Alive and Ticking gets to Beta .... err, almost. (Warning: Screenshot Heavy)

It's been a while since the last .plan on Alive and Ticking. Many thousand lines of code and quite a lot of art later, we're finally getting really close to beta. I had hoped to get it to beta by IGC, but it's closer to a late alpha.

Boom!



We have two types of bombs, normal timed bombs and remotely detonated bombs (with the antenna). Remote bombs have an arming delay, the antenna flashes when the bomb is armed.




The crates break when blown up with a bomb. Blowing up crates is not only good stress relief, it also gets you power ups.



Both bombs are equally deadly.

Power Ups




There are a number of power ups available: Extra lives, bomb power increase, multiple bombs, remote detonators, diseases and invincibility.

When you pick up a disease, causes something bad to happen to you or a random player. There are three diseases: invertitis (inverted controls), personis firstitis (forces you into first person) and teleportitis (teleports you with a random other player).

Game Modes

There are currently three game modes:

* Deathmatch
* Team Deathmatch
* Capture the Penguin




HUD



The overview map displays the location of crates, players, power ups, bombs and flags.

The power up HUD shows your current power ups. When you pick up a power up, the icon bounces. The icons also rotate slowly.



The scoreboard shows the player's current scores. It also colors the names by team color and displays team scores in team games.



When you run out of lives, observer mode lets you watch the action from the point of view of any of the surviving players. This is a great way to pick up new strategies.



The craptastic lobby allows players to choose their team and chat, and the admin to setup the game. All clients GUIs update when the admin changes any options.

The Levels

I bet by now you're thinking "damn, that looks really blocky." That's because the above screenshots came from a gameplay test level. The levels are capable of so much more:



DTS shapes can be used for both "walls" and as an additional prop for the floor.



They can also be rotated have particle emitters mounted to any node in the DTS shape.



The level code also supports animated blocks. This is a bit tricky to show in a screenshot, so I'm not going to try. DTS animation will be used to make the level respond to explosions as well as ambient animation.

Ticked



I'm not ready to talk much about Ticked yet. The above screenshot is of the prototype, and thus is only intended to illustrate the basic functionality.

Thank Yous/Credits

Without the art team (Nauris Krauze, Craig Fortune and Matt Mitman) the game would still be a very early alpha and a very different game. Their ideas have been just as important as their art.

Paul Dana has been a huge help whenever I've needed a sounding board or had issues with 3D math, which has long been my weakest area.

Justin DuJardin has been a big help with Ticked, and with some nifty things that are currently secret.

Everybody who has helped playtest this since day 1. There are too many of you to list, so I won't try just in case I miss someone. You all know who you are, anyway.

Where next ?

I'm not telling yet :)