The Long, Slow Journey of Making an Olympics Game

[SecretAgentMan 37]

INTRO
*******************************************************************************************************
Olympians have their journeys. We hear about them only occasionally, fleeting stories that pop up when their sports catch the world's attention, and then off they go. But they are constantly, slowly, bit by bit, striving towards a dream. I also have an Olympic dream. However, I am already at the age where I no longer  have a realistic chance to qualify for the Olympics in most sports. Besides, I've never been that great of an athlete anyways, and I have like, a job and kids and all that other fun stuff that goes with most people's adulthood. So my Olympic dream is a little bit different. I want to make the ultimate Olympics sim/manager game. I want players to be able to take control of a country, develop a roster of athletes, and rocket to the top of the medal table. I want players to be able to bottle up a little bit of that Olympic energy and magic and release it whenever they want. I want to make something fun that I would enjoy playing. But I also hope to find others that would enjoy the same sort of endeavor and share it with them, too.

This isn't a new journey. I first started learning how to program in 2010 for the express purpose of making a Winter Olympics game. Eventually it morphed into a Summer and Winter Game. I have, on a number of occasions, run decent sims of the Olympics that I have been happy with. What I haven't ever been happy with, though, is the "career mode", where you would go through the grind of making your chosen country's roster of Olympians better and lead them up the medal table. And, like many journeys, it tends to fall off the pace at times and then ramp up into high gear when the Olympics come around. That's where this thread comes in.

I am hoping to slowly, methodically, rebuild my game' from the ground up. My goals are simple. I want to accomplish one task (even if it's a small one) per month, and I want to update/improve one of my many datasets once every...let's say two weeks to be safe. I plan to post about it here, in the hopes that public proclamations will help encourage me to keep my efforts going more regularly. I am also hoping that I will find some others along the way who are interested in playing such a game themselves- it would, after all, be nice to share this with people someday.

So please feel free to follow along, and I hope to keep you updated on my long, slow journey!
*****************************************************************************************************

GOALS
*****************************************************************************************************
September 2024 Main Goal
-Make my opening title screen fully sizable for a variety of monitor sizes

September 2024 Dataset Goals
-Archery Dataset Updated
-Alpine Skiing (Slalom) Dataset Updated

(I am giving myself until September for these first goals because just posting about and watching the Olympics has kept me very busy as of late, and I have to knuckle down on my actual job in the coming weeks)
*******************************************************************************************************

STANDARD PROMO
******************************************************************************************************
if you like what you see and want to be updated when I have the game ready for release, please sign up here:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbCUqoLWr4u59JGoJTy-TwQAKSVPk2VG3G0PvpSk0n2UVy1g/viewform?usp=sf_link

[SecretAgentMan 37]

 My first "goal" update isn't due until the end of the month on this project, but I have completed a couple of databases in August, so I thought I would share those. This is a detailed process because I am trying to add all 206 IOC nations into the databases (I previously had just 60), and because I am also trying to make the data more robust in many ways. I completed Archery and Artistic Swimming (formerly known as synchronized swimming).

Here are the top 20 in Archery (which is responsible for 5 gold medal events in each Olympics), and in Artistic Swimming, which is responsible for 2 gold medal events)

Reminder: 99 is MAX

               
Worth pointing out in Artistic Swimming that Russia is in 5th despite having been banned from competition entirely for the last 2 years. That's how dominant they were before!

 

STANDARD PROMO
******************************************************************************************************
if you like what you see and want to be updated when I have the game ready for release, please sign up here:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbCUqoLWr4u59JGoJTy-TwQAKSVPk2VG3G0PvpSk0n2UVy1g/viewform?usp=sf_link

[SecretAgentMan 37]

September 2024 Update
************************************************** ************************************************** ***
My goals for this project are modest. I don't anticipate getting a lot done each month, because of all of the other things I do day-in/day-out at work and at home. So I feel a bit weird posting such modest updates. But, well, that's precisely the hope, is that I keep doing SOMETHING each month. So I'm happy to report that I achieved my September Goals. In particular...I was able to make the game work such that the player has the ability to re-size the screen to whatever configuration they would like. I haven't polished every detail, but the mechanisms and code to do so are in place.

Additionally, I got two databases completed: Archery and Artistic Swimming. I worked on Alpine Skiing databases (there are separate ones for Speed and Slalom evens), but I didn't get those finished just yet.

Here are some pictures showing the re-sizing tests.

So now that's done, what's next? Well, part of making my game such that all countries are playable means that I need all flags/national anthems/etc. That's my next modest goal.
GOALS
************************************************** ************************************************** *
October 2024 Main Goal
-Download / properly resize all 206 current IOC flags

October 2024 Dataset Goals
-Alpine Skiing (Slalom) Dataset Updated
-Alpine Skiing (Speed) Dataset Updated
************************************************** ************************************************** ***

STANDARD PROMO
************************************************** ************************************************** **
if you like what you see and want to be updated when I have the game ready for release, please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...rm?usp=sf_link

Edited September 28 by SecretAgentMan

[SecretAgentMan 37]

 October 2024 Update
************************************************** ************************************************** ***
I was nervous earlier in October that I might have nothing to show this month, because I could tell that the database work wasn't going well. (Indeed, I did nothing on the databases)

However, I got a modest bit of programming done, and I'm pretty excited about it, because it's something that makes the game considerably more professional. In the past, all of my country flags have been hard-coded into the game as sprites, and I then called up the appropriate flag using code. However, in most sim manager games that I've played, the graphics are included in an external file and then called up from that file during the game. That way, a modder can improve or alter the sprites, bring them into the game, and it's an easy way for the user to be able to customize and better their playing experience.

So that's what I did this month! I was able to figure out how to do that, and I now have it set up to run the flag sprites off of an external file. The pictures below represent some different looks in-game, and all that I did was change the external file.

So now that's done, what's next? Flags are working off of files...how about National Anthems? I'm going to search for public domain national anthem recordings this month.

GOALS
************************************************** ************************************************** *
November 2024 Main Goal
-Find public domain recordings of all national anthems and program to run from an external files

November 2024 Dataset Goals
-2 data sets (not sure which ones) updated
************************************************** ************************************************** ***

STANDARD PROMO
************************************************** ************************************************** **
if you like what you see and want to be updated when I have the game ready for release, please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...rm?usp=sf_link