Elysian Shadows

Despite my lack of maturity and desperately pathetic programming abilities at the time...I must say, looking back on some of the project that I'd done, I'm sad I never fully completed any. Though most of them were purely for the sake of learning, I did enjoy creating them.

Recently, I was cleaning up my computer some (running out of space due to the loss of my external hard drive x.x) and I stumbled across some of my first programs. I screwed around with some of them and was somewhat surprised with what I'd accomplished in my 1st year of programming.

I though I'd make this topic as a tribute to my 12-year-old self because I'd never actually finished anything that I'd hoped to. Bear in mind that the program I'm posting were written by a 12 year old, and are the original executables as they existed in 2003/2004 (and therefore are buggy, inefficiently written, slow, not too impressive, blah blah blah).

So here's the first program that I ever made that actually had graphics. I had a few text based adventures before this, but upon realizing that the language I was using didn't allow for grabbing of input when in the dos console, I decided it was time to transition to something greater. This is a 'two player' game (with them sharing the keyboard). I believe that I included a ReadMe in this zip that tells the controls or whatever. I ended up rewriting this particular one multiple times over the years, adding bots, different weapons, etc., but this is the original from my 12 year old self.

http://thechaosrift.com/PrickFight2.zip

This next one, also not too impressive, I turned in to my math teacher (Mrs. Hogan, at the time) at I believe age 12, demonstrating simple math concepts. Here's a challenge for you: can you get passed 3 'levels'? I guess I'm only showing this sucker off to demonstrate my elite math skillz as a 12 year old! (I was actually impressed with myself to have somewhat understood trig functions well enough to create this. I believe I made this particular one after a whiteboard session with Marauder, in which he expalined the different properties of Sin, Cos and Tan. xD)

http://thechaosrift.com/MathGame.zip

This one is the main reason I created this topic. I put so much work into this...And I do believe that it's impressive for a nub like I was. This was also done at age 12, and turned in for an 'independent study project' in the 7th grade. Though never completed, and still buggy, this was the highlight of my career as a nub, and I honestly feel a bit shamed to have never finished this. Because I had to turn it in to the teacher for a grade, the last bits of it were really rushed and thus contain bugs. Upon running it, you will find that the mission select screen is very difficult to get passed (I'm not even sure what's wrong; I haven't opened the source in years. Keep hammering Enter to get passed.) Also, I did allow (a very primitive) way for you to change the controls (which I will list here in a minute.) Go into the 'Saves' folder and delete 'settings.tcr' to reconfigure the controls. I'll post them here because I don't remember if I had a readme with this one or not.

Here's the controls:


Here's a list of enemies in the game, so if you play, you know what to look for (to know you've seen it all. xD) and what to expect.


Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Here's a link to the game. xD

http://thechaosrift.com/ThatSpaceGame.zip

Oh, yeah, and if you want to turn this into a kind of 'recognition of my noob self' topic and post some of your beginner programs, go ahead. I'm interested to see where you guys started. xD

Any really ancient, really old thing I'd like to see. However, ONLY post if they're still as they existed when you 1st made them. I don't want any of your current programming experience speaking. =P

And any of you current nubs out there, if you want to try to rival some of these apps, be my guest. I'd actually like to see how creative some of you can redo the ones I did. If you want to, take the sound, gfx, gameplay, etc. and try to emulate/enhance what I've done. Good luck!

I lost all my noob stuff, unless I can manage to recover it some other way (was thinking of using a different enclosure). My drive's been sitting in the freezer for a few weeks. In the meantime I'm just attributing it as totally gone. =)

In the freezer? O.o;;

You try using a recovery program? Torrent GetDataBack for FAT

This almost makes me want to have a page on our site for our team's portfolio and source.

...that would be pretty damn sweet, actually. It'd add to our credibility.

The only reason I didn't already do that (my personal portfolio is about 20 programs long) is because most of my things were simply prototypes, or that I never finished my things. The majority of them I could finish in one night, with my current experience...But I am hesitant to do so due to sentimental reasons.

Though if that's something you're interested in doing, I'd gladly round up some of my programs.

Seriously. Someone run that SpaceGame and tell me it's not hot shit for a 12 year old. xD

Someone else post their nub projects? Also post the age/year made in.

Unfortunately all my old goods are rotting away on an old hard drive down in "the closet".

Actually, I just recently saw some of your older things on this site's FTP.

If you want to get them, I'd reccomend you do so now, as they may be destroyed when we switch hosts. ;P

I can't access the FTP. It's alright though, I doubt it was anything worth nabbing.

I did like teh space game pretty neat I have a blitz basic book with a cd that has all those sprites and it is showing you how to make a game like that, coincidence, maybe, who am I to judge. But seriously do you have the book game programminmg for teens?

Coincidence? Lol, dig the credtis--I'm pretty sure I actually named that book there. If not, I know I gave credits to the sound and art; most are directly from the CD that came with the book. That's partially how I learned Blitz; I'd already been programming in it (and made the 1st two above programs) then began that independent study class, in which I was required to get some hard sources of study and create a semester project. At the time (I'm not sure if it's that way now?) it was the only book out that focused on BlitzPlus, which I was already using, so of course I bought it. ;p

I've been recommending that book to programmers for years, though now that I'm a bit more experienced I can accurately say that it doesn't really give you a whole overview of Blitz. It's a good start though.

As for the program at the end of the book: sorry, it's not even close to the one I made. That book wishes it was as xcore as my 12 year old self. xD

Though I will say that the CD that came with the book was worth it, as it included a number of sprite sheets that you are allowed to use and distribute, as well as a number of sound effects and music files. If you play my space game or look through some of my later programs (after I was 12) I was still using some of the graphics from that book years later. I'm a programmer, not a gfx artist.

That book is helping me make my friends birhtday present. I'm too lazy to do my own graphics atm so I just took some sprite sheets offa google for testing the game. When I finish I'll use my own art, but till then my boo sprite is just too much fun to put away.

later tonight I'm gonna post a video of what is done on my youtube acount(eatcomics, respectively) and I'll use my name as a tag so just search that around 8, or 9 o'clock.

Awesome, will do.

Wow, you definately had some pretty impressive programming skills when you were 12 years old.. I figured I'd share the first actual working, 100% original program (game) that I wrote. The earliest "Last Modified" date I could find was on the source to the welcome screen which dated: Sept. 17, 2006 (16 days after i turned 15). It's pretty far from having the graphics and sounds that yours has, but I was very happy with it at the time.

Here's the link:
http://www.freewebs.com/dandymcgee/GameProject.zip