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[happymonster]

Wow! Thanks guys. After looking at the graphics all the time sometimes you lose the ability to see if it's good or not..

It can't do realtime zooming / scaling unfortunately as it would just be too slow to do and keep a high frame rate. However, it is fast enough without this to get 120fps at HD resolutions.

[Yodhe]

Nice, reminds me a lot of the original graphics, but in a slightly more sci-kitsch Forbidden Planet style.

[Oddball]

I'm a big fan of Chaos Groove/Funk so I know this won't disappoint. I'll be keeping an eye on this project. I may have missed where you said this, but what are the target systems? I see you've mentioned iPhone, Android, and PC. Does PC include Mac/Linux?

[happymonster]

The engine I am using is cross-platform and can work on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. At the moment the game is still very early in development, so I have no solid plans yet as to which platforms to support besides the PC.

It would be nice to get it running on all those different systems, but we will see what happens.

[happymonster]

Turn, Turn, Turn

I've now implemented turning, so that your units will turn one 45 degree rotation at a time until facing the right way for the next move. This means that when you select a movement path the unit will turn around to dace the new direction, set off and then turn to the correct direction (if necessary) after every tile square before moving again.

This step is where I will add in Line-of-Sight checks for enemies and map highlighting.

I want to work on the interface for selecting a direction to turn in (without moving to a new tile) for looking down corridors next.

[happymonster]

Yawn.. 12 hour day at work today so no time for much else tonight! 

I'll be looking at the interface this weekend though and I'd like to see if I can get turning around (without moving tiles) implemented, as well as the movement option already in place.

[:^)]

looking good man! sounds like it's working good too.

[eigenbom]

holy canoli this is really rocking.

[happymonster]

Thanks guys!

[Yodhe]

Out of curiousity was it this class of algorithm, http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/kopf/pixelart/ that you used for the scaling?

[happymonster]

Yodhe: I've seen that before and it does look very clever and interesting, but no it's not doing anything like that.

[Miguelito]

By the way, big props to you for keeping the dev meter at 0 % because nothing playable released so far.

Now get back to work!

[happymonster]

I must admit I forgot all about the Dev Meter 

Anyway, I'll have more done this weekend.

[happymonster]

Where do you want to go today?

I mentioned about the GUi in earlier posts. I'm a big believer in showing the player potential information as easy as possible. As part of this if the player moves the cursor over a unit then the game will show information on where he/she can move to. In other games you would only see this when you select a unit, but this just adds another obstacle in front of the player before letting them pick where to move.

Here you can see that the possible move squares have been highlighted (in an outline, as the unit is not yet selected). The colours show the actions possible in the destination square:

Green - Can move and shoot (any type).
Yellow - Can move and can do an auto-shot or snap-shot.
Orange - Can move, but can only do an auto-shot.
Red - Can only move once here.

The green triangles around the unit show the action status if the player turned in that direction. At the start of a move these would be green, but later on they could be different colours so a player knows straight away if he can turn and still shoot in a certain way.

[saint11]

I didn't had time to read everything, but I can say that I love the idea of making a X-Com/Laser Squad type and man... Those graphics are AWESOME.

Really, this is incredibly cute. I love it.   

[Ashkin]

Great feature, I always hated how I couldn't tell the range of my units in X-com.

[:^)]

Awesome! Although the difference between orange and yellow is a little vague.

[happymonster]

Thanks!

Anyone else seeing the orange and yellow as too close together? I can more the orange a little more reddish if so.

[Craig Stern]

Oh, I like the graphical style you've chosen here. Very clean, expressive and cute.

I have no trouble distinguishing the yellow and orange reticles, myself.

[Miguelito]

Awesome! Although the difference between orange and yellow is a little vague.

Agree!
The first thing I noticed is how hard on the eyes it would be having to quickly compare colors at every turn.

My suggestion: Change one more aspect about the different square markers - either the animation (bobbing motion vs. still; blinking vs. calm) or the shape. I'd suggest the latter - you could work with differences in line thickness, or possibly empty vs. solid squares.

Just a thought, but I figure it could make the visuals even cleaner.

Looking splendid! Keep up the good work!