The first steps

The first idea for the Life of the Samurai came about while fooling around with java. This was during my first weeks of learning how to code at the university. 

We had the task to make any kind of small game, and being a fan of Rome Total War at the time, I boldly decided to try and recreate the battle mode in 2D. That turned out to be a horribly bad idea.

Not only did I lack the programming skills, but the task required a better understanding of some mathematical concepts, especially geometry, then I had at the time. This, of course, lead to an unfinished project and a head shake from the professor when I tried to turn this in:

Some soldiers standing idly in a line, on a googled background. Oh, and in the bottom right, well, those were spinning soldiers. Spinning soldiers poorly rendered.

Well, it was a start.

Nevertheless, trying to solve the positioning and movement problem turned out to be a great way to learn some of those things I didn't know, like the relation between cos, sin and tan, or the workings of pathfinding and/or positioning algorithms like the Hungarian Algorithm - which is now the heart component of the Battle Mode (which we will discuss in detail later on).

So that's when I realized that game making is a lot more than just fun or work. It's an opportunity to learn. To learn arts - graphics design and drawing, sounds design, animations and skeletal models, user interaction and storytelling, the mood and the feel. To learn complex concepts - historical concepts, mathematical concepts, organizational concepts, resource management concepts. The list goes on.  And all of this, while having fun and a rewarding result! Clearly there was no better way to go.

Thus began the quest to making Life of the Samurai.