next »

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Because of the great success of KILL COMMANDO I decided to earn another million before I settle down on Hawaii. So I started with the next project. I took the engine, deleted 70%, refactored a bit and began to add new features. The only thing I know is that I want to shift away from the classical indoor levels that need a lot of time. I want to create a vast landscape without loading sequences but with a short range of view as in an Amiga racer:








I still don't have a title or a scenario but it probably will be a mixture of driving and shooting.
This time I want to log the whole process from the beginning.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

good luck on this project.
take a look at this game as it is probably the closest to what you're trying to make:

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Good hint! That looks funny 

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Warning! Ugly test artwork!  May cause eye cancer.

I exchanged the old semi-3D sky with full 2D sky:

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Testing the collision detection "ray hits world":

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

A first version of the dynamic area loading without a feelable break:



The elements are queued and per frame the engine loads or calculates something new. At first the heightmap is created. Then the street, the trees and the buildings. Later there will be different tree types, loaded in different frames. And of course vehicles and enemies. I hope that it will stay so smooth when the content grows.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

began to develop a vehicle system. As a preparation I watched the top 50 Amiga racers on the lemonAmiga channel





5 hours that definitly not wasted!

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Today I will do nothing. 

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

But today: I will connect a second monitor!

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Next task: collision detection of rotated objects

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

DONE!
Now there are still some open workitems for the vehicle-system and the motion of the player in general, but then the engine has grown far enough to start with artwork prototypes 

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

2 more tasks to go!

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Done! Now the good part begins. I will play around with different colors, textureresolutions and scenarios.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

...but before I do that, here is an ugly motorbike:



This is the "sit-down"? motion.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

and the mouseview on the bike:


a horizontal 180 degree and vertical 90 degree rotation.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Began to make some prototype artwork...

At first I tried to use a very reduced color-palette, a subset of the ZX-Spectrum colors:



I wanted to have a lot of black and the color only for some silhouettes and highlights but it was very complex to draw and I think it requires some dark dystopia/cyberpunk setting, supported by shaders for glow-effects.

Now I want to work with a 64 color palette:



It contains all you need: brown, orange... but it is reduced enough to work fast without choosing too much between the colors.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Decided to animate some enemies first because this is more complex than drawing a tree and can be a showstopper. When I find a good style the rest will follow.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

Today I bought the Super NES classic mini. For inspiration.

[gamesthatcouldbeworse]

animating the feet...

[Fat Pug Studio]

This is the best log ever :D