Thenessgroup

A long time ago, before blogging was a thing, the Sci-Fi Gene has fond memories of learning to program on an early home computer, the BBC Model B. My efforts were written mainly in BASIC IV, with only a few very minor excursions into machine code. They were stored on C90 cassettes and later on 5" floppy disks - buying the double-sided disk drive was a major life event. Most of my games and other programming experiments would be of interest only to myself. However one or two made it to the pages of user magazines and their monthly giveaway disks, and a few appeared on public domain lists. I was recently surprised to find that some of these games have been preserved at the Complete BBC Games Archive here - where they are playable online! I present the games here not because they're particularly good - they're not, they're basic, derivative and barely playable - but because they're part of my journey and experience of the digital world, and because as a geeky teenage...

This is the final version of my Scratch game Dystopia City - with thanks to Scratch users E1eventeen and alpacaceratops for their comments and to everyone who played the beta. I've tweaked the gameplay, instructions have been re-written, there's a soundtrack composed in MuseScore, a better menu system and six alternate endings. Grateful thanks to Freesounders leuphana, nathan-lomeli, samararaine, medialint, lebcraftlp, hunter4708. Thanks also to the makers of Blender and MuseScore. Instructions: Scroll map - Up and down arrow keys Build - click to move the build cursor, choose a tunnel from the Build Tunnel menu or use hotkeys: C=coridoor E=elevator V=clone-vat O=office L=life support Assign Roles - choose a Faction from the Faction-Role menu, then choose a Role to assign to that faction: Construction, Repair, Paperwork or Firefighting. For example if you choose Hufflepuffs and Paperwork then all Hufflepuffs will be assigned to do Paperwork whenever they are near an Office. At...

Nothing says dystopian future like a double bass... Working on a final version of my Scratch game Dystopia City - will be ready for release very soon. I've made a few tweaks to gameplay, re-written the instructions, added a few more alternate endings, and I'm working on a score in MuseScore.

The end is in sight: I've put together the main game cycle for Dystopia City, although I'm still doing some work on the various alternate endings plus the soundtrack. Beta very soon - promise. Where indeed? Game produced in Scratch . Graphics hand-drawn in Paint, Paint.net or Scratch, with some backgrounds rendered in Blender. Just another run-of-the-mill day in Dystopia City

Dystopia City is taking shape: I'll release a beta version soon. I had originally planned the game around the task of growing your population of cloned Citizens to 500 - but while playtesting, as I approached a population of 200 other parts of the game started to break down. As well as the Citizens themselves, who are clones in both the Scratch sense and the literal sense, I also use cloned sprites for my scrolling map, for fires and for some of the effects and menu options. A response from a helpful Scratcher on the forum confirmed my suspicion that the number of cloned sprites Scratch can handle is limited to 301. Factions of Dystopia City I've re-weighted the game based around a lower total population. Now working on the various possible endings, and thinking about sound effects and possibly music...

My next Scratch project is underway - a dystopia simulator inspired by EVERY YOUNG ADULT SCI-FI NOVEL EVER. I don't want to reveal too much about the plot but I will say that if you are a fan of post-apocalyptic underground bunker-based cities, semi-fascist societies, factions, factions and factions then you may come to like this game. But first I have to complete it. Programming challenges so far have included creating a scrolling map that can be changed as new tunnels are built, and having large numbers of dystopian citizens exploring it. One of the best features of Scratch is, it's surprisingly fast at parallel processing: so you can have large numbers of active sprites and still keep everything moving quickly, as long as each object has a fairly short routine. Scratch is a browser-based programming language a little like BASIC, but with an easy to learn object-orientated structure and commands that click together LEGO-style. It's provided free by MIT here in order to e...

Something different: my first Scratch-programmed game, inspired by what may be history's worst ever paperwork nightmare - that occasion when Queen Elizabeth I accidentally signed the death warrant for Mary Queen of Scots, as it was mixed up with all her other documents. I know, happens to me all the time. At least, that's her story - while it's frankly a rubbish excuse for an execution, it's a great excuse for a game... As your ministers place their warrants before you, sign those deserving of death with your quill, - but beware! beheading the more popular celebrities of your reign will dent your popularity, so make sure you don't sign them, and some treacherous ministers might try to trick you into signing your own warrant. Remember to dip your quill in the inkwell whenever it runs out. Although Scratch is a fantastic BASIC-style programming system, for the moment it is Flash-based which means PC only. Apologies to Apple users - but hopefully there will be an HTML-...