Well, I've been working on doing code cleanup the past couple of days and I'm very happy with the way things have been going. I've gotten my code to the point that I have started three different levels (Feeding Frenzy, Follow the Leader and today Fish Race) and I have not had to write a single bit of code to interact with DirectX.
Basically, I haven't had to do much thinking at all about DirectX and I can just focus on what game objects that particular level uses and how the logic of their interaction works. It's been very nice and I'm feeling a little more confident that I might actually have something that's half-way playable by the deadline of the contest.
Just for fun, here's a screenshot of the latest level that I've was working on today.
I made some good progress on it, but the sad part is that I now have three different game types that are all sort of playable but all of which need to be finished. I still have two days of this long weekend before me, so there's still hope that I get at least one of the levels fully playable before the three day weekend is over.
I'm still trying to decide how I want to post my code up here. I wanted to do some sort of tutorial, but to be honest, the tutorials I pointed to in an earlier post are basically my architecture, just rewritten in VB, so I don't see a lot of benefit just rehashing what those tutorials walk you through.
I also don't think that I necessarily have been developing games long enough to really recommend that people do things that way that I am. I still have so much to learn and I'm basically just doing things the way that I know how. So a lot to consider about posting my code.
I guess I could always just post a link for people to download my source code, but that's going to be available in the end anyway so I'm not sure it's something I need to be doing now. I'm sure I'll figure something out.
Oh, and before I forget, here's a little Express update as well. I noticed today that I wasn't able to exclude files from my project solution, the only option I had was to permanently delete them. That's a real pain, especially when I was trying to remove files to simulate my project in various stages while I considered making tutorials. Again, not a huge thing, but something I missed just a little from the full blown studio. I guess they have to keep some of the stuff out, just so people will still buy it. I know I'd have a hard time buying the full version after working with Express.