Plan for Jay Barnson

Alpha Approaching Artist Needed!
We're coming down to the wire. I'm frantically trying to finish all primary code development on Void War by the end of this month. I've been trying hard to kill bugs dead as they get found, but I still expect there's gonna be a heap-load of bugfixing to be found in the month of June.

The last two nights, I implemented the cut-scene system for the single-player campaign. Unfortunately, I've had to use stand-in art for the "talking heads." What I really want is 4-8 character comic-book style portraits of about 256 x 256 resolution. I could use 8, I'll settle on 4 if that's all I can get (the bosses just won't get portraits), and I don't have much money to spend. But if anybody knows an artist who can fit the bill and is willing to do a little bit of near-charity work for me, have them drop me a line at jayb@ rampantgames dot com (replace the 'dot' I've gotten no spam at this address yet and I'm hoping to keep it that way as long as possible).

Here's what we're looking like with the stand-in art for the cutscenes. They are REALLY extremely simple:

Yes, the dialog is almost deliberately cheesy we're going for a little bit of humor / parody here. Void War is not intended to be a "serious" simulation. It's about kicking the tires and lighting the fires in space. Although we're not going too far... it's quite possible that the universe of Void War could be the stage for something a little more serious in the future.

What the Shell?
Our decision to go with a web designer as the GUI designer for the game has proven a good one. At least I can say she's a HECK of a lot better than me! Our shell is looking 10x better now, thanks to her feedback and work. What once resembled the rainbow splay of light on spilled oil is now developing a more consistent look & feel. With much better art.


The text on the bottom button is my own. Think it's too subtle? Maybe I should add a few extra exclamation marks. Maybe promise fertility, long life, and good luck for those who decide to purchase the game. Maybe put in a tool tip that suggests that a man in Kentucky once played the demo through to the expiration time without buying it, and the next week he started going bald. Think it'll work?

I'm also going through and trying to finish the plumbing on all the shell pieces. So now we can do things like choose the difficulty level, select different game modes (now to make sure they actually WORK), and so forth.

Features-A-Go-Go
Unfortunately, not all is rosy. Even as I'm in the middle of finishing up a bazillion features and getting them working, I'm coming to the sad conclusion that some bits I've wanted to see in the game are going to have to go... at least for now. Some may find their way into a future release or expansion for Void War, or some other game. Others may never see the light of day. Such is the way of things. Still, I'm pretty amazed at how far we've come, and how much we're managing to pack into the game.

So how's it play?
I got the fourth internal release test out last week which went out to a couple of newbies who hadn't yet played the game. I'm still waiting for feedback on the whole "is it fun" question. In our last multiplayer test it sure sounded like folks were having a blast. It was getting pretty vicious there for a while. So that's encouraging... hopefully it's not just me. But you always wonder when your testers are quiet except for the occasional bug report.

I did get one of the team asking how to beat the first boss it was spanking him like a newbie, he claimed. This was encouraging, as I was getting afraid the first boss was too easy. So maybe it's about right.

Well, enough for this .plan. Must...get...back...to...coding.