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Soul Wars (Update 3)...

Name:	Quinton Delpeche
Date Posted:	Apr 23, 2008
Rating:	Not Rated
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It is quite refreshing to be at this stage in the development of Soul Wars. Every session of development seems to create some tangible results, I am however under no illusions that all the sessions will be the same. The Game Testing and Game Mechanics Implementation will probably be rather frustrating and will not have as many visible results as others, but Rick and I are ready and realise what has to be done.

Anyway, last night was another good night of development and I have some screen shots to share with you again. The screen shots show the Main Menu with the beginnings of the Character Creator as well as the About and Options dialogs and the final screen shot shows the game running on both Windows and Linux.

Unfortunately I haven't managed to test the game under Mac yet, but our focus is to ensure that we provide all users a Game Client. Rick and I also finalised the Data Blocks and Data Folder structure yesterday and we are starting to implement the Weapons and Equipment objects into the main Game Tree. I have also been working on the Camera and Player controls and some Test Areas.

The next update will show some more in-game footage as well as the Character Creation feature of the game. We also hope to have the first version of the Soul Wars website up and running by then.

Please visit my personal site Novo Geek for more information.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	08/03/08 - Soul Wars (Update 8)... 07/18/08 - Soul Wars - Nebula Toolset... 07/03/08 - Soul Wars (Update 7)... 06/13/08 - Soul Wars Website Updated... 05/27/08 - Soul Wars (Update 6)... 05/23/08 - Soul Wars (Update 5)... 05/11/08 - Soul Wars (Update 4)... 04/24/08 - Soul Wars Website...

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Kevin James (Apr 23, 2008 at 20:12 GMT)

Typically game developers make a fun game before they make the main menu. Hopefully your method of game development will work too! ;)

Scott Warren (Apr 23, 2008 at 22:18 GMT)

No wrong way to go about making a Game.
If the screenshots here are what you see everyday when your working this project and it helps you to stay focused and motivated then I believe it is as good as any angle you can attack a project from.

It appears to be good quality work from my point of view. And as you probably already know, Like food at a restaurant, If the plate looks divine then it probably tastes just as good too. People tend to shop by looks before content anyways. Keep up the great work guys.

Leslie Young (Apr 24, 2008 at 04:36 GMT)

I also tend to work on the menus first or after being busy with the game play for a while.
It helps keep you motivated if you can see nice screen and not some iggy temp menus, and it takes like a day to do :-p

For the game I am working on it became necessary to work on the menus to get the flow right.. since its heavily multiplayer I needed to get a lobby and match making system done so that I got do proper testing bewteen two players starting a match. It just made the flow and feel of the gamedev process feel more natural, for this game at least.

Quinton, nice shots, I like the GUI. The Soul Wars logo needs more work though. It feels out of place, the mask and sword is fine, maybe just change the words. Also, the grey buttons on the About and Options dialogs seems unfinished, I would make them the same style as those used in you main menu, or almost similar.
Edited on Apr 24, 2008 04:37 GMT

Jeramy79 (Apr 24, 2008 at 05:00 GMT)

Looks good, what TG are you using?

Quinton Delpeche (Apr 24, 2008 at 07:26 GMT)

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, it is much appreciated. Basically I have been working on the GUI of the game while my friend (Richard) works on porting his Haze system and while he gets his head around the data blocks and other objects we need for the game.

Leslie: Thanks, I was also wondering about changing the buttons ... I will definitely do that. :) I have a few proposed logos that I mocked up first ... I will restart that thread with Rick and se what he says.

Jeramy: Currently the prototype is running on TGE 1.5.2 but the decision was made yesterday to move to TGEA 1.7. So I will be moving across to TGEA this weekend. :)

Andy Rollins (Apr 26, 2008 at 15:42 GMT)

Great work so far Quinton it's all looking really nice and sounds like you're both very motivated to making this work, do you have any plans to expand the team at all?

Interested that you said about porting to TGEA 1.7 which unless it's changed in this latest incarnation is only currently available for Windows as a stock engine, it'll need some hefty OpenGL update to port to mac and linux if you're intending to still stay with that

Quinton Delpeche (Apr 28, 2008 at 07:48 GMT)

Andy: Yes we are planning on expanding the team. The idea is to expand once we have a release of the client and world editor for the game. We will then start looking at content creators and world builders as well as game testers.

As for TGEA 1.7 ... yep, I completely forgot about that. :( We are currently sticking with TGE for now and may move to TGEA 1.01 or 1.7 depending on portability to the other platforms. I am under no illusions that a move will result in some serious code refactoring but as I am a Software Developer and Architect by trade this doesn't frighten me too much.

I will definitely be putting a request out for potential Team Members within the next couple of weeks. :)

Andy Rollins (Apr 28, 2008 at 16:18 GMT)

It's a pity on the TGEA and openGl front but from Matt Fairfax's blog back in January it does appear to be something that's being worked on in the background so hopefully by the time you're ready to port over to TGEA then it might be ready.

I shall keep my eyes peeled for the team member recruitment, good luck with getting the client up and running.

Quinton Delpeche (Apr 30, 2008 at 07:09 GMT)

Andy: Yeah it is a pity about that. But if push comes to shove I will move everything over to TGEA 1.0.1 initially and then re-port to 1.7 when possible. :)

I have ensured that all engine changes are documented and stored in our Subversion repository so that I am able to roll back at any time (comes from years of being a software developer). I may make the re-porting sound trivial and it isn't ... I am just prepared to do it for the benefit of the game.

Basically the game will used TGEA no matter what. :) The other good news is that we are almost ready with the alpha client release, this should be ready by the end of next week. :)

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