Journals

I decided to halt my current project for a while. It was moving on mostly on design part, rather than on actual development anyways. I realised that I still lack some more skills to get something as big and ambitious as Revenant: Darkborn was meant to be. It's not that I couldn't do it in the long run, but rather it won't fit my vision. Currently I'll have to strip it off of some of ideas and planned features which are crucial for development (especially level design and world building). And that's not something I'm going to do.

So instead of completely dumbing it down, I decided to focus on smaller projects for the time being until I gather enough experience to run that huge project again.

I already came up with a fresh idea. Something close, in similar convention, but much different, much more linear and with simpler gameplay. It'd be something that'd put me better on tracks towards something larger. I'll work on some concept arts and first few levels/entities before I'll make a proper site for it.

Darkriders

Semi-linear thirdperson slasher.

They were mighty warriors, truly a knightly elite. Brave, honourable and loyal, Knights of the Height Keep always aided those in need and allowed entry to anyone approaching their gates in search of shelter. But everything changed once they embarked on a journey to retrieve a holy relic - Heart of Archangel Cilber, ripped out of his chest by demons of Daemei in the ages past. While fighting with darkness and paving their way to afterlife, a horrible curse was placed upon those knights. And while they succeeded in retrieving the relic, none of them returned to their keep. Consumed by taint, they fell for the dark and became Darkriders. Ruling great storms of Underworld, they ride dark lightnings across the Abyss in eternal struggle to find peace. Shortly after their demise, Height Keep was corrupted by taint as well and became home of many dreadful monstrosities, long dead warmonger that was Duke of these lands raising from death among them, to rule once again. It is said that with all the taint gathered upon this place, one can open gates of the Underworld for a short time and that great reward can be received after retrieving the Heart of Archangel. Whether it's immense power, great treasure, a warm place in afterlife or transcending beyond confines of human existence remains unclear.

Visit accursed ruins of the Height Keep and face wrath of Undead Duke. Open the gates of Underworld and travel through barren lands and ghost towns swarmed by undead and dark spirits. Explore perilous Daemei ruins and witness demonic warfare. Face worst nightmares imaginable and corrupting taint of Abyss, to battle with fearsome Darkriders, retrieve Heart of Archangel Cilber and take your reward.

High school. I can't believe that I've lived up to go to high school.
I cannot express this specific feeling of repetition. And there's more than that.
TL;DR at the bottom. c:

This year, I finished 9th grade, thus completing elementary school. I was very surprised that I even managed to conclude maths with an A, something I've never done since, uhh... 3rd grade?

And the summer felt like forever. Except it wouldn't last forever. My summer break ended on the 5th of September (it would've been the 1st of September if it hadn't been for a Muslim holiday here).

Two days, or one day before it started, I had posted a journal which, kind of, implied that I was going through a middle-age crisis.
I felt terrible, I thought that the next day would mean the end of the world.

But no! It all turned out juuuust fine. I was extremely nervous and my heart was beating very fast. I got to the school, they were calling out each student to sort them out in classes/groups/whatever.

And I barely heard my name, but it was fairly different from all the other names (especially since my surname doesn't end with that typical -ić, or -ović), so I knew it was me.
My class and I went to the classroom, and we were asked some questions (personal info) by our class teacher. For every word I spoke, my stress levels would've increased.

The class was over after that and then we exited the school. My mum was waiting for me and I said "I survived!". Man, what a relief.

And now, this electro-techhical high school became very normal to me. I don't perceive it as a thing which came from outer space any more. It's a school just like any other.

Though, I chose this high school because it had so many good things about it. For example:

• More I.T.-related subjects/classes
• More technical classes
• No biology, no music class, no geography!

(I like making music, but learning and revising about the same composers and time periods for years is boring, plus we don't learn how to compose music at all here)

• "Practical" class (or practice class). This is where we literally apply our knowledge about tech and stuff.
• Frickin' programming starts in the 2nd year/grade! I can wait, I'm patient. :3 (t.b.h. I can hardly force-start myself to learn the basics of programming at the moment, I'm stuck on other projects)

We'll have history and physics for the first 2 years, and no more. There's also chemistry, but only in the first year. Good thing we don't have Latin. I'd not like to learn a 'dead' language. But I have to admit, Latin is cool.

