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[shinygerbil]

 

Looks very impressive!

[PeterM]

Loving the style of this, Bezzy. Good luck!

[Tanner]

When you say trade-em-up, do you mean like Elite/Privateer?


If so, I'm sold.
If not... I'm sold.

[JP]

Lookin' sweet sir, keep up the excellent work!

[Hideous]

K2 is also the name of some martial arts thing.

[Shambrook]

K2 is also the name of some martial arts thing.

And the second highest mountin behind everest.

Also looks fucking sweet dude.

[shinygerbil]

K2 is also the name of some martial arts thing.

And the second highest mountin behind everest.

And probably the name of a robot, probably.

[Bezzy]

Fixed the crosshair angle issue yesterday. Also added the lockon mechanism, which has one slight bug, but then I had to sleep.

Turns out my teeth aren't rotting, but my upper left wisdom tooth is growing at a weird angle, and it cuts the inside of my cheek, and this has given me an infection. Today I am on antibiotics and painkillers. Next wednesday, I have a filling elsewhere.

When you say trade-em-up, do you mean like Elite/Privateer?

Not for the compo, but probably in the long run. It'll have less resources to trade, but those resources will be physical objects in the world, rather than abstract numbers in your hull (so, a bit like mana in Magic Carpet in that respect). The economy will also be properly fluctuating based on supply and demand, so taking loads of RED to a RED starved system is going to get you more money, but each sale gives diminishing returns. So yeah. A stripped down trading model, but done in order to focus on what's interesting about trading models, rather than what is just obfuscating detail. And in fact, there's no money. You directly trade resources for upgrades/other resources by flying through rings which have slots which the resources fit in. The upgrades allow you to do more damage, get new weapons, and travel faster and further into the universe, meeting increasingly tough enemies the further you move out (so, like Mount & Blade, in that respect).

[Bezzy]

Worked late at the office tonight... so probably no progress in tomorrow's post (might just fix the minor lockon bug, and start, but not finish, rockets), but I may do another little video. No promises, though.

After rockets, I have to work on enemies loads and loads.

[Bezzy]

Have to get some things nailed at the office today. But last night I got most of the framework for rockets going. After locking on (by drawing a loop around one or more enemies) and pressing fire, a fancy bezier spline path is generated from your craft to the enemy craft. Just have to add actual moving rocket entities and collision on the weekend.

After that, I have to get enemies started. That's going to be interesting... assigning them the weapons that the player already can owns etc.

[superflat]

Hi Bezzy,

Nice to see some details of your development process.  Feelings I know too well!  I'd love to know what language / SDK you're using.  I'm looking forward to your entry sir.

[Bezzy]

This is in XNA.

Holy crap. Just saw some of the stuff you posted for your compo - our games look somewhat similar!

This is the first time I saw yours though! Looking great!

[Rudolf Kremers]

This is good stuff Bezzy, you are getting alot done on what is not an easy entry.
Keep it up man.

[J.W. Hendricks]

I saw the video for the first one and wondered if it would ever be finished. Now your making a new one! Yay!

[Bezzy]

Thanks. Yeah. Things are going alright.

Over the weekend, I had down-time on saturday, but on Sunday I worked hard. I got in proper shields, proper rockets, and proper fireworks (but with a slight limit, or you get chain-fireworks which wipe out everything in the current wave), and made various other tweaks to graphical cues (although they're still all pretty ugly at the moment). Still have to fix the lockon angles, or people are going to confuse the lockon ring for a health bar.

With one week left, I have to prioritize, and I realize that the main procedural generation hook (apart from parametric geometry... which isn't so procudural if I'm honest) is missing! As well as higher level gameplay like scores and enemies who shoot back! There is not even a menu, or any way for the player to be killed!

Last night I started working on the waves. When an enemy is killed, it goes to the sin-bin, and remembers how it was killed. Next wave it is re spawned with upgrades based on how it was killed. The idea is that it may grow weapons, or simply connections with which it can attach to other bad guys to form a WarningForever style boss mashup.

That's going to be a fair bit of work, I have to say.

[Bezzy]

Felt really exhausted last night, and didn't do any work.

Going home now to get the basic waves working. From there I can start to flesh out the enemies a bit more (returning fire etc... though that'll still be a serious amount of work).

Eh. Deadline approaching. At least I have the weekend free.

[Bezzy]

Okay! Waves work. Kinda. Just need tweaking.

There's now a basic menu in place, but it needs fleshing out. Joystick is now supported, but given the choice of joystick and mouse, I'd go for mouse for the time being. I can do more for the joystick controls at a later date (some aim assistance, and allowing you to aim and steer slightly independently).

It seems to play pretty well, although I introduced a bug which stops the fireworks working consistently.

And I missed a dentist appointment, which means I have to have a filling next week, on my birthday. But on the plus side, we got internet at home, finally!

[Friendly Rhinoceros]

I don't know how it plays, but this is beautiful to look at.  I love the colors in the background.  My only concern is that, from the video, the enemies look a bit small/hard to hit.

I'll be waiting to try this one out.  Keep it up!

[Bezzy]

Thanks!

Yeah, at the moment, enemies are small, but the bullet collision is very forgiving, so it's not that tough to hit stuff. Bullets seem to explode like flak when they're close enough to an enemy. That's the write-your-way-out-of-weirdness explanation, at least.

I've increased the FOV since the video, so stuff is smaller on screen, but everything now has a shield around it, which helps visability, and makes the forgiving shots more believable. I might mess with easing the FOV in while you're aiming in one direction for along time, only pulling it outward if you try to turn fast. That might be a luxury idea for the compo, though. Time is running out, and I still need ball squids and enemies which fire back! And a menu!

[Bezzy]

Wow that does NOT survive youtube's conversion.