Retrospective VIII

Last year, I conducted a simple retrospective for 2015. Therefore, here is a retrospective for 2016.

2016 Achievements

Complete first Sega Master System video game 3D City using C/Z80 assembler Enter 3D City into Sega Master System annual coding competition for this year Complete Retro Candy Kid blog topics such as Press Release and WiX Installer Integrate IPv6-only Networking into Unity3D code base using the Lidgren API Document SVN Externals to scale out single game code library across clients Create repositories on GitHub and publish source code from various projects Scale Push Notifications application across iOS / Android improved efficiency Transition existing C++ OpenGL tutorial studies to new Vulkan graphics API Note: reviewed game project in C / Z80 assembler for Sega Master System is an achievement!

2017 Objectives

Complete another Sega Master System video game that can run on real hardware Integrate Git Submodules similar to SVN Externals to scale out code across clients Evaluate monetization plugins for MonoGame / XNA game projects e.g. Purchases Check out opportunity to incorporate Virtual Reality in Unity3D game engine code

2016, as every Virtual Reality evangelist will tell you, was the year of VR. Game Engines such as Unity5 attempt to ease development transition to VR by adding Virtual Reality Supported checkbox to Settings. However, repairing breakages from Unity4 to Unity5 game project upgrade is often challenging enough.

Homebrew
Outside commercial game development, homebrew projects continue to be very popular: SMS Power hosted its annual Sega Master System coding competition and attracted more than two dozen entries.

This provided great opportunity to complete first Sega Master System video game 3D City using z88dk. Unfortunately, the game runs only in emulator. R+D has begun to ensure games run on real hardware.

Summary
Another busy year coding from Z80 assembler to C/C++ to C#/.NET certainly does keep life interesting!