August 8, 2009:

- Today it's one year ago that I released Finally Taking Over The World and so I have started the: Finally Taking Over The World Commentary. This will include the complete script of the game with annotations about all my thoughts I put into the text. I guess that hardly anyone played further than the first few quests and since I don't want to have written all the rest in vain, this will be a second chance to show this fiction to the world. I don't know yet how long I will take to complete it, since I'll only work on it in between, when I'm in the mood for it. But I hope that in year it will be done.



April 8, 2009:

- OK, I actually wanted to continue with the dodge sim but then TIGSource made a Cockpit Compo and I thought this would just be perfect to do something in brainfuck. I always wanted to do a game in brainfuck that's not text based (in the sense of interactive fiction). But until then I always imagined it to become a roguelike. However I never really liked this idea because I have absolutely no experience with roguelikes. I guess the cockpit thing was a much better choice and I'm actually satisfied with the final product.

- Meanwhile it's already more than a year ago that I had the first ideas for this certain dodge sim. And still I haven't made a real progress, except a handful of concept changes, mainly about the story and graphical style. But I think now I have finally decided for something that pleases me. The graphical style will be black and white and pink (but only a few place holders exist). I even have done the music (1 min) months ago. I just need to create a little level and the demo would be ready. But now I have already another idea for a game that I like. I think this is gonna be a project that will accompany me for a long time. And soon I'll also have to prepare for the final year exams. Would be time.



January 24, 2009:

- Oh, I just realized that the last time I've written something here is already over half a yer ago. I was once a bit more consequent what concerns this diary. I haven't even written an entry during or after my Finally Taking Over The World Brainfuck Translating Marathon! In short: I had summer holidays and every day I translated during a few hours the text into brainfuck. The good point was that after four to five weeks I had done everything. That was much faster than I expected. The bad point, sometimes I had the feeling to go comeplety crazy. But translating such a text is really an experience every programmer should have once in his life,... OK, probably not but in a certain way it was really cool. At one moment you've got that much a feeling for it, that you don't even have to calculate the number of plus- or minus-signs you need to type. You know immediately the difference between the letters. By the way, the only thing I've done to help me a bit with the translation was that I configurated two keys to put out five plus- respectively minus-signs at once. So I could fasten it a bit up. I didn't use any kind of translation algorithm.

- But since then I haven't done much in game development. I've started a webcomic which takes quite some time and have also a few other projects. Besides being in my final year of high school but that's not as important. But of course I'm still working on a game too. It's something I first started to work on soon after the release of Zogalyt, this means that I have the idea for it for one year now. To be more concrete it's the dodge sim I've mentioned in my April 08 entry. However, even if I'v been working on it for so long now, everything could have been done in one week. Because when counting the hours I invested in it, it's not much. I'll see if I can make a little demo of it in the next time and get some feedback about the idea.

- And a small announcement at the end: On August 8, FTOTW's birthday, I'll probably release a walkthrough. If I won't forget up to then.



July 22, 2008:

- Finally Taking Over The World status: Concept phase, finished. Story, completely written. Brainfuck base frame, stands. Non-brainfuck text version, done. Testing, oh my... what did I make mistakes. I hope I have now found most of them but unfortunately there's one in the game design I can't change because it would need too much work.
Hopefully it's not too grave. OK, it's grave because it changes the gameplay a bit from what I wanted but on the other side it's good because it probably shortens the time you need to progress. The next step is to translate the whole text into brainfuck, a text which is about ten times larger than the one of Taking Over The World.



April 23, 2008:

- A long time ago that I've written something here...

- After finishing and releasing Zogalyt, which unfortunately wasn't as well received as I hoped, I first intended to develop another dodge sim. But shortly after starting with it I got an idea that pleased me more. A sequel to Taking Over The World.

- It will have the same gameplay mechanics with only entering numbers and you still don't have to answer many questions to reach the end. But the difference is that this time there are eight different endings and you're playing the bad guy (OK, depends on your point of view).
At the moment I'm still working on the script and I guess that I'm around the half of it. I'll try to program it in brainfuck but I cannot ensure that my endurance will allow this.



December 21, 2007:

- The bullet patterns are done. There are now two kinds of it, the first one is activ during ten seconds and forms a certain pattern, the second one is activ during only two seconds and does that the drops are whirled around. Altogether there are 60 respectively 78 different patterns (whereof some of the second kind aren't that varied).
Apart from that the development is also well progressing.



October 7, 2007:

- The development of Zogalyt progresses well. The score system was revised, there is backgroundmusic (but I think I need still a lot of practice in this area), the graphics were ameliorated a bit and the effect system is completely changed.

