Week-Long camps
Topic: Scouting

Boy Scouts is lots of fun, especially when you get to go to camp. So far, I have been to 3 camps, Chawanakee, Cherry Valley, and Pupekea (on Hawaii). Out of the three, Cherry Valley is my favorite. They have lots of eagle required badges, lots of badges that I have never heard of before, and really good staff and a high quality general atmosphere. Half way through the week, the staff take you on a hike to somewhere on the island of Catalina (you get to choose the hike). There is a pretty good beach front at the camp, too. The only one of the three that I have been to that did not have a beach of any type was Pupekea. Sadly, even though it was in Hawaii (on Oahu), it lacked any method of access to a body of water, except at the pool. Even their snorkeling class was stuck in the pool.

Strategy Gaming
Topic: Gaming

Out of all the generes of PC gaming, strategy presents the most appeal to me. Strategy, by defenition, is:

The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.

The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.

A plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal.

The art or skill of using stratagems in endeavors such as politics and business.

 

Strategy games allow you to comand armies at different periods of time and use intelligence to decide on the right tactics and patchs to use during the battle(s). Usually, strategy games have a wide variety of units and civilizations, each with unique trade offs and powers. Strategy is divided into 2 categries, RTS and turn-based.

 

TURN-BASED

Turn-based strategy games are often much more difficult and varied than RTS, and take up less system resources. On the down side, they take a lot longer to play a game, and in most situations, start of a bit slow. My favorite turn-based games include: Call to power and the Civilization series.

 

RTS

A lot more popular, RTS games tend to drain system resources a LOT more, but you also get way better graphics and combat. RTS games often are more limited in their variety of units and maps, but still leave you with amply to choose from.Some of my favorites are Rome: Total War, Starcraft, WarCraft, and Age of Mythology. My all time favorite is Warlord's Battlecry 3, which combines RTS and RPG to give you an action packed game with tons of variety and options!

Tags: Age of mythology, Starcraft, Warcraft, Civilization 4, Call to power, Rome Total War

Summary

If you like fighting with massive armies and tons of intense combat, but don't want just the full 1-on-1 of RPG, then try Warlord's Battlecry 3. Otherwise, try any of the great games I have told you about. And of course, you can always try my strategy game, WarMasters 2, available at my WarMasters 2 website, https://todd101scout.tripod.com/warmasters2.

Browser-based Gaming
Topic: Gaming

Probably my favorite thing to do is browser gaming. It is in your browser, so you don't need to install anything, AND it is usually free. I currently play 2 great games, WarCityOnline and Filarn. (www.warcityonline.com and www.filarn.com respectivley) They are both great online strategy games that are FREE, each with its own unique twist. WarCityOnline takes you through the ages, allowing you to settle up to 9 cities and research a constantly growing list of technologies, while Filarn keeps you in the medieval age with a wide range of units that each has their own special adavntages and disadvanteges (WarCityOnline's units are more generical and have very little specialization except attack, defense, speed, etc., while Filarn's units can only attack certain ones, like a trebuchet can only attack gaurd towers, and spearmen can only attack cavalry; this forces you to have a wide range of units) Both games have forums and admins that will include your suggestions, but WarCityOnline is much better in that respect. They have almost 6,000 members and admin that work almost day and night to make it the best game possible, while Filarn's staff tend to be a bit on the grumpy side. Filarn is ad supported, but WarCtiyOnline's sole source of income is from those players who decide to become colonels and gain a few extra features.

Another game I occasionally play is Runescape, a RPG that allows you to quest around a world of magic and fighting. Runescape can be found at www.runescape.com, and is supported by its many 'members' who pay to gain access to another part of the world, though you can chose not to become a member, and still play for FREE. Runescape is constantly being improved, though the improvements are usually just for the members. The graphics are a bit lacking, but it has a wide variety of music and sound. Beware of many people who will try to seduce you into giving them your password, though....

Add a post or leave a comment
Topic: IMPORTANT
If you would like to see a topic added or information change in an already existent post, please contact me at todd101scout@gmail.com and I will see what i can do. Remember that this is a community site, so no asking me to post things like porn or foul language. We all want to be able to read it without such inapropriate material!

