Author Topic: Projects you started but never finished but wish you had.  (Read 12031 times)

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Offline TinDragon

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While looking over my coding archives I came across several projects that I started but for one reason or another never finished and wish that I had. Of all the little games, demo effects and apps that I have made as well as the ones that I never finish the one that each time I look at it I wish I had is my giana sisters remake in blitzbasic (pre-blitz3d era), I spent many hours on that project which did include playing the amiga and atari ST versions alot :D

I actually got fairly far in some respects, while I had for the most part ripped the gfx from the 16bit versions and rescaled and touched up a few so that I had something to use in game, the game was playable, has several levels mapped out. Features enemy's, collectables and even some of the bonus blocks. It lacked a little something in the movement as I had no momentum and you couldn't headbash blocks to break them at the point I stopped work on it but at the time I was doing very well. I am not sure why I stopped work on it, probably to code my entries to the 2003 retro remakes comp, but for some reason I never went back to it.

Now when I look at the code I can hardly believe that I even wrote it, there's hardly any useful comments and I didnt have a single function/procedure in the entire code, everything is done with gosubs. It's such a mess that I would be much better off starting again from scratch if I decided to give it another go, but this was one of my very early coded games and its cool to see how much my coding standard has improved over the years, some of which is thanks to people on here and the old ezboard site from wayback when  :D

Any of you have a project like this were you started but never finished and wish you had?

Oh and here's a screenie from the giana game, maybe 1day i will have another go at it  ;D

« Last Edit: July 23, 2009 by TinDragon »

Offline Shockwave

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That looks like a really nice Giana Sisters remake there Jon.

It's a cool topic too, I have been affected by this problem myself many times, before DBF started I'd often work on routines to do all kinds of things, I'd have over ambitious ideas for something and they never came to fruition.

The advent of this forum kind of solved the problem for me though because everything I work on that comes to the end of its useful life(when I realise that I dont have the skill to conclude it, or that it is not as cool as I thought, or even when I lose interest in it), invariably all that source ends up on this forum, it's been so useful for me too.

Sometimes I might have another idea and realise that I could reuse something I had partly done and put on the forum so I am forever nipping on here and pinching bits of my own programs so I can argue that nothing I ever do is finished :)

The worst ones that really stick in my throat are collaberations between other coders.

I've never had much success on joint productions, the only one that I ever finished (as far as I can remember) was a little intro I made with Ferris or Blitz Amateue (cant remember who it was, sorry!). I made a plotball and he made a vector scroll, I dont have a copy of that any more.

The most notable failures were:

The forever doomed RPG project on the Yabasic forums (I made an engine for it but nobody completed it, this was in development for years!).

Dark Bit Factory Book Of Visions, A colaberation between me, Stonemonkey, Wham and Roly. This was sad because it actually was looking really promising, It was using stonemonkeys engine, a few effects by me, music by Roly and gfx by Wham... It began well but the project ran out of steam and just ground to a halt.
Again I don't have any of the stuff for this project any more.
Shockwave ^ Codigos
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Offline rain_storm

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Yeah this is just a fact of life when you program. I've been working on an interpreter for a toy language for over a year, I still go back to it from time to time. I have completed a Brainfuck interpreter in around 140 bytes. That gave me a little break away from the bigger project and made me feel like I had made some progress.

I've also got a raytracer on the back-burner it's got reflections and texture mapping but I never did manage to get my head around the maths for refraction. So I left that in a semi work-in-progress state.

But my biggest "wish I had done that" was a physics engine with swept collisions and proper rigid body dynamics. Only limited glitchy success was ever made there. I do still go back to it from time to time but my ambitions are no longer as high as they once were. Still as Shockwave said these experiments have given me a wealth of code that is applicable to many common problems.

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Offline slinks

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The worst ones that really stick in my throat are collaberations between other coders.

Heh, must be the opposite with me. Me and loopy's colab managed (against all odds) to win us our only 1st place!

The most notable failures were:

The forever doomed RPG project on the Yabasic forums (I made an engine for it but nobody completed it, this was in development for years!).

Most notable failure? Bull and shit. That was actually the first bit of code I ever understood (thanks in part to your in-depth commenting on the engine). For about 2 years after find that, I worked on and off on it as my skills improved, and (with the help of the yabasic regulars) managed to half-finish the thing before I moved onto Blitz. I had about 30 different tiles, 3 NPC's, a couple of different dungeons and buildings, weapons and spells, a HUD, speach engine, the basics of the a turn-based combat engine AND an archery minigame. As far as I'm concerned, everything I learnt over that two year period was in part from what I learnt studying your engine, and I question if I would have ever gotten so far without it.

Everything I have ever released since is therefore in some way a product of that engine.
I love semi-colons way too much ^^;
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Offline Yaloopy

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Everything I have ever released since is therefore in some way a product of that engine.

So Nick's responsible for...

Me and loopy's colab managed (against all odds) to win us our only 1st place!
Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones.
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Offline Shockwave

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Everything I have ever released since is therefore in some way a product of that engine.

So Nick's responsible for...

Me and loopy's colab managed (against all odds) to win us our only 1st place!


In that case the honour is all mine.
Seriously though Slinks I hadnt realised that that unfinished thing had benefitted you so much! I am quote happy about that.
Shockwave ^ Codigos
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Offline spitfire

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I am quote happy about that.

I'm quote happy too!

I have a software engine much like hezads' on this forum that I really want to get to some time, and an rts game.