- At the beginning the drops were joined to a certain pattern at a certain letter, so that it looked as in most shoot'em ups. But then I chose a system in which one there are, let's call them, wind-spots placed on the field. Those are simular to a fan. If a drop falls into such a spot it's direction is changed as a windblow would do it. Though this limits my possibilities for the patterns it fits better to the game and offers something new.



August 9, 2007:

- Hearing is Targeting is done and the next project is already started. But it's not Project B, because now I want to do something graphical, what wouldn't be the case with this one. So the release of Project B is postponed until the "very distant future".

- The next project will then be Zogalyt, of which there are first details and a screenshot in the Project-section.



May 13, 2007:

- The first demo of Project A is released, which is now called Hearing is Targeting. This name has also a fitting abbreviation. And after AirSearch it's another attempt for an audiogame, so it's also intelligible for what the A in Project A stood for. I only hope that this time it has a playable difficulty.


April 8, 2007:

- Today were announced the two next games, Project A and Project B. But at the moment there are no other informations less that Project A will be released before Project B. By the way these two letters weren't only chosen because they are the first in the alphabet, but also because they stand for... (to be continued)


February 7, 2007:

- AirSearch is finished and now comes this marvelous time where you can think about every idea in your head without fearing that this will take the current project to cancellation. But sometime you have to choose one of this ideas.


January 13, 2007:

- And the last level is finished. This time you have to fight against automatically firing machine guns.


January 11, 2007:

- Today, AirSearch has gotten a new level. So there are now four, one more will come. And this one is already partly programmed. After that I have "merely" to re-synchronize the entire game and write the maps. Then the game should be finished, so it's probable that it will be released in the next weeks.


December 10, 2006:

- Unfortunately there's nothing important to report because during the last weeks I didn't have the time to work on AirSearch. But in two weeks I have christmas holidays and I've intend to continue then with this game. It's such a little game but I need so much time because I must always program this little, useless programs in between times (Taking Over The World is an exception).
And I have now a new target: Release AirSearch at the latest on February 18, 2007 (one year after the announcement). After that I'd like to program another textgame.

- By the way, this week-end I would have had the time to work on a game, but moral I wasn't able to do that because I didn't get a Wii on Friday (now it's official: I'm a total Nintendo fan).



November 3, 2006:

- Today I have finally finished the tutorial level. The only thing that is not yet implemented is the audio help. I think I will record them altogether when every level is finished. The old ones will also be re-recorded.

- A short description of the level: You go downstairs into the basement, look if there's an airtank, are surprised by an enemy and kill him. Very linear, very short, very easy.



September 26, 2006:

- Because I don't really know what to write I want to thank everybody who has downloaded Taking Over The World. The game caused the highest attendance since the launch of 49-6-dev and exceeded, also regarding the comments, all my expectations.
The only problem: I would like to program another game in brainfuck but I think I'll continue first with Airsearch. I have already, in my opinion a good, idea for a new level. And perhaps the difficulty will even be in an acceptable area.



August 18, 2006:

- It seems to be a habit that I can't work on AirSearch in the month after the release of a new demo. This time I've programmed a little text game in brainfuck and it's nearly finished. But now I'm going on holiday so I will release the game in two, three weeks. And then I'll continue with AirSearch.



July 18, 2006:

- I am back from the dusmania and I have immediately begun the finish the third demo. The downlaod is available until today. There are also a few new informations and there is a downloadable version of the map.
I hope that the game is easier and better with the new features.

- In the last days I've found by chance a few serious bugs. I hope that there aren't many more.

- Decided in the last days: The game will be in all probability OpenSource.



July 14, 2006:

- The second level is nearly finished. Most of the bugs should be found. Only the mission description isn't already done. This time you needn't to find an airtank, but you blow up a train of the enemies. So you must traverse the railway station which is guarded by two enemies. I think this mission is easier than the first one.

- Tomorrow I'm going for two days to the Dusmania in Rodgau (Germany). There I'll present AirSearch.



From the release of the second AirSearch-Demo till July:
(written on July 2, 2006)

- I've worked on another game. The development is postponed until an unknwon date. AirSearch has now full priority.

- AirSearch has two new features:
- You can throw a stone which jumps over the floor until it hits a wall or an enemy. You can hear the respective sound. So you have the possibility to "scan" the room.
- You have an explosive charge. Fix it, run away, wait until the enemy stands on it, detonate,...

- Probably I'll start the work on the second level in the next days.