So I spent a few hours this evening, porting VectorStorm over onto the iPhone. And what was the first thing I ported across? Why, Vector Physics, of course (as it was really the only thing I have that uses a pointing interface; everything else uses a gamepad of some sort).
It runs acceptably on a real iPhone; probably holding about 20-30fps in a normal scene (though ropes start hurting performance rather noticably). No, this isn’t in the app store at the moment, but I reckon I might polish it up eventually and release it. And it’s pretty awesome to see something like this running on a mobile phone, IMHO. 
Just a quick extra shot today; this is a new, quite simple MMORPG Tycoon starting area (it’s zoned for adventurers of level 1 through 3). This particular starting area has 75 monsters in it, and therefore supports having up to 225 players in the region simultaneously. This is great for a starting area, especially in the very early game, when you might not want to spend your time managing and financing the upkeep for multiple regions.
You can also see the quick “mountains” graphics around the borders of the region, which form impassible barriers to divide regions. Adventurers cannot cross these mountains, unless you place crossings.
Note that these mountainous barriers only exist at the edge of the world (that is, at the junction between zoned regions and unzoned ones, as in this shot), and between regions of different level zones, but not between regions with matching levels. By default now, quests send players to fight monsters within the same region as the quest-giver (previously they sent players into adjacent regions).. but the player will now be able to place “epic quests”, to send players from one region to another.
Even though the number of adventurers in a region has increased, sending adventurers around into new regions will be important, not just for managing server load, but also to keep the adventurers interested; they’ll become bored if they end up hanging around in one region for too long. Especially if they end up having to grind combats, in order to gain enough levels to go explore a new area.
It’s been a while since I posted a development update here, so I thought that it was about time I did so. I’ve been working on MMORPG Tycoon’s user interface a bit; here’s a current shot of what it looks like right now. Commentary and more images below the fold.
Continue reading “MMORPG Tycoon progress”
So I spent a few hours this evening, porting VectorStorm over onto the iPhone. And what was the first thing I ported across? Why, Vector Physics, of course (as it was really the only thing I have that uses a pointing interface; everything else uses a gamepad of some sort).
