Tic-Tac-Toe: Released

You can get Tic-Tac-Toe by visiting the google-code stake of pezad!

It might have taken longer than expected to get Tic-Tac-Toe out the door, but when you start out with a completely clean slate, I suppose the beginnings would be a bit humble.

Yep, project Tic-Tac-Toe started out as but a glint in the eye on Oct 16, 2008. Here we are, 98 days later with a finished product. I must say the end result is much better than the hello world code that it started out as. Still, I can't help but feel a little disappointed with my efforts, considering it should take less than a day to program start to finish. In any case, we've finally got a game under our belt, and we can continue on to our next project! And hopefully it's a game that people will want to play more that a couple of minutes.

We got some great things out of this game though. We figured out how to use OpenGL, SDL, and FreeType without the help of some external framework. The graphics, while amature, fit the motif of Tic-Tac-Toe nicely. Check out the two levels of AI difficulty too, most implementations offer only one.

The most amazing thing about Tic-Tac-Toe was that, somehow, not one, not two, but THREE professional musicians agreed to do music for the game. Chad Nigh was on drums and did the mixing/producing, Kyle Moreland played the funkodyne (er, the acoustic guitar), and Blake Kresge on bass guitar. Check out Kyle's Build Yourself A Boat CD. And then buy it.

I'm not sure why I spaced out on the music credits in the game (I only gave production credit of Chad) but I can't give enough thanks to the group for the aural bliss they provided.

In conclusion: We've got game #1 out the door, let's keep it going!

Controls, McSchmols

The best way to play a side-scrolling platform game is with a gamepad. Although the side scrolling game will have to support a keyboard, it is in the (unnamed) game's best interest if we get good peripheral support from the beginning. So, I went about looking for some documentation on getting the Playstation 3 SixAxis controller working in Linux.

It turns out there is a website with a couple of interesting videos using the bluetooth capabilities at http://www.pabr.org/sixlinux/sixlinux.en.html. Only by connecting the Sixaxis through bluetooth will the motion sensing capabilities of the gamepad be detected.

I don't really care too much about the bluetooth stuff or motion sensing for the game at the moment, though, even if it is fairly slick. I just want a nice standard gamepad to test the game out with, and is not too hard for the user to get working. For Linux at least, as long as the user is using 2.6.21 or higher (which includes Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10), it is really simple:

1. Plug in the Sixaxis to the computer via USB.


2. Wait for the LEDs to start blinking. Hit the PS button to "wake up" the controller.


3. Start using it with various games.


4. (optional) install the joystick package and run jstest to see the raw data coming out of the controller. In Ubuntu 7.10, all I had to do was:
   
   sudo apt-get install joystick
   
   And then run jstest with the Sixaxis as so (with no other controllers connected):
   jstest --normal /dev/input/js0
   

Seriously, it is that simple. DON'T forget step 2. If you don't hit the PS button, the gamepad will not register anything, and you will spend at least an hour looking through forums just to discover you needed to hit a button like a chump like I did.

And there you have it. One controller, ready for use in Linux, good for the high-quality platformer we're sure to put out sometime within a decade I should hope.


But what about the Windows folks? It took a little research, but I finally found the drivers that actually work for my Windows XP system when connected via USB.

1. Download sixaxisdriver.exe. You might need to search around to find it, but I was able to download mine here. Install it.
   
2. Connect the Sixaxis to the PC via USB.
3. Launch DriverLoader.exe and load driver.
4. (optional) You should have a working ps3 gamepad in Windows now. Go to http://onakasuita.org/ps3/ and download the PS3 testing. It doesn't do anything other than show the raw data coming out of the controller, including the motion axes! I must say it was more fun to play around with that than I would have originally thought. It is really sensitive too.

A screen shot of the fun:
You can see clearly where I was shaking the remote like a madman and where I had set it down.

Setting up the gamepad was more of a hassle in Windows, so it might not be the "official" input device on that platform for the game. But still, the PS3 gamepad is one of the best around, so if the user had the option, I would tell them to go for it.

Pezad::init();

Team Pezad's current projects:
http://code.google.com/p/pezad-games/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/entrippy/

Programmers with a desire to make fun games comprise Pezad.
Pezad main site: http://www.pezad.com/