Game Development Group 3/17/10

This week me, Sebastian and Ben met up with Mr. Knittle to discuss progress on the game. Although we have not gotten much farther in the game, it was nice to reflect on all of the work we have put into, and how far we have gotten since we last met up with Mr. Knittle. We were able to stand back and take a look and how far we have gotten and how much we still have to achieve. We left the room with a better understanding of how close we were to completing the game.

Game Development Group 3/8/10

Over the past week I have not be able to do much. I made the room larger and created temporary cloning machines with different spawn rates to make a test version of the game. Sebastian has been doing some networking, but the charger for his laptop broke and he cannot program more until he gets a new one. Ben has created sample sprites for the player with different weapons. I also spoke with Mr. Knittle about more meetings so I could continue to receive CAS, which I will do in the upcoming week.

Game Development Group 3/1/10

This past week progress has improved greatly. I figured out the flamethrower and officially changed the name, from the old "zombies_and_mouse" to a brand new game that is much more like the final product. Like the final product, enemies actually die when hit instead of respawning. To go along with this, I have created temporary versions of the enemies, including the walker and exploder, and have tweaked them so that they have appropriate speeds, damage rates, behavior, sprites and health. The sprites (what the enemies look like) are temporary until Ben can finish the enemy sprites. We have also decided on a newer simplistic style for the characters. Sebastian has been having trouble with the new networking but is working hard to fix the issues. Because of networking I also need a different way to drop weapons, and a different way to do bullet collisions.

Game Development Group 2/22/10

Over the last week were not able to speak with each other about the game, however I was able to port over many of the weapons from my personal build of Sebastian's old game. I also created a checklist to make it easier to figure out what we had and had not finished. I figured out how to make an "angle" and therefore could make the shotgun, minigun and rocket launcher. There were many instances where I had to relearn how to do things from my old game by looking at my own coding from months past. I have now relearned everything I knew about programming and much more. I am currently working through doing collisions with lines. We have also managed to get some art from Ben Doane, who has done lots of background art and will now work on the characters. Sebastian has done a little more networking, but unfortunately discovered that he needs to redo most of the structure. Hopefully next week we can have some character sprite ideas as well as more weapons, some sound effects and a good start on networking.

Game Development Group 2/8/10

Today we discussed plans to further work on our game. After a 4 month hiatus, a new version of Game Maker and the discovery of a way to do networking as planned have started. I have started working on adapting the "extra" weapons I had previously added to Sebastian's zombie game. I will make them more balanced, clean up the programming, and change them slightly in order to better fit our needs. Sebastian will be working on networking and trying to port what work I get done into the networked game. Ben Doane will be working on artwork, and we will see if Alan Haynes does sound. Hopefully a lot of work can be done on the game over February vacation.

Physics Study Group, 11/31/09-01/12/10

Over the past couple of months, the Physics Study Group has been unable to meet. The main reason for this is we have been unable to help each other out as the group is currently structured. The founders of the club are planning a revamp and a different structure should be ready after midterms. Until then, all meetings have been cancelled.

Physics Study Group 11/16/09

Over the last two weeks we have two meetings. During the first meeting we discussed a new topic, relativity, to help those taking the SAT II. This was different then our usual topic selection, and attracted about 10 people due to the nature of its selection. The next week we returned to our "review" topic of Current and finished off the worksheet we had previously done. With the relativity topic, however, I was not able to contribute. I hope I can help people more next week.

Physics Study Group 11/2/09

This past week we did problems on circuits. Although only three people were there, I was able to learn from them, as well as help them derive formulas. On a few problems I was able to show others why a formula worked. Next week I hope there is a greater output.

Game Development Group 9/30/09

Yesterday we had our first meeting of the Game Development Group. Although we were trying to limit the size of the group, due to a lack of contact info and a scheduling conflict that moved the meeting from Monday to Tuesday (I was out for a Jewish holiday), our group size consisted of me, co-creator Sebastian and one other member. We were able to collaborate on ideas and a better concept for the game, along with possible art style and controls, but we were not yet able to assign jobs or have "lessons." Hopefully more will be able to show up to our next meeting, where we can assign jobs and start work on the first version of the project.