Projects and other stuff

“Indie Game: The Movie.” I cannot wait to see the rest of this; definitely a day one viewing for me.

http://www.indiegamethemovie.com/ is the official website for those interested in more.

You know you’ve been coding too much when you try and add a semi-colon after every sentence;

(Source: )

I’ve decided that my next project will be a text adventure game. I got the idea of making one yesterday, when I discovered how much fun I had playing the 1980 game Zork I. Text adventure games are a lost form of art; it really requires the player to use their full imagination to get the most out of the game. I learned that games don’t have to have graphics in order to be a challenging and fun game. This project will be a great opportunity for me to get more familiar with the process of creating games. I also won’t have to worry about dealing with graphics, which will make the project so much easier. The game will take place in a castle, with the outside area containing a pond that leads into an underground cave and a huge garden. There will be various items to collect in this castle containing witches, skeletons, ghosts, and creepy goons. I haven’t worked out the story yet, but I think the main character will be a nameless thief who thinks his big break will await him inside the castle. I’m thinking about including a genie lamp as the item required to beat the game. I’m also thinking about including multiple endings, with situations in which the player can die. This is going to be my biggest project yet; I don’t know when I’m going to start working on it, but it’ll probably be over the summer when I have more time to commit to Java. I’m going to draw out the map for the game and flesh out the story sometime soon. I also found a cool website that guides you through the process of making a text adventure game; I’m definitely going to use it as a reference for when I make my game. Please look forward to this game!

(Source: aguiney)

I haven’t been programming much lately, because of my commitments to school. Since I’m on spring break now, I decided to finally pick up Java again. It’s been awhile since I touched Simpsons Sounds, so I decided it needed an update. The original project took a week surprisingly, since it’s just a small application. Fortunately, this update only took me 1 and half days to complete. I woke up around 11am yesterday, and worked on it throughout the course of the day, stopping only to go out to dinner with my family. I went to bed around 4am, woke up at around 2pm, then continued working on it until I had to go to work. After work, I did the finishing touches then compiled the jar file. Initially, I ran into the problem of adding a picture to the program. This took up the majority of my time because I couldn’t find an easy way to make a picture appear in the same window as everything else. I eventually found a way to add a picture; I added the picture to a JLabel then added the JLabel to the layout manager. As you’ll notice, this update is more eye-appealing; I added a picture of Nelson saying his signature “ha-ha” laugh, and made the text area yellow to match the color of the Simpsons. I removed my name from the explanation part of the program, and instead added it to the title bar to make it look neater. You’ll also notice that I rephrased the explanation to make it sound less awkward and added at total of eight new sounds to the program. It was time-consuming to find funny Simpsons sound clips, but I think I did a good job picking out the best ones. Towards the end, I ran into a problem where some of the text would get cut off the end on wider resolutions. I initially tried adding a scroll pane, but it created a bunch of other problems I didn’t feel like dealing with. I simply re-sized the picture at the top and made the window smaller and the problem was fixed. I think I’ll take the rest of the night off and relax a bit. Please enjoy the new version of Simpsons Sounds! Warning, the file is a bit large at 7MBs because of all of the new sounds I added. Also, I’ll try and update this blog more often so I can build a solid following.

http://www.mediafire.com/?68sf1233lrvgqa6

(Source: aguiney)

I should have posted my introduction sooner, but now is as good a time as ever. My name is Austin Guiney, a beginner programmer and actor. I’m 16 years old and in the 10th grade at the time of this writing. I began learning Java to acquaint myself with programming and gain experience so that I may eventually make my own independent video games. As mentioned earlier, I also act and help my brother make his weekly comedy sketches. I’ll be updating my blog with information on my current programming projects and perhaps some other interesting stuff.

Before I end this post, I want to give you a heads up on future projects:

Simpsons Sounds (Nelson Edition) - The same Simpsons Sounds application, only just Nelson! This will be closer to my original idea, and will feature Nelson Muntz’s signature “ha-ha” laugh in as many languages as possible. I originally ditched this idea because it is a pain in the ass the do.

Pizza Decider - I don’t know about your family, but ordering pizza is a huge deal in my family. This application will help you with the painful process of deciding what pizza to order. Features will include deciding how much money each person pays and how much one has to pay if they owe another person money.

(Source: aguiney)

http://www.mediafire.com/?rcl9c77gubh3kou

I made this application using the Java programming language. It plays an array of sound clips from the “The Simpsons” by pressing any number between one and six.

This is my first real Java application. When I say real, I mean an application that wasn’t made for the sake of learning the language. Strangely, this project has been an idea for quite awhile. It was first suggested by my brother, since he has a huge liking to Nelson Muntz’s laugh. He wanted a program where you could play Nelson’s laugh by simply pressing a button. Since there wasn’t anything like it at the time, I promised him it would be the first thing I made in Java. I expanded upon his original idea, and decided to add five more Simpsons sound clips in addition to just Nelson’s laugh.

I’ve been working on this project for about a week, scraping in a little bit of time each day thanks to school work. It doesn’t seem like much, but I had originally planned for more. Among the things I ditched was a picture of Nelson Muntz before the explanation. Getting pictures to work is a pain in the ass and it wasn’t really worth the trouble. I’ll release another version of this program eventually, when I’m better at Java and have the free time.

I’m quite proud of myself for making this little program. I’ve taken a liking to programming, it’s quite fun. I’m still learning Java through a book I got for Christmas, and I intend to learn new languages such as C,  C++, and Perl in the future.

(Source: aguiney)