Another thing I'd like to point out, while we're at languages: I've switched from Turkish to German. FINALLY! Now I'll start learning that language. xD
I know it means learning a whole new language from the start. I do know a couple of things in German. I'm usually good at learning languages.

Let's just hope that the teacher won't make references to Nazis. One of my friends from elementary school told me that their German teacher often makes funny references to Nazis. Lol.

As much as it can be, this is an excellent high school and I totally don't regret signing up there. Now if we only had game modding, or something, as a class...

Hmm, this thing bothers me:
A day before high school started, I had imagined a conversation with a girl in the class. I didn't know any of my classmates, so I just imagined someone and considered her as my classmate. And she was a gamer.

The weird thing is, a few days later, I found out that there's a girl gamer in my class. Wow. I've made her laugh a lot of times, I'll have to say that. :3
She plays CS:GO and LoL if you really want to know. Not really the type of games I'd play (CS:GO is basically a competitive skin fest, I don't play those. Besides, I suck at multiplayer FPS'es).

What an interesting coincidence, though!

I may miss my old friends from elementary school, but I certainly appreciate the new classmates. They're all calm during the class, nice to talk to and they found me somewhat interesting, so an occasional question sometimes gets directed to me.

TL;DR
I have my middle-age crisis before high school begins, because I believed that I haven't done enough during the summer break.
When I start going to high school, everything turns normal, and everything goes on as usual.
It's the same cycle that went on for years. When I finished 8th grade, I wasn't fine with 9th grade starting. I thought it would be the end of the world, but, just like with high school, everything was normal.

I've been thinking about considering contemplating the option of maybe acquiring a new desktop computer. But the truth is, I don't keep up with the industry. I have no idea what's current or what I need or what I can afford.

Right now I have a five years old laptop that serves me well. But being a laptop with integrated graphics, some mildly intensive things like 3D rendering are a pain. The current version* of AutoCAD is also pretty sluggish despite it staying pretty much unchanged in the last decade. Basically what I want is something that can handle AutoCAD and 3D rendering (and some gaming if I ever have time for that).

*ACAD 2016, the oldest Autodesk gives me a student license for. I really liked how 2014 handled but it's no longer up for download.

I'd also really like it to be quiet. Are there quiet fans out there? The constant whine in my last desktops drove me mad. I know there are fanless computers out there but they're crazy expensive. Not going to shell out $3k for a fanless computer.

My current laptop's specs:

• Core i3 2.3GHz
• 8GB DDR3 RAM
• Intel HD Graphics 3000

So I ask the community: Is there a reliable source where I can catch up on current technology? A respectable publication perhaps? Do you have any advice for such endeavour? Is there anything I could easily miss and I should bear in mind before making a decision?

I strongly dislike W10 so whatever I buy is getting Linux'd.

[X] Snacks for hurricane
[X] Secured electronics
[X] Watched copious amounts of Netflix
[X] Ate snacks
[X] Lost power
[X] We're ok
[X] Let everyone know
[ ] Tacos

Alright, first Journal, lets do this.

I never really had much communication with a mapping community, my first one was in GameBananna but nobody really reviewed my maps (all of them suck don't bother) so I stagnated whenever I made maps. I always wanted to make a successful map, be it on Half Life or Counter Strike, I wanted to make a map that is fun to play in, a very hard job to do.

Fast forward to today, I decided to start on a new, simple project. I tried making a counter strike before but I managed to screw it up through vertex manipulation. So I made a new one, and in one or two hours, I made a layout I was comfortable with.Already this looked better than most of my other work. The next image shows the layout of the whole map, where ts and cts are, etc.Of course I shouldn't just make a map for the sake of making it, I need to make it original and stand out from other maps. First: Where is it? I've already included Dust textures and felt this map worked well with it, so it has to do somewhere in the desert. I first thought of making it somewhere in Africa, but I recently watched a documentary about the Soviet-Afghan War, and decided that's what I am planning on. The terrorists are the Mujahideen forces and the counter-terrorists are the Soviets (With M4 rifles lol).So I got the theme but that's not enough, how does the map perform gameplay wise? Every CS map has sightlines, a center, and 2 bombsites. Following the theme of this map, I decided to add a gameplay theory that could be more 'radical' from other CS maps: Conventional vs Guerilla Warfare.

