Well, I'm overdue on a progress report for Smallworld.  I did manage to make a working applet last week, though only with a text display.  I haven't even touched it in almost a week though, and I don't expect things to get better any time soon.  Our media project is looking downright ambitious, which is thrilling, frightening, and certainly time consuming.  Since that takes priority, it looks like Smallworld may not be a project for this summer after all.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about Smallworld’s rules, but the truth is that they’re not really that important yet.  If I’m going to write a game engine, I need to know what that game engine must accomplish.  The exact rules matter less that the various elements and types of interactions within the game.  These concepts can be translated into code features, which is what I’ll be laying out in this week’s update.

I've decided on a simple working title for my game project this summer: Smallworld.  I do plan for it to be a cross between Civilization and Simcity in mechanics with a dash of interface from Master of Orion and Spaceward Ho!  I've spent some time over the past week considering what I want Smallworld to achieve and why.

Besides the school media project, there's something else that I plan to do this summer: design and program a computer game.  It'll get me back in practice (at least!) for my fall programming course, and it'll be important for my (desired) career in the game industry (digital or not).  The programming language that I'll be using is Java - there are a number of commercial cross-platform Java games out there that are fun and inspiring (like these).  I'm mentioning this now rather than later for two specific reasons.  First, I'm interested in to suggestions for genre or theme - and I'm sure that some of you reading this would enjoy tossing out a few thoughts.  Second, I need to make the commitment now or I'll probably slack off on it.  I'll be making weekly posts about my progress and thoughts on the game this summer.