Sorry I shouldn't have used physical violence only as an example. Medical journals and sites state that people with BPD are more a risk to themselves than to others. The do say it is possible and common for violence toward others though. Apparently people with BPD are more likely to be self destructive Suicide/Attempted Suicide, Drug/Alcohol abuse, cutting, and non-physical damage ('violence' to their own financial situation, relationships, and other elements of their lives as they act on impulse and pursue high risk behaviors).

Suicide makes since though as it comes with depression when you aren't thinking straight at the time. Though being overly happy makes you think things you really can't do at times too in some cases. Definitely not BPD as I'm down on my programming and nothing else, not violent, don't spend money on anything I don't absolutely need (clothes, food, shelter), been married to the same woman for 8 years with her 10, never attempted suicide and don't take risks. I'm about as far from BPD as you can get. Says the ups and downs last days, week, months, and even years. My downs last about 10 minutes if that then I'm over it:P.

On Topic: Hope everyone makes some awesome games. Plan to download them and play them when they are released to everyone.

Yes, normally I don't give myself enough credit, but in this case that isn't true. I'm positive that I can't make a game in seven days. It took me a month to do a pong clone and that isn't technically finished.

I'm positive that you can't either. At least not with an attitude like that.

I mean a game with graphics. I've made the guess a number app numerous times in C++. It took me a month to even make the pong clone and all I did was make ball and paddles using rectangles/squares. With only one game...well two counting the number guessing game, I know for a fact I can't do a game in 7 days with graphics. If I just stuck to the console/terminal app then I could have easily come up with something in a day for the compo then.

• Graphics are difficult.

• Audio is difficult.

• Collision is difficult.

• Physics are difficult.

All of these things are outside of the domain of programming. Obviously, they are things that many games incorporate and therefore need to be programmed, but they aren't actually what a programmer does. In the strictest sense, a business programmer would ideally be told how to do these things (especially in the business world, the way things are done is not always the same as the conventional way things are done; it's normal to have things defined for you as required by the business), and his job would be merely converting that into code.

These things also don't have to be done well for a game to be fun. The key is to plan to do a minimalist job at the things that you aren't already good at. The player could be a circle, or a dot, or a scribble. Your collision could be imperfect and your other "physics" could be limited to simple, fixed-rate incremental movement of the player's position. Audio is especially optional in a programming competition.

It's normal for the things above to be difficult for you to do until you've done them enough times for it to be second-nature. The key is to take each thing one step at a time and keep things simple. Crawl before you walk before you run.

E.g.,

If somebody joined the competition without even so much as installing Allegro or writing a simple game loop before and managed to get these things done during the competition, but no actual game done, then they'll still have been successful because they will have progressed. EXP++;

I got my snow particle generator and sleigh bells loop ready to go! I think I'll just leave them on the whole game.

It's a rat race, anyway. Whomever gets ahead is still just a rat. So many people fighting and competing for status. It's like... wow you're cool, rat!

Voting !

Well first week was pretty simple. Typed up the code from the A5 Tut wiki for the ball. The also had to learn from trial and error how to draw the paddles and how to do the keys as I hadn't touched Allegro before the API changes. Second week I spent fighting the AI paddle to keep it on the screen. Third week I fought trying to figure out the collision detection. Fourth week I was still tweaking and figuring out the collision detection because the ball kept going through the AI paddle after so many hits on it.

The help I got near the beginning was "Understand the code.". SiegeLord finally helped me solve the collision detection. I understood the code but ultimately I had to add a header file and function in order to fix it and add a y coord check too.

When I'm not coding I'm normally helping wife and son. Having a wife and son with disabilities like FSHD requires me to do a lot and forces me to stay at home. This is why I thought I would turn my love of programming into a career, but looking bleak.

You get to berate your coworkers though, which is great fun.

T minus 3 1/2 hours to go!

I have my sushi, time to get cracking! Goodluck y'all!

Gentlemen, start your engines!

You're not supposed to drop hints on what kind of game you're doing anyway.

Anyways, I won't be able to join the hacking until I'm done with these finals on the 22th. But on these days in my little breaks I'll try to get in some graphics and think a GOOD game idea for once instead of starting to code right away. Given that my time is more limitted, I'll go for a simple entry.

I got the task I liked, but the other 2 can't be merged with it.

EDIT: Deploying Santa's development workbench in 3... 2... 1. (SH2011 folder copied)