Work!
My latest excuse for not getting anything done on Artillery Brawl or any other projects is that I just landed a job in the game industry! I didn't want to announce it on the blog before I got a contract, but today I got one as a programmer for Bugbear Entertainment. It's interesting and kind of refreshing to seriously program in C++ for a change.
New city, new portfolio
I have succesfully moved to Helsinki, though the apartment is of course still a mess. While organizing the apartment, I also decided to reorganize my Portfolio page. Please check it out, all kinds of comments are very welcome!
I should be hearing about the job next week.
Sampling some C++
Since I have the job interview on Thursday, I decided to brush up my rusty C++ skills and make a quick work sample while at it, as I haven't really worked with the language since about 2004. The position I'm applying for is UI programmer, so I made a simple but relatively flexible "game style" menu system. At first, I had to look up lots of things in documentation, but at least I knew what to look for, and overall it went surprisingly smoothly. I spent about two evenings on it, so don't expect anything polished.
If you want to check out the demo and some old stuff of mine, see http://www.brainfold.org/portfolio/. I'm releasing the code in public domain, but check copyright.txt for the font copyright. Apart from the demo, my time has been spent preparing for the move to Helsinki on Wednesday, so again, don't expect any real updates for at least a week or two.
Moving on
I haven't updated for a while again. Let's get gamedev news out of the way first. I haven't worked on Artillery Brawl for a couple of weeks; instead, I have tried to get the card game ready for testing. I made some prototype cards by putting pieces of paper in sleeves that are opaque on one side. This has the advantage that I don't have to go through the trouble of making the back sides of the cards look identical, so it's much easier to make changes. Unfortunately, while the rules are basically ready for testing, I ran out of card sleeves, and when I bought some more I accidentally bought a different size... Now I'll have to wait until next week to buy some more, sigh.
Anyway, about next week... I have a job interview at a game company (wish me luck!) and I'll be moving back to Helsinki where I used to live four years ago before I moved here to Tampere. I also have a couple of deadlines looming for university courses, so I'll be quite busy for the next week or two! At least I already have internet connection at the new apartment, so my connection to civilization won't be severed. 
See you in a couple of weeks!
Good news, bad news
The good news is, suddenly I got a whole lot more free time for game development.
The bad news is, I don't have a job anymore (yay for the economic situation).
I didn't just freeze and panic though; instead, I called a friend at a game company I was applying to for the summer, and told I might be available for work a bit earlier after all... I hope to hear more from them next week, so wish me luck!
As for other news, I have been working on Artillery Brawl a lot, though still no particle effects... I think they might be cursed, since every time I get close to implementing them, I run into problems or some other thing I just have to fix. Anyway, the good thing about this is that the entity system and a lot of the code in general is starting to look really good and reusable. This is how I should have approached building a reusable codebase to begin with; writing a game, then generalizing the solutions that work.
Summer
Oops, looks like Real Life ate me for July. I haven't even worked on the university project much, but I'll have to get it ready before September. Some good news regarding my studies though: I'm very likely to finish all my remaining courses during the next academic year. After that, I'm planning to move back to the capital, Helsinki, to write my Master's thesis at some company. If everything goes according to the plan, I'll finish my degree late next year, yay! Of course, things rarely go exactly like planned...
Hopefully I'll get more game development done in the Autumn, since it looks like I'll still be quite busy during August.
A week gone by
Oops, it seems I lied last week. I got a surprise visitor for the weekend and didn't get anything done after all... not that I mind, but I'll move the promise to this week. So, if I don't report any game development done this week, you can officially flog me. Virtually, of course.
Studies schmudies
I thought I'd report on my progress even though there hasn't been any. I've been really busy with studies lately, especially this week. I've got a few really laborous courses at the moment, but I hope to get at least something done next week. And write that post about some component-based design stuff...
Rumours
Rumours of me disappearing have been grealty exaggerated. Though being ill and concentrating on studies (for a change) have stopped me programming for a while, nothing has been abandoned. In fact, I did what I have been planning to do for ages: I learned Blender. Now I can hopefully make my own test models instead of relying on artist friends and stock models for all testing. 
Anyway, I should hopefully be a bit less busy starting next week, and I hope to be back to full coding speed again.
Offline
My brain has been offline for a few days now that I got ill. I've been trying to do some programming etc. but can't really concentrate on that. I have mostly done some more "research", ie. played Super Mario Galaxy, Supreme Commander and Tron 2.0, watched some movies, read books etc.
I hope it's just a cold and not flu or something more serious, so I can be back soon!
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