eken784

Forums in my opinion are a great way to learn what you need to learn.  I have been through many forums and have learned many ways of writing code.  A good bit of what I have learned about dark basic was from forums.  There were many times when I was clueless on how to do something and used the forums to get the basic general idea of how to do something.  The forums have even taught me how to use my own way of writing code. 

    Forums maybe from other people and the people might not be totally reliable.  If you do not like the coding the person has posted on the forum then do not use it.  There are many other people that have very good code to go by and other people that have terrible code to go by.  I have personally thought that all the forums were helpful no matter how well or how bad the code was written.   

Ryan and I did not need to do anything to the timeline.  The reason is that we are on schedule and are a little ahead, but not too far ahead to change the timeline.  This week on the timeline was to was to start off with the code.  We already had an idea of how we wanted to structure of the code to be written.  Luckily I already had the structure of the code written at home on another project I have been individually working on.  This helped us get a leap ahead of schedule.

The only error we encountered was that everything was running with extreme lag and I did not understand why.  I was hoping it may have been a coding problem and not a hardware problem.  While I was reading through the code I had notice that the graphics were loading over and over again instead of just loading once.  This is what caused the extreme lag.  Now that we have the coding fixed, the game is working perfectly and the graphics card is running flawlessly.  

I would rely on my partner to do pieces of the project and I would do the other pieces of the project.  This would keeps us both from getting overwelmed because they are just small pieces instead of a large part of the project.  I would also help my partner do his pieces of the project by giving him ideas.  Also if my partner comes up with errors then I would help find a solution to the error.  I would also have faith in my partner that he would help me the way I would try to help him.  If I needed help then I would ask my partner to help me.  I would also make sure that my partner is aware that he can ask for my help as well. 

    Ryan and I have started the 2d game and we have split the project in half.  Ryan does the graphics and I do the coding.  We both know how to write code and do graphics so we both would be capable of helping eachother no matter what part of the project.  We both have come up with some problems and both of us worked together and found solutions to them problems.  Although I know I can do the project and make something good, but with a partner we both can do the project and make something great.   

The first week was basically downloading C++, Dark GDK, also the August 2007 SDK and installing them onto the computer. If you wish to try out Dark GDK then goto http://gdk.thegamecreators.com/?f=downloads. When I attempted to install, I did come up with some minor problems. The first problem was that I would get an error while extracting the August 2007 SDK. In order to solve this problem I tried to extract it a couple more times because computers are not completely perfect and have glitches from time to time. If extracting a couples times does not work for you then most likely you have a corrupt file and might want to try to download the SDK from another website. You can find a couple download links, if you search in google. The second problem that i had run into was that when I installed Dark GDK, C++ would not show the wizard in the New Project Dialog Box. I had mistakenly missed a step in the installation guide. In order for this not to happen to you, make sure you run the C++ compiler after you install the August 2007 SDK and before installing Dark GDK. Those were the only problems I had encountered and right now everything is working perfectly. If anyone has any questions then do not hesitate to ask. I would be more than happy to try and help.

    The next goal that Ryan and I have to accomplish for the next week is to decide whether we want to make a 2d or 3d game.  My personal opinion is 3d games becuase I have been practicing with 3d games on Dark Basic Professional, but 2d games would be a new challenge for us and we may consider to accept the challenge.  If you pass on a challenge then you will regret it, but accept the challenge and you feel victorious no matter what result.  After deciding a 2d or 3d game, we are going to have to figure out a storyline for the game.  Such as how many lives, how many enemies, how to win, and of coarse how to lose.  We may decide to put a couple cheats to tweak things in your favor as well.  More info will be available next week.