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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Dark A.I. Mini Competition

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 31st May 2006 21:22 Edited at: 3rd Aug 2006 13:07
Hi all,

There is a NEW DEADLINE (see below)

To celebrate the release of Dark A.I. we are holding a mini competition surrounding it. The competition starts on June 1st 2006 and you have until the 31st of August 2006 to submit your entry (the date was originally the 31st of July, but we have allowed this to increase by 4 weeks due to popular demand)

The rules of the competition are very straight forward - create a program using Dark A.I. that shows off what it is really capable of. Your program can be a demo (like the one we produced), or a game. The choice is yours, but it must demonstrate good use of A.I! We have three prizes on offer:

1st Prize An ATI Radeon X800XL graphics card + Dark Physics
2nd Prize An ATI Radeon X700 Pro graphics card + Dark Physics
3rd Prize Dark Physics

The forum community will rate your entry (much in the same way the Puzzle Compo worked) using this forum. The winners will be announced in the September newsletter.

Rules

1. You must enter a compiled EXE that runs stand-alone. Do not wrap it in an installer of any kind.

2. Your program and media can be archived into a zip file no large than 15 MB in size. The zip file MUST be capable of being unzipped with Winzip. No other archive format is permitted (so no rars, 7zip, etc).

3. Your program should work with a standard keyboard and mouse set-up.

4. Any media used in your program should either be created by you, or used with full permission, or be 100% royalty free. Stolen media will disqualify your entry.

5. You must include the full source code for others to learn from. No code, no entry.

6. By entering you give TGC the right to use your program on their web sites, or other related media. You retain full copyright over your program and source code at all times.

How to submit your game

You have two options.

1) You can email it to me - rich@thegamecreators.com

2) You can FTP it to our server (ftp.thegamecreators.com), upload it to the 'incoming' directory (login: anonymous, password: blank), then email me to tell me it is up there.

Eitherway, you must email me so I have your game name + email address associated together. The winners will be announced in the OCTOBER newsletter (because the deadline is too close to the September issue to make it in that one). That will give us 4 weeks to judge the entries.

That's it - any other questions, post them here please. Please note that this competition is open to those who have purchased Dark A.I. only. We will not be creating a 'trial' version in time for the end of this competition, sorry.

Cheers,

Rich

Bite my shiny metal ass
Habatar
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Posted: 31st May 2006 22:26
Wow. The competitions seams very good. I will start whit my project now .

One question. How I submit the "game"? attached to a forum post or I need to use a external server?
Thanks.
Richard Davey
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 00:18
I will announce the upload instructions soon, but yes if the forum upload feature works for you, that is certainly one way to do it.

Bite my shiny metal ass
Kenjar
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 03:03 Edited at: 1st Jun 2006 03:08
Aww that's a shame, I always use RAR files, they are often slightly smaller, and WinRAR supports everything under the sun. Mind it also supports ZIP files,

Sounds like a great compo, I'll definately give it ago, apart from anything else I could do with a good graphics card.

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The Nerd
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 11:57 Edited at: 1st Jun 2006 12:06
Awsome I think I'm gonna enter. Already got some plans. So let's see if I can get it finished in time!

But I got a question. Is it okay to use something like Nuclear Glory collision? Because when we have to include the source, people would not be able to compile it without owning Nuclear Glory.

Chenak
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 12:56
They can compile it with the nuclear glory plugin if you include the dll and import code, which has a time limit, as long as you remember make sure not to include the serial number
The Nerd
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 12:57
Quote: "They can compile it with the nuclear glory plugin if you include the dll and import code, which has a time limit, as long as you remember make sure not to include the serial number"


Ah yes, I totally forgot that And of course I won't include my serial

Cheers.

Lukas W
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 14:02
nice competition, i purchased a major pack yesterday in which darkAI is included. i wonder when i will get my order approved :/ when i get it i would like to enter

the x800xl sounds tempting but i just tried out a x800gto, which didn't actually work because my PSU was too weak.

so what happens if you win and you know you cannot use the graphics card (like me, not having the required PSU power), or if it's AGP and you have PCI-E, or if you allready own DarkPhysics, (also like me).

anyway, i think i may do a "thief" type of game, only you're using guns instead of melee, and i may add some newton physics to it

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MiR
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 14:36
Quote: "so what happens if you win and you know you cannot use the graphics card"

You buy a new PSU.If you canĀ“t afford that sell the card on ebay.

