Intro (01/17/03) 

A few years ago, I started writing a game called Staxx, which I never finished. Recently I started working on it again — actually rewriting is a better word. I have been playing around with 3D stuff lately as well, so I decided to make the graphics 3D rendered. Here is a mockup of what it will look like:

Actually, I don’t totally like the way it looks — the background bricks are too distracting — I’m going to probably use a tileable image so that there can be more emphasis on the playfield. Also, the BONUS tiles don’t stand out enough.

Update 01/20/03

I worked on the mockup some more — I want to make sure I like what I see before I do the coding. This looks more like what I envisioned for Staxx:

Update 02/03/03

I’ve been working pretty heavily on staxx lately – the graphics and sprite engine is pretty much done — now I’m getting to the fun bits – game logic. What’s this, a real screenshot??

I think that the development will go much faster now that I’ve gotten the framework a lot farther along. Hopefully soon I’ll have an alpha copy to share You can’t see this from a screenshot, but the game has the ability to run in any resolution, full-screen or windowed (with appropriate texture scaling). It currently has the all of the graphics able to be loaded in (with transparency), random stack generation, and movement using the keyboard (no timer implemented yet, so it goes *way* too fast Also, I’m implementing it using DirectX 9. I still don’t like the background image, but it’s improving

Update 02/04/03

I added a *LOT* of code tonight! The game is almost playable actually Bricks fall and ’stick’ in the spots their supposed to. I’m still fighting with a few things, but it’s getting smoother as the project progresses.

Update 02/13/03

I’m still plugging away at the project, but no new screenshots to share yet, as I have been working on cleaning up code, moving stuff around, and fixing memory leaks, etc. I also wrote my sound class, which took a while because DirectSound doesn’t offer any WAVE file loading routines, so I had to write my own. It’s a good learning experience for me though I should have some new screenshots up soon

Update 02/22/03

It’s been a while since I’ve updated the site, so I figured I’d put up another screenshot for ya As you can see, I’ve been working pretty heavily on it:

Some pieces are taking a while, but I should have the demo available within 2-3 weeks I’d expect. It’s fully playable right now, but not all of the bells and whistles have been added. I’m currently up to about 2500 lines of code, so the project has grown quite a bit since I started