Project Feather Weight Article #1
ALRIGHT
So as an intentionally avoiding to use Tumblr user till this exact moment because I knew this shit was going to go wrong one more time and I was waiting for it to get as bad as it could before I could fight a recovery out, HERE IS WHATS GONNA HAPPEN (don't ask how I know, I trust my gut)
I'm making a new game or two just to earn some money for what I got going on that helps me open up the doors to making the rest of my art and finally being freer to do many things.
I'm starting from the ground up with basically only C language and as few extra code bases as I can just to teach myself something new about making programs and game design. I have like, so many constraints I'm having to jump through hoops for, but I'm not going to disclose all those. As far as this is concerned this is a personal challenge and not a competition. This is me fighting for my life back in a already limited situation.
All I have at the moment is phone to program with and that's basically about it. I am allowing myself to program with C language and the built in libraries and going from there. I have a pretty decent Termux load out freshly installed, and I'm just working with what I can figure out and documenting my progress as I go to prove a point. I am allowing myself to use A.i. search engines to ask questions for things I don't know or get resources or even basic examples but I'm not using that to make any of the art or writing for these project sets. It's still an amazing research resource and I'll stand my ground on that even with the threats this can pose to artists IN THE WRONG USER HANDS.
Nothing in this fresh install, just the basic packages and the shit I need to run and compile C scripts. Maybe I'll add shit as I need it but only the necessities. And I say this just because I don't know what technicality shit I'm going to need for window porting sort of coding and I'm basically going to have to already reprogram almost just about everything most people don't even bother looking into from start anyway but I'm also not pushing my issues farther than they already are. I'm seeing just how limited I can work from without being entirely masochistic?
Am I going to give this a project name yet? Considering this is just me working on the game engine for now, I'll just call this #Project_Feather_Weight so I can clean up these posts later. I'm just gonna do this rough enough but I'm gonna try and keep it clean as I go.
I have not really been practicing programming like I should since highschool when I worked on very simple image editing code, so that seems a good bench mark to get back towards and gives me most of the needed code to start anyway so, let's start there why not right? I'm going to need a image editor to make my own assets and I can extend this into a sound and music engine toolset to make myself a REALLY NICE multitool i can work with, built from just what I know and what i can make. I sort of representation, and huge asterisks on the representation part, of what I know and what I'm capable of and allows me to work on myself as much as my code base. Good to improve my own standerds for myself, right? The only person I'm trying influence here is myself after all (Why I even have to speak this way will make sense later just..... Pay attention to the odd shit in my history and life and it'll make instinctual sense. This isn't to grant or take anything from anyone, and those sort of problems of course can be a thing to deal with later but right now, I have to start modestly).
So with these very strange constraints set into motion, what are my additional constraints beyond limited codebases and programming in C and forcing myself to learn how to make many tools I need myself? Well this programming constraint at least in the immediate moment ironically forces me to not be able to post to mobile platforms at the immediate moment like android or Apple phones and whatnot. This is just a vague over generalization of course. Is there any issue with me using Java code to make this port more feasible than hard coding my own new codecs for those later? Not at all but not right now. (The whole restricted what I mean with what thing will make so much more sense later, especially with the package association trap I'm sort of working around right now, just know I'm having to put autist some folk who REALLY don't like me even breathing, let alone existing. Ignore this note and level of assumable paranoia for now, it will make sense when I can free myself more later, keep calm and carry on).
So that basically means I'm programming and exporting for Windows and Linux both and that's basically my parameters, and since I'm working with the forgotten era mindset of code compatibility that makes this shit possible to run despite all the issues involved, (and not this isn't an aha to make this shit everyone else's whatever copy constraints, again I'm working around some real problems I can't even properly verbalize but I'm sure you get a few hints if you pay close attention, just don't even acknowledge these little notes just the shit around it, which kind of makes this operation even funnier).
For all extents and purposes I'm treating both exports as the same exact export and no I don't mean as in a copy sort of way, I mean in it's just the one project. (If I have to enunciate this shit even further this is going to get worse for you. fate(as a concept) has already been irrevocably changed and this madness has to end.) This is to say, I'm treating the desktop version as the desktop version. Not as copies, or whatever madness some folk want to argue. If you want to be that way I might just upload Linux only out of sheer spite. And I don't even have an issue with using Windows, like at all. Even the modern shit that's been more bastardized I can clean up my client or deal with bloat well enough using some client tricks I know but AS OF RIGHT NOW (and this is a fucking headache) I'm writing in C and exporting to Linux just because thats what I'm dealing with in the termux situation and I'm completely Salting the meaning behind what some associate Linux and Windows. When I port it to windows it'll be the same exact project/application and besides, it's a game engine that many games are going to operate from. What this means is mostly the game engine itself being the games I extend from it, all the same thing more or less. Why do I have to over specify shit like this? Reasons. Just.... Pay attention to the very out there behavior that surrounds my existence and it will make sense. Don't humor or acknowledge much of it, just, support in your own way and treat this cognito hazard game that functionally safe enough to survive in the way I'm doing now. I'm allowed to use calculators and note taking apps to handles what I'm doing, grow the fuck up please this is already a hard enough situation. And I'm going to handle this myself despite every lie and distortion weither you like it or not.
I'm not going to oretend everything surrounding this project/project set is entirely okay or fine. But things will be. I just need support as an artist as I fight and claw for my voice back, alright? That's all I need in this.
I have hope this will lead to a better future and a better life, I'm so close. I just have to keep going. Like I promised myself a long time ago, even before I started ghost writing 15 years ago and closed my journals for a few years to recover and heal, I only to be hellishly dragged back into the same games of ink and computation bastards. But ignore that note for now. I will survive long enough to make as much better as I can. Do what I can.
#Hope
So, let's start with a simple terminal interface for deving games, and a image editing program set first, ey? I can work this bit by bit as I go.