Need path finding in your games? Have a look at the tutorials on www.telefonica.net/web2/paskyprog/.
Lukas W
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 14:37 Edited at: 1st Jun 2006 14:40
awww..:S i was hoping i could get a quadsli geforce 8700gtxultra.

edit,
did i really reply 1 min after your post?

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Dark Eternity
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 15:12
you need a quad sli motherboard not a graphics card...

anyway that is a shame because I wanted to enter my game into it but I will not have the money for the AI in time, the engine is ready the graphics is ready the size is 14mb but I have no AI...

at least I already have an ATI Mobility Radeon X700

anyway what is the MB of the graphic cards...

if 256mb or 512mb I might try and get some extra money in for it

I am DarkEternity (DE for short) OWNER OF ANIRE!!!
We are looking for a coder, modelers etc
coolgames
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 16:59
You can buy a psu on ebay for pretty cheap.

geecee3
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 17:50 Edited at: 1st Jun 2006 17:51
please use loafs properly,

It's irrelevant if the prizes are of any use to you or your box, they are great prizes period, so no need to get all hypothetical with what-if's. Its taking part and having fun thats the main thing, if you win, bonus.

cheers, Grant.

PS. and please keep it on topic.

Ohd Chinese Ploverb say : Wise Eskimo, not eat yerrow snow.
Takis76
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 23:30
I am little newbie yet. But I will try to do something

I have some questions:

Could I use 3D models that I have create with my original programms which I have purchased as , TrueSpace 6.6 , Game Space 1.6 or
Creature Creator?

Other 3D models? (Purchased models as DarkMatter or other ones?)

Could I use , textures for the levels which I have create with
Texture Maker?

Could I use other third party plugins for the demo
as nuclear Glory for collisions?

Thank you.
Takis76
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 23:38
Quote: "
"They can compile it with the nuclear glory plugin if you include the dll and import code, which has a time limit, as long as you remember make sure not to include the serial number"
"


I am planing to use Nuclear Glory for collisions but after a short
time of 2 minutes about , collision stops and the player falls out of the level with the monsters to. (So A.I will be confused after this).

In this case, the Demo must be very small or not including collision in your Demo.

What happened in this case?

Kenjar
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Posted: 1st Jun 2006 23:49
Well for starters this is a compo for the best Dark AI based game. You can setup Dark AI so it detects if it comes in contact with a static object, an enemy object or projectile. Try to keep as much of your program within the Dark AI system as possible and you might well find that you don't need 3rd party plugin's like NG.

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 05:55
Takis76 - Please read Rule number 4, it covers all of your questions. If you made it, you can use it. As for NGC, yes of course.

Bite my shiny metal ass
Pulsar Coder
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 08:20
Quote: "I am planing to use Nuclear Glory for collisions but after a short
time of 2 minutes about , collision stops and the player falls out of the level with the monsters to. (So A.I will be confused after this)."


As you must provide an stand-alone executable just include the serials before compiling it and other players won't see that happen.

Then, in the source code -to be provided for learning purpouses, just exclude your serials (that is, leave the three sets of 0's) and include some comments warning the user that if he/she tries to compile the code NGC, it will run in demo mode and bla, bla, bla ... unless they include their serials -provided they are NGC registered users.

Is this ok?
Lukas W
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 09:03
i was thinking about using Newton Physics in my entry, but someone i talked to told me that DarkAI does not recognize dynamic objects.

will that bring my entry down due to the ai moving through objects instead of moving around them?

i haven't got darkAi yet, i hope to get it today. it's been 2 days now since i ordered :/

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zircher
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 15:48
I just read through the Dark AI help file and there is a command specifically designed to help you integrate any physics system. And, the help file mention is several place how you would integrate a physics system with Dark AI. TGC was good enough to make the hooks generic so that you don't have to buy only their products.
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Kenjar
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 18:26
Can you make more then one entry?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 2nd Jun 2006 18:29
Yes you can enter as many times as you like, but you can only win one prize.

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Lukas W
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2006 19:30
i've been trying to use both newton and darkAI. but that is close to impossible or maybe i'm not that good yet.

