Upcoming Ludum Dare

Having a break from being at University has been very nice, I've spent a lot of time experimenting with Java. Made quite a cool tool for designing villages which gives you a metric of how many people the built houses and farmland could support. Mouse input is very similar to how its done in Javascript. I also found out that the Java pseudo-random number generator is very easy to use. Now my terrain maps can be remade by using the same seed value :)

Created a byte-glyph alphabet as well, with 256 symbols it can encode English letters, numbers and keywords too. Got it looking like an alien text editor at the moment:

Probably going to include that as secret runes to decipher if I ever make a game with written text in it. I am almost tempted to start using it as the font for my computer's terminal. It would be a real trip to log into a computer system and see that :D

I also explored options for 3D rendering in Java, looks a bit easier than what I was doing by hand in Javascript previously, I don't think I uploaded that stuff though. 3D models would look good as an animated image so I might produce one of those soon.

What I am most excited programming-wise is the 32nd Ludum Dare programming contest happening next Friday. It happens a few times every year and I have always been interested in it. For various reasons I haven't sat down and actually taken part in it though. This time round I am much more experienced and have a pretty empty schedule. No matter what the final theme I'll find a way to bring procedural generation and simulation toys into it!