Hello, world

Hello, there.

I'm Brian, and this shall be a record of my thoughts on game development, focusing on my design and implementation of a relatively simple 2D role playing game.

I'll be using Microsoft's XNA platform, but the game design will be largely based on Origin Systems' trio of Ultima games released from 1990-1992: Ultima VI and the two Worlds of Ultima games, The Savage Empire and Martian Dreams. My hope is that by limiting the technology complexity, I'll have a higher chance of actually getting the game into a playable state without worrying about spending too much time on art assets.

In fact, as I write this, I already have an engine capable of rendering Savage Empire's world map using the original game data. Reading through Nuvie's source code has been indispensable in building my understanding of how the original games work. The technical documention built up by better hackers before me and available via the project archives at Ultima Aiera has also been of great help.

Next up is a bit on the limits of the design, I think.