I'm using these terms very broadly but here is what I mean: The CTs have control over all the sightlines in the map in one location that is very easy to get to: the fort.Which has control over Bombsite A...And a sightline towards the path to Bombsite B...This obviously gives the CTs a huge upper hand, in a competitive setting, they can just put one CT there and 4 others to protect the bombsites, Very Overpowered.

However, this doesn't mean the Ts can't fight back, as the Ts will always have control over the center of the map, which the CTs will always have to fight for and can easily lose due to how quick the Ts can establish dominance over.The idea is that the CTs can have a good static defense while the Ts have a wide array of flanks that can overwhelm the CTs. This theory will be covered on later, particularly in video form.

Another gameplay mechanic I want to briefly cover on is the terrain. One of the biggest disappointments I have with many maps is how flat everything is when moving. There are obviously some height differences in some areas of every map, but the lack of slopes that the player can take advantage of is what I want to fix. This map will be very dusty, more dusty than Dust and Dust2, and allow players not only attack while moving on the X/Y axis but also on Z axis, allowing full 3D movement (I might be over-exaggerating but I will try to make the most of this).

So these are my ideas that I want to bring out in this map I will call for now de_afghan (I will change it since someone else has used that name but don't have a good name for it yet).

Here is the list summary of what I'm making:

1. A map based on the Soviet-Afghan War

2. Use Conventional vs Guerilla warfare theory

3. Create a terrain that allows quick movement over Z axis.

I will continue making reports on the progress over the map, at maximum weekly. Hopefully I won't lose confidence in the future.

Here are more pictures of some parts of the map current map.

Open question:
What singleplayer games can y'all name that have decent character customization for multiple characters?

Examples: The Sims, the modern X-COM games

What other games are there?

Going to make a Half-Life 2 scenario. Which is recommended that you use the 2006 version of source for some classics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKIo74aSHbU

There is no part 3, I'm sorry. I'm not going to make part 3 if I don't want to end up like Valve.

I'm so lazy to write up a riddle so here's the answer for free: 22.

I just finished one of the hardest czech mods for half life (Half life: The Real)

What made this mod so hard? It's because it's a partial conversion with custom weapons and monsters. In addition to that, the monster and weapon stats have been beefed up so that everyone dies much faster. One of the most common death is getting hit by a headcrab. Get hit once and your dead, its extremely realistic because if your just a random guy, a headcrab will kill you in 1 hit because you got your head headhumped.

What's cool about this game, is that it's actually 2 games in 1. The training course is itself a 30 map mod, similar to residual point. Not only that, the 'training' mod and the actual mod involves different weapons and monsters too. The training mod is closer to the vanilla experience where you can get killed by regular headcrabs, soldiers, and other xen aliens. Meanwhile in the actual mod you're in a space station invaded by all kinds of headcrabs, and blue vorts. Yes, there are several different kind of headcrabs, akin to headcrab frenzy. I'll even tell you what kind of headcrabs there are, because the reality is they can all kill you in 1-2 hits.

I played on hard so these are the damage values:
Regular headcrab - 200 damage (can survive a hit with full HP and armor)
Red headcrab - 400 damage (1 hit kill guaranteed)
Blue headcrab - 80 + flashbang your face for several seconds
toxic headcrab - 40 + poison damage over a long time
purple headcrab - you get healed a large amount

Most of your deaths will be from headcrabs, especially the red ones. However, the developer was kind enough to introduce other ways for you to get killed. Not including drastic buffs to most of the vanilla monsters, there are some new guys here to wreck you a new one.

Black zombie Barney - 150-175 per slash + flashbang your face
Blue vortigaunt - charges up within half a second, 300 damage
nuclear tripmines - they dont emit a lazer so you need to look around very carefully.
Otis - Hes always spawning around a bunch of headcrabs so he never lives long enough.
Green Gonome - 30,000 HP. I didnt want to get hit by this thing to find out what it did.

