wiki Walk.
 - TVTropes:  Wiki Walk

Bit of a late start (that's my King Understatement for today).  Well, on writing this entry, at any rate.  I've been reading and organizing ideas all evening (more on the ideas later).  I'm starting to see the wisdom in the Chinese proverb, "Better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one" (and that's from before researchers scientifically established the health benefits).

I finished project 01 in TECS.  I'm going to keep posting my progress through the course by chapter and project,  because otherwise I'll probably fall off the ball and publicizing my progress increases my commitment to it.  But I'm stopping with the "step-by-step herp-a-derp" because it probably won't be helpful to anyone just getting started any more, and so will just amount to cheating for anyone who's actually taking the class.  If I am struck by some kind of inspirational tangent, I'll blog about that, but the focus will be on where the tangent ends up and not on the project/chapter itself.

I also poked around quite a bit on LazyFoo.net.  This guy's got a load of tutorials ranging from setting up libraries and displaying images to game saves and joysticks, and articles covering topics ranging from the nature of pixels to making a level editor.  Like any good neophyte, I'm gradually coming to terms with the fact that the more I learn, the more I'll be able to appreciate just how much I have left to learn.  But just as my knowledge of computer systems becomes clearer and more concrete the more I do it, so shall my programming knowledge grow.  In this vein, Lazy Foo's page on Nerd Girls:  The Game also has a very illuminating (not to mention humbling!) list of "Ten Things About Game Development They Didn't Teach Me in School."  I have a feeling I'll be learning a lot from this guy.

So yeah:  ideas!  I think a happy medium between "game I can start out building" and "game I will have fun playing" is a card-based game.  Obviously, I'll have to learn how to code a complete game of Solitaire before I can make my own crazy variation on it, but Solitaire (from what I've read) is a good one to cut your teeth on.  We'll worry about the specifics of what would make this more fun to play than any other free version of Solitaire later - y'know, after I've actually made Solitaire and can get a feel for exactly how out-of-control my feature bloat has become.  But I spent lots of time between my readings drinking green tea and thinking very explicitly about how to get from A to B one step/feature at a time, and I'm excited to see how it takes shape!

OK, I seriously have to get to bed now.  I've got a busy weekend ahead of me, what with the layout stuff I want to do and getting a head start on content for next week.  Y'all have a great one!