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Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2006 20:29 Edited at: 3rd Jun 2006 20:32
My problem with Newton was the near impossibility of controlling a 3rd person entity. I'm sure someone with better skills than I could do it, but I asked the question a couple times on the Newton forum and it hadn't been done. I used an Up-Vector joint, which was cool, but I would get crazy Y axis rotation. I finally, and sadly, dropped it.

Dark Physics handles characters specifically. This will make it totally possible to do so.

I think you could do something a little different that just might work, though. Now, with Newton, I imagine that you could have ellipses as the character bodies. The DBP object they'd be bound to would be an ellipse as well, but you'd need to hide it. The y rotation of said ellipse would be nearly impossible to control. So, you read the Dark AI X and Z position and apply forces to the ellipse in that direction. Then you position the DBP object in the same place, at the Y-angle reported by Dark AI.

That's bloody brilliant! Without Dark AI it's not possible, as the Y angle of the character is dependant on the object, but DarkAI figures out the angle by itself. With the proper joint, it should be pretty easy to orient the model to the ellipse. The Y angle orientation would be absolute, while the world position would be relative.

Sadly, I don't think I'll get to test it out. I'll probably just buy Dark AI and do something similar later.

[edit]
Make sure your world scale is big enough, or Newton will act like crap because of floating point errors! My first Newton project, I used a tiny scale. Characters were like, 1.4 units high. That was a bad idea. Use about 60 units per character. I think of it as 1 foot=10 units. Practical, and easy to visualize. Unless you use metric, then go on with your bad self. I'm just stuck in an American rut.



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Lukas W
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Posted: 3rd Jun 2006 20:40 Edited at: 3rd Jun 2006 22:19
yea i have had problems too trying to make 3rd person view or more exactly AI using newton. (before dark ai was out). where i wanted the ai to move around and rotate at random. i quickly found out that the yaxis was very weird, or i did it the wrong way. the y angle would go from 180 to -180 and nothing past those angles. (90 to 0 to 270, where 90 to 180 to 270 didn't work). i asked this too on the newton forum, but the response i got was just as confusing as the problem itself

anyway, that is a great idea to use different objects on the ai object and the newton object. where the ai object do the rotation and moving, and the newton object will just be a hidden ellipse that doesn't need rotation but only follows the ai positions

(yea i had to rewrite what you said so i remember it better )

thanks for the tip!

edit,
that works, but DarkAI doesn't return if the AI Entity is strafing, so when the ai is strafing, Newton thinks it moves forward :/

and by using this method, there are other issues too. like if the newton object is colliding with another AI Newton object, the newton objects collide and they are positioned a little left or right of the AI Entity, and when the fps drops Newton have that thing where it tries to keep it's accuracy, so the newton objects move slower, and causes them to end up way behind of the DarkAI Objects..

aww..

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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 02:21
hold on, you have to have darkai to enter? theres no trial version or anything? i remember with the alienware contest, people could enter with special edition trial versions of DBP.

Richard Davey
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 02:37
Quote: "hold on, you have to have darkai to enter? theres no trial version or anything? i remember with the alienware contest, people could enter with special edition trial versions of DBP."


Not really the same scale of competition now is it?

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Kenjar
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 02:57 Edited at: 4th Jun 2006 02:58
Come on, they are giving away overĀ£300 worth of hardware and software, they've got to cover the cost somehow.

X800XL Card:
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3XZ5&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=x800xl&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0

X700 Card (couldn't find the pro version):
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3XJ9&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=x700&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0

and about Ā£25 per copy of DarkPhysics (I'm guessing it's around that price.)

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Freddy 007
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 03:23 Edited at: 4th Jun 2006 03:24
Quote: "and about Ā£25 per copy of DarkPhysics (I'm guessing it's around that price.)"


It's $59,99 and that's around Ā£32.15

I might buy the DarkAI+DarkPhysics bundle soon, I'll see if I can manage to put together something for this competition. I need a new graphics card...