One of the most annoying places in the mod is where you ride this waterfall out of a cave, where you are immediately attacked by 2 helicopters. You must beeline to cover because the area you come out of is also covered by a 6-barrel turret AND an automatic rocket launcher. I think this was the hardest part in the entire mod, moreso than any headcrab ambush (and there are loads of those)

In fact you can even get killed right after the opening cutscene. Soon as you spawn into the game a bomber jet casually flies overhead, then the area you are in is bombed. That was my first death in the mod, soon to be followed by many, many others. I lost count.

...

FEAR NOT, though! The developer has introduced lots of new weapons to counter the increased power levels of the enemies. Among the vanilla weapons, you can also get:

A five seven pistol from CS
Colt m4a1 from CS
SG550 from CS
P90 from CS
Knife from OP4
shotgun from gunman chronicles, set to highest bullet amount (its alot)
sniper from OP4 that sounds like the CS AWP
deagle from OP4
M41A from azure sheep
shockroach from OP4 (i didnt get a chance to use this)

Try this mod now, if you love to get killed lots of times. I certainly did.

Check out Hurricane Harvey, he's on his way and I live in Houston, TX. :0

Ideas dump. You may or may not get sued if you steal one of those...

Organ Memory

Genre: Survival horror/Puzzle solving
First person perspective

Based on the pseudosceintific theory that memories can be stored not only in brain, but also in all individual cells of one's body.

The story is simple - someone dies and several people receive organ transplants from that person's body. You are one of them. A long while after you're out of hospital, your health gets much worse. Further examination reveals that state of all your organs gets worse - except for the transplanted one, which grows stronger. In some time you receive visions from organ donor's life, and strange paranormal occurences happen all around you. You find out that other patients after transplantations are in the same situation. You must find a way to get out of this shit, and (not necessarily) help others.

TLDR: Organ donor is a douche and returns as a ghost to kill you and get it's organs back!

Necromaster

Genre: Strategy
Isometric

Evil vs Evil scenario. Deep in enormous caverns under some accursed desert lie ruins of a great ancient civilisation. After ages of lying dormant you awaken - one of the Death Lords that brought aforementioned civ to it's ruins. Your goal - breach to the surface. But to do this, you'll have to get an undead army, and you're in a wonderful place to get it, as that place is an enormous, ancient graveyard! But alongside you, other death lords awaken and each and every one of them wants to rule both undeground and topside world. War of the undead starts!

Player would have unlimited power, but would be limited by resources - bones needed to animate undead. Excavating them from ruind and graves would be necessary. There'll be several starting units which would split into varieties based on one stat, like mobility, offense, defense. There'll be also neutral or outright enemy units - like ghouls that'd attack both you and your enemies.

Undead Hunt

Genre: Strategy/Survival/Hack and slash
Isometric

Humanity turned away from gods after plague outbreaks and great war - gods turn away from humanity and open gates of Underworld, letting countless undead and other monstrosities like demons or dark spirits into the world.

In singleplayer campaign, player would control a group of undead hunters that have to clear off some area, survive, find out what caused the cataclysm and stop it.

In multiplayer, player would control only one character in given scenario and would have to cooperate with others to complete objectives or survive.

Edit: Forgot to mention this one

Nocturne: Black Heart of Jeramesh

Genre: Survival horror/puzzle solving
Third Person Perspective Shooter

Remember the old game Nocturne made by Terminal Reality, where you played as an agent of secret government organisation fighting monsters and paranormal? It ended with a horrible case of a cliffhanger... But this idea is not to continue story after that point. It's rather like one of chapter's of the game - seemingly unconnected story, just another case. This time, Stranger would be sent to investigate mysterious abductions and paranormal phenomena in the city of Jeramesh.

grandparents--;

My grandmother passed away on Monday at 78, after a long struggle against a very spread cancer. She was very strong and lived through many surgeries most people wouldn't at that age. After such a struggle we weren't shocked or surprised but we are saddened by the loss and will still miss her.

