Diary file for Pushy (Pushy I, PushyPlus, Pushy II, (III/IV?))

I'm keeping notes, so's anyone can see what an embarrasingly long time
this game took to put together. There're oodles of reasons for this:
(1) It's my first big Arc program
(2) I've got to write map editors, etc as I go
(3) Acorn's documentation is so APPALLING!
(4) This is strictly weekends only, and then only if there's nothing else
	on (eg - Wimbledon, Wolfenstein)

I chickened out of including it with Pushy I, so the whole thing's going
        in Pushy II.
        
 Dear Diary
============
30-4-94:  Start. Design a rough chite in Paint. Grab as raw data.
           Print it on screen.
7-5-94:   Print 20*12 map. Add border timer. Repeat every fly until Keypress.
14-5-94:  Put a masked sprite on. (general routine, with bleed). Flips screen.
21-5-94:  Multiple sprites. Object table.
          Objects keep moving till they hit a 16-boundary. Solid Walls.
          Solid packing cases. Level complete check. 
          
*** And that's the game finished! (allegedly) ***
          
28-5-94:  Time out. Need a map editor.

... Tydirium, the desktop map editor, coming soon (?) to a PD lib near you! ...

20-8-94:  Back again. 10+ levels designed.
28-8-94:  Proper sprite frames (all in Paint). Lots and lots and lots of them.
9-10-94:  A little bit of sound research.
16-10-94: 25 maps in & tested. Nice Charset ("Splash" font from Artworks)
22-10-94: Collate levels into one big file. Level name print. Bonus countdown.
26-10-94: Midweek: Put in a temp frontend for the show

*** "RELEASE" #0.01 *** Demo showing at the AU London Show ***

5-11-94:  Time off from Wolfenstein... Text/Fade Colour tables
26-11-94: FishNet floppy disk labels!
4-12-94:  Wipe fades in/out & glass menu boxes
11-12-94: Passwords
18-12-94: Score, Highscore. Finished bar the SFX.
30-12-94: Sound. Also the "Screen160" module.
7-1-95:   Plugged SFX into game. Tidied Up. Finished. Wahey!
15-1-95:  Mastering program (ie - copy everything bar the source to a floppy)
          Hi res !sprites sprite

===================================================
*** RELEASE #1.00 *** Datafile Cat#24 and GA059 ***
===================================================

16-4-95:  "Level load" capability for PushyPlus

...Tydirium now has proper Risc-Os Load & Save...

*** "RELEASE" #1.01, AKA "PushyPlus", sent off to a couple of people ***

7-5-95:   AU Show, and Pushy's rave (well, good, anyway) review. (AU June '95)
	(Also, release of the Risc-PC-only "Fire" demo)
	

3-6-95:   ArtWorks-ed lego level graphics for Pushy II
17-6-95:  Regrabbed FishNet logo in 24 bit, & mapped down to 256 cols
           with ChangeFSI. Much better.

...Huge gap in schedule while I get Tydirium up to spec...

19-8-95:  FishNet tee-shirt!

10-9-95:  Back to PushyII again. Wimp front end bit.
24-9-95:  Auto screen-mode selection & return to Wimp.
          Kill the caret so Zap doesn't get filled with keypresses on exit.

1-10-95:  Artworks-ed the blob sprite.

8-10-95:  Rest of the graphics. Multi-mode sprite prints.
          "changed area only" update stuff ('cos hi-res 24 bit full screen
          takes 3/50 sec otherwise!)

15-10-95: Tydirium -> PushyII multi-map grabber utility, in BASIC

 Brief pause for a trip to San Francisco to get BRR working under
 Windows '95: Hard life we games programmers lead, eh?
 -Also means there's no way Pushy II's going to be demo-able at the AU show. 

 -In fact, it meant I didn't get to the show at all.
 Plus on returning, Voyager had arrived, so I spent a couple/three/four
 weeks messing about on the Internet. So work slows down a bit till the
 Xmas break... (and indeed, during it...)

2-12-95:  Error handling, Event handling. Keyboard up/down handling.
17-12-95: Solid wall detection & blob-animation selection
24-12-95: All the game's back in (pushing crates, etc)
30-12-95: The new hi-res font's almost there.

Grief, this is taking ages! I'm spending way too much time on the net & not
enough coding!

More delays for Tydirium, 'cos it needs to have "paint-brush" style editing
to be usable...

25-2-96:  25 rough levels.

More time wasting on the 'net... Oh dear.

24-3-96:  25 nice levels.
3-4-96:   "Preview screenshot" of Pushy 2 & Tydirium on the Web site.

Yeah, ok, building the WWW site meant even *more* time wasting
I'll do some code soon, honest...

5-4-96:   Ascii printing in hires,24bit.
          Countdown timer & level name display.
          Level complete check.

Bugger Bugger Bugger, the bloody StrongArm doesn't support selfmod code.

28-4-96:  Vari-colour text in 24 & 8 bit modes
          Gamma-correction fade on RPC
          Wipe fade from P1 adapted for hi-res use for non-RPC

4-5-96:   Front end screen printing, & copy the Pushy 1 menu structure...

16-5-06:  I'm not going to miss *another* Acorn show to go to America.
          So, no E3 for me! ;)
          
18-5-96:  Glass boxes in 24 bit. It's not gonna be finished for this show, either!
19-5-96:  Wakefield show. Pushy II previewed, briefly, on the Datafile stand.
          Glass boxes in 256 hires, & lores.

...Right. Bank holiday weekend. Let's go to work...

25-5-96:  Password input. StrongARM cache workaround (in theory).
26-5-96:  SoundFX from P1. Score. Highscore.
27-5-06:  Tweaks in movement speed. Text redraw only if necc. Error handling.
          "Levels" menu created. level name check. hiscore reset on level change.
30-5-96:  Checked on A3000. Good job too - The menus don't auto-width on ROS3.1
          & mode 28 doesn't flipscreen!
1-6-96:   Bug fix with ball stopping-distances.

========================================================
*** RELEASE #2.00 *** (Website. FTP & PD Libs to follow)
========================================================

(13-7-96:  Tydirium "pre-alpha" release, website only)

25-7-96:  email from Acorn to say P2 don't work on StrongArm :(
27-7-96:  Movement-code bug reported on usenet's csa.games. :~(
28-7-96:  "Proper" StrongArm versions of the Ascii routines.
          Ported the old Pushy1 levels over to Pushy2 format.
          Work started on the Pushy II.V "AllBlack" level set.
6-8-96:   Wahey, it works on the StrongArm!
          (thanx: Dave Walker & James Abela at Acorn)
8-8-96:   P2 appears on AW cover disc

10-8-96:  Now loads in "lesser" graphic files if the 24-bit/hires ones aren't
          there. (ie, you play the P1 levels with lores background & hires
          sprites)

11-8-96:  The "info" box is now draggable (oops!)
          Done the V2.00 -> V2.10 upgrader program

==========================================================
*** RELEASE #2.10 ***
==========================================================
