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[Juwdah]

I'm really liking those animations, you sure knew how to take voxels to a different dimension.
How much time did it take to model, color and animate that mini-boss? Is it easy to create lots of different ones or does it take a while?

[djr]

More awesomeness

I want toys of these characters sitting on my desk. When can that happen?

I would love for this to happen. Even if I have to 3D print them and hand paint them myself

[Seaport]

@ Juwdah   It takes a fair bit of time, though coming up with the design can be quite a long process and there's usually quite a lot of iterations along the way. I'd probably put 10-12 hours for the whole thing. The actual voxel modelling is pretty quick once you have an idea where you want the design to go, slower than 2d stuff but on the whole faster than working with polys as you're texturing and modeling at the same time. Though it is quite a strange feeling having to think about what to fill the object with, with poly models they're just hollow but with voxels, as you can chip bits off, you have to model the insides of objects too.
 
Animation probably took me about 5 hours most of this is because I'm learning as I go along and I've not tried to do a walk cycle with a quadruped before, which took a bit of trial and error... and swearing.

Overall i really like working with voxels and at least I don't have to worry about UV maps for a while
For anyone wanting to try some  voxel modeling, I really can't recommend Qubicle from Minddesk enough, and theres a free trial   

[Seaport]

Adding in soft body dynamics, we can't tell you what its for exactly (we're not 100% sure either yet) but in a voxel it doesn't get much more strange and alien than this.
Here's a clip of our character throwing grenades at a big blobby thing.



Also added in some depth of field, it's in there in all its glory with some fun controlling variables such as focus, bias and clamp. The result can be seen in the picture below and is probably worth a lot more than the last twenty words I've just written.



In the final version this will be an option you can turn off/on depending on your preference. Similar to ambient occlusion which we'll be adding in next.

[jiitype]

This game looks sexy as hell

[oldblood]

I'm a total sucker for depth of field... Looks great...

[oyog]

...we can't tell you what its for exactly

I'M NOT A NUMBER! I'M A FREE MAN! 

[djr]

I'M NOT A NUMBER! I'M A FREE MAN! 

That is my favourite TV Show:

Whadda ya want 
Information 

[oyog]

I should really get back into it. I watched three episodes and then got distracted by Arrested Development and a couple other shows.

I HAVE NO TIME FOR ALL THIS FUN MEDIA AAAAAAAAAH!

[djr]

I added barriers or force fields to the game this week. They need to be made a little more pretty by Charlie but they function and play pretty well already:



You can see a movie of them in action with a few twists on our YouTube channel:



It's no secret that Smith and Winston is inspired by Ikari Warriors and Heavy Barrel but we need to make the levels a little more involved than the 30 year old levels so we're adding simple puzzle elements to break up the destruction play a little and give the player something else to do.

If we get it right the player will see areas of the world that they can't access without a little destruction to uncover a switch (or some other mechanism), of course they can ignore it sometimes if they want to carry on blowing stuff up.

[lithander]

Kudos for developing your own engine and tools! This looks awesome!

[ZeroTec]

This looks like sooo much fun. The voxel destruction alone makes me wanna play it............but the awesome design is what makes it shine

[MakeItUpAsIGo]

This game looks great and I like the name :D

[islipaway]

I've never seen a voxel based game that feels so much like 3d pixels before. I love the name and have a craving for this sorta gameplay! Best of luck, I'll be paying attention!

[djr]

This looks like sooo much fun. The voxel destruction alone makes me wanna play it............but the awesome design is what makes it shine

This game looks great and I like the name :D

I've never seen a voxel based game that feels so much like 3d pixels before. I love the name and have a craving for this sorta gameplay! Best of luck, I'll be paying attention!

You guys are great I hope we can live up to your expectations. We're working toward a playable one-level demo so stay tuned 

[djr]

It's been a weeks since we did an update (sorry for that), we've updated out IndieDB page here with info on bosses and turrets and things like that.



Basically things are chugging along as usual. We're getting closer to an Alpha level and it's very exciting 

[Seaport]

Crickey we really have been a bit behind on updating this devlog so this ones a bit of a longer post , anyway lets jump right in

So what's the next milestone for us? well it's a big one and according to Dazza it’s a bugbear, a veritable Gordian's knot.....its network code

As he puts it ‘4 or maybe even 8 player deathmatch will be %&$*ing hilarious in Smith and Winston! Though you know how much that will slow us down! Now think about what we’ve unleashed on the world…. the long ships are coming!'

Now before you bury your sacred relics and run to the hills, I'm sure the warning about the impending arrival of history's most infamous seaborne raiders is just a metaphor used to convey the perceived gravity of this code chunk. And as Dazza hints, getting this in place will open up a whole world of possibilities, from up to 4 player co-op to PvP arenas there's a lot to explore.....

So that should keep him quiet for a while as unfortunately he doesn't have the option like Alexander the Great of just whacking it with a big sword. Anyway while he's been wrestling with rope I've taken the opportunity to plough on with the demo level, finalize the turrets from our previous post and update, as well as add to the enemy models.

First up is reworking of a model we affectionately call 'Bomb-head', the old versions on the left and new model is on the right.

Some more enemy reworked models

And finally the lowest rank in our pantheon of alien invaders, the trooper.

SnW pre-alpha gameplay

Here's some pre-alpha game play footage of our demo level in action, please don't forget this is very early footage and there's a few bugs and things unfinished. though it does show off new things like the players dash move, alien deaths and randomly spawning corpse flies. Click below to see more on youtube





And lastly here a short video showing the turrets from our last post, set up with their firing patterns in action. To see on YouTube just hit the link below






So be sure to keep a look out for further revelations in the future from us

Right it's two minutes to midnight here, so I'm off to bed.

Ok one last one, Powerslave, no more I promise.....

[Igor Sandman]

So much style! This looks awesome. I like the concept art also.
Gameplay-wise I like the decision you made of keeping the bullets kind of slow.
It brings opportunities for bullet hells like in shmups.
It's a great combination.
Looking at the gameplay video, I must say I'm not a big fan of the sound.
Other than that, it's impressive :D

[Seaport]

Thanks Igor, yeah all the sound is pretty awful, its all place holder ATM. We intend to get a couple of people in who know what they're doing to improve it at some point

[Seaport]

Trying out some ideas for promo shots, looking for something quite striking, here's one attempt