Way back in July I wrote this simplified Super Mario Brothers 3 game for the Mini Ludum Dare (a 48 hour mini-competition) that month.  The theme of the competition was a game based on a movie.  The movie that I picked was “The Wizard,” which is a movie about some kids who hitchhike across several states playing Nintendo games — so this would have been a video game about a movie about video games.

Originally I was going to have elements from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon (both also featured in the movie) all tied together with an arcade style game where you control Jimmy and play these mini-games against people.  I figured if I made the Super Mario Brothers 3 part (which is the final showdown against Lucas) then I could easily adapt that to make the other parts.

All-in-all it was a little over ambitious, but I think I could have possibly pulled it off if I actually had two full days.  That saturday I went to watch a movie with friends, so I really only had one of the two days to work with.  I am, however, still very satisified with how much was accomplished in such a short amount of time.

Arrow Keys makes mario run, ‘x’ key makes him jump.

Download “The Wizard – The Game.”

Requires Python and PyGame.

I just validated my theme and I’m proud to say that it checks out as valid XHTML and CSS.

Now, I have to decided what I actually want to accomplish with this site.  I was thinking about playing around with some low-to-no commitment projects.  Things that could be done just for fun.  These projects may include programming experiments, such as simulations or implementations of algorithms, or I could just have a little fun with random sketching, drawing, and simple 3D modeling.

One possible course of action I thought about was creativity and inspiration exercises.  These will include drawing and writing a lot of random garbage to help get me going.  The goal is not so much to create anything good, but instead to get myself into the right mindset for being creative on something later.  Since most of what I make will, undoubtedly, be not so great, only a very small subset of this work might actually be shown.

I added some pages and links to the blog.  Soon I’ll be actually adding some content … I hope!

I need to think about doing the following:

• Creating pages so my links do not result in 404′s.
• Tweak a few parts of the theme that could stand to look a little better.
• Thoroughly test the theme to make sure the format always looks good.
• Customize my blogroll with my own links.

I have my new theme up and running.  There may still be a bit of debugging and other tweaks, but things seem to be looking nice.  I’ll have to run a few tests before anything is really finalized.

Of course, I would greatly appreciate any comments on how to make the site look and function better.

I started hacking together the html for my blog theme.  It still has a long ways to go, but I’m somewhat satisfied by how it’s turning out already.  Maybe sometime in the next few days I will be able to replace this theme with the one I’m making.

A few days ago I started to work on a custom theme for my blog.  At the moment I just have a mockup in The Gimp, but I’m beginning to like how it’s comming out.  It still might have a little ways to go before it’s internet ready.

I just got my website up and running.  I have wordpress and a theme and I’m about to get going.

I’m not certain what this website will have in store for it.  I do know, however, that I need it — especially while participating in programming competitions.  I cannot put files just anywhere!  I need a permanent home for my projects.