Getting life back on track ...

I need to turn the steering left ... until it gets back on the road ... let the steering go and let it auto rotate to center itself ... and then just push gently on the accelerator ... and let it cruise ...

Only, I am not driving a car ... its my life ... and there is no power steering ...

The past couple of weeks were just hectic ... as I had said before ... single minded, rodent like obsession ... about the ... game !
And it did pay dividends in the end ... If I may be allowed, a little chest thumping is in order ... "First in State"

Now, that does really sound good ...

Anyways, the entire journey wasn't very smooth going and us winning was very unexpected ...
Here is the rundown ...

We made this "Foosball" game for this "game development contest" held annually at the Sinhagad College of Engg. which is renowned for two things : One of the most picturesque campuses you will ever see ... and the ultimate, back wrenching, pot holed filled 20 km ride to get to the college ...

We were informed about the contest one week late by these Sinhagad College guys, and so, just had one week to come up with a working model of the game ...

After a lot of deliberation and killing a few of my fellow classmates, we decided to make the "Foosball" game of the "Friends" fame ...

So, after a week, we finished ... and submitted 70% of compiled code to these people for the elims ... only to have learnt we have been disqualified ... as more than 2 teams ( 3 according to them ) had participated from our college ...
This was very strange ... and I was to later realise that they had conveniently confused us with a Modern College ... whereas our college was Modern Education Society's College of Engg.

So, after killing a few more people at Sinhagad ... and explaining to the others ... that we were in no way related to the 'other' Modern College, we managed to get our entry cleared ...

We qualified for round 1 ...

During this period ... we coded a bit more ... type type type type ... and the code reached the magic figure of 2500 lines of code ...

We then took our copies and headed towards the beautiful and picturesque campuses of Sinhagad ...

Once there, after explaining our game to 3 judges ... who were least bothered ... and I believe, slept through our presentation, we underwent, one of the most grueling rounds of cross examination ....

These judges might have been taking out all the 'khun-nas' which their external examiners took out on them ... and really killed us ...

Here is a part of a conversation ...
( Seeing a game option : Ball speed )
Judge : What is this option for ?
We : Sir, this option controls the speed of the ball in the game ...
Judge : What is the default value ?
We : Sir, 6 ... gives you good game playability ...
Judge : What data type is it ?
We : ... umm ... Integer ...
Judge : Ok ... put 32,000 there ...
We : huh ? ( never expected that to come ... )
Judge : Lets see what happens in your game ...

( So we put 32,000 in the ball speed which had a default speed of 6 ... how were we supposed to expect a maniac entries ? ... and the game goes for a toss ... no collision detection ... all the players and the ball just vibrate on the screen )

Judge : What is this happening ?
We : Umm .... um ... huh ... hmm ... Sir, the ball is moving so fast ... that it is not coming in contact with the players ... and therefore there is no collision detection ...
Judge : Oh ... that way ...

Surprisingly, he bought that answer ...

But the other judges also took our case ... We were sure of not qualifying ...
Other teams had made Contra type shooter ( ripping all the bmps from the original game itself ) and another team had made a proper football game ...

Surprisingly, we came 2nd in the elims ...

We came home that night ... coded ... coded ... and coded ...
Implemented tonnes of new features ... including letting the player customize his own field ... select playback music track ... and put all the maniac error checking ...

Went again next day for the finals ...
The judges were different and two were actually from IBM ...

However, they didn't take our case .... but didn't show any interest in our program either ...
The IBM guys slept through our presentation ... and we predicted our doom ...

However, when the results were announced, we came first ... the Contra guys who had come first in Round 1 came third ... and the Football guys came second ...

I later heard .. that the judges were really impressed with the way we had made the game ...
Everything modular .. classes ...
We had thrown in some interrupts also ... were able to play music in the background ... along with foreground music ... and everything ...

The rest is all history ...
The trophy is in the showcase, money in the bank ... and I might have finally something to put on my resume ...

This entire incident has restored my faith in the saying "If you can dream it, you can do it"
Nothing seems impossible anymore ...

After 10 days of mad programming, 3000 lines of code ... and a very playable game ... just have to get my life back on track ... complete a few overdue assignments ... and study for some orals ...