Wow, much work, many pixels!

Well, work has been progressing immensely on “Chrome Hunter”, but I really haven’t stopped to write much…

I’ve done one million things in the game, and now it’s starting to look it’s part: cutscenes (simple ones, of course), tutorials, the works…

I’m starting to add more work on the actual balancing/story of the game than on the backend stuff, so I’m expecting the game to be finished in another couple of months (give or take some more, depending on how tired I am of DayJob).

Some chosen new stuff:

Custom maps (mostly for story purposes): this is the Skydancer (a bit different now from when this screenshot was taken), the player’s ship. This acts as a a hub for the game.

Pirates! The AI had to really be improved to make for interesting behaviors inside of bases… Still not 100% happy, but with balancing and such I’ll probably find ways to improve it further.

Consoles! The player will find consoles throughout the game world, containing secrets and information.

New navigation console. Some functionality, better organized!

Hyperspace!

In-game shop!

Tutorial system!

So, a lot of work… And this is just the visual part of it… behind the scenes, the code has really evolved and it’s becoming much better… Also finished writing the story and the random mission templates, so this is getting closer and closer of being an actual game!

For fun, this is the current dump of the SVN logs since the last blog post… My messages are just stuff I jot down for future reference (when I want to remind myself of what I was doing)

Revision: 64
Date: 10/12/2013 23:29:47
– Added more cutscenes (pointing to the "structure north", introducing enemies and sandstorms)
– Added tutorials: items, shooting, UI
– Sandstorm warning now comes from the Skydancer
– Tutorials can now queue
– Load and save anywhere (no menu for it yet, just functionality)
– Disable home beacon on loaded scenarios

Revision: 63
Date: 9/12/2013 21:01:12
Message:
– Added cutscene system
– Added tutorial system
– Added first cutscenes (introduction to the game story)
– Added first tutorials (introduction to the controls, etc)
– Added speech system
– Fixed bug with jumping next to "almost-stepable voxels)

Revision: 62
Date: 4/12/2013 01:54:50
Message:
– Added log console
– Added load/save game (with multiple slots)
– Added start email/log entry
– Added shop console

Revision: 61
Date: 30/11/2013 00:43:30
Message:
– Added email console
– Added navigation console
– Added hyperspace effect
– Added lander model (replacing hunter ship billboard)

Revision: 60
Date: 26/11/2013 22:14:28
Message:
Added base console system, including browser, malfunction, maintenance and login consoles.

Revision: 59
Date: 27/11/2013 02:32:47
Message:
– Improved pirate AI and added run and teleport behavior
– Added model prop
– Merged props with trees
– Added props, etc, to manual area loading
– Added palm tree
– Items now drop a bit after the character is killed, not when it disappears
– Added action nodes, including tooltip and zoom functionality
– Fixed in_combat flag
– Separated PlayerData and PlanetData in two different files
– Separated PlanetScreen and PlanetArea in two different files
– Split render in render2d and render3d

Revision: 58
Date: 23/11/2013 13:38:15
Message:
– Added Gear class

Revision: 57
Date: 23/11/2013 22:30:26
Message:
– Added pirates
– Improved AI (for pirates, but after will use it for robots as well)

Revision: 56
Date: 19/11/2013 23:09:50
Message:
Added camera drone
Added custom map loading

Revision: 55
Date: 18/11/2013 23:02:30
Message:
– Added electrofloor trap
– Idle anims kick in earlier than previously