January 03, 2020
Since June 2019, I have been working on a platformer game for the PlayStation. It was supposed to be a small project, but I had never written a game engine before. At this point I've rewritten it twice, which made the code perform slightly better whilst the game itself remained stagnant. It's now January 2020, and the game consists of:
- a test level
- a rudimentary collision system
- a main menu
- memory card support
I don't have a proper level renderer, so any moderately-sized level will lag relentlessly because it's trying to process 6400 16x16px sprites stored in level data, when only 300 sprites are required to fill the screen.
![[a pink blob moves around grassy level]](../images/devlog/sam_psx/01.gif)
If there's anything I've learned so far, it's to avoid a rewrite if possible. I could've spent more time working on the mentally-stimulating bits if I only refactored small pieces of the code. Knowing that going forward, I can program more efficiently!
February 07, 2020
Animation, health, and enemies with basic AI have been added. yay
![[a red circle with appendages moves around a grassy level and dies by hitting an enemy. the red circle and the enemy explode in a cartoony and bloody fashion]](../images/devlog/sam_psx/02.gif)
March 26, 2020
This project is dead.