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[Gregg Williams]

We're still working towards an initial combat ready build. Unless of course you count the original prototype of the game. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vD3e_qAnZj8/UZPqwJ3dhwI/AAAAAAAAA2w/Xijh6gpfd-I/s1600/design.png

That's a cool paper hack! Dodd you plan the game into fine detail on paper or just broad strokes? I'm a big advocate of the papery approach. Really helps work out bugs before they appear!

Quite a bit was fleshed out in table top land, though of course there are changes going from table top to computer. I guess the best thing simply was the table top version was fun to plays, though that doesn't surprise me really. In the end though, that has allowed us to focus on quality and specific issues, while building the PC version, vs just rushing all over the place to get a playable prototype together.

[oodavid]

I could easily imagine the hundreds of projects that fail after years of development only to realise the fundamental mechanic just doesn't work.

[Gregg Williams]

I could easily imagine the hundreds of projects that fail after years of development only to realise the fundamental mechanic just doesn't work.

Yeah.. I guess we never had much worry of that. Both of us have been big turn based table top and video game players forever. Personally I miss the days of digging out a dirt lot into an actual city scape, and using 10-12 inch tall Robotech mech models to play BattleTech in

Though making the right mix of things, balancing it all, and making user interface intuitive, etc are all fun challenges. I'm hopeful to eventually get M.I.N.T into a paid alpha state, and build a dedicated user base during the rest of the development to help shape some of this, and find balance problems.

[NinthPower]

Haven't heard anything for awhile Hope this is still being worked on!

[Gregg Williams]

Haven't heard anything for awhile Hope this is still being worked on!

Hey, yeah sorry about the lack of updates around here, and well pretty much everywhere actually. I'm still busy dealing with with my mother having probably 1-2 more months to live tops. I alas haven't been doing any dev since January or so when the diagnosis was handed down. I do plan on resuming M.I.N.T though, once things are all over with.

Cheers

[MonsterMMORPG]

sorry about your mom

[Gregg Williams]

So things are still very screwed up in my life currently, plus Kawe is fleeing Canada back to the great fatherland of Germany in a week, so not a lot has been happening on the M.I.N.T front. I have however, this last week been getting back into it a tiny bit, and fighting the HUD implementation battle.. (So not a good way to get back into it, but whatever.)

This has units and unit's selected weapon rendering into the HUD areas correctly. One nice bit about this is that it uses the actual current unit, so the portrait is accurate to customization.



The data display portion of that pic is incorrect, and is what I've been fiddling with design wise.

I think I've settled on this for the 1st draft that goes into the game. (I expect the GUI and HUD systems to die many terrible deaths at the eventual hands of play testers.)



The HP bar in that would be dynamically sized with 9 likely being a max value, so usually shorter overall.

The weapon's AP might get renamed (Maybe AC for activation cost?), but in general its the action point cost to use the weapon. DP is the weapons's damage and power stats.

Damage/Power isn't really a finalized design, but my current plan is basically damage is the base, while power is essentially armor penetration. Dealt damage is scaled up or down, based on the results of weapon power vs target armor rolls. Thus something like a flame thrower might have a high damage output, but almost no power, rendering it basically useless vs an armored target.

I like the general concept of the system, and what I've tested on paper. It keeps a bit of the random element at work, but tends to be more predictable and logical than just a random damage range. Plus it adds some depth to weapon selection and targeting.

[DarthBenedict]

Looks pretty clear to me.

Going into UI work after a long break from gamedev seems pretty masochistic btw.

[Gregg Williams]

Looks pretty clear to me.

Going into UI work after a long break from gamedev seems pretty masochistic btw.

Hahaha, thanks, and yeah.. though I guess so is C++ and a custom engine and the rest.

Anyways, finished up the data display readout, including the dynamic length HP bar, and a custom font.

[NinthPower]

I like the HUD. 

[Bombini]

Me too

[Gregg Williams]

So Kawe is back to doing art, and ended up doing more HUD work, and redoing some bits.



I've been working to get this stuff implemented into the game.



Overall trying to get things moving again, life is still a mess, but whatever

[Gregg Williams]

Who converted tigs back to the early 2000's with like 800px wide max forum?

Anyways bit more HUD work going on as always, fullscreen and HD recommended.

[Gregg Williams]

So I really really really.. really wish we could do this fully.



Alas all those super cool reflections don't quite scale well in terms of labor when your units are completely customizable.

[DarthBenedict]

Could make the entire front light up from big weapon shots - it wouldn't look quite as good, but you'd be able to use the same flash effect for every big gun.

[Gregg Williams]

Yeah I was considering trying to script into the animation sequence code commands, to programmatically light up specific parts, but that would still hit entire pieces, vs halves or just fronts and so forth.

Ultimately it probably isn't worth struggling over to much at this point. Need to get gameplay working really heh.

[Gregg Williams]

So yeah, I'm having problems letting that go.. big surprise.

Animation is about 0.03 slower than it should be for some reason.




Possible code solution for flashes..

[DarthBenedict]

Looks a lot better than the ones with no flash.

[Talos]

Any thoughts about bringing MINT to Kickstarter/Indiegogo, or is it still too early for that?

[Hythlodaeus]

Curious about something, any chance you'll open source the engine?