Offline slinks

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Heh, I just found your old engine: http://members.iinet.net.au/~jimshaw/Yabasic/yabres/games/shockwave/rpg.txt

Hopefully I'll be able to post up my version of the code later (I went back to the yabasic-yuku thing, but the thread appears to stop halfway.) I should have a backup on the old family computer (with a bit of luck!).


Also on my almost never-ending list of unfinished projects, there is;

Gir's Candy Quest

A game featuring Gir, the robot side-kick from the TV show Invader Zim. Had an alpha demo going, most of the sprite work done and a few really cool effects. Then a computer meltdown finally killed it. All I have left is one animated gif.

Un-named dungeon crawler/top-down shooter

I got a girlfriend, and my coding time dropped significantly :) still have the code knocking about, might be able to do somethign with it.

Random People Killer

A minamalistic GTA clone for yabasic. Got a silly little demo up and running, then moved to Blitz
I love semi-colons way too much ^^;
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Offline rain_storm

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Hopefully I'll be able to post up my version of the code later (I went back to the yabasic-yuku thing, but the thread appears to stop halfway.) I should have a backup on the old family computer (with a bit of luck!).

I've attached a version here.

I also attached a version of my ray tracer, I have alot of the folks on this forum to thank for it, I've ripped apart all the raytracers on this forum to see how they work, so thanks to Voltage, StoneMonkey and of course Ferris. There is no end of sites out there that will show you the equations you need for ray tracing but unless you can read maths they really aint that helpful. You guys filled in the parts I couldn't figure out.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2009 by rain_storm »

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Offline Shockwave

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I am grinning from ear to ear.

Thanks for uploading those programs Rain Storm :) I had never seen your ray tracer, I think it looks great!
As for the RPG, well, I had no idea that someone had actually gotten quite far along in making a game with it.
The amount of work you must have put into this is considerable slinks :) It's really nicely presented too.
Shockwave ^ Codigos
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Offline slinks

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Uggh, just looking back on that source code gives me a headache, what a mess! I'm so glad I learnt to start cleaning my code up a bit and commenting a little better -.-

Far too ambitious for a first project, but still, I tried.
I love semi-colons way too much ^^;
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Offline Shockwave

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You got further with that RPG than anyone else did :)
Shockwave ^ Codigos
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Offline zawran

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@Jon, Good looking Giana Sisters game :)

I can surely relate to projects not getting done. I have a good number of halfway finished games. A ton of demo related effects never used and lots of other code that never got finished. My problem is probably a matter of loosing interest in something once I get it working, then wanting to make something else and so I keep starting new projects all the time. I do not have anything specific that I regret never completing, but at times I do think about various old projects and I never really delete anything, so its not like its totally lost, I could come back to the projects at some point, should the interest resurface.

Offline benny!

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Interesting thread.

Damn, I guess everyone has ambitous projects halfly finished on
their harddiscs. I have seen so many threads on various coder
forums which cool projects. They all started highly motivated but
only 1% (or so) were finished.

From my experience, the first 80% of your projects are relatively
easy. The last 20% are the hardest of a project.

I will browse my HD and check what I can post here ...
[ mycroBLOG - POUET :: whatever keeps us longing - for another breath of air - is getting rare ]

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Offline Clyde

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Those of you who remember my gfx demo adventures with Blitz Basic, may remember a series I had started called Dimensions. I had started soon after the sequel, a third one. Now who wants me to continue it, as I wish I had done! ;)
Still Putting The IT Into Gravy
If Only I Knew Then What I Know Now.

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Offline cyb

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Two projects I wish I finished:


The Writer 3.0 is like 90% finished ... hmmz ... maybe if I have some time left this month, I might pick it up again :)
Maybe I could put it on sourceforge/google-code/savannah and we could see it as the first open-source demo project.
I often wonder why this is not done more often?
Without freedom of choice there is no creativity.
-- Kirk, "The return of the Archons", stardate 3157.4

Offline benny!

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...

The Writer 3.0 is like 90% finished ... hmmz ... maybe if I have some time left this month, I might pick it up again :)
Maybe I could put it on sourceforge/google-code/savannah and we could see it as the first open-source demo project.
I often wonder why this is not done more often?

Yeah, show it to the world.
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Offline Shockwave

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Demos need more exposure. .... That's why the scene is dead ;)
Shockwave ^ Codigos
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Offline TinDragon

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Have been trawling my code archives and found alot of effects done with various versions of vector engine code from my blitz2d days, and a couple from a version of the ttdvectorlib. Thought I would post up some shots, might try turning them into something at some point but some shots for now.

1st up is a Vector cityscape, I wasnt happy with this at the time but it was actually pretty good. (pre-vectorlib days)
2nd is me trying to push the borders of software rendering in blitz with a 12K poly object with maths based directional lighting.
3rd is a nice big glenz cube.
4th is one of those inside a torus spinning around things, was going to be part of a demo with no.5
5th a nice spinning double vector checkerboard, this effect I actually had 2 versions of, the second has a realtime light float in across the board lighting it in a small radius but it was never finished :(

Hope they maybe inspire some stuff, there's a few of my old effects I wouldnt mind bringing back :)


Offline benny!

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Screenies are looking awesome. Put them in a row/sequence and you
have a great oldschool dentro.

Personally I favor cube cities (screenshot 1) and those endless dungeon
chessboards (screenshot 5). Hope to see more stuff by you done !!!
[ mycroBLOG - POUET :: whatever keeps us longing - for another breath of air - is getting rare ]

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