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Xeno Versus: Progress! Horrible Progress!
Xeno Versus: Progress! Horrible Progress!
| Name: | Chris Jorgensen | |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Jan 11, 2007 | |
| Rating: |  Not Rated | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
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| Profile Page: | View profile page for Chris Jorgensen |
Blog post
I believe the last time I posted was sometime in October. The time for a status update is now. "Xeno Versus", my Spacewar!/Star Control: Super Melee clone is moving along well. Progress has been such a long string of incremental updates, it's hard to recall what's been done over the span of the last couple of months. Recently, however, the trend has been adding new ships, weapons, and "special" abilities to the game. The goal is 30 ships, each with 3 different configuration levels (achievable via powerups), all with a unique weapon and a unique special ability. As you can see in this screenshot, there are right now something like 25 ships basically at this point -- though some are still in need of their weapons and all need their attributes tuned.
You might notice in this screenshot that four fleets of six, in this game mode ("free for all"), are used. They can be saved and loaded as well. The idea is that you strategically pick/save/load a fleet to counterbalance the opponent fleets, as well as take into account the board/level you're about to play in ("Space Sewer", in this shot).
Unfortunately, level progress has been slow. The goal is 10 distinct levels, 1 per each of the 10 species, with each specie's ships ideal for its environment. Not one is finished, though "Space Sewer" is close. The purple planet level below is called "Rocky Rings" and, as you can see, the rocky rings have yet to be added!
I am, however, pleased to announce that my manga artist plans on providing a drawing of each species as well, to accompany the ships/levels. I've seen the early sketches and, I must say, it's more impressive than what I shared in the previous blogs.
The AI, while improved, has struggled to handle the new weaponry added to the game. The weapons are unique enough that I may need to write some custom AI per weapon type. I may have a big update on the AI soon. :)
Okay, well that's enough rambling! I guess I just wanted to share that I'm still working hard on this game and my hope is still to have it at beta stage by March. To close, here are a few random screens. Nothing's too impressive yet, but I'm slowly integrating more unique/appropriate particle effects in there to spice things up.
You might notice in this screenshot that four fleets of six, in this game mode ("free for all"), are used. They can be saved and loaded as well. The idea is that you strategically pick/save/load a fleet to counterbalance the opponent fleets, as well as take into account the board/level you're about to play in ("Space Sewer", in this shot).
Unfortunately, level progress has been slow. The goal is 10 distinct levels, 1 per each of the 10 species, with each specie's ships ideal for its environment. Not one is finished, though "Space Sewer" is close. The purple planet level below is called "Rocky Rings" and, as you can see, the rocky rings have yet to be added!
I am, however, pleased to announce that my manga artist plans on providing a drawing of each species as well, to accompany the ships/levels. I've seen the early sketches and, I must say, it's more impressive than what I shared in the previous blogs.
The AI, while improved, has struggled to handle the new weaponry added to the game. The weapons are unique enough that I may need to write some custom AI per weapon type. I may have a big update on the AI soon. :)
Okay, well that's enough rambling! I guess I just wanted to share that I'm still working hard on this game and my hope is still to have it at beta stage by March. To close, here are a few random screens. Nothing's too impressive yet, but I'm slowly integrating more unique/appropriate particle effects in there to spice things up.
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 09/07/08 - 3D "Mode 7" Racing in TGB (Vid-Pics) 07/23/08 - Fifteen Xeno Sola Reviews! Oh, the Humanity! 05/16/08 - Xeno Sola Full-Featured Beta! 04/16/08 - Look Out, Carcassonne Lovers! 03/14/08 - Mini Chess Beta 2.0 03/10/08 - Download and Play Mini Chess! 10/29/07 - Reclaiming my name... and Mini-Chess! 09/26/07 - Xeno Versus Beta: Now Available to All :) |
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Submit your own resources!| Vashner (Jan 11, 2007 at 11:56 GMT) |
| Gregory Stewart (Jan 11, 2007 at 13:02 GMT) |
| Guimo (Jan 11, 2007 at 18:08 GMT) |
Congratulations, I really hope that in a future version you may add the exploration game from StarControl 1 where players jumped from one star to the other winning permanent powerups for the ships. I loved that game.
I'm now programming a similar game but all graphics in 3D using TGE+TLK but still keeping the top view. I see your game is more like Starcontrol (I love that game) while my game is more like Quake where players enter the game and fight each other counting frags (in fact its codename is currently Starquake :) ). In my game all players start with a blaster but can pick up new weapons and powerups which are lost when fragged.
I see your game is really advanced. You are so far away from me. I'm still fighting with network saturation, rendering artifacts and ship attributes. Making each ship move in a different way and change the way it reacts with each powerup is really interesting. One of my ships moves much like the Arilou. Anyway I'm still learning about how to use the TGE.
Please tell me one thing... How do you manage to keep the 4 ships in view in case they move away too far? I'm using an asteroid field that circles all the playing region so players are forces to turn back and keep fighting in the center.
Luck!
Guimo
P.D. If you are interested maybe we can help out each other... not in a technical way as you are using TGB while I'm using TGE, but maybe discussing some ideas or how to tackle a presentation problem. Drop me a line if interested.
| Stephen Zepp (Jan 11, 2007 at 20:24 GMT) |
PS: Star Control--one of the best games of the 90's :) Shame they did such a poor job with 3.
| Chris Jorgensen (Jan 12, 2007 at 18:33 GMT) |
The camera centers on the midpoint between the ships (be it 2, 3, or 4 of them). The camera zoom is basically mapped to the distance of the ship furthest from that midpoint, such that all ships are visible. Each level is only a certain fixed size. So when a ship hits the edge, it wraps ala Asteroids.
@Stephen
Great! I'll definitely be taking you up on that offer. I'd love to get a pro's input on this project. I have a certain list of things I want to get done before I share another alpha with a few people, but when I do I'll definitely be sure to get a copy to you. :)
| Guimo (Jan 15, 2007 at 20:00 GMT) |
I though that would be a little uncomfortable... I mean... you are chasing the other ship and suddenly it vanishes... that may feel a little strange. But you may be right... I'll try this in my game...
Luck!
Guimo
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