EDIT : Typo

Medieval Coder
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 16:58 Edited at: 4th Jun 2006 17:05
A new graphics card would be nice...considering I only get 100 FPS max

Edit: What about shaders? I dont think that .fx shaders can be inside the .exe. So can we use them?
Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 19:38
Quote: "Not really the same scale of competition now is it?"


alienware or darkphysx - i know which i'd rather win, and if you havent worked it out yet, put it this way: i already have my own pc

oh well, i guess i'll just have to win (hopefully) the textbased rpg contest first, and then come back to this once the prize has been delievered.

Lukas W
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 21:22
i finally figured out how to use both newton and darkai at the same time.
it was very easy. so easy that i almost feel embarrased that i never though of it before

ps. is it ok if i use models from FPSC?

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Freddy 007
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 22:55
Quote: "ps. is it ok if i use models from FPSC?"


Yeah, or any media from FPSC at all?


Kenjar
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 01:32
Cheats. Make your own

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BatVink
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 14:48
Quote: "i finally figured out how to use both newton and darkai at the same time.
it was very easy. so easy that i almost feel embarrased that i never though of it before "


Please share! I haven't started with dark AI yet, but I will certainly want to use it with other systems like Physics.

Quote: "I'm just stuck in an American rut"

That would be the one that runs parallel to the British Rut then?!?! Anyone who uses metric just because they have 10 fingers is a wuss
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Teh Go0rfmeister
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 16:43
MeTrIx RuLeZ

Lukas W
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 16:59
darkai & newton:

load the AI mesh, assing darkAI to this object.
make a sphere and scale it as an ellipse, assign newton to this ellipse.

in your loop build body matrix at the DarkAI Object position and assign the ai body to this matrix.

the newton body will automatically adjust the invicible dbpro object which was assigned to the body to the correct position.

now when you have the newton body at the ai entity position, you can easily check for collision by getting the x and z velocity of the newton body, and you can cast a newton raycast to check if the entity is standing on the floor, or if it is standing in a hole, where it will be supposed to fall down.

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Zerk
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 21:00
I have two questions, I know they were both kinda touched uppon but it's still a bit unclear to me.

#1. Can I use my own DLL?

#2. Can I use media from FPSC since I own it and its royalty free?

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Richard Davey
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 21:03
Yes you can use FPSC Media.

You can use your own DLL providing you include it with the source code, so others can compile and run the code without any problems. Same goes for anyone wanting to use any other DLL.

Bite my shiny metal ass
Slayer93
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Posted: 7th Jun 2006 02:54
I think I may enter this if I finish my Retro Remake first

NARUTO IS THE NINJA.....not really
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Seeting
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Posted: 12th Jun 2006 21:58
Hi!

I know this is not the best topic to post my problem, but I cant run DarkAI's demo game... Error message is that: Could not find MFC71.dll ...

I dont know what have I do do to get this demo run...

Syntax Entertainment
BatVink
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 00:31
Have you upgraded DB Pro to 6.1, and DirectX to 9.0c, February 2006 release?



Seeting
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Oh, I didnt upgrade DB Pro to 6.1. I'm using the 5.8 version. Then that is the problem?

Syntax Entertainment
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 15:21
If you only want to run the demo game (.exe), I think it's a directX problem.

If you have purchased the dark ai plugin and you want to compile a code, you need to upgrade to DBPro 6.1. "Primary purpose of this upgrade is to make the compiler compatible with new licensed plugins".

Coding is dangerous for health ...
Scraggle
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Posted: 16th Jun 2006 23:22
I must congratulate whoever came up with this marketing idea, it is pure genius!
I assume there will also be a DarkPhysics compo and a DarkLight compo.


Kenjar
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Posted: 20th Jun 2006 02:11
What on earth is DarkLight?

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Olby
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Posted: 20th Jun 2006 23:50
@kenjar - Have you red this forum yet?

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BatVink
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2006 12:00
Just testing this thread...it's been stuck on 47 posts and blue, suggesting there are new posts, for several days now.



Cash Curtis II
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2006 12:40
That's been driving me crazy.


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Syncaidius
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2006 18:54 Edited at: 22nd Jun 2006 18:55
This competition is going to keep running til 31st July isnt it?

Im asking because I haven't seen any entries yet and i've just bought DarkAI yesterday and started working on my enrty today.

Just worrying a little bit, if its going to get cancelled or not when im half way through my entry.

Working on 2 projects: A Free Map/World Editor and my RTS game

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