Game Maker
Topic: Game Programming

I love to program. For that matter, I love computers.The only thing I don't like about computers is their frustrating tendency to refuse to co-operate. Of course, programming means that you are going to be living and working with this annoyance, so you have to be really good at it, or not do it at all. Right? WRONG!!! This is where game maker comes in: game maker makes it very easy for you to program games on every level. It supports both a drag-and-drop type programming, which allows for the simple and fast creation of basic games, and a user-friendly programming language. It took me only a few days to learn the basics of the language. The coolest thing is, you can use the two together, so even if you don't know how to programming something in GML (Game maker language, the programming language used by game maker), you can still program it in with the easier to use drag-and-drop interface. The whole shebang is organized very neatly into only 9 categories, but you only NEED to use 3. Game maker is available at www.gamemaker.nl

 

HOW TO: The Basics

Ok, programming with game maker is very simple. All you need is an idea of what you want to program, a few images, some spare time, and viola, instant game. How it works: Sprites are the images, objects control the sprites and all other aspects of the game, and rooms are what you see while playing the games. For basic games lacking sound or backgrounds, this is all you need.

I will be covering how to make a very simple racing game. Please let me know if you would like other tutorials.

 

THE DESIGN

For this racing game, you will drive in a straight line (but still have the ability to turn) and race against 1 opponent.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

You will need about 5 to 10 minutes and 2 pictures of seperate cars (top-down is RECOMMENDED for the good of your game). You will also need either version of Game Maker (I think that this will work on the unregistered version. If it does not, please let me know.) So enjoy!

THE SPRITES

You will need only 2 sprites (3 if you want a finish line) 1 will be for your car, the other will be for the opponent's car. The cars must be facing right in the sprite disply, but that is the only madatory thing, though I do recommend leaving transparency checked, and making the picture's background all 1 color (try to keep the picture under 100*100) Make sure you know which sprite is which

THE OBJECTS

Create 3 objects: Your car, the enemy's car, and the finish line. For your car, add the following code to create event (double click on your car's object, click add event, then choose create. After that, go to the control tab, and drag the "execute a piece of code" block into the actions box)

friction=0.02
self.degree=90 (depending on which way you want your car to face at the start, you may want to change this (0= to the left, 90= up, 180= to the right, 270= down)

This will set the resistance that your car experiences and its starting angle

next, add a step event (click on add event, then step, and step again) and insert another code block, this time entering:

image_angle=self.degree
motion_set(self.degree,speed)

this tells your car's image to always face the way it is moving and to always move the way it is facing (I know, it is rendundant, but it works :) )

After that, add event "Keyboard left" by choosing keyboard, then left in the add event dialoge. Here, you also add another block of code:

self.degree+=2 (the larger the number, the faster your car turns)
speed-=0.09 (the larger the number, the more turning slows your car down)

this tells your car to turn to the left and slow down a bit whenever you are pressingthe left arrow key

Next, add event "Keyboard right" by choosing keyboard, then right in the add event dialoge. Here, you also add another block of code:

self.degree-=2
speed-=0.09

this does the same as the left key, except in the opposite direction.

To make your car brake, add in "keyboard down" the same way as you did for the other arrow keys, and add another block of code, then enter this:

speed-=0.1 (the larger this number, the faster your car will brake)

This lets your car know that whenever the back arrow key is pressed, it needs to slow down

Most importantly, to make your car accelerate, add the up arrow, with the following code:

if speed<10 (the larger the number, the faster your car can go)
speed+=0.2 (the larger the number, the faster your car acclerates)

this code tells your car to accelerate if it is going slwoer than its top speed

That is all for your car. Now for your opponent:

under create:

self.degree=90 (same as for your car)

under step:

if speed<9 (opponenet's top speed)

speed+=0.21 (opponent's acceleration)

image_angle=self.degree
motion_set(self.degree,speed)

this basically creates an automated version of your car that goes straight, with faster acceleration, but a lower top speed

also add event "outside room" it is under "other" and tell it to destroy itselft (under "main1")

 

now for the finish line:

set the sprite (if you made one), then add the folowing code under step:

if instance_number(Enemy_Car1)=1
{
score+=10
message_caption(1,"You won, congradulations!") (you can change the quoted text, but leave the quotes there)
}
else

message_caption(1,"You have lost, try again!") (see above)
room_restart()

this sets it so if you finish before the opponent, you get 10 points, and it displays You won, congradulations (or whatever you told it to) and if you lose, it displays You have lost, try again! (same as before)

 

THE ROOM

This part is vital. Add a room (the last option) and go to settings. Here, you can choose the size of the room (don't make it longer (or wider, depending on the starting angle) than 1280 so that you don't have to worry about views. Place the finish object anywhere in the room (or at the end, if you made a sprite for it) and your cars wherever you want them to start.

 

CONGRADULATIONS. YOU HAVE JUST PROGRAMMED YOUR FIRST GAME. ENJOY!