We have had a productive development week this week.
It’s good to sometimes just knuckle down and code stuff. Planning is of course essential to any project, but there’s nothing like making those plans come to fruition in code.
We are all busy working away on super secret Project #2 which (with a bit of luck) won’t remain super secret for much longer (watch our Twitter feed for subtle hints)! The actual code is coming along quite nicely, and fitting together really well. Phil has knocked together some example GUI layouts which (I think it’s fair to say) all the team feel is the right style for the game, we have a game “logo” now, the game screen, menu systems etc. and everything feels like its starting to come together.
It’s been decided that the first release of the game will be on PC – although subject to how successful it is, there is no reason we cant then look to port it across to portable devices. In fact, the game would actually be more suited to portables (the game would work very nicely as a PSP-Mini) rather than the PC, but as the PC is probably the most cost effective way of getting our stuff in the market, that will be the first port of call. From there we could potentially look into other avenues such as XBL, or PSN.
This is all very much pie in the sky until we have something to distribute. It feels at the moment like development is progressing really well. Personally, I’m dipping into areas that I had no experience with prior to this project and believe it or not I’m starting to understand how they work and perhaps more importantly, how they are used in the game making process. It’s official that I am now an Object Orientated Programming convert. I love the way that each bit of the program is analysed and the workings included within each object. Makes life SO much easier when we need to create multiple instances of a particular object – it means that we can control each one individually if needs be, or we can control them all. It’s really interesting to think back to how I used to work and wonder how on earth I managed before! What’s also great about our work on our various projects now is that we can start to reuse some of the general code between projects – so time saving to boot!
With everything being focussed on Project 2, there has been little time for Blast! this week. I guess this is how it will go with us. We will be focussing on one project at a time in terms of code, and planning/technical design on the others which works quite well. Sometimes a break from a project to concentrate on another is actually a good thing – it ensures that things don’t become stale and actually generates new ideas/ways of doing things.
Matt is also busy at work on his own engine, which we will ultimately be using to develop Project Blast! I’m yet to dip my toes into it yet, but knowing the genius behind it, I’m sure it will work really well. I’m actually really excited about seeing how it works and how it compares to our current engine. It will also enable me to revise the technical design document for Blast! to be more suited to the actual engine we are using, rather than being generic/Blitz focussed. This in turn will mean that Ill be able to see very quickly if features I would like to implement into the game are plausible (or, I suppose, plausible in the way I have considered them!). It’s great that we will actually have our own engine to play around with, and even better that within our team is the guy that coded it!
So what else is happening in our world at the moment? Well, we are still planning the website redesign, although I think that will perhaps happen sooner than we thought – so that’s really positive. The plan is that all the team will have “Adarakion” twitter feeds which will be linked to the website so that we can all keep the website fresh and updated with little effort – even if we aren’t at our PC’s or whatever. It’s actually a lot tougher than its sounds, keeping a website up to date constantly, whilst keeping the content fresh, interesting and relevant. Hopefully by using micro-blogs in this way, it will enable us to keep everyone in touch with our progress and also keep our website content fresh.
Fingers crossed that in the next couple of weeks we will be in a position to announce the Project 2, so keep your dials tuned to TSA!