So I’ve actually slipped a day on this GiaW. Not going to say too much in this update; want to get back to work on it. However, it now seems pretty obvious to me that I rushed into this GiaW sooner than I should have; the 3D features of VectorStorm just weren’t quite solid enough to support rapidly developing a 3D game; too much of my time was lost debugging basic engine stuff, instead of developing the game itself.
Still hoping to have something by the end of the day today. But we’ll see.
I don’t think that the screenshots I posted yesterday (this morning, actually) really made it clear what I was showing. Here’s one that gives a much better view of the “bulging map” tech. Zoom out, and this bumpy spheroid appears to be a completely flat rectangular grid.
Just a quick note that I’ve locked down the design for Game in a Week 6; right now, my plan is to use the whole quote as its title: “Lord, save us from that horrible land!” Although as that’s sort of long (says the guy who named the ‘Nicholas Spratt’ game), I may use it as the subtitle. I’ll probably make that decision tomorrow.
Anyhow, it may turn out to be a little like game 4, the ‘Nicholas Spratt’ game in that it’s a game concept which could easily be expanded out into a larger game if the whim ever took me. But it should be fun to play in its own right. Or at least, I’m looking forward to playing it myself. Goal for today is to have a fully playable prototype by the end of the day.
I’m a little concerned about the control method for the game. Ideally, I think it ought to be played with the mouse, but I don’t think I have time to implement mouse picking on my warpy/stretchy playfield today; I might have to use a controller/arrow keys for the initial release, and have a patch when I get mouse control in.
I should also mention that due to a planning failure on my part, I ended up having the deadline for the game planned for a day when I have very little spare time to actually work on it; I’m still going to try to have it done by the self-set deadline, but depending on how things go today, the game might end up slipping by a day. We’ll see.
So I’ve been making more progress on the Game in a Week. No game screenshots to show yet, but here’s a neat piece of tech that I’m using, which will be finding its way into MMORPG Tycoon 2.0. What you’re looking at again is a slow zoom-in on a very, very small terrain in wireframe view.
Notice that when fully zoomed out, the terrain appears as a flat map directly beneath the camera, but as you zoom in mountains begin to appear, and then the terrain begins to take on the gentle curve of a globe, and the camera begins to automatically pitch upward to give you a ground level view of the scene (and let you see the sky, beyond the horizon). Topologically, the terrain it’s actually a torus that just happens to sort of resemble a sphere. Had to cheat and do it that way, in order to allow the map to unwrap into a flat rectangle without distorting. And you don’t want to know how much time I wasted making this math work. But it’s sort of neat, and I’m looking forward to releasing the game.
Two more days to go!