She was very intelligent and loved to learn, although her academic life was cut short after primary school by her mum (my great-grandmother) who insisted she drop useless things like education and become a full time housewife. Other strengths of her were her great pasta and her very acute sense of hearing. Word is that she was able to hear ants eating her plants away. Must have been a quiet neighbourhood.

I don't know what kind of music she was into because she listened to pretty much everything, but I always remember her telling us about one of her earliest dates with my grandfather when they went to the city to see a Bill Haley gig. So have a bit of that in her memory.

Mildly related: It's curious how it's at funerals you end up meeting relatives you never knew existed.

Aww yeah, will be DJing in Val Thorens in January.

Since I've started DJing for the student union, I've actually found it really, really fun and have started to get into it quite a bit. Whilst I've not had the confidence to start going to other venues (not enough confidence; feel like I need to be better than I am before I feel comfortable going to other places), I've started to take it quite seriously with properly scouting for music, researching different techniques on the decks we use, etc. Basically trying to stray away from "press play". Luckily an opportunity has arrived that previous DJs I know have done - the main union DJ and myself have been asked to play for a snowsports societies' week-long shindig in Val Thorens. Unsurprisingly, the society is filled to the brim with Yahs, so we're going to be paid a hefty amount and will have access to some really nice kit. Shame that it's in 6 months time, but I'm already incredibly excited.
From a minute in is what the previous guys got up to last year in Les Arcs

Will keep you guys updated, and maybe livestream a union night or two to TWHL if anyone is interested!

Checklist for SMJ.
(Doesn't include everything, only the things I write down.)

[ ] Bonus Room Doors
[X] Enemy Memory
[X] Coin Memory
[X] Aiming system for gamepads
[X] Camera control for cutscenes and secrets
[X] Destructible blocks for terrain
[X] Navigation Minimap
[X] Options - Cursor size
[X] Options - Crosshair Follow speed
[X] Options - Number of crosshairs
[X] Options - Preview Cursor mode
[X] Number keys equip or use items
[X] Item drop system for enemies
[ ] Controls and game setup on launch
[X] Controls Setup in Options
	[X] Keyboard Config
	[X] Controller Support
[X] Physics for Coins
[X] Coins of increased value like 10, 25, and 100
[X] Item Shop interface for buying
[X] Drops for enemies
[X] Coin Bank Screen Graphics
[X] Coin Bank Screen Mechanics
[X] Item stash in van for excess items
[ ] Picking up blocks objects

[X] Chest Blocks that spawn items and whatnot
[ ] Timer Switches
[ ] Lever Switches
[X] Switch Blocks
[X] switches
[X] General Phys Block (like a crate but indestructible)
[ ] Water system
	[p] Water Graphics
[ ] Swimming for player with ability upgrade
[ ] Wayne riding and pickup
[ ] Format All Sounds to OGG's
[X] Optimized one-way platforms
[X] Pressure plates

[X] World Map Screen Mechanics
	[ ] Map Screen Graphics
[X] Bus Stops
[X] New Ladder System

[X] Enemies Template

	[X] "Heat" Combat AI
[X] Options Screen
	[X] Shift to Run option
	[X] Cursor Color
	[X] Sound Volumes
[X] Keys and Key HUD
	[X] Locked Doors
	[X] Monster Doors
[X] Health and Wallet Expansions
[X] Bombing and Super Bombing
[X] Duck-crawling
[X] Brick and Pound Blocks
[X] Game Over screen
[X] Player damage and link to HUD
	[X] Warnings when health is low
[X] Doors and Pipes
[X] Save Block
[X] Ability upgrades
[X] Basic pickups, coins, hearts, item template
[X] Inventory
	[X] Item Equipping
	[X] Item Dropping
	[X] Equipped Item Indicator
	[X] Mouse-over highliting
[X] Graphics and fitting for map system
[X] Incorporate MV Map system and map display
[X] Title Screen and splashes
	[X] ESC pause menu
		[X] Menu buttons
	[X] Continue Game Screen
[X] Music Player
[X] Level Settings
[X] Basic scene layers and Physics