Dev Update: Pollinator

Pollinator is my current game programming project. I haven't abandoned Creature Caretaker, but I decided I wanted to do something a bit simpler first. Pollinator is a reskinned version of Pickin Sticks, which I talked about before. In it, you are a bee who flies around collecting pollen, rather than a person collecting sticks.

The lovely thing about Pollinator is that while it is very simple, it has the potential to become a real game. Eventually the pollen will come from flowers. It will drift, randomly or perhaps due to changing winds. There will be obstacles, enemies, time limits, different kinds of flowers and pollen, competing bees, multiplayer - there are so many possibilities for even an extremely simple game like this.

But for now, I'm following the very simplest of Pickin Sticks models. At the moment, my engine works decently well. I have a green background on which a bee flies around. There is no pollen yet, but I did get both the bee's animation and a silly little tune I wrote working. Here's a (very boring) screenshot:

I'll keep you posted on my progress. Eventually, I'd like to try creating Pollinator in different languages, or even on different platforms. I think as a mobile game it might actually do decently well!

The Life of Jiya: Intel Here I Come!

Hello everyone!

It's certainly been a while, with school, internship applications, my brother's wedding, and all sorts of things going on in my life, I haven't been making time to blog. I'd like that to change, but we shall see how things go. I've also recently returned to WoW after a 6 month hiatus, so I may have some WoW-related things to start blogging about soon!

I thought I'd give anyone who cared a little update into what I've been up to. Mostly, I wanted to share my excitement at starting a new job on Monday. I'll be doing software validation for Intel. I'm pretty excited, even though as internships go it's closer to the bottom of the barrel. The pay isn't great compared to other internships, and I won't be in the creative part of the software development process, which is where I'd like to end up. But working in validation will help me understand an important part of the overall process, and get me some real work experience to use as a stepping stone to go where I want to go. Plus, the internship is full time in the summer but continues into the school year for the full year, part time, which is great.

I've also got a very part time gig this summer helping a grad student at my university to create a mobile app. The app will tell a user where their energy use for the area they are in is coming from (hydro electric, coal, gas, wind, that sort of thing). I'll be working on the Android version of the app. I'm really excited about this, since mobile apps are something I'm very interested in as a possible career path.

I've been trying to find time to also work on my game, Pollinator. I'll make a post about my progress in the game tomorrow.

On a more personal note, my little brother got married last weekend. It was an AMAZING wedding, very simple yet elegant. The whole wedding party were wearing Chuck Taylor's, which is awesome. Even the bride had little white ones. The ceremony and reception took place at a river house. The day was too hot but by the river in the shade of trees, it was perfect. I loved it, and I'm so happy for them!

Well, that's my life so far in a nutshell. I've scrapped my update schedule as I wasn't keeping to it anyway. I want to create a new one, I'll think on what kind of categories I'd like to have.