Wifey took a little min-vacation this weekend (she works, hard, I like to give her as many weekends off as possible) so I've been home alone with all four boys. So, I did what any normal guy does when he's changing diapers, making breakfast, lunch and dinner and breaking up fights for four boys...I started coding a new game.
I had been standing looking at my bookshelf, trying to decide which of my new books I should start reading, when my eye fell on an old PC game I had purchased quite a while ago. It was called "Conquered Kingdoms" (although a misprint on the front of the box spelled it "Conqured Kingdoms") and it was installed from 3.5" disks. So yeah, it's a pretty old game. (I won't mention some of the 5 1/4" floppy games I have laying around...). I found a pretty good review of the game on this (enter at your own risk) random site here.
I used to have so much fun playing this game. It's a military strategy game with a fantasy twist. I can't even begin to imagine how many late nights I had working on beating the computer A.I. on the various random maps it could generate.
So as I stood there staring at the box and remember the fun I had, I started thinking. Then I stopped thinking and I yelled, "Boys! Stop fighting!", then I tried to remember what I was thinking about and then I thought to myself, "What in the world am I holding in my hands?" and I looked down and it was this old PC game that I used to play called Conquered Kingdoms (although a misprint on the front of the box spelled it...wait.. :) welcome to my life!).
![CropperCapture[32]](http://www.xnadevelopment.com/livewriter/AKingdomtoConquer_12DFC/CropperCapture32.png)
Realizing the boys weren't going to stop fighting until I turned the water hose on them, my train of thought got back on track. And once it was on track, I really got an urge to see if I could recreate the game play of Conquered Kingdoms. And there went my Saturday. I didn't get a lot done, the boys and I got a bit distracted playing an XBLCG we purchased called Sharky's Air Legends (I highly recommend you check it out). But I did get a good start!
Who knows, maybe I'll get another Saturday urge and I can pick this project up again someday. Until then, I've made it available for download with what I have done (and I'm telling, you, it's really not much), but I figured I'd share anyway. So you can download it from here.
I had a lot of fun just thinking through things and I filled quite a few pages of a notebook designing various parts of it and planning for the future. All in all a pretty good day. I hope everyone else is having a pretty relaxing weekend too.
Any cool projects that you're working on?