Switching Gears

Wow.. has it already been 2 months since I sat down to write one of these blogs? Time flies when you are having fun / frustration / days of success / [insert your own feelings with working with Torque here].

Things are progressing quite rapidly at this junction of our little game that could. After having worked almost a year on Switching Gears it has gone through several iterations; art has been created and been deemed unworthy. Programming has endured at least 3 different engine iterations with the biggest one being the shift to 1.5 of TGE and the last one the implementation of the 1.5.1 and the hallowed arrival of smoothed edges in interior objects. Hallelujah!

So what's new? Well, lots of things: We have a completely revamped health and weapon system unlike pretty much anything on the market right now. We also have two player co-op built straight into the game (which is just too much fun and more developers should really implement). Alpha fades of distance objects, climbing walls, a much improved system for hanging from ledges. Moving platforms, switches and more gears that you can throw a switch at (ha! I crack myself up. And for this really bad pun I apologize and shall refrain from making anymore. At least in this post).

Things on the art side (which I am doing) the workload is slowly, but surely, starting to lean towards more in the "done" pile than in the "holy crap.. look at all the work I have to do". Enemies. Items. Objects. Weapons. More objects. You guys / gals know what I am talking about. One of the latest enemies that I created was this [insert blog picture here]:



I also have to say that I am extremely happy to finally have Constructor in my hands and much kudos to the entire group of people at GG who worked on it. It's quantum leaps better than anything else that I have tried. Now I just have to be a little more patient and wait for 1.01.

Well, I am off to the motherland for a 2 week vacation, but I hope to have a more regular schedule for these here blogs as we now get closer to finishing this mammoth project. We have set a self imposed deadline of September for this game and come hell or high water (which seems more likely) the game will be finished.

Thanks for taking the time to read my rants,
Fredrik S