The course that had been taken but doesn’t exist in 2008′s curriculum will have an equivalent course. For example, Discreet Mathematics no longer exist, replaced by Discreet Structure (what? Structure!?) with the same credits. So, in the transcript, I had taken Discreet Structure with the same score as my no-longer-exist Discreet Mathematics’s score.

So, the paragraph above is not the bad news. Now for the bad news : Practical Work (or Kerja Praktek in Indonesian) course is now only 1 credit worth. What!? I’ve worked 2 month just for measly 1 credit !? And I still have to make the report and presentation!?

CMIIW, but I really think that working 2 month at a REAL workplace is worth MUCH more than those Technical Writing course (which is a lame english course with 3 credits). The one who create this Curriculum must have a few screw loose on his/her head.

Well… I lied.

Although, it’s not fully a lie. I did try to explore the Starter Kit, but it was too much hassle to do so, and lots of file to look into. So, instead of trying to understand something that has been built by someone else, why don’t I try to create it myself? With the help of “Beginner’s Guide to XNA” DVD and Microsoft XNA Unleashed book, here is what I create after one day of trial, error, and success (mind you that the “success” word in here is important, most people forgot this word and said “trial and error”) :

Just click on the images above to get the description on what the images all about. Here’s the review on what’s done :

-2D Texture load & drawn

-2D Texture Animation

-Fade

-Scale

-Sprite Font (or Text.. duh)

-Parallax Movement : the avatar stands still, but the background moves, but in other’s perspective, the avatar had moved.

-Split screen

I’ll see you next time with something that gives more… feast to the eyes.

Now, for the main event… *drum rolls* Let’s look at this nicely scanned image!

The Ar Tonelico world.. et cetera and so forth. Who cares about the background story anyway, just play Ar Tonelico : Melody of Elemia, and you’ll get it. Oh yeah, the dating sims.. euh.. diving system is still there (so you’d better revisit every place for talk topics), now there can be more than one reyvateils on battle, which means you’ll get a powerful synchronized songs and… hey, this is not a review site, why should I talk about that?

Read the last paragraph, mortals!

It’ll be released on December! Together with Persona 4, it’s gonna be an interesting holiday.

This morning, 5AM to be exact, I was forced to leave my dreamy pillow (by my parent) and bed to go to a certain place. Where, you say? A certain place that I only visit at certain time, mostly international holiday, and that is… the church.

Still quarter-awake (worse than half-awake), the Father come to the altar and gives us (the follower of God?) an opening sermon. “Intensi misa pagi ini untuk mendoakan seorang putra agar sukses dalam studi serta meraih kebahagiaan dalam hidup”. Do getting a girlfriend counts as “meraih kebahagiaan dalam hidup”? If not, poor guy, the Father gives him the blessing that he himself doesn’t need.

So, this day is someone’s birthday, can’t say I give a damn about it. Wait, whose birthday is it again? “oh well, I’ll remember it this afternoon”, while going to the bed for sleep part two. Can’t sleep well after that though, so many messages come to my handphone, which of course will be ignored as long as I’m still sleepy.

But then something hit my brain. Oh yes, I remember now, this day is the birthday reminder of someone that I know well.

<and the story ends without any epilogue………>

K, for the story, today I got the XNA Game Studio’s pack from my friend, which includes the game studio installer (obviously), 4 e-book regarding XNA, 1 DVD image that contains yet another tutorial, an RPG Starter Kit which actually was downloaded by me (but I delete the file when making space on my HDD). Need anything else? Other than some snack and coffee, I don’t think so.

The thing is… I failed even on the first step of creating a game, which is…. installing the oh-so-powerful XNA Game Studio. Why? Don’t ask me, ask Windows
after searching on the net, here is the troubleshooting made by Emily… *the drum rolls*

It seems a lot of people have been hitting this issue, but the thread which originally discussed it has gotten a little cluttered.

Why do people get this issue in the first place? Who’s the one that make Windows? Microsoft. Who’s the one that make XBOX dan XNA? Microsoft. I know you can inference something from that two statement…

You should only be hitting this scenario if you installed the beta OR if you have some Windows games that requires Games for Windows - LIVE, such as Shadowrun, Halo 2 Vista, Gears of War, Viva Pinata for PC, etc.

nope, haven’t installed any of it

Have you tried uninstalling, either through Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs in XP or Control Panel (non-Classic view) -> Programs: "uninstall a program" in Vista, the entry under "Microsoft Games for Windows - LIVE Redistributable".

Ah, so that’s the problem. But why I have this Windows – LIVE in the first place if I haven’t installed anything? Must be the auto-update fault.

Stay tuned for the next post.. Exploring the RPG Starter Kit. When will it be? Somewhen. (if you’re confused, if there are somehere, somehow, somewhat; then there must be somewho, somewhen and somewhy with the 